In August, a blogger and book critic, acrackedmoon, reviewed an interview by speculative fiction writer R. Scott Bakker. She did so from a feminist angle and, from this perspective, found the fellow and his politics deficient.
Six months later, the science fiction community has caught a case of the hysterics.
For a chronology, I refer you to Requires Only That You Hate – the blog that started the ruckus:
You will have heard of the Bakker brouhaha, if you are here. Let’s have a chronology:
- Requires Only That You Hate – R. Scott Bakker: Prince of Misogyny – dated 16 August 2011
- R. Scott Bakker – Sweet Manna - dated 16 August 2011
- R. Scott Bakker - Misanthropology 101 – dated 1 February 2012
- R. Scott Bakker - Requires Only Haidt – dated 6 February 2012
- R. Scott Bakker - The Halftime Show – dated 10 February 2012
- R. Scott Bakker - That Empty Place – dated 16 February 2012
- Peter Watts – In Vicarious Defense of R. Scott Bakker – dated 16 February 2012
- R. Scott Bakker – Um, does anybody got a mint? – dated 18 February 2012
I’ve never read Watts’ or Bakker’s books. I’ve only recently started reading Requires Only That You Hate. I know that I’ll be seeing Watts at conventions. I’ll probably never meet acrackedmoon.
Should she ever read my novel, I suspect she’ll find it wanting.
But who knows? It’s not up to me to speak or think on her behalf and she’s doesn’t require it. The lady can take care of herself in an internet knife fight. She’s chopping heads. I’m just wading through the blood.
What I need to speak to –because I am a straight white male who shares an occupation and community with these authors and one could, from that, reasonably believe my silence is a form of approval or, worse, the sort of cowardice, born from ambition, that I patently loathe– is how she is being spoken to.
I do not approve. I think it’s fucked up.
Peter Watts expressed some doubts about calling acrackedmoon “a rabid animal” and called her that anyway. I’m not going to pretend to have any doubts about calling Mr. Watts a scoundrel and a fucking goof.
And I don’t need to read his books to do so.
You see, I just don’t know what else to call a man — a straight, white man, like myself– who would refer to a woman of colour as an animal. That he would do so, while defending his friend from a charge of sexism means he must be fucking stupid. That he tries to defend it makes him exceptionally shit-headed.
I guess we won’t be friends. The loss pains me.
Without exception, I have found acrackedmoon’s criticisms of works I have read to be valid. That’s not to say I’m always in total agreement with her. I think the political interpretation of work can be limited. But all criticism, from whatever angle, is limited. As is writing.
I’ve reviewed and been reviewed. It is, as they say, easier to fight the bull from the bleachers. But that’s not to say that it’s easy. Critics are still fighting the bull and they are important. They enter into a serious dialogue with art. They’re readers.
Books do not exist without readers.
I do not mean as consumers. I mean the art does not live without people reading it. It does not become important without people discussing it.
Outside of what they’ve written, authors cannot and should not direct the interpretation of their own works or the conversation about it. Their intent and personality is irrelevant. There is no reason to bring forth character witnesses.
If I should ever have to bring forth character witnesses to defend my books, I’m good and fucked. Even my friends can hardly stand me. It doesn’t matter.
What I think has happened here –at heart– is that writers are arguing that their interpretation is the most important one. This position is noxious. It’s marketing.
This position is made combustible by the addition of race and gender. Because now these authors have moved on to assert their control over the conversation about these elements in their work.
How dare anyone who doesn’t even know them find fault with their politics and hurt their sales?
They’re defensive. It’s inappropriate.
When reviewers attack.
Far from being a rabid animal, acrackedmoon is an excellent and perceptive critic. Her point of view is not only reasonable, it’s important. Voices like hers are too rarely heard in a community that still thinks Tolkien’s racism is in the magical realm of maybe or that Orson Scott Card is anything but a homophobic hack whose greatest work is a defence of genocide.
Instead of people just shutting up and listening, using her observations to improve their writing, here’s what we get:
1. Motherfuckers pretending that she’s a troll.
There is nothing in her work that indicates that she’s trolling. Her posts are well thought out and angry. If people need her anger explained, they need only look at their own reaction to it.
That shit makes me angry too.
Am I a troll for being so? If so, you’re a fucking goat. And get off my bridge.
2. Motherfuckers calling her race and/or sex into question.
Many people are saying that acrackedmoon may not be a Thai lesbian at all. The perversity of this is beyond me. What difference does it make?
She says she’s a Thai lesbian. Even if she’s not, I’d rather take her at her word and be wrong than attempt to take away someone’s race and sexual orientation to defend my work.
