William Lehman/Contributor
Our myths and legends define us. This isn’t exactly a new revelation, a few books have been written on the subject, including “the Samurai the Mountie and the Cowboy” among others, but all of them explored other things (like gun control).
The United States’ self image is related to our myths and legends, and make no mistake, they are myths. I became a minor expert on the old west as a Old West Reenactor (shut up MS Word, it is too a word) and I can say with a great deal of certainty that the “cowboy gun fighter” is by and large a myth based upon less than fifty total people spanning a forty year period. Yes there where gun fights in the old west, but no more than there are today as a percentage of population — however he’s part of the American mythos, along with the long hunter, the Alamo, the Sourdough ‘49er and others. It goes to the basics of how we see ourselves. Much like our Australian brothers have made the digger a myth.
Now I’m not against this, far to the contrary as someone that understands what myths are, I’m greatly supportive. A myth, as originally used, was created as a teaching tool or to explain something otherwise unexplainable. It was the substructure, the basic linen upon which the embroidery of a culture’s world view was sewn. It’s necessary, and it’s necessary to understand the myths and the truths they hold, to understand the culture. Understand the myths of the samurai, and you understand the culture of imperial Nippon, and so on…
But Bill, I hear you ask, this is supposed to be a geek blog, about things Science fiction, and Techie, what the hell has this got to do with that?
Are we not a culture? Hack us off, are we not pricks? Wrong us do we not seek revenge? Seems to me NBC figured out that we were, back when they killed Star Trek…
Say what you will about the SJW Glittery hoo ha crowd, they get this. I speculate that they get it because while we (the guys that grew up watching STOG and said “Hey those doors are COOL, how would you do that for real? Those communicators, could you do that?) went to engineering and hard science classes and started building the future that we wanted, the aforementioned individuals where going to the soft sciences (not real sciences at all in my NSHO) and studied how cultures work.
Our plan for the future was that we would tell the stories of how we wanted it to be, and then go forth and MAKE it. Our myths where written during the “golden age of SF”. Steered by guys like Campbell, even when the myths involved the soft sciences, it made them into hard science (Foundation, anyone?). Well our view of the future has virtually no intersection with the preferred future of the SJWs, or at least so it seems to me. Their view of the future seems, in science fiction to be more driven by Silent Running, etc etal.
So, since they DIDN’T go to engineering schools, they use the tools that they have to try to drive the future they want. They have been working diligently at it for about forty years now. They are doing it by attempting to destroy the myths that are the foundations of our societies, and replacing them with their own, or with NOTHING. They’re pretty far along in England, but then they started earlier there, and had the advantage of a nation exhausted from two world wars that destroyed many of the best and brightest of three generations. In national politics they are working at it with things like attacking George Washington as someone who not only owned slaves, but was a virulent supporter of the institution. If they can destroy the myths that we base our cultural view on, they change the culture.
Well the same is true in Science Fiction. The enemy isn’t “at the gates”, they’re through the third wall and working hard on the last redoubts. While the science and engineering crowd was doing their thing, and writing stories that supported their thing, the SJWs where taking over the Cons, the awards, and the methods of distribution. Folks, it doesn’t matter what you write if no one can or will read it! They managed to take over virtually the entire publishing industry, with a few notable and noble holdouts, who are forted up and fighting to the last man. They also got the cons, and the awards. And it would have worked too, if not for those meddling kids and their internet.
To win the battle for our culture, we must take back the Cons and the awards. New readers are bombarded by more choices than ever before. The advent of the Ebook is as revolutionizing to the bibliosphere (Yes Microsoft, that too is a word, I just made it!) as the paperback, or the typewriter, or hell, the printing press. It has placed thousands of books at the beck and call of anyone with a computer for each book available prior to Ebooks. But much like anything else on the internet, the data stream is of huge value, but the signal to noise ratio SUCKS. How is a new reader to filter out the signal, from the crap? One way that they will at least try, is to look for award winners and award nominees. It’s reasonable, if you don’t know that the awards are controlled by the same people that are controlling the best sellers lists (except Amazon, and you will note that they’re attacking that redoubt hard too), and that’s where Sad Puppies comes in. This is us on the attack. Take back the awards, or destroy them by destroying the myth that they are actual awards and representative of the genre. This battle for the hearts and minds has been joined, with the enemy attacking our credibility “they’re not real fans, they don’t go to cons” This to people like Larry Correia, and Mike Williamson! (Both MAJOR con goers). By counter attacking our nominees as fascists, racists, etc… And by many other tactics. They cannot win, if we want the society as we know it, to continue.
Go forth. Take back the cons. Would RAH have been afraid of being shouted down or called a fascist? Hell, he was on multiple occasions. As I recall he sneered at them and explained what the word actually means. Write the stories that tell the myths we want preserved. Read the stories that show the values that we hold to be self evident, the values that our culture is founded on. Buy those stories, and support the authors that support the cultural perspective that we hold to be true.
Or surrender and live in a culture as the Social Justice Warriors want it to be. As for me, I see only one choice.
Otherwhere Gazette 
David Gerrold was a writer on the original Star Trek series and he has some thoughts… so I’m just going to leave this right here.
A quote: “I was there. I know what Gene Roddenberry envisioned. He went on at length about it in almost every meeting. He wasn’t about technology, he was about envisioning a world that works for everyone, with no one and nothing left out. Gene Roddenberry was one of the great Social Justice Warriors. You don’t get to claim him or his show as a shield of virtue for a cause he would have disdained.”
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“The continuing denigration of women and minorities as ‘the Social Justice Warrior Glittery Hoo Ha crowd’ leaves me wondering … are you folks in favor of social injustice?”
Why does Mr. Gerrold assume that a position against social justice is the same thing as being against civil rights? That’s quite a jump to make, and I bet he doesn’t have any evidence that this is actually true where SP3 is concerned.
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Why does Gerrold assume that a position against social justice is the same thing as being against civil rights? Probably because the civil rights movement *is* about social justice.
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“Probably because the civil rights movement
*is*was about social justice.”In the 1960s. Now, it’s about claiming the mantle of victimhood for things you’ve never actually experienced, e.g. slavery.
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No, asshole. You’re exactly the sort of person that we dealt with in the 60’s.
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I wouldn’t recognize you since you had a hood on.
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Aye, but this is 2015? How are women and minorities being discriminated against?
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How are women being discriminated against?
While no politician bats an eye at insurance covering Viagra, we’ve got legal cases over insurance covering birth control. Babies come with long-term financial and time commitments. So, while no one is suing to stop insurance from covering prescriptions so that men can have sex; people are suing to stop insurance from covering contraception which would prevent women from getting pregnant when they have sex. If you spend any time looking into this, you will find people arguing that they shouldn’t have to pay so that women can have sex risk free. And yet no one bats an eye for paying so that en can have sex.
I’d call that discrimination against women.
If you’re really serious about this question, try using Google. A few terms:
Evidence of sex discrimination
Evidence of discrimination against blacks
Evidence of racial disparity in sentencing
Evidence of racial disparity in school expulsion
I’ll even provide the link for the Google search for that last one: http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Evidence+of+racial+disparity+in+school+expulsion&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
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That’s bullshit and you know it. Or maybe you don’t. Maybe you really are that stupid. No one has sued to stop insurance covering all birth control. A few closely-held, family-owned, Christian companies sued to not have to cover three types of birth control which they had a religious objection to providing. SCOTUS decided that under very limited circumstances they could do so. No one was preventing women from having those forms of birth control, and no one was preventing them from using other forms that were just as effective.
None of which has one fucking thing to do with what this article was about. But God forbid a liberal should have to stick to the subject when he can demonize Christians for actually having beliefs.
I’m not one to wield the ban-hammer John-boy, but you are really on my last nerve.
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Correcting a disfunction =/= stopping another function. So sorry that your Viagra story doesn’t pan out.
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“So, while no one is suing to stop insurance from covering prescriptions so that men can have sex; people are suing to stop insurance from covering contraception which would prevent women from getting pregnant when they have sex.”
That is, quite simply, a lie. No one including Hobby Lobby gives a rat’s ass if women take birth control. They d have rather strong objections to a) being asked to facilitate abortion and / or b) having their pockets picked to pay for it. Those motivated by b feel the same damned way about prick stiffeners.
Note that Hobby Lobby was actually willing to cover some forms of birth control, just not the ones that work by killing after conception. Here’s the list:
Ah, snelson134,
Once again, you twist and distort. What I said was that while no one complains about insurance covering Viagra so men can have sex, we do have companies and many people complaining (and suing) to keep birth control from being covered by insurance. That’s what I said.
Some how, you twist that to “No one including Hobby Lobby gives a rat’s ass if women take birth control.”
But, hey, what do we expect from you. You have been proven to fabricate quotes in this larger discussion in order to attack others. Lies is all you’ve got.
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All I did was quote the facts, which is that Hobby Lobby provides many forms of birth control without any fuss. And you have no better knowledge than I do about motivations on Viagra…. unless you claim mind-reading. The charge you are a liar stands on evidence.
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Patrick Richardson, I’ll let Steve Kelner’s response speak to the birth control issue. Instead, I’ll address two other points.
1) You claim that I’ve gone way off topic. Rhiain just right above my post wrote: “Aye, but this is 2015? How are women and minorities being discriminated against?” My response is hardly “off-topic.” If anything, your beef is with Rhiain for leading us down that path.
2) I’ll note that all of you have ignored the other 5/6 of my post offering evidence of discrimination against women and minorities. I assume that’s because you can’t brush the rest of that aside.
In other words, I piss you off so badly because you’ve got nothing but invective and dismissal in the face of hard evidence.
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I am so tired of this “Insurance covers Viagra” nonsense. Without insurance, Viagra is ~$40 a pill. With insurance, it might be as low as $25. Per PILL. Oh, the atrocity.
Back in the Dark Ages, when I paid for my own contraceptives, I chose to use a brand because it worked better for me than the generic. My brand-not-generic cost $22 a month with insurance. I could have sex 30.5 days a month for $22. It would cost a Man $762.50, if he had insurance.
