RPS Chapters 6 & 7 (Micaela)
I think yesterday’s game of Werewolf ties into chapter six of Len Fisher’s Rock, Paper, Scissors perfectly. This chapter really got me thinking about how easily I trust people. If there were a scale, I’d say I’m somewhere on the middle. Initially, I go with my gut; however, time and actions are the real determinants of whether I trust someone or not. In Werewolf we had no time to eye everyone, interrogate anyone, it was all snap-judgement after snap-judgement, and (as Hyewon can probably confirm) I’m very bad at those! Not to mention, there was the definite possibility that three people in the class were acting/lying. Fisher makes trust seem like the most obvious choice in the world, but we saw in class yesterday how hard it can be in social contexts with multiple people. The game changes and the group either turns in on itself or hunts a scapegoat. Maybe, in some convoluted way, trusting everyone is the secret to the game… I can’t see it though.
Chapter seven hit close to home for me because I was raised with “treat others as you want to be treated” as a mantra. Even now, I’ll recall something I said and ask myself: would I have wanted to hear that? However, Mrs. B and D took different stances on that same issue. Mrs. D being the act and Mrs. B being the reward or punishment. It’s basically karma, or what karma is perceived to be in a simple sense. I really liked how Fisher tied forgiveness and apologies into this chapter rather than coming at it from the “so long as you do that, every relationship will be peachy!” angle, because that’s unrealistic. People have different standards, how you’d like to be treated may be entirely different from how another wants to be treated. What you see as funny may come off as rude to other (something I’ve found to be a very common disconnect). Still, I don’t think there are many people who don’t want apologies, even if they’re slow to accept them.
Our game of Werewolf was certainly a bloodbath of scapegoating and distrust. But then again how could we trust one another? When we don’t really know who someone is, it’s seemingly impossible to trust them. It would be nice to cooperate together for final end goal, but then again we couldn’t trust each other to make the right decision. It was all based on our gut feelings. We’d like to treat others the way we want to be treated, but in the end we will most likely always try to better our position over others.