To do so without evidence is insane.
3. Motherfuckers calling her names.
Commenters, left unmoderated by the authors in question, have engaged in all the usual shit about how she must be ugly and worse. Addressing that is, frankly, beneath my dignity. Try as I might, I cannot think like a toad.
But for science fiction authors to refer to her as “a rabid animal” or as “The Dude” is revolting. I should not have to explain why but here we are . . .
White people are not allowed, under any circumstances, to call people of colour animals, let alone rabid ones, and straight people are not allowed to call lesbians “The Dude.” These are deeply hurtful terms that not only attack an individual but a whole class of people.
You want to know how you look and sound when you do that?
If she was a gay man, would you call her The Lady or Miss?
I wouldn’t think so but, then again, I wouldn’t think professional writers would call her the things they have. Like they don’t know the power and meaning of words.
And if you think you can justify it, I wish my Nan was still alive so that I might introduce you to her. I’d take great pleasure in watching her slap the shit out of your dumb ass.
Then she could read your post about a Thai woman, done in the style of a god-damn nature show, and beat your ass again.
Swear to God, a big problem with the internet is that you can’t roll it up and hit people with it.
4. The overall tone motherfuckers are taking.
The general position adopted by these authors is that they are reasonable, open-minded gentlemen trying to deal with a shrieking, hysterical harpy. It’s as if they shake their heads, look at each other, jerk their thumb in her direction and say: “Crazy dames, I’ll never get ‘em.”
And that’s before they start using words like ‘primitive’ and ‘tribal’ and ‘animal.’
They’re acting so scientific. So rational. Meanwhile, they’re portraying acrackedmoon as engaged in some sort of in-group building, us versus them, exercise in tribalism.
I reject their so-called science. It’s little more than intellectual posturing. A bloated and pompous defence of the indefensible.
I was unsurprised to see a commenter bring up the half-baked and pseudo-scientific musings of Watson on race to attack ‘political correctness’ or, as I like to call it, decent manners.
I was a little more surprised to see . . .
5. Motherfuckers pretending they have no bigotry.
Or, in the case of Bakker, pretending his biogotry of choice is misandry. That is, he’s biased towards women. He loves them. All of them. They’re just adorable.
Invoking misandry has all the weight of “I love equality so when’s white history month?”
So let’s put his patronizing claim aside. Most of this seems to be people taking umbrage with being called bigots. The narrative has escaped their control. Panic ensues.
I don’t know why folks can’t just be straight about their bigotry. We all have prejudices . We are not perfect. I have them. These writers have them. I’m sure acrackedmoon has them.
Pretending we don’t is to close our eyes. We have to accept that we do, be honest about them –make them visible to ourselves through our art– and, once we gain awareness, try to check them.
When other people check them for us, the best response is not to launch into a hysterical defence of our good character. The best defence is to forget about defence. Just listen and think about it and try to be better.
Maybe say thank you.
Having prejudice is entirely human. So is attempting to do better
Do better, motherfuckers.
Because, as things stand, you’re embarrassing yourself, you’re embarrassing me and I’m ashamed to even share a skin colour, let alone a profession or community, with you.
The white man does have a burden. It’s you.
42 comments
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Blissfully_Pseudonymous
February 28, 2012 at 9:17 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I find it amusing how easily people swallow claims of pseudonymous entities regarding gender and ethnicity. I guess many more fat American males will have to pose as internet lesbians to finally force people figure out the unique properties of this medium.
Also, would it be okay to call a huge redheaded male biker from Ireland a “rabid animal” if he wrote a vitriolic “review” based on but a few pages of a particular book? Would it still be okay if he was, say, bisexual ?
Ryan Oakley
February 28, 2012 at 9:19 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I don’t know. Why don’t you go up to one and find out.
First
February 28, 2012 at 9:58 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Well, for what it’s worth, I was called, I don’t recall exactly, but something along the lines of “mad vermin” by a male partner long ago during a lousy break-up, and, despite me being much larger and stronger, we eventually sorted it out like civilized men. Maybe that’s because I’m not a biker. Or not Irish. Hmmmm… a fascinating line of inquiry.
SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: THIS REPLY IS BEST CONSUMED WITH A GRAIN OF SALT, DUE TO THE FACT THAT IT IS ENTIRELY PLAUSIBLE THAT THE AUTHOR IS ACTUALLY A THAI LESBIAN POSING AS A JEWISH BISEXUAL.