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I’m way late to the discussion, but what the heck…
John Walter wrote:
How are women being discriminated against?
While no politician bats an eye at insurance covering Viagra, we’ve got legal cases over insurance covering birth control.
My reply:
This is regularly brought up in these kinds of discussions as some form of discrimination against women. It’s not and here is why:
Viagra exists to correct an actual medical problem. Erectile disfunction is a result of restricted blood flow to the penis. It means that a man suffering from this has something wrong with him. His body is not working as designed. Viagra helps return his body to normal function.
Birth control, on the other hand, stops a woman’s body from functioning normally. Whether some women like it or not, pregnancy is not a disease nor any indication that a woman’s body has something wrong with it. In fact, pregnancy is a strong indication that a woman’s body is working precisely as designed. This is why some insurance companies don’t cover birth control–fertile, sexually active women tend to get pregnant eventually, if their body is working properly. It has nothing to do with men vs. women and everything to do with ‘working properly’ vs. ‘not working properly.’
I think one can readily argue the merits of the position taken by some insurance companies, but the position those companies have taken on Viagra and birth control is medically consistent.
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You realise that hormonal birth control is used for more than preventing pregnancy, right? My wife would be dead today from certain conditions if she hadn’t had access to birth control. Regardless, why does it matter if BC is used to prevent pregnancy? Why is that a bad thing? Why shouldn’t that be covered by insurance? Yes, trying to prevent insurance from supplying birth control is anti-woman. Always has been, always will be.
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And of course, no one is saying don’t cover birth control, it’s don’t force us to give you an abortion drug disguised as birth control. Oodles of birth control (see list above) that doesn’t fall into that category.
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Abortion drug? Are you referring to, perhaps, “Plan B”, which is not an abortion drug, but merely prevents implantation of a fertilized egg, something that often happens naturally? Again, even if it is an abortion drug, so fucking what? Abortions are legal, and in many places covered by insurance. It’s none of your goddamned business should a woman get an abortion. It’s not murder. It’s a choice.
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So how would women and minorities becoming equals with those who currently have status quo look to you?
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You wrote: “No one has sued to stop insurance covering all birth control…” You appeared to be alluding to the Hobby Lobby case, and defended it as not being evidence of women being discriminated against.
I’ll just provide a few links about that case, including Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s dissent:
Four things you should know: http://www.salon.com/2014/03/25/4_things_you_need_to_know_about_the_hobby_lobby_scotus_case/
Hobby Lobby forces arbitration for when their employees allege discrimination, but goes to Supreme Court to defend their own: http://www.salon.com/2014/07/29/hobby_lobby_alleged_to_have_fired_a_pregnant_employee_who_requested_time_off_to_give_birth/
Highlights of RBG’s dissent:
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/30/here_are_the_highlights_of_justice_ginsburgs_fiery_hobby_lobby_dissent/
Oh, and Hobby Lobby is part of a group actively trying to force certain Christian principles (theirs) into American law:
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/27/hobby_lobbys_secret_agenda_how_its_secretly_funding_a_vast_right_wing_movement/
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Salon. Really? You’re using salon as an unbiased source?
Oh and Ginsberg’s dissent is irrelevant, she was writing for the minority so her opinion means nothing.
Vast rightwing conspiracy my ass.
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Dude, just read an article or two. It wasn’t firewall-protected like the Wall Street Journal, which I also read, okay? Along with the Economist and the Boston Globe. Or have you dismissed it entirely without evidence?
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No, it was about claiming the individual rights that American promised to recognize regardless of category of person. Social justice, especially today, is about one group claiming their pound of flesh from the other. It is not about true rights.
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of course he doesn’t have any evidence, there’s none to be had. It’s a hit piece, pure and simple. I don’t like what you’re saying, so I’ll claim that you kick dogs and slap children, in the hopes that you’ll go away in shame. It’s screaming RACIST at the top of your lungs because someone had the gal to question an action by the current president, instead of justifying that action with reason. He thinks I’m using a show or an author as a “shield”. I’m using a show or an author to show that in spite of being a SJW, good, enjoyable fiction can be had, and you can even get preachy without loosing your audience IF you put the plot first, and throw us the bones of some half decent science. Sadly The SJWs have devolved from that to absolute dreck that relies on gimmicks like not using any sexual pronouns to try and be new or interesting, vice actually being interesting.
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Because much like controlling the myth controls, or at least influences, the culture, controlling language does the same. In part, the language you speak and what words mean controls how you think. By forcing the definition of social justice to equal blind justice, that defines it as automatically right. What amuses me however, is how Gerrold manages to confuse the Fan takeaway from Star Trek with ‘What Roddenberry Wants’. Fuck what Roddenberry wanted. He wasn’t the engineer that came up with automatic doors. He merely managed to inspire someone to create the reality.
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“They’re pretty far along in England, but then they started earlier there, and had the advantage of a nation exhausted from two world wars”
What does this actually mean? What myths did we erase after 1945 that it was _wrong_ to erase? (Because the myth of “civilising the savages” deserved to go bye-bye) What about the myths _of_ the war that we built up, this huge defining mythology of what it Means To Be British? Seriously, I have no idea what this sentence actually means in relation to modern England.
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LOL! What a bunch of crap.
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Dude, you have NO IDEA what Star Trek was about. What a joke.
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Anyone wanting to see what David Gerrold, one of the Star Trek writers, thinks about this article by Lehmen can read it in its entirety here: https://www.facebook.com/david.gerrold/posts/10204973223422658?fref=nf
Hint: Gerrold states that “Star Trek, The Original Series wasn’t about the engineering as much as it was about the “Social Justice Warriors Glittery hoo ha” stuff.”
And for fun, here’s a particularly important quote from Gerrold’s response:
“Star Trek was about social justice from day one — the stories were about the human pursuit for a better world, a better way of being, the next step up the ladder of sentience. The stories weren’t about who we were going to fight, but who we were going to make friends with. It wasn’t about defining an enemy — it was about creating a new partnership. That’s why when Next Gen came along, we had a Klingon on the bridge.
Lehman blew it. He missed the point. He uses science fiction — and Star Trek — as a justification for playing a game of “us” v. “them.”
Here’s a clue. When you divide humanity into us and them, you automatically become one of them.”
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And while we’re at it, here’s Steve Davidson of Amazing Stories documenting the fact that John Campbell science fiction’s expansion into the soft sciences. http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2015/02/the-real-evolutionary-history-of-science-fiction/
To quote from Davidson’s comment about Lehman’s post, Davidson writes: “John W. Campbell may have been a lot of things, but interestingly, he did NOT endorse the kind of thinking present in Lehman’s post; I’ve just finished a post (runs today) called Revisionist SF History – a review of three critical studies of the genre. Campbell is dealt with extensively and there are numerous quotes that show him endorsing: expansion of the subjects valid for inclusion in SF (soft sciences in addition to hard); strong demands for more “literary” fiction in the genre, other words that can be interpreted as an endorsement of “SJW” concepts and a rejection of the idea that SF fandom is a “populist” fandom (which addresses the charge that “fandom” is not in step with the great unwashed fandom (that would presumably be voting for and endorsing the kinds of works Lehman calls for). Invoking Campbell unwittingly supports the more open, “SJW”, view of science fiction than it does the narrow, insular one put forth by Lehman and fellow travelers.” https://www.facebook.com/david.gerrold/posts/10204973223422658?comment_id=10204994573436395&offset=0&total_comments=95
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That’s why I didn’t want to bet against Freer. Never bet against a sure thing.
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Damned Nesting. Posted here as a result.
John Walter, you’re funny. Or sad, I’m not sure which. You’ve been whipped a like rented mule, every time you’ve commented. By everyone. You spout off garbage about a field you are not involved in and about which you’ve not bothered to do any research, to people who are. When we refute you calmly with facts and inside knowledge and experience, you vehemently screech ‘smoke and mirrors, you’re wrong’ – and spout some more of precisely the same, and, despite the fact that you were eye-rolling stupid the first time, you outdo yourself. You misconstrue everything, get the simplest statement bassackwards, can’t manage basic logic, or math and your grasp of stats is so ludicrously bad that you dig up a site as proof – that proves my point. And then you shriek your rallying-call and motto ‘Smoke and mirrors’ and keep attempting to drown us in a torrent of more meaningless verbiage. What are you trying to do? Bore us to death so we leave you on the field to claim victory? “Smoke and mirrors” cries the head of the black knight, John Walter, as the Knights of the Round Table disappear into the distance discussing whether inflated pigs bladders can prevent earthquakes.
You say you ‘believe in the markets’ and that if we’re relevant we’ll win. Well, put money where your mouth is, black knight Walter. Prove you believe your own words and stop wasting your time (and ours) on something you believe the market will decide anyway. No need for you to interfere. Run along and tell David Gerrold he can stop getting his panties in a bunch and trying to rally his faithful, because the market will sort it out. He’s obviously not as confident or as informed as you are.
Anyone out there want to take a bet we see a return of black knight Walter, the late-night re-run? No takers? Come on, I’m giving great odds. He’ll probably vent more splutters of smoke and mirrors and accuse me of ‘Ad Homonym’ again, which was hilarious the first time. Shall we start a betting pool as to what he ‘teaches’? I decided he was an English Lecturer at an East Coast Liberal Arts college on the basis of that.
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no bet! I may not be a professional at statistics, (electrical/electronics and hydro acoustics being my fields) but I know enough to not bet against the house, or get in a land war in Asia.
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I seem to really have gotten you twisted up in knots, haven’t I Dave Freer. That would, I assume, be because you know you haven’t actually responded with facts. Just fanciful narratives, which now include your tales of me. Can’t win on facts, so you’ve once again turned to stories.
You *still* haven’t offered facts. Your “insider” knowledge without the hard evidence is just you making allegations. More storytelling. You’re engaging in lots of dismissing, lots of scoffing, lots of distractions, and lots of storytelling, but you’ve been running low on facts.
So let’s have it, Freer: Facts. Names. Policies. Documents discussing decisions to exclude non social justice warriors. Documents discussing decisions to only publish social justice warriors. Verifiable whistle blowers. You’re making serious allegations, so produce real evidence. Not fanciful stories. Do it and I’ll admit I’m wrong.