Athena Andreadis
February 28, 2012 at 3:15 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Yes, guys posing as threatened Others has happened. However, there are those of us who blog under our real names and whose personal and professional credentials are out there for the entire world to see, so you will have to marshal better non-arguments than those. Including the tired saw of selective civility (“For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”)
Killer last line, Ryan.
Blissfully_Pseudonymous
February 28, 2012 at 5:09 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Well, those who blog under “real names” and actually go to all the lengths needed to establish that they are who they claim (and not just a more plausible pseudonym) are a different barrel of fish, and are not subject of this particular branch of this discussion.
Anyway, it would be far more interesting to discuss criteria according to which Bakker’s work was judged misogynistic. That would be more productive, since the review itself was more about what kind of unlikable person Bakker is rather than why the book is so “heinous” (Well, duh, not much material to work with, given that ACM claims to have read just a few pages), and that leaves a lot for the reader to guess (I have to admit, I haven’t read the book in question yet, but I already kindl’d it, so soon I will have my own judgment to pass, YAY!)
A
February 28, 2012 at 6:38 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Many of Bakker’s male readers consider his treatment of women problematic. Attached to that, and indicative of his mindset, is the fact that he chose to devote so many entries in his blog, so long after the fact, to the critique of Acrackedmoon — and that the entries are essentially convoluted, polysyllabic versions of “You’re mean to meee and my mom/wife/concubine thinks I am too a feminist!!”
In my opinion, nobody needs to write another work that “interrogates” misogyny by having a heavy-duty, heavy-handed patriarchal setting — particularly not a white Anglo man who rather obviously has led a comfortable life and lacks any context for such a narrative. It has been done ad nauseam — still is being done by the Abercrombie et al crowd. Some writers have done it well: Sherri Tepper in The Gate to Women’s Country; Le Guin in several of her stories; Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale.
If Bakker cannot shape his material to convey his (purported) meaning even to socially complacent men, he’s a poor writer. Judging from the length, vapidity and navel-gazing of his blog entries, it looks like his ambition is to become the Ayn Rand of Neckbeards. I discussed this type of personality in Storytelling, Empathy and the Whiny Solipsist’s Disingenuous Angst. The fact that such people are over-represented in SF/F is toxic for the genre.
Blissfully_Pseudonymous
February 29, 2012 at 2:48 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’ve just started reading the thing, so my opinion is liable to change, but so far it doesn’t come off as particularly heavy-handed. Not mind-blowing good, either, but at least so far the text didn’t try to repeatedly “poke me in the face” with emotionally charged and overly exaggerated caricatures of the social structures author dislikes (this behavior is exactly why I didn’t like 1984 all that much – it did this all the time, every time, and that made the experience almost, but not quite, comical)
Now, I would like to have more datapoints on misogyny in the book (as opposed to author’s questionable ability at PR) so I know what to pay attention to while reading it.
Ultraface
February 29, 2012 at 6:47 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
According to commenting science there’s a 37.8% chance that Blissfully_Pseudonymous is another Bakker sock puppet. Yet perhaps I am the true Bakker. Who can say?
Blissfully_Pseudonymous
February 29, 2012 at 1:15 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
There is a possibility that ACM is actually Bakker.
Seriously, think about it – this kerfuffle is serving his interests well, since it increases his press prominence (any event, whether positive or negative, does) and draws interest. I’ve bought a book of his specifically to personally assess whether it is indeed terribly misogynistic (I usually don’t read fantasy that much).
Of course he claims that the incident could hurt sales (despite the fact that there isn’t a single case where massive outbreaks of drama and press shitstorms did so), but that’s exactly what hypothetical Bakker-ACM would like you to think
Craig Ranapia
March 13, 2012 at 10:14 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I blog and comment under my real name. But unless you end up in my bed (which is vanishingly unlikely) how do you know for sure I’m not bullshitting when I say I’m a gay man? Also, since I’m not going to post my birth certificate and a full ID jacket on my parents, you’re also going to have to take it on faith that I’m of mixed race heritage.
But ain’t it funny how it always seems to be women, people of colour and GLBT folks who get can’t win this game?
First
April 17, 2012 at 7:19 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
@ Craig
Oh hello there everyone!
Just checked by the other day and lo and behold, the discussion is still going strong. Hehehe.
You see, I don’t really know who are you, your skin color and sexual preference. Thing is, I can’t.
Thus, almost nobody is white, or gay, or Thai here on the intertubes. We’re all just digital ghosts sending text strings to each other. We all here, in this thread, could be fabrications of a single bored person who has a lot of proxies.
To become something more than a digital ghost around these parts you need to expend a trully remarkable amount of effort, both online and “offline”, amount of effort you, me, and Crackedperson do not seem to be willing to expend.