Thing is, if you *could* produce such evidence, you would have. You haven’t because you can’t.
As for David Gerrold, I’d say he’s handling himself just fine. It’s clear that he’s got no worries regarding the past and future of science fiction. He laid out his refutation of Lehman’s invocation of Star Trek to your cause quite calmly and clearly in his post. The difference between his tone and yours here speaks loudly. He was clam and clear and stuck to facts.
You, on the other hand, you’ve clearly got “your panties in a bunch,” as you like to put it. (An insult intended to imply one’s lack of masculinity by invoking hysterical women. A fascinating choice of insult given the whole context of this discussion and your claims that your own sexism, etc. isn’t the underlying reason why you’re all up in arms, don’t you think?)
But yes, comparing Gerrold’s post with yours above clearly shows you to be the one who’s riled up. I mean, you’d already sworn you were done with me, and yet, here you are, back at it. And now you’re making up stories about me as well. I’ve clearly gotten under your skin, which means I’m striking true and you’re unhappy about it. As well I should be, seeing as how I’m pointing out the farce you’re running.
And I hope no one took you up on that bet, because you’d be paying out. Here in America, East Coast liberal arts schools means a northern school. Right now I’m teaching junior and senior science and engineering majors at a school firmly set in the Deep South (South Carolina). But that’s a temporary gig—a last minute resignation and they asked me if I’d fill in, teaching remotely. My primary affiliation is with a midwestern Jesuit university. You know, those wonderful institutions that blend Christianity and social justice.
And speaking of social justice, Christ himself was on the social justice vanguard. When you think social justice, you think about glittery hoohas; when I think social justice, I think about Jesuits. And the thing of it is, Jesuits are real. Glittery hoohas are just one more figment of your imagination.
So let’s quit with the stories, Freer, and move on to reality. Want me to go away? (And clearly, you really, really do want me to go away.) Lay it out for us. No stories. Facts. Names. Policies. Documents discussing decisions to exclude non social justice warriors. Documents discussing decisions to only publish social justice warriors. Verifiable whistle blowers. You know, the kinds of evidence that would hold up in court.
If you can’t produce that, you’re just spinning stories and hoping no one will notice the smoke and mirrors.
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Heh, heh, as predicted, the head of the black knight Walter… squalling “come back I’ll bite you to death…” John, I’m not angry, not even slightly. You’re mildly irritating because you’re boring, long-winded and repeat the same dumb in my inbox when I have work to do. If you were funny or clever had something new, I’d be pleased to skive. So: you’re about mosquito level, I’d say. Methinks you doth project too much. And you’ve promptly proved my point – you don’t believe the markets will crush the Sad Puppies. Thank you for your vote of confidence. I’ve said and proved everything at least 3 times, here and in considerably more detail elsewhere. I’m going to run a post sometime -when I can fit it in between work on the probability at age/number of books of getting nominated, and possibly a review in a major venue- although that’ll be more data crunching for no pay. As for Gerrold: It’s not first attack on the same group, so he’s less happy or rational than you think. It’s not the most admirable or rational act of a man who is supposed to be impartial in his role this year, to be supporting or attacking different factions. Makes no real difference though.
I obviously got the rest spot on. Liberal Arts, English. Thinks it makes him worthy of respect from us rubes when he puts in our place about things he knows nothing about.
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Hi Dave
I think you’re reading Mr. Walter wrong. I’ve watched him for the last couple of days, and he’s definitely not SJW. He’s not a Republican either, never mind what he said. I think he’s a chamelion. A very good one.
He’s just here playing with us. He’s wasting his time, actually. Most everything he’s said is fiction, laced with just enough truth to lend just an air of credibility. As good as his fiction is, he’d probably be a very good writer. As many words as he writes in his intelligent trolling, he’d probably be really productive as a writer too.
He’s quite skilled at Orwellian logic. I don’t think you’re going to pin him down, nor do I think you’re going to wear him down. I think he lives for playing with people, and he’s in his element.
If you’re going to respond to him, make it short and sweet. To the point. He has more fun when you make with the long responses. It gives him the chance to do the same.
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No, Mr. Trim. I’m not a troll. I’ve repeatedly asked for factual evidence documenting this conspiracy of SJW glittery hoohas who have taken over the major publishing houses and rigged the Hugos. You know, stuff like facts, names, policies, documents discussing decisions to exclude non social justice warriors, documents discussing decisions to only publish social justice warriors, and verifiable whistle blowers. The kinds of evidence that *prove* serious allegations.
And yes, I was a Republican. I left the Republican Party after the 1996 election when media outlets such as the National Review argued it would be better for Bill Clinton to win a second term than have Bob Dole, a moderate, win the election. And yes, I did have a subscription to the National Review at that time. I watched it go to hell after Buckley stopped being the managing editor. (It’s telling to note that the National Review’s current leadership is at war with some of Buckley’s children who are quite outspoken about how the magazine has fallen so far from their father’s vision.)
And how serious am I regarding this discussion? I’ve just told Patrick Richardson that if Freer can actually produce factual evidence — evidence that one might present in court such as facts, names, policies, documents discussing decisions to exclude non social justice warriors, documents discussing decisions to only publish social justice warriors, and verifiable whistle blowers rather than allegations and fanciful stories about vote rigging in Fandom town — I’ll write an editorial for Otherwhere Gazette defending your all’s claims.
Freer has stated that he can’t be bothered to show me this evidence because he’s busy, but he’s got it all and has shared it in other forums. Too busy to offer me some links, it would seem, but not too busy keep writing little attacks directed at me.
I’m asking for actual factual evidence documenting and proving this vast conspiracy you all claim exists. Either you can produce it or you can’t.
If you think asking for the hard evidence that supports your allegations is “Orwellian logic,” you need to go back and read Orwell.
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Hey Mr. Walter
Actually most of that was for Mr. Freer’s benefit. Never play another man’s game, and words are apparently yours.
No, the tidbit for you is I think you’re wasting your time playing with us patsies. It looks to me like you’ve written at least 3k words this morning, toying with us. You could easily be a successful writer. I believe anyway.
Check out Russell Blake. He started the author game just under 4 years ago. He’s now a best selling author, and has sold enough that his net is in seven figures.
You see, some folks have mentioned plot being important, some character, some action. But there’s a fourth important factor, and that’s an engaging voice. You have that. No, it’s not the same as Russell Blake. Nor any other author I know. But your “voice” is distinctive, and I think you could sell, and sell well.
An author like Russell Blake writes 6k to 8k words a day, and in his first 36 months playing the indie game, he published 30 books. I think you could do that easily, seeing as you’re producing a lot of content here, and you the voice. You have that naturally.
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Mr. Trim,
Yes, words are my game, and they’re Freer’s as well. We both make our livings from the written word. He writes science fiction, and was trained as a scientist. I teach, among other things, academic, professional, and technical writing — including writing for sciences and engineering — and I also work part-time as a professional writer and editor. As an academic I get paid to think, talk, write, and teach such things as the materiality of communication technologies; the intersections of media, consciousness, and culture; science fiction; the history and theory of rhetoric; the potentials and changes digital technologies bring to the practice of reading and writing; and the circulation, preservation, and storage of digital content.
Freer dismisses me as an English professor, and I am, but I’m guessing his understanding of “English professor” and what I do are light years apart. At a conference later this year I’ll be discussing my hands-on activities of exploring the physical-digitlal interface through physical computing. Embed a microcontroller in a physical book, use conductive ink and copper foil to make circuits, and you’ve got a whole new understanding of electronic books. What does it mean to write when we add programming and circuit crafting into the mix? When it comes to physical computing, I’m small potatoes and openly building off of pioneering work coming out of MIT’s Media Lab, among others.
But, as I said, I’m not playing. I’d like to see the evidence of this conspiracy of vote rigging and white male exclusion in the Hugos and SF publishing houses.Without evidential proof, all we’ve got are allegations based upon feelings of exclusion.
I’ve been asking for factual evidence. Names. Whistle blowers. Documents. Records of conversations and policy decisions. Hard, concrete, factual evidence that demonstrates the truth of these allegations rather than conjecture, speculation, and rationalization rooted in subjective interpretations and feelings.
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Hello Mr. Walter
I don’t think you’re going to get the “hard evidence” your looking for. I think we both know that exactly what you’re looking for doesn’t exist. No one’s going to get convicted in a court of law.
There does appear to be a lot of circumstantial evidence, but i’m going to let you hash that out with the experts. I’ve only been following the Mad Genius related forums for a little over a year. I nearly got into big trouble on Sarah’s site as I was learning how to relate to people again online. But she’s a patient person, and I got another chance.
Long before my stroke, I studied a lot of things to do with the medieval sword. Things that would make me a better maker, and better understand how the various types were used. And how the sword evolved between 1050AD and 1450AD.
Why did the sword evolve from a slashing, cutting sword to a more thrusting centric sword? As you learn more about the weapons and armor of the periods, you learn that the sword was more or less ineffective against prime armor, be it maille or plate.
So, why did the sword evolve the way it did? My guess is climate change. The climate cooled off quite a bit between 1320 and 1400. A lot of clothes can foul up a good cut, but a thrust can still get through………
Can I prove this? No. Can I even prove that the climate changed dramatically between 1320 and 1400? Not right now, my sources aren’t close to me, nor do I want to go through the time and effort right now to dig them up.
There is a certain amount of circumstantial evidence however, and I’ve built my opinions based on my interpretation of that.
I think what you’re asking for is the same thing. There is a good bit of circumstantial evidence that a small clique of people are controlling things. If you’re looking for hard evidence that you’ll buy, you’ll wait until you’re blue in the face.
Personally I’d rather go out and enjoy the sun while we still have it here in the NW.
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Angus, do we know each other? Morrigan Graham here.
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If it was pre-stroke, I lost the memory of it. If since, could it be through mutual acquaintances? Like Brady or someone SCA or Renfaire involved?
Nothing like being off-topic.