That’s why, my fellow digital ghost, it is important to frame your arguments in a manner that would not make their integrity dependent upon veracity of various allegations about physical properties the alleged author of a text string forwarded by a machine might possess.
Have a nice and very safe day, fellow digital ghost
Sarah
February 28, 2012 at 9:26 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
“And if you think you can justify it, I wish my Nan was still alive so that I might introduce you to her. I’d take great pleasure in watching her slap the shit out of your dumb ass.”
Wow. That’s a high standard of public debate if I ever saw one.
Also, personal issues much ?
Swear to God, a big problem with the internet is that you can’t roll it up and hit people with it.
Yes indeed. Having to write words, let alone forging coherent and well-sourced arguments out of said words, instead of beating up people who we dislike is downright excruciating.
I wish for science to invent a way for us to sort out our differences like ladies and gentlemen should – in a fistfight. That would be so much superior. ^_^
First
February 28, 2012 at 10:00 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
But science already invented a way for us to sort this out in a fist fight ! We can all gather offline and start a brutal fight! But we probably won’t
James W
February 28, 2012 at 9:55 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Got here via my twitter feed, where this killer line appeared: “Am I a troll for being so? If so, you’re a fucking goat. And get off my bridge.”
I know nothing about the brouhaha, or any of the players – I have, to quote another racist, no “” – but I did enjoy this piece. Like you say, there’s nothing wrong with well thought out and angry.
@B_P: You just asked after White History Month in response to a blog that specifically calls out that particular fallacious bit of nonsense, doofus.
@Sarah: Your objections might hold some weight* if you hadn’t deliberately ignored the “coherent and well-sourced[?] arguments” that make up the other 95% of this blog post.
*Probably not, though.
First
February 28, 2012 at 10:26 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
With all due respect sir, I have to politely disagree.
Discounting background claims of pseudonymous agents is not some kind of “white history” shtick.
Discounting background claims of pseudonymous agents is a matter of maintaining basic debate integrity.
Above I have claimed that I am bisexual, male and Jewish.
This information, if not discounted completely, is bound to color the way the debate shall proceed – people are more likely to use some terms, and perhaps also more likely to avoid some other terms. They will also assume all kinds of weird things about my biases and agendas based on that information (and the degree to which they are informed about Jewish people and/or bisexual males).
Obviously, those claims could have been inaccurate and engineered to steer the debate (as the kind Surgeon General’s warning points out)
That, dear sir, is bad. Thus, the only reasonable move, dear sir, is to structure our communications with pseudonymous entities on the internet in a manner that completely eschews the claims about their background unless backed with a significant body of evidence, and treat anyone making unsubstantiated background claims as “suspicious”.
Of course, it would be best to also eschew any insults, even if made in order to rhetorically examine another party’s use of insults, irrespective of background claims. People nowadays have a hard time understanding irony, and will take those at face value.
For similar reasons, it would also be nice to eschew implications of violence, even made, so to say, tongue in cheek (I am not entirely convinced our kind host did not mean those seriously, but I can, and do, hope so)
And finally, kind sir, I have to take issue with “well sourced” part of your response to Sarah. There are no links to authoritative sources on “proper authorial conduct” (I doubt such exist, but then I could be wrong).
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that – in a free speech medium like the Internet, everyone is entitled to having his own opinion and voicing it. But that means that Sarah’s complaint is fairly spot-on.
James W
February 28, 2012 at 3:01 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
“There are no links to authoritative sources on “proper authorial conduct” (I doubt such exist”
That was sort of the point of my inserted question mark, there.
Anonymous
February 28, 2012 at 10:27 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Ugh, ballsed up the tags there, sorry.
James W
February 28, 2012 at 2:53 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
My comments do not work! None of them!
anonymous
February 28, 2012 at 5:56 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Is this post for real, i.e., are you serious? It’s hard to tell. Claiming to have a problem with “motherfuckers calling her names” seems to tip your irony hand. On the other hand, you _seem_ serious. So… as to your list of “shit” “motherfuckers” are doing:
(1) Umm, I thought ACM was open about the fact that she IS a troll. See: http://requireshate.wordpress.com/gallery-buttmad/
(2) Surely it’s not “insane” to question the race/sex of an anonymous online persona. Personally, I don’t see the point in doing so (so what if he/she/it is or isn’t x, y, or z?). I tend to take people at their words when it comes to this sort of thing. But still. Motherfuckers are insane if they ask this question? No, you’re insane if you think so.