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I’m SCA out of Dragon’s laire in Antir
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I made a lot of rapier blades before my stroke {seven years ago}, some of which are still in use in Antir. I made a few since, most of which wound up local {Olympia area}, that Baron Wolfgang would have doled out.
When Wolfgang was the Baron, I made a couple of prizes. This would have been before the stroke too.
Since the stroke, I’ve become somewhat of a hermit. I haven’t done much in the way of events since then. If I attended an event since, I don’t recall it {but I don’t have much memory after the first three years after the stroke either}.
I should point out, I’ve never belonged to the SCA. I was somewhat involved however as a local swordmaker.
I attended several cutting parties before the stroke, in fact provided the cutting swords for many of them.
But, I have a weak memory for names right now. We may have met, but I can’t bring the memory up.
Sorry.
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it’s all good my friend. Just wondering as I noted you were local.
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@Angus Trim: “I don’t think you’re going to get the “hard evidence” your looking for. I think we both know that exactly what you’re looking for doesn’t exist.”
If actual evidence does not exist, then this theory of an SJW conspiracy has a real problem. It takes it from the realm of “actual conspiracy” to “conspiracy theory” – with all that it implies.
Frankly, what’s being said is a massive cabal of SJWs have taken over the publishing industry, rigged the Hugos, and done this all without leaving any trace of evidence. Much like how the Illuminati controls the global “banksters”. Or the Trilateral Commission secretly treats with Majestic-12 against the lizard-people masquerading as British royalty.
As an engineer myself, in order to believe in this SJW, I would require data and evidence that support this. I’m not going to take this on faith. Liberals take things on faith, with their emotionalism and humanistic wa-hoo. A man based in science accepts only cold, hard data.
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It need not be a “cabal” as you term it. No conspiracy need exist when like-minded people simply work together for shared goals. People tend to want to associate with people like them. So when a liberal finds himself in charge of a publishing house he tends to hire people who think like him, they tend to buy books by people who think like them and so you have a liberal establishment in charge after a few years. Indeed we have never suggested a conspiracy of SJW-types such as yourself. It’s hardly a conspiracy when they work in the open. Moreover, you dismiss the experience of authors such as Sarah A. Hoyt who were afraid to come out of the political closet for years for fear of being black-listed. Indeed there are houses which will not publish Sarah, or for that matter Orson Scott Card, who apart from his views on gay marriage is really quite liberal, merely because of their political views.
Again, you refuse to explain why you think we’re wrong, pointing out Damien Walter, who has had to have a government grant in order to work on his novel, presumably because no one will give him an advance for same, as an authoritative source is laughable at best.
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I was right with you until you said “Liberals take things on faith, with their emotionalism and humanistic wa-hoo. A man based in science accepts only cold, hard data.” Speak for yourself. This liberal is a scientist. Your political assertion just undercut your message, which in all other respects I wholly agree with. Besides the obvious fact that the conservative political party in the US has rejected science wholly, often for religious reasons (e.g., evolution, global warming), it’s not the liberals who are taking things on faith.
Not to mention the “cold, hard data” that most SCIENTISTS consider themselves liberal, hmmm?
http://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/section-4-scientists-politics-and-religion/
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You’re quite right Angus. That’s why my replies have got shorter and shorter. I don’t think he’s a SJW either. He conflates 1960 civil rights – which most of us support, with SJ -which largely comes down to the new apartheid. The former is anti-segregation, the latter pro-segregation. The former stood for equality before the law, the latter special perks for special people. The former stood for freedom of speech even if you hated it, the latter freedom of speech… if the SJW approve of what you say (in other words not freedom of speech).
He is moderately good at what he does, and used to riding roughshod over any opposition in debate by sheer volume, and doing what he claims every else does – lying, evasion, changing goal-posts, and claiming credentials. He lies well with sprinkling of truths, but can’t manage logical consistency. It trips him all the time. He came in here, and started bullying a few people in, shall we say, an arrogant and condescending fashion, designed to make his opponents nervous and to establish his authority. Our psychologist friend could probably name the syndrome, as well the one for assumption that expertise in one area makes you expert in others. That’s why I try to stick to my own! I think you’re dead right about the writing, I think he wants to, and he thought it would be nice brownie points with people he thinks are still the route to success. Unfortunately he was a little over-confident and didn’t do his homework and this is my field. He really can’t do maths.
I slapped him down because I dislike bullying. That upset him and made him very angry, and determined to give me a pounding because he’s not used to losing, not because this is sacred ground to him. He’s also trying to make me angry because that makes people stupid. Heh. So far it has backfired spectacularly. I used to debate a lot with Eric Flint who (besides being a friend of mine, and one the five smartest people I’ve ever met) and he was an expert at it. You’ve read my answers to comments for at least a year. I am a lot more capable of nasty than he is, (I have a few skills he doesn’t, like a sense of humor, the ability to make fun of myself and the ability to admit I was wrong) but I try not to bully those who comment, but give a fair answer.
The smart answer for him – which I learned many years ago coming up against a man who was cleverer and more erudite than I was, is not to get angrier. I was used to winning too, but took it as a lesson -and ended up as good friends and learning a great deal from him. No, I don’t expect that.
No black knight. This is not addressed at you. But I bet you’ll reply.
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Tell you what John, as editor-in-chief of this little lash up I’m making you an offer. Send us 900 words or so explaining your position on the hugos and the state of sf. Articulate your opposing view. Send it to pat@otherwheregazette.com. I’ll be happy to run it.
Or don’t and reveal yourself as a coward sirrah.
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Patrick,
I’ve asked repeatedly for actual factual evidence of rigging and SJW having taken over the Hugo voting (and the Nebula, Arthur C. Clark, British Science Fiction, and Locus since the same novel won all of them) and having taken over the major publishing houses.
You all claim this has happened. I’m asking for actual evidence. You know, names, discussions, documents, whistle blowers. The kinds of evidence that *prove* serious allegations of this sort.
So far, I’ve gotten nothing. Freer claims he’s offered such evidence in detail in other forums. Fine. He can offer me a link.
So, what is my opinion at the moment? A small group of people screaming and shouting but unable to produce factual evidence when asked. The reasonable assumption to be made in this case is that it’s all about a small group of people screaming and shouting but unable to produce factual evidence when asked.
I’m afraid that wouldn’t make much of an editorial.
On the other hand, if Freer or any of you wants to actually provide me with real, solid factual evidence that *proves* these claims and documents this conspiracy, I’ll write you an editorial supporting your cause and/or apologizing for doubting you all.
Seriously, I’m asking for *evidence* that supports your claims. I’m still waiting.
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So you’re unwilling to support your assertion that we’re wrong. Gotcha. You’ve spent thousands of words here so far telling us we’re wrong, but are unwilling to spend 900 more telling us why you’re right.
Just another troll then.
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Dear Patrick Richardson, Editor-in-Cheif of Otherworld Gazette,
Posted here, and sent to you via email, is an editorial I have written at your request.
***
In a discussion over Otherwhere Gazette’s article “Destroy the myth, destroy the culture” by William Lehman, I asked Dave Freer and others for actual factual evidence documenting their claims of a take over of much of science fiction by social justice warriors — evidence such as names of the people involved in enacting this conspiracy; correspondence between relevant participants (publishers, awards committees, etc.) discussing the implementation of this conspiracy; documents discussing decisions to exclude non social justice warriors from awards and publishing houses; documents discussing decisions to only publish social justice warriors; and verifiable whistle blowers.
What I’ve gotten instead are fanciful tales of vote rigging in a town named “Fandom” and claims that the Hugo Awards should align with US demographics.
As no one is willing to offer actual factual evidence documenting these serious allegations of Hugo vote rigging and a take over of the major science fiction publishing houses by social justice warriors, I can only conclude that there is no evidence to be had. These allegations seem to be just that: unsubstantiated allegations made by a small group of people who feel science fiction has lost its way.
Should such evidence be forthcoming, I will happily revise my opinion on the subject.
***
As I said, that’s not much of an editorial. I could write something much, much better should Freer or any of the rest of you offer the factual evidence I keep asking for. Offer that evidence — facts, names, policies, documents, or verifiable whistle blowers that factually demonstrate your claims — and I’ll write an editorial supporting your cause.
Hardly the offer of a troll.
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This is not what I asked you for. I asked for an article explaining why you think we’re wrong. This is simply a further reply to a comment. Send me 900 words or so on where we’re wrong, what you think the future of the Hugos and SF is. Otherwise I will continue to consider you a troll to be dealt with accordingly.
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As I keep telling you Patrick, without seeing actual factual evidence demonstrating that you all are correct, I can’t actually state that you are wrong.
I’m asking for the evidence proving that you’re right. And I’m still waiting. If you consider that being a troll, then I’m a troll.
Or, you know, you could provide the factual evidence and have me join your side.
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@Patrick Richardson: “This is not what I asked you for. I asked for an article explaining why you think we’re wrong.”
I think that’s been explained quite well by Mr. walter. Apparently, the assertion of the SJW cabal has been made without supporting evidence. As any one who follows the scientific method will to you, extraordinary claims require supporting evidence. No evidence has been provided; therefore the assertion has been dismissed.
This is all quite logical to me. Is it not to you?
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Ahhh John Walter not Damien.
John did not do a very good job either.
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You seem desperately stuck on this Idea of a Cabal, and the belief that we, the right and the libertarian, believe it. You are begging the question, creating a false dichotomy and setting up a straw man argument, all in one Swell Foop. Well done, (slow clap) No one that I know of has suggested an organized planned secret group attempting the take over of the media. No that sort of accusation is more a thing of the left (vast right wing conspiracy anyone?) What we hold to be true, is that a combination of a Left wing “good ol’ boys club” a vast number of individuals educated by the same relatively small group of individuals (Saul Alinsky, paging Saul Alinsky, etc etal) that have a common belief and perspective, and a Greek chorus of “me toos” have, by virtue of the fact that they got their foot in the door of certain industries (notably Big Education, Entertainment, and most News outlets) had the ability to control a large share of our publishing industry etc. I no more think that this group is monolithic and organized than I think the Robber Barons of the late nineteenth century where monolithic. They, in many cases, hated each others guts. They cut each other at every opportunity, UNLESS someone inimical to all of their interests horned in, then well, suddenly they found common ground. Very like a bar fight between services. The Navy may take great joy in fighting the Army or the Marines, but let some civilian attack some jarhead, and it’s ON. Or to put it a different way, it’s the Scottish clans when faced with an attack by the English king… Eye, the Macintosh may hate the Campbells but how dare the English get involved. (admittedly not a perfect analogy, as there were always Clans that could be bought off by the English, which is why it’s the English Isles, and not the Scottish isles.) and by the same token there are always a few educated on the left that are willing to score points even against their ideological allies. Especially if they smell blood in the water.
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So, the above editorial would be my statement on the “wrongness” of your position: without producing actual factual evidence documenting this conspiracy, you’re just dealing with subjective interpretation, speculation, and feelings. In other words, if you want to be taken seriously by someone like me, produce concrete evidence. Pretty straightforward. This isn’t an opinion but a statement of fact.
If you really would rather, I could write a piece in which I define my understanding of what science fiction is, based on my 30+ years of reading science fiction and my reading about science fiction (everything from Darko Suvin to Tom Shippey to Joanna Russ to Heinlein to Brooks Landon to Judith Merrill to James Gunn and so on).
Science fiction is growing and evolving, but it has always been growing and evolving. The science fiction before Campbell and the Golden Age is not the same as Campbell’s era of science fiction which is not the same as the science fiction of the 1970s which is not the same as the science fiction of the 1980s or of the 2000s or now. We see elements and strains of older forms continuing on — one of Baen’s great strengths as a publisher is continuing the traditions of SF storytelling from the 1960s and 1970s, but even that tradition Baen plays to wasn’t the only tradition in the 1960s and 1970s. (Nor is it all that Baen has to offer.)
Of all literary traditions and genres, science fiction is the last one that should be cryogenically frozen in time, stuck in some glorious past and never allowed to grow. (Which is not the same thing as saying that science fiction can’t celebrate and continue that tradition even as it evolves and expands.) The problem with “culture is going to hell” complaints is that culture is always going to hell. Plato freaked out over writing which he believed would destroy true knowledge and, therefore, culture (see the Phaedrus). He was so worried about the corrupting influence of storytelling and its ability to destroy culture that his Republic banned poets. Culture changes, and with it comes new ideas, new challenges, new struggles, new forms of expression, and new debates over the state of culture that are just an old debate in new form.
Heinlein stated that a science fiction story should be a “human problem” brought about change that creates “new human conditions.” Responding to the changes in culture is what SF does. It does so through cognitive estrangement (to use Darko Suvin’s term), projecting the changes on people in the real world onto a past, future, or elsewhere (to paraphrase James Gunn).
As with the culture at large, we have a contingent of “social justice warriors” actively involved with issues of social justice. This can range seeking an inclusive world of free of bigotry, of seeking to counteract and fight against real world inequities, of seeking acknowledgement and representation of groups traditionally marginalized, and, yes, of radical extremism seeking to exclude others. As I told Freer, for many of you, social justice seems to invoke glittery hoohas. For me, social justice invokes Jesuits working to enact the ideals of Christ in an imperfect world.
As science fiction is about imagining how things could be rather than how things are, it is a natural venue for social justice. Sometimes that social justice is really clumsy, but what is clumsy and what is not is often a subjective issue. Personally, I can’t stand Gillman’s *Herland*, but I have friends who love it. I’m also not a big fan of Chaucer, which made for my Ph.D. comprehensive exams interesting as I had three medievalists on my committee. (I happen to love Old English and Old Norse literature, though.)
My point is, much of this comes down to preference and taste. Show me the objectively verifiable quantitative criteria by which the Hugo, Nebula, Arthur C. Clarke, Locus, and British Science Fiction awards are decided.
We don’t have objectively verifiable quantitative criteria for “best of” awards because “best of” is a subjective issue. It’s a question of personal preference. Personally, while I love Charles Stross’s work, I really don’t think *Neptune’s Brood* should have even been in the running. I do know, however, that others disagree with me. Some of you thought that Eric Flint should have one. Others thought that Ann Leckie should have won. We have no objectively verifiable quantitative way of saying one novel is better than another.
We can tinker the system if we don’t like the subjective nature of “Best of.” We could change the award to “most popular novel of the year as determined by the people who voted;” or we could try “most influential” if we want to wait 30 or 40 years, but then we’re still wading in subjective territory as we argue over influence. We could go for “Novel Most Representative of SJW ideology” or “Novel that Best Reflects the Interests of People Who Only Read Books Published by Baen.” Each of those might result in less subjective criteria, or at least more honest labeling, than “Best Novel of 2014” or “Best Short Story of 2014.”
But, again, it’s a question of preference, and that’s subjective. We all have different likes and dislikes. Looking at Amazon’s reviews of Leckie’s book shows that the number of 5-star reviews vastly outweighs the number of 1-star reviews (316 to 21), as does the number of 4- and 5-star reviews compared to the 1- and 2-star reviews (477 to 61). Considering that it won the Hugo, if there was wide-spread dislike for the book, one would expect to see far more negative reviews. Are the glittery hoohas of the SJWs so powerful they’re keeping negative reviews of the book from showing up on Amazon?
Far too often, when we say that true science fiction is X or Y or Z and not that crap those other people are calling science fiction, what we mean is “I prefer science fiction that is X or Y or Z.” I prefer certain kinds of science fiction over others, and I prefer certain authors and certain styles over others, but those are simply my preferences. I have poured over many definitions of science fiction because when I teach SF, I’m generally teaching to a class that is only 1/3 regular SF readers. What is arguably one of the most objective definitions of science fiction that I’ve found is Darko Suvin’s concept of cognitive estrangement, and even that isn’t a definition we use to model an algorithm. That’s because literature is a subjective, affective experience.
Yes, you and I can look at something and say “science fiction” or “not science fiction.” Is Star Wars science fiction? Depends upon who you ask. Is Kate Wilhelm’s “Forever Yours, Anna” or Terry Bisson’s “Bears Discover Fire” or Le Guin’s “Those Who Walk Away From Omelas” science fiction? I’ve met plenty of people who argue that none of those stories are, and yet I teach all of them regularly in the first week of a science fiction course. What about H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu?” or Walter Miller’s “Crucifixus Etiam”? Of all the examples I just listed, I’m willing to bet the only story everyone might agree upon is Miller’s “Crucifixus Etiam,” but arguments can be made — and have been made — for the inclusion or exclusion of all the rest of these stories.
The answer depends upon how one defines science fiction. As I said, we’re dealing with subjective, affective experience. A clumsy message piece to one person is an interesting and compelling thought experiment to another. Some people prefer narrative over character development, mood, and idea; other people will value each of those criteria differently, and which means a flawed work to some will be a good work to others.
And so it goes.
What is objective is whether or not we have factual, concrete evidence of vote rigging and decisions to exclude certain kinds of authors from awards and publishing houses. If we have that kind of evidence, it’s high time it be laid out for examination.
So there you go, Robert. Probably more than 900 words, and most certainly a first draft rather than a publish-ready editorial, but if you don’t like my first one, I’m willing to clean this one up for you.
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OK, I’m willing to give a thumbs up to running this one
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Oh lets feed the troll one last time before we starve him to death… David would you kindly provide this google challenged individual with your links?
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David, that was one of the best, well-written, grammatically correct and scathing response to people who were both quoting knowledgeable authorities and citing many facts.
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And now the latest in “free markets”is to have Adam Baldwin uninvited from an Australian comic con because he makes SJWs feel “unsafe”.
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/02/many-in-the-comic-book-community-are-now-boycotting-supanova/comment-page-3/#comment-3217035
My comment was
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Yes, of course there is something wrong. There is a therapeutic culture and a worship of victimhood eating the brains of these poor women (and some men.)
SERIOUSLY in what screwed up universe is “I’m more a victim than you” the same as “the future belongs to us”? In what universe is “we’re diverse” the same as “we need safe rooms?”
This is a mess and our schools made it. Girls can’t defend themselves from actual bullies because “violence never solved anything.” (I had to tell a teacher that when I turned around and punched a kid feeling me up when we were both twelve it solved it pretty quickly. He went in search of easier prey.) BUT when an 8 year old accidentally touches you on the butt, you, an 8 year old kid, who also has no clue why butts mean anything, are whisked away into “counseling.”
Something wrong? People, Rome is burning. The solution is not to pour gasoline on it. It’s to let people grow up and quit with the therapeutic bullsh*t, the classes and categories bullsh*t (people are not widgets), and the “victims are sacred” bullsh*t.
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You know, I’ll take Star Trek’s ideas about economics seriously when we have apparently unlimited power, and replicators. And even then, the benighted primitive people were expected to build bases in hopes the cargo, er, Starfleet would come.
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What’s up, just wanted to mention, I loved this blog post.
It was funny. Keep on posting!
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The 2014/5 short story just nominated for a Nebula titled “The Devil in America” by Kai Ashante Wilson starts off with the words “1955. Emmett Till.” That in a nutshell symbolizes the entire bigoted sickness that is a blight on core SFF hiding behind a thing that is dead and gone, as if wearing a mask. It’s no coincidence it was published at Tor.com. It is an illness that extrapolates mid-century America and stipulates it exists today, in a hideous distortion of an SF literature which has traditionally extrapolated today into the future. This is not social justice but a facade anti-white racism hides behind.
SF author David Gerrold published a piece on Facebook that falsely wrote “Gene Roddenberry was one of the great Social Justice Warriors. You don’t get to claim him or his show as a shield of virtue for a cause he would have disdained.”
That is false. Roddenberry wasn’t a paranoid bigot. Feminist intersectionalism is a thing that will take any good thing from the past and claim it for itself. The problem is that if you look at intersectionalism today it is a mechanism of boycott and collusion to exclude, not the inclusion it falsely maintains. Gerrold has it backwards: it is he and his who do not get to claim Roddenberry. Roddenberry worked out of old and traditional themes long present in SF, not the racist group libels intersectionalism specializes in.