(3) Double-standard much? ACM slings unrelenting shitpiles all over other people’s heads, and you think calling her “the Dude” is beyond the pale? WTF, dude?
(4) Double-standard much? Are you cool with the “tone” ACM takes? Not to mention your tone: “I reject their so-called science. It’s little more than intellectual posturing. A bloated and pompous defence of the indefensible.” What, huh? What “science” are you talking about?
(5) Double-standard much? Let’s go with this definition of ‘bigot’: “In extended use: a fanatical adherent or believer; a person characterized by obstinate, intolerant, or strongly partisan beliefs.” As far as I can see, ACM herself is the most bigoted of the bunch, by far. And I’m sure she’d happily cop to it: Obstinate? Sure. Intolerant? You betcha (and I quote: “I’ve no interest in being polite to clueless fuckwads”). Characterized by strongly partisan beliefs? Oh yes.
So what’s your deal, dude? I’m tempting to say that you just need to shut the fuck up already, but that would be rude.
Blissfully_Pseudonymous
February 29, 2012 at 2:25 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I do not know who you are, what your gender is, but I want to…carry your offspring
Awesome. Seriously, I was, for some reason, unable to realize that ACM is, in fact, fitting the definition of “bigot” to a T. It was floating somewhere just near my awareness, but I could not put a finger on it.
Thank you for your observation, anon. I don’t know who you are, what you do, but… I want to carry your offspring
Sophia McDougall
February 29, 2012 at 6:39 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
We really need the white straight men of this world to be ready to speak out when they see each other fucking up, and if they can do so with crying gifs and phrases like “exceptionally shitheaded” that’s a delightful bonus. Hooray for you.
ariel
March 1, 2012 at 8:57 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I really enjoyed this article. I’m sorry a lot of the comments being left here are just kind of proving you point, ignoring your argument and bringing up inconsequential stuff instead of addressing the real weight of what you and her were both trying to get across in. But here’s hoping everyone’ll come together one day and chill the fuck out.
Richard Morgan
March 12, 2012 at 6:36 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Back when your Nan was still running her Canadian School for Insult and Close Physical Assault, she obviously failed to take you through the lesson where it’s explained that insults are intended to hurt the recipient, not safeguard their finer feelings. And perhaps you should also have attended the elementary playground session where they teach you “if you don’t like getting it, then don’t hand it out”. If you paid as much attention to close textual analysis as you apparently do to dressing in front of a mirror, then you’d have seen that Watts’ insult to A Cracked Moon was exactly crafted to imitate in calibre and angle of impact the insult that ACM herself had handed out to Bakker. ACM is comfortable with unleashing her ad hominem vitriol at all and sundry – fine, so be it; but it’s a little late in the day then (and not very grown up) to run crying to some inverted sense of privilege when someone does the same thing back to her.
But you know what, we’re not talking about ACM here – we’re talking about you. So here’s what I hope for you – I hope you do meet Peter Watts at a Con sometime soon. Because you’ll then be placed in the acutely embarrassing position of having to actually face, in civilised company, a smart, sincere and eminently likeable man of great personal integrity, whom you’ve chosen to call “motherfucker” for no other reason than you think he’s crossed some illusory ideological line in your own pretty little head. Square that with your little hissy fit about good manners, why don’t you?
Leah Bobet
March 13, 2012 at 12:58 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hi, Richard–
Serious and sincere question here, since I know, like, respect, and am friendly with people on all sides of this latest argument, and so I don’t really have a dog in this race (and I don’t want to, either):
What moved you to put in the opinion here? Because I’m thinking over the decision in terms of what’ll be gained for anybody, and you’ve never struck me as…lacking astuteness, I suppose, and I just don’t see the logic.
Thanks,
~L
Amie
March 13, 2012 at 8:51 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Wow Richard. Do you honestly think that Peter Watts’ online reaction to A Cracked Moon is only crossing the “illusory ideological line” of one man? You think that his words are perfectly justifiable because ACM dealt it out first? Because she had the gall to use strong words?
I disagree. I think Peter Watts had no business popping off on ACM like that, and I think he comes across as a petty and privileged bully. Now maybe I feel that way because I’m not a middle class white male who gets to spend time with him in “civilised company.” Or maybe it’s because his words were hugely offensive to more than just two people in cyberspace.
Jo
March 13, 2012 at 4:08 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Protip: In an argument about sexism where you’re trying to gain the higher ground, do try, oh do! not to use sexist words and phrases in your reply. Viz: “pretty little head”, “hissy fit”. TTFN!