That old tradition would include obvious expression of social justice like Edmond Hamilton’s “A Conquest of Two Worlds” from 1932 or Ray Bradbury’s anti-Jim Crow stories “Way High Up in the Air” and “The Big Black and White Game” from the 1940s. Less obvious versions are countless but would include Slan by A.E. Van Vogt and his Lord Clane stories – each from the ’40s – which not only address the disabled and discrimination but directly continued Hamilton’s anti-colonialism. I could name so many more. Gerrold may have known what Roddenberry envisioned, he just can’t apply simple principles to envision the bigoted swinery of what SJWs do today, and it’s quite the contrary of his assertion.
Emmitt Till directly invokes the rhetoric of last year’s Hugos most cherished darlings: Ann Leckie’s metaphor of America that punches out the so-called marginalized and Kameron Hurley’s claim we all want to drag her behind a truck. And does Gerrold not recognize A. E. Van Vogt is credited with creating Star Trek by virtue of stories beginning in 1939, or that Van Vogt successfully sued the creators of Alien for those same stories?
John Walter is wrong. I have adequate documentation to prove, as one Social Justice Warrior themself puts it, “blatant professional misconduct and utter lack of ethics;… spouting pseudo-edgy fashionable jargon (which) excuses sustained, de facto criminal attempts to blight lives and demolish careers and reputations.” And she earlier had written: “We’re looking at crude but serious attempts to disparage contemporaries’ enterprises, eliminate competition and suppress trade.”
The usual stupid irony of an SJW there is they can see that stuff if you change up the race and sex of the target but otherwise have no principles to apply it elsewhere. That is not only it’s own collusion but delusion.
If Walter wants evidence he only has to use this new fangled thing called “Twitter.” It’s a flood one can hardly miss and core elements are dedicated to ham-stringing whites, men and heterosexuals; they say straight out they won’t be reading their books. They publish links to articles which state they didn’t read anything by whites for a year. They claim they want to “de-white” their library, boycott all-white or male convention panels and state in actual percentages how they should read less work by whites, men and heterosexuals. When a reviews editor is publicly lamenting their work – “alas” – makes them read books by white men and adds white men should come with trigger warnings for arrogance. the question posed is when Walter will learn how to do his homework or read. He can start by looking up the words “collusion” and “conspiracy.”
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John Walter -as research for your required essay you might want to look up Laura Mixon’s report on RequiresHate/Winterfox/Benjenun Skrig… (a made up persona – we still don’t know who this person is. They’re still out there, as are her/his principle lieutenants) There are your whistleblowers. Remember the principle target of her orchestrated pogroms and attacks were not the people splitting on her tactics and network, but those people you say never got any discrimination. That’s what she was famous for, and beloved for. I got some of her joy, so did Sarah, I think Larry did too. Mixon is hardly someone most of RH victims would talk to – only those who who felt they had ‘victim points’ and should be safe did. Mixon considered the ‘punching up’ aspect of what RH was doing completely acceptable. Then James May can help you with the list of internet pogrom pile-ons against individuals orchestrated by various SF/F figure – Jim Hines is usually involved. Elizabeth Moon, Johnathan Ross, Uncle Timmy spring to mind, but there’s a long list. The reading lists/slates for possible Hugo noms? Try google. I’d seen a few before, but I managed find without effort several that included one with ‘diversity notes’ – which naturally would govern your voting.
I doubt however that you’ll grasp the nettle. You won’t see what you don’t want to see.
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Okay, so I’ve read the report on RequiresHate/Winterfox/Benjenun Skrig. (http://laurajmixon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/A-Report-on-Damage-Done-by-One-Individual-Under-Several-Names.pdf)
What I see is a report on a person who attacks others and who has a following that rallies on Twitter and online forums. Clearly, a real piece of work and no one I would care to defend.
I do see that Mixon notes that RequiresHate/Winterfox/Benjenun Skrig “has been involved in efforts to suppress the publication of fiction and reviews for those works that in her sole opinion should not be published.”
Okay. But Mixon does not state that RequiresHate/Winterfox/Benjenun Skrig works for or is affiliated with, let alone controls and sets policy for a publishing house, magazine, or awards committee.
Is that not what you’ve been claiming? I certainly thought you’d claimed that the Hugo voting was rigged. Wasn’t that the point of the town of Fandom story you spun? Haven’t you been claiming that the big publishers like Tor have active policies to exclude authors who don’t conform to the social justice warrior agenda?
If I have misunderstood you, if all you’re saying is that some individuals harass others online and mobilize their followers, then yeah, that happens all the time. Generally, we’ll find that people like RequiresHate/Winterfox/Benjenun Skrig aren’t just radical activists, they’re unstable people.
And if I have misunderstood you and you are just arguing that people like RequiresHate/Winterfox/Benjenun Skrig are trying to shape SF in their image, and you’re not claiming that the Hugo voting was rigged and that companies like Tor’s editorial policies aren’t mandated by people like RequiresHate/Winterfox/Benjenun Skrig, then I apologize. I misunderstood you and we’ve been having an argument for nothing, and I’m sorry.
If, however, you are claiming that RequiresHate/Winterfox/Benjenun Skrig was able to rig the Hugos and controls editorial decisions at companies like Tor, and you’re claiming that these *huge* allegations are contained in Mixon’s report, then that information is so deeply buried that I missed it after going through it twice. In that case, I humbly ask that you point me to the correct section. I have, as you can see above, provided the link to the report. Since you’re familiar with it, it should take you no time at all to tell me what section I can find the allegations that RequiresHate/Winterfox/Benjenun Skrig has actively rigged the Hugos or sets Tor policy.
I believe I’ve been quite clear that I’m asking for actual factual evidence documenting claims of a take over of much of science fiction by social justice warriors, of awards rigging, and of major publishing houses — evidence such as names of the people involved in enacting this conspiracy; correspondence between relevant participants (publishers, awards committees, etc.) discussing the implementation of this conspiracy; documents discussing decisions to exclude non social justice warriors from awards and publishing houses; documents discussing decisions to only publish social justice warriors; and verifiable whistle blowers.
In case “verifiable whistle blower” is a known insider — someone who was involved in rigging the Hugos and publicly admits it and has the documents to prove that it happened, or someone who works at a company like Tor and has documents to prove that a company like Tor is actively excluding authors white men who aren’t social justice warriors or whatever the latest variation is today.
The report by Laura Mixon isn’t a case of whistle blowing. It’s a report of the activities of an individual who uses public forums and back channels to attack and harass others and has a following that supports her activities. Nasty, brutish individuals who make peoples’ lives hell, but not a take over of science fiction. Vote rigging and mandating of editorial policies of publishing houses require people in positions with the ability to rig an election or mandate editorial policy.
If you’re claiming that this report proves that the Hugos were rigged and companies like Tor are run by SJW types who set pro-SJW policies, then Mixon’s report on RequiresHate/Winterfox/Benjenun Skrig is more smoke and mirrors because it makes no such claims.
However, if you are *not* not claiming that the Hugos were rigged and that companies like Tor are controlled by SJW, but only that people like RequiresHate/Winterfox/Benjenun Skrig attacks and harasses people and tries to bully others, then, yes, I acknowledge the existence of such pathetic and sick people, and I apologize for my misunderstanding of your claims and for wasting your time.
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John Walter, you’re welcome search my words. At no point will you find me saying ‘the Hugos were rigged’, or even anything that could imply that. You misread or misunderstood and went off on a tangent. The nearest I’ve ever come to that was not here, but years back on being told it was impossible to influence the outcome of the Hugo, recounting in how IIRC 2003 Mercedes Lackey was telling Eric and I how you could ‘rig’ nomination -by getting your fans to do exactly what John Scalzi did, and everyone complained about Larry Correia doing. Misty herself never appeared on the noms, so she never did this. There are stories about how CJ Cherryh fans did it for Downbelow Station (which is an excellent book). Mike Resnick told us that was why he attended a couple of specific relaxacons -the same people went to worldcons and nominated him. Neither of those are ‘rigging’ or illegal, but are ways of skewing the outcome. That we know has happened, and does skew toward power and influence. I’d like to see the little guy – the genius with a one man publisher, and no money, getting an equal shake. And yes, wishful thinking. I do think you underestimate RH’s influence, or the pervasiveness of this behavior – two of her most faithful sidekicks are still on the staff of Tor. We still don’t know who this actually was (or where she works), or how extensive her network was. Several others mentioned still run very influential sf/f sites. Honestly, I could I can dig up names, but I really don’t see the point. You can do it yourself from the Mixon report. RH was the loudest, but far the only.
I see some major flaws in the Hugo award, and I have been quite open about those – the ‘Australian’ system is quite good in complex multi-party elections as if there is 50% majority it picks the candidate with the least variance or as it has been put ‘the least disliked’ – great books are usually hated and loved. There was certainly plenty of internet chatter last year on orchestrating voting against the sad puppies – advising people to rank their preferences – even without reading. That’s not illegal, just unethical. The second, less obvious thing I’d like to see corrected is that interested parties should abstain from voting. The margins are often very slim and that makes it vastly unfair if for example there are only 10 votes in it, and the publisher has 20 people at the con. With really big houses – like Tor, when you add staff and authors beholden to them, to any slate, that’s a lot.
You might want to have a look at the internet pogroms too. They were one of RH favorite tools, (rather similar to terrorism, really, as they can destroy careers, and effectively police compliance by fear) but haven’t stopped since she was semi-stopped.
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I shouldn’t even bother with this, but anyone want to try looking at some DATA?
The argument here, as I understand it, is that there is a disproportionate influence on the Hugos and SF generally by a small group of people. That should be a testable hypothesis, and I know this because I have done similar analyses for mystery fiction awards, particularly the Edgar awards, given by the MWA and thus comparable to the Nebulas. (The Anthony is probably the closest equivalent to the Hugo, being awarded at the World Mystery Convention “Bouchercon,” but it doesn’t have the same level of universality as its SF equivalent.)
Stripping away the assumptions and labels, the assertion here is that representation is not fair and proportionate to the number of people in any given category. That is, in one sense, the same argument on both sides: the SJWs say their associates are underrepresented; the anti-SJWs say theirs are being pushed out.