Scott Bakker
March 13, 2012 at 10:42 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I thought I would check this out because of the handful of hits TPB is receiving. I’m befuddled as always. To me, it seems pretty clear that accusing anyone of misogyny on the basis of reading six pages, especially in a day and age when applicants are often googled by prospective employers, is simply irresponsible, which is why I asked ACM the simple question of what criteria she thinks critics should use before making such charges. Is anyone really suggesting she shouldn’t have standards?
Otherwise, a couple of factual points: she openly advertised that she was a troll, at least back when this whole thing started.
Second, you don’t do yourself any favours by quoting Peter out of context: he called her a ‘rabid animal’ because she had called me a ‘cockroach,’ ‘shiteater,’ and so and so on. Since you obviously read this, the question is why you neglected to mention it. Peter is – as a matter of fact – a good man, one who only gets angry at things he thinks tragically stupid.
Third, yes, my sales have suffered – to the tune of about 30%. The old saw about any publicity being good publicity is simply bullshit. Like everything else, it ain’t that simple.
And lastly, my argument, from the very beginning, was that the kinds of shaming tactics she uses actually cause feminism more damage than good. They trigger coalitional mindsets that grenade people’s ability to do anything other than thump the in-group tub. People stop thinking-about as soon as they start identifying-against. They poison communities, set people at each other’s throats for no real reason whatsoever. (Richard’s right about conventions: are you going to be one of those who cling to a particular group and spend their time sneering at so-and-so-over-there? Everyone is interesting at these things!) Her tactics are good at mobilizing social action, but only when the abuses identified are undeniably clear to all parties involved – which is not the case now. Check out Jonathan Haidt if you don’t believe me. There’s a good chance all she’s doing is providing grist for the reactionary mill, extreme right wingers with genuinely regressive views – whom, for those interested in such things, I have spent far, far more time battling on my blog than ACM.
The whole point of Three Pound Brain is to challenge anyone who makes a fetish out of their values: ACM’s review, was simply a golden opportunity to be critical of some left-wing shibboleths for a change. Check it out if you don’t believe. Everyone is welcome. No one is flamed, shamed, or named.
requireshate
March 14, 2012 at 7:09 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Otherwise, a couple of factual points: she openly advertised that she was a troll, at least back when this whole thing started.
I openly troll people like you because it should be done; words and actions like yours ought to be put under a microscope, and held up to close scrutiny. They are revealing.
Now, you believe of course that everything you and Watts–and Morgan up here too, no doubt; shitstains of a color and all that–have done and said was perfectly justified, perfectly righteous and reasonable, because despite your claims to be a clear-headed rationalist you’re just entrenched in your knee-jerk reactions and gut feelings as anyone. There’s a personal narrative here and it says “I’m a good person, I’m right, I’m enlightened, I fight bigots and right-wingers.” Someone questioning your so-called “feminist subtext” disrupts that narrative. And you can’t have that; being called a misogynist is just the worst thing in the world when you believe you’re a flawless saint on board with things like feminism and women’s rights. Joe Abercrombie is completely right about all that–that it stings extra when you believe yourself a decent person only to be told you aren’t quite–and since he too is a white man who writes grimdark fantasy rather than a woman of color, perhaps you’ll listen to him? Aw hell naw, like Larry and a few others he’s not in total lock-step with you, so I guess not even his gender and skin color will be enough to get you to listen.
Peter is – as a matter of fact – a good man, one who only gets angry at things he thinks tragically stupid.
It’s funny that you privilege the anger of yourself and people who are ideologically in line with you; any other type of anger is “tragically stupid” or offensive. What was that with you preaching against groupthink and “piety” and “making a fetish of values”? An inability to spell “hypocrisy”, perhaps? Do you even know what self-awareness is, little boy?
And lastly, my argument, from the very beginning, was that the kinds of shaming tactics she uses actually cause feminism more damage than good.
You will have to excuse me for not taking seriously claims that something can harm feminism… from a person who will never, ever experience misogyny and doesn’t identify as a woman. This is why you’re a presumptuous, self-important roach. You like to talk over people who know better than you and who have had lived experience of something which you never, ever will. It’s like a dog barking at a physics textbook, thinking it knows better than physicists. Amusing to watch, but after a while just pathetic.
It’s also very teenage. That know-it-all smugness commonly seen among adolescents and privileged men who believe reading Nietzsche is an adequate substitute for growing up. You certainly are doing feminism no favors.
extreme right wingers with genuinely regressive views
Oh, like the people who love and adore both your fiction and Watts’? The people who love such fiction so much they’ll defend you to the death anywhere, and speculate whether I’m a “black lesbian rape victim” perhaps? The ones who keep questioning my ethnicity, sexuality, and gender? The ones who say how it’s good for feminism to infantilize women? Those people? Consider the company you keep; consider the people who defend you and believe every word you and your ilk say is gold. Think about it. If there exists a part of your mind not preoccupied utterly with that neotenic persecution complex.
By the way, for what reason did you bring up your dropped sales figure? Is it the sad, desperate attempt to garner pity it looks like? Fact is, your sales probably dropped because you’re purveying regurgitated diarrhea indistinguishable from what similar writers are purveying. They just do it with lower page counts. Oh and also? I’ve linked all your novels, neatly packed and formatted, to people who asked for them. You ought to be groveling in thanks for such generous free PR.
First
April 17, 2012 at 7:24 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Excuse me, but I don’t think that claims of “lived experience” can constitute any decent admissible evidence.
My lived experience means jack squat.
So does yours, fellow digital ghost.
The only thing that matters is third-party verifiable evidence.
First
April 17, 2012 at 7:27 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Scott, I said it and I will say again – you should really read up on troll management. You’re doing no one any favors by even engaging in discourse with “entities” of a certain kind on them intertubes, assuming, of course, you don’t get “kicks” out of it (I do
)
Also, I very much doubt there is a causal link between ACM and sales drop – you, of all people, should know that there isn’t enough evidence for such a claim right now (but it would be nice to do devise some controlled tests that would test such predictions with some rigor
)
P.S.:
Third asked to say “hi” and complain on her behalf that your blog is “pwning” her comments into oblivion.
Zoetica Ebb
March 15, 2012 at 9:52 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Great piece, Ryan. A simultaneously enjoyable and infuriating read.
Scott Bakker
March 15, 2012 at 12:54 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’ve bitten plenty of bullets over the years. I’ve openly expressed a number of worries about my own work, and admitted that I am taking risks. It’s a tricky thing, using prurience the way I do. There’s few things I think through more carefully. But I have no interest in ‘playing it safe’: upsetting the morally self-righteous is the whole point, because moral self-righteousness, as a matter of empirical fact, shuts down people’s ability to think. Full stop. So why don’t you answer the following questions and show me for the bigotted fool you seem to know I am. (Or not answer them, and show something else).
So what are you standards for outing misogynists?
What are your grounds for dismissing the evidence against the effectiveness of shaming tactics?
Why are ad hominem arguments considered fallacious in critical thinking textbooks?
Brendan Moody
March 15, 2012 at 3:56 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
What are your grounds for dismissing the evidence against the effectiveness of shaming tactics?
Not to answer for anyone else, but: you haven’t presented much in the way of evidence. Which isn’t surprising, since the proposition you’re arguing is too large to test in any meaningful sense. What you’ve done is to make long-winded, self-congratulatory philosophical arguments that you evidently think are very convincing. Well, of course you do; they support your bias, and the bias of a great many other “nice” people, that rhetoric that bothers you must be Objectively Bad. A major reason those arguments don’t impress people like Requires Hate is that they have actually followed and participated in debates about sexism on a level that you haven’t. They’ve seen that being nice/polite/diplomatic/academic does not, in fact, produce less hostility and dismissal than “shaming tactics,” that most people treat any feminist (or similar) critique as ridiculous simple on the basis of its content. And, for fairly obvious reasons, their real-world experience trumps your abstract hand-wringing. Not understanding this is like a freshman philosophy student not understanding why he gets laughed at after raising his hand on day 2 and announcing that only he has recognized that the entire intellectual tradition is WRONG. Which brings us to another major reason no one is earnestly considering your questions: you have no credibility in debating feminist methods.
Despite your further self-congratulation about being more opposed to “regressive views” than Requires Hate, you have given no concrete reason to believe that feminist issues matter to you in any meaningful way, matter more, for example, than your own self-image. It’s all too easy to imagine that what you really care about is convincing people (yourself perhaps included) that you’re a good guy and no one could legitimately take issue with you. If you want people not to imagine that, demonstrate a real and ongoing concern for feminist issues, even when doing so means criticizing your friends and taking other intellectual risks. It’s easy to say “I’m a feminist,” and to be critical of one’s ideological opposites when they behave in sexist ways; what’s harder is to look at criticism that affects oneself, one’s friends, one’s heroes, criticism that bothers one so much the instinctive response is to reject it out of hand, and instead to say, “There is probably something deeply-felt and valid here.” That sort of behavior– neither instant dismissal nor total acceptance– is the kind of nuanced response demanded by the (largely valid) ideas about group-think and yard-sticking you often invoke, and the way you’ve twisted them into defenses against any possible criticism is disheartening, proof of a kind you never meant to offer.