In the past I spent some time analyzing awards in mystery fiction around gender. I found, in brief, that the Edgars were undoubtedly biased towards men in the past, since roughly 45% of published mystery writers were women (and there’s some implicit bias there, too, but pass it by), but despite that fact not one single woman won best novel in the 1970s, and not one single woman won for best short story in the 1950s. That’s far from accidental.
My thought, and that of many others, by the way, is that this is not explicit bias. No one sat down and said “I’ll never vote for a woman.” Instead, I think there is cascading, incremental bias, which leads to fewer women getting accepted by agents, fewer women getting published, fewer women getting nominated, and thus fewer winning the Edgar. If you have a 5-10% bias each time, you’d be surprised what a difference it makes to the final result. (55/45 bias leads to two-thirds of the former group winning awards.)
Now, it appears that some feel here that women, people of color, and various other difficult-to-identify groups (e.g., the non-technologically positive, whatever that means) have a disproportionate impact on the Hugos. Okay, test it.
If this hypothesis is true, then we should see a higher percentage of those groups being nominated and winning relative to the general population in recent years. Note that I am NOT asserting racism or sexism in any way – if one group is not represented properly, it isn’t, regardless of what that group is. If it happens consistently (as it did for the Edgars), then it is reasonably to think the hypothesis is true. And it may well be true that women were biased against in the past but biased for now, for example, but, again, that is testable.
Looking at nominations as well as wins boosts our numbers considerably, which is why I suggest it.
Of course, we have to be careful not to assert that because ALL Best Novel Hugo nominees were male in 1959, that ANY woman today is somehow disproportionate. It should be obvious that there were good women writing in 1959, and if anything there are more now.
Anyone want to try actually applying science?
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Steve, that’s a very sensible look at it. I’ve run numbers elsewhere particularly on politics and will probably do more. I’d be delighted if anyone else did, especially if we open source our data and work, something I try to do. I think one could fairly say that the ordinary voter was not explicitly or willfully biased, but that certain cliques within the genre were working to push it ‘their’ way (the history track-down-able). That is, IMO acceptable, if 1)it’s OK for anyone to do so (for instance the outrage at Sad Puppies. 2)It doesn’t reach the ridiculous – where some large parts of the potential readership feel alienated.
I think my point is post-facto: if you have established that bias exist – or is possible – that voters can no longer be considered not to be taking a willful bias – if for example over a period of years women remain under-represented.
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Happy to chime in. The gender issue is easiest, I think; where it gets tricky is trying to identify other kinds of groups (e.g., “Social Justice Warriors,” which I think is not reliably definable, and possibly not at all, or the “Sad Puppies” slate, which has a lot of other issues bound up in it).
As for bias: there is ALWAYS bias; see for example the Implicit Association Test findings. Willful bias is a different question, and hard to define. Am I willfully biased towards writers I happen to like as people? Probably – it’s perhaps the main reason writers spend so much time at cons – to establish a connection with fans. But I think we can establish whether there is an obvious anomaly, at least.
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Sure Steve, be glad to. Facebook is probably the easiest contact margin. ATM I’m setting up a spreadsheet which I’m entering the year novel winners, sex, age at which they won, and how many novels they had published then. I’d love to look at the other categories, but I think the data is just going to be too hard to glean. It’s a time consuming PITA – to fit in between work. The next project will be to take a few prominent review outlets, and do the same. One would have to run quite a long sequence to deal with sample size issues. Probably add length and position of the review if it is a magazine.
Ok, need to write some entertaining fiction… far harder for me:-)
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Already started a spreadsheet (1958-1975 thus far)- Novel, Novelette, Novella, Short – gender, year. Didn’t think of age they won and how many novels, which is an interesting idea. But agree, it’s between work issues, and I’ve spent way too much time this weekend on this already…
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I can’t wait to see what the two (Steve and Dave) of you come up with.
Early impressions: I don’t think you’ll find much for gender bias. In a quick look at the noms/winners it seems a pretty equal field. Though there do seem to be a lot of repeat names, so if you are looking for distinct nominees/winners it might be there.
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Mr. Keiner, if someone calls me a “dirty Jew,” I can’t apply science to my assumption they won’t be voting for my stories. However it is an excellent assumption on my part. I am not basing what I am write about the gentrified diversity KKK in core SFF on my feelings or “fee-fees” but on hard data based on equal principles and the neutral definitions of words, and it is a mountain on one side and statistically non-existent on the other.
So the answer is no, I don’t want to try and actually apply science to actual awards. It is not applicable in this case. This is far more nuanced than science-based stats can address for the simple reason there are “allies” – authors who technically qualify as unofficially non-cis-gendered privileged racist white males. It’s like a KKK with non-white mascots they throw bones to. Is that 100% true? No, but it’s true in the overwhelming majority of cases; it’s a judgment call, but so askew there is no possibility of a he-said, she-said. In the last Hugos I estimated more than 80% of the nominees were fully on board with racialized gender feminism, what we call SJWs. The real question is whether SJWs qualify as racist and sexist bigots, and in my opinion they do. In fact SJWs themselves do, as you can see by how they push for convention harassment policies. The problem is they don’t obey those policies but parse them according to race and sex. One can harass a black women, but never a white man. It’s doublespeak by any other name.
This is not “the same argument on both sides.” We don’t even speak the same language; that itself is the “argument.” It’s like having two different strikes zones for a two teams in a softball game. This is an ideological fight over the very meaning of the words “hatred,” “oppression,” “racism” and “group defamation.” When one side claims endless transparently convenient mitigations based on theories like “punching up” and “privilege, I cannot apply a metric to that, which is rather the point.
Here’s your science, at least as far as the rhetoric involved: when a person obsessively brings up the ethnicity and sex of people on a weekly basis and those portrayals are in the negative 100% of the time, I don’t need a frickin’ bean-counter to tell me what’s going on any more than I do with Nazi propaganda. I can extrapolate what people are going to do quite fine. In this particular case, people aren’t going to reward their “oppressors.” That may not be “science” but it makes perfect sense. From there it’s simply a matter of recording who’s doing that. In terms of editors, authors, awards nominees, etc, the score is something like 500 to statistical zero. Straight white men are being pummeled by this crew, and there is no doubt about it.
Read this from the SJW compassion factory and multiply it by 1000, and then realize there is statistical zero on the other side. That is a documented fact I have satisfied myself about many times over.
As for Mr. Walter, if you don’t even know who Requires Hate is then you just need to step away. We can’t catch you up on three years of mischief in a comments section.
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I don’t think you quite understood my proposal, nor the way this kind of research works. (As noted elsewhere, I’m a researcher with a PhD.)
If there is a systemic bias against a certain group – and you mentioned straight white men specifically as one – then that should show in the awards if it is strong enough. Even if there are exceptions who are somehow not counted as straight white males, that merely reduces the numbers, it doesn’t eliminate a substantial enough effect. (It also clearly undercuts the idea that ALL straight white males are at a disadvantage, of course, but I assumed that to be the case. Bias is rarely so absolute. Even the Nazis made exceptions.)
The intent of looking at this is to see if there is a notable bias going on that is indicative of a forced shift in the distribution. If it isn’t, there may be other issues involved, which have nothing to do with your hypothesis.
At any rate, why reject an easy empirical test before it even occurs? So it might not work – so? Science is mostly about failure, after all. It may mean the things are more subtle, and if you want to prove your point to anyone but yourself, then you need a different attack.
Anecdotal evidence counts for nothing except in large and balanced quantity, and there are plenty of mean tweets out there on both sides. Big deal.
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Mr. Keiner I do not have an hypothesis any more than reading a newspaper is a hypothesis. This data suggested itself to me, not the other way round. There is in fact not simply “mean Tweets” involved in this on “both sides,” unless you consider racial dehumanization theories and a pushback against them to both be “mean”. Honestly, if you don’t have the power to discriminate between hate speech and pushback, what can you do? I have already done the homework, so there no reason to dismiss my research. It is not anecdotal and it is massively one-sided. How can you reduce a thing to numbers if you can’t even agree on what the word “bigotry” means, or the principle behind law? If bigotry is simply a matter of opinion, only true for one side, then I can come up with any numbers I want.
The crucial thing is to look at the benchmarks SJWs use for terms like “racism” or “sexism” themselves. They are paper thin; so thin using a vulgar slang term is considered “misogyny.” The problem is that “misandry” is said to not even exist. You cannot run numbers on a thing like that. It requires brains and judgment and a single english dictionary.
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Mr. Keiner, I can give you a reliably definable definition of an SJW, and it is the same as the Southern Poverty Law Center uses:
“All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.”
I have more than enough quotes to back that up; it is hate speech, a thing the daffy Cora Buhlert in Germany doesn’t seem to realize is illegal there. If you click on the date it’s a remarkable little thread, especially considering “Susan Jane” is a man.
Or one could talk about “Poor Arab dudes” and their “Arab dude pain” and see how quickly the law comes down on them in the U.K. or Europe, especially if you never shut up about it, and these folks never do. If I had a thousand dollars for every time this bunch disparaged white men, I could literally buy an island in the Caribbean. Conversely, if I used that same fund to pay out a thousand for every time they positively profiled white men, I don’t know I’d make a single payment. That’s a pretty damn wide and obvious gulf. That’s a KKK by any other name.
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I rather think there are a number of people who count themselves as Social Justice advocates (including a lot of members of Catholic religious orders, among whom this phrase is quite prevalent, and with which I am somewhat acquainted) who would disagree with your application of the SPLC definition.
See, for example, the definition here: http://www.ecatholic2000.com/sj/socjust.shtml
Perhaps you need a more precise definition, or a different label.
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Are you being willfully obtuse Mr. Kleiner? I didn’t say anything about Social Justice advocates. I said Social Justice Warriors. They are two completely different things – as different as night and day.
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[…] snide attack by David Gerrold on the Sad Puppies/ Rabid puppies as mentioned an opinion piece in Otherwhere Gazette. As he informed us he wasn’t going to post the link but was going to comment, I assume that’s […]
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I’m confused. I am black man who is reader of scifi and fantasy. I probably am more fantasy than scifi, but I love both genres. I find this argument, well silly. I have Taco Wednesday at my house every week. It started out very simple, Tex Mex style Tacos with my father, wife, my mom and a friend or two. Soon my father remarried and his new wife and my stepbrothers joined. His wife invited her coworkers, my supervisor from work came over. Some other friends began popping over. We evolved as other taste were included. First we only used corn tortillas now we have flour. We included fish, steak, and chicken along with ground beef. We make tex mex and traditional style tacos. Some people just want meat and cheese other like the veggies. We have a variety of veggies and salsas, hot sauces, seasonings and cheeses. What was once a simple meal has morphed into an event and only gotten better. Everyone brings something to table, everyone has a voice and a choice. So when I read these post I think what’s wrong with inclusion. If there is a transgender voice in scifi that speaks to someone and they are selling well so be it. If there is manly man scifi that speaks to those that like the “hard science” great. I like variety I like choices. The inclusion of minority voices only improves the situation. The notion of taking scifi back is kind of silly. It has never went anywhere. There is just more authors to chose from. I read of lot of independent authors of color. I rarely find fiction that has a black male protagonist, so when I hear of one, I check them out. If I like them I purchase more books by the author. Now that doesn’t keep me from reading a white author or female or gay or atheist author. Octavia Butler wrote compelling stories, I am not female but I was engrossed in tales. Parable of the Sower is great. I recommend it to anyone. Steven Barnes’ Lion’s Blood is epic and it’s sequel, Zulu Heart is wonderful as well. So yeah I like fiction where a person who looks like me is the hero, not the sidekick, or magical negro plot device or doesn’t die midway through the book. I may not agree with his politics but Larry Correia’s Monster Hunters series is dope. His knowledge of firearms and tactics is greatly appreciated. Jim Butcher’s Dresden files Chicago is fairly white washed from the Chicago I know, but here I am entrenched at 13 books into the series. So I really don’t get the “taking SciFi” back part. When I go to book stores or shop online I mainly see white males’ work displayed or heavily promoted. Seems like it’s still “yours” just that more people are coming to table, just like my Tacos Wednesday. You can still enjoy your style of fiction and I can enjoy mine. Hell for kicks and giggles we can enjoy each others. It doesn’t have to be us vs them.
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Sorry I can only give this one like.
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Yeah to jump on the bandwagon (I don’t care about your other points – I don’t have a dog in this fight) however, you need to stop using ‘Social Justice’ as an insult. I know there are a legion of people who are using ‘hurt feelings’ to justify a lot of vitriol, but you are denigrating the work of centuries of very moral Quakers, Catholics and Abolitionists when you turn it into an insult.
Come up with some other phrase to spout other than ‘SJW’ at your targets. Because since you’re on the rant of ‘real’ fans: Real social justice workers had it first.
Even you probably owe them something.
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When these freaks are proudly telling us they don’t review books by white men and recommend an initiative where one doesn’t read books by white men for a year and calls it “social justice,” I’m going to make fun of the term, and I don’t care if you or anyone else likes it or not.
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🙂 Whoa there Sir Galahad. The term Social Justice Warrior…. is one they applied to themselves. We’re calling them what they call themselves -which is considered excellent sensitive PC behavior ;-/. The people who do good society, or work for justice actually don’t call themselves that. The SJW- largely anonymous behind pseudonyms and working in internet mobs are hardly warriors either. Yes, I know that there are many noble and good folk who have worked for justice in our society. That’s why these … people who do little for society but advance their own agendas appropriated the terms. Your quarrel is with them not us. And good luck with it. My clan – the Gay Gordons – didn’t really appreciate the appropriation either, but there’s not a lot we can do about it.
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[…] A There is a screed here by William Lehman equating the lack of real science fiction with the lack of engineering degrees […]
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[…] link to some remarks David Gerrold wrote on Facebook on 17 February. Mr Gerrold is responding to this essay by William Lehman. I have some reservations about Mr Gerrold’s […]
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Scifi can be what one makes of it. This us vs them is just a matter of taste. Star Trek inspired people to create technology we have today. It also inspired multiculturalism and diversity. I wanted a com device and phaser as a kid. I also liked that I could see a people of diverse backgrounds working together to explore space. There was sociology and physics all being explored. The debated about which one was more important to the show is ludicrous. They were both important to the show. They are important now. Good scifi should have great stories framed with hard science that explores our world as well as the people that uses and benefit from it. I don’t agree that the SJW our controlling the market. When I go to the book store most of the artist I read are not in the Mainstream press or have major publishers backing them. White men still top the bestsellers list in Scifi and white women dominate urban fiction and both dominate the marketing and best placing on the shelves. I don’t have a problem with it. The artist I support are mainly independent. They explore social issues with great stories and concepts. I just don’t agree with this notion that scifi needs to be taken back. It never left and it was never yours. You can’t own the concept. You don’t like NK Jemisen don’t read her books. The main publishers don’t lean left or right. They lean towards dollars. If they see a certain group is buying books they market towards them to make a profit. simple. If black men like a certain type of fiction that seems to be selling well in the indies, they jump and try to capitalize. Simple. I don’t feel that straight white males have anything to worry about. Your place at the table is set. Other people are just coming to get some of the meal.
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[…] Gerrold has responded to William Lehman’s article “Destroy the myth, destroy the culture.” by pointing out that Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future within the Star Trek was far […]
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[…] guy named William Lehman has written an essay, Destroy the myth, destroy the culture, that starts off with a reasonable premise and then goes totally off the rails, in an […]
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Just a small point: I resent the fact that you people are appropriating RAH for your own petty agendas.
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1) Just who are you meaning by “you people” Jagged? 2) if you mean me and the rest of the Sad puppy types, have you ever actually READ Heinlein? Especially the stuff that he wrote on writing and on politics, as opposed to his fiction? 3) Hardly a “petty agenda” to want to see the Hugo and Science Fiction have success in the market place, instead of becoming more irrelevant daily. and finally 4) I frankly don’t care what you resent. I resent paying taxes to keep foreign dictators and welfare fraud cases in the style to which they have become accustomed, yet, there goes my tax money.
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1/2) Yes, I mean the sad puppy types. And yes, I’ve read Heinlein. I’ve been reading Heinlein since I was a child, and much of my personal philosophy has been influenced by him. As such, I find the fact that his work has been co-opted by people who stand against much of what he stood for, such as equal rights for women and people of colour, personal freedom and responsibility resting on the individual rather than the current ‘blame the system’ mentality, and a deep and abiding faith in human decency regardless of colour or creed, just as offensive as I firmly believe he would have.
3) Trying to game the system and devalue an award is petty, and you know it. If the people on your slate could have won Hugos on their own merits, they already would have.
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1/2) You keep arguing with the cardboard cutouts in your head.
3) You know, it’s funny, I’m seeing dozens of comments all over the internet in response to your lying argument. All of them thanking Larry / Sad Puppies for actually explaining how to make their voices heard. Your gatekeepers did absolutely nothing to grow fandom, or the Hugos for decades, and loved it. Your butthurt now is because all the people you view as subhuman have shown up, the light has gone on and you cockroaches can’t stand the glare.
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Aren’t you cute all “the sad puppies hate women and people of color because they want a good story and not being beat over the head with message, so they’re anti Heinlein.” Of course that ignores the fact that over a third of the slate is women, and it’s run by a “people of color” or isn’t Hispanic qualifying these days, I can’t keep up. No one here’s trying to “game the system and devalue the award, we’re trying to bring it back to what it once was, Open and inclusive, all the players have a shot, not just those that can pronounce shibboleth. See I’ve been reading Heinlein probably since before you where born, and his stuff on writing too. Special perks, and awards only because you’re the protected species wasn’t what he was about.
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http://madgeniusclub.com/2015/04/07/a-few-facts-about-the-hugos/ go read it jagged, educate yourself. while you’re at it, http://nocturnal-lives.com/?p=1495 is worth a second too.
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[…] https://otherwheregazette.wordpress.com/2015/02/16/destroy-the-myth-destroy-the-culture/comment-page… […]
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My background is in the hard sciences, I’m also a Trek fan, and I think every word of this is a crock of shit.
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what an intelligent and well thought out rebuttal. Well done. That’ll teach me.
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Mr Lehman has an interesting, but hardly novel, thesis. It falls down though in it’s assumption that there are only two kinds of science-fiction, hard and soft, and that the former is always created and enjoyed by engineers and physical scientists who are all potically conservative and the latter by everybody else, all of whom, neccessarily, have no understanding of the “hard sciences” and, therefore, of real science fiction and are all on the far left. The truth is that there is no such dichotomy, neither in the production nor in the consumption of s-f. I understand the desire to stake out the high ground for one’s preferred political viewpoint or sub-genre, but it helps no one to force a false dichotomy on a genre that is all about imagination and possibility and defying convention to ask hard questions and speculate about change. I really have to question the value of trying to pigeonhole all speculative fiction as either right-wing or left-wing when it’s always been about challenging our assumptions and expanding our minds. PS I can’t be first person to point out here that “glittery hoo ha”, in current slang, means a colorfully decorated vagina. I am going to give Mr Lehman the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn’t mean to imply that everyone who doesn’t write and/or read “hard s-f” has a vagina and that they enjoy displaying it in public. It doesn’t make sense to claim that only creators of non”hard s-f” perform in or patonize strip clubs, which is primarily where one can glimpse “glittery hoo ha’s.”
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all of this has been expounded on at great length over the past two months, and in both the replies to this post and in other posts on this blog. You’re arguing with a straw man, do try to do the reading and catch up before chiming in on something this old…
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[…] https://otherwheregazette.wordpress.com/2015/02/16/destroy-the-myth-destroy-the-culture/comment-page… […]
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[…] an author they already knew was good. So I read what was said, and I put in my two cents worth (see https://otherwheregazette.wordpress.com/2015/02/16/destroy-the-myth-destroy-the-culture/ https://otherwheregazette.wordpress.com/2015/02/25/myths-take-two/ and others). I had read the […]
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