An aside. You attribute the drop in your sales to these debates about sexism, with the implication that you’re getting a bum deal because people are being given the wrong idea about your books. I think that’s pretty unlikely– that kind of decline isn’t going to be the result of any Internet debate, and even if we were for some reason to put aside the simple possibility of reader dissatisfaction there are plenty of other pertinent explanations– but in any case, consider this example. I have six of your novels (the five fantasies plus Neuropath) unread on my bookshelf, and have been meaning to get around to them for a while now. Unlike some participants in this larger discussion, I’m not bored by what’s sometimes called grimdark fantasy, and even if I found your work sexist or otherwise problematic I might very well continue to read and appreciate it. What’s now making me question whether I want to read your fiction is not that criticism, but your response to it, which has been so clueless, so self-pitying, so blind to how people will interpret it, that it makes me wonder if you possess the minimum empathy and awareness to write something that would possibly interest me. Now, I’m inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt on that, because it’s in my nature, because I understand the limits of Internet communication, and frankly because even writers who are utterly obnoxious can produce interesting work. But not everyone is going to be so generous, and that isn’t a failing on their part. I only became aware of Requires Hate because Nick Mamatas linked to your responses, reasonably characterizing them as a meltdown. To put it simply: if this debate is leading people not to read you, it’s very possibly because of what you’re saying, and because you. Won’t. Stop. Saying. It. You are under no legal or moral obligation to reply to criticism, and if your replies are going to be as self-serving and dismissive as they’ve been thus far, your best bet, both as a contribution to feminism and for the sake of your sales, might just be to take the advice in the title of this post and shut up.
Rizz Rustbolt
March 19, 2012 at 12:47 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
“It’s a tricky thing, using prurience the way I do.”
Did you honestly just say that you use rape as a teaching tool?
Scott Bakker
March 15, 2012 at 8:12 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
‘Shut up’ seems to be the chorus, doesn’t it? Why is that I wonder? The argument is always – as in this case – some version: You are A or B, where A or B varies from pompous retard to self-pitying slob! Maybe I’m both. Maybe I’m neither. But the reason I don’t shut up is simply because the argument is never about standards, never about the actually psychology of what we’re discussing, never about the history of feminism or the challenges facing it today. It’s always about IDENTITY…
Which just happens to be what my argument has been all along. Moral self-righteousness literally flicks a ‘reason off’ switch, gets people thinking in coalitional terms, which is to say, who’s in, who’s out, and most importantly, WHO DARES.
So ya, I will keep going on and on and on, pointing out, as politely as I can manage in the face of what are, in some cases, brilliant attempts to make me feel foolish or ashamed or whatever people think it takes to get me to SHUT UP. Because as I say to all my classes, the OTHER GUY is always ME. We are hardwired to confuse agreement for intelligence, and moral contradiction for defects in character. This is simply a fact. It’s the engine behind a good amount of bigotry and organized violence on this planet. And if don’t start coming to grips with that fact, we are probably doomed.
As for the research on the tendency to moral superiority and the ways it skews reasoning, the best place to begin is with the chapter entitled “The Merest Decency” in David Dunning’s wonderful Self-Insight (which I have referenced continually). But I actually devoted a whole post Jonathan Haidt’s interview with Bill Moyers – the post which actually received the most traffic through the whole kerfuffle.
Less than one half of one percent actually clicked on the link. For some reason…
So, for literally the hundreth or thousandth time:
So what are the standards for outing misogynists?
What are the grounds for dismissing the evidence against the effectiveness of shaming tactics?
Why are ad hominem arguments considered fallacious in critical thinking textbooks?
To which I’ll add,
Why does everyone – literally everyone! – slagging me, refuse to answer these questions?
I’ve been told by what seems a thousand people why I should feel ashamed or embarrassed, but the fact is I don’t. Maybe that’s a warning sign that I’m too desensitized to insults to be trusted with my online reputation. Or maybe that just makes me a pompous ass. I dunno. All I know is I keep asking what seem to me to be simple, nonoffensive questions, I don’t resort to offensive language or character assassinations, and all I get are ad hoc psychoanalytic accounts of my personality in place any real response. Identity claims.
Examples of the very conclusion I’m arguing.
potsherds
March 16, 2012 at 12:28 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
So what are the standards for outing misogynists?
Can you clarify what you mean here? I’m interpreting this question in a way I can actually answer (at least to my satisfaction, I’m quite sure there’s no possibility of satisfying you), but I’m not sure my interpretation is correct. When you type ‘standards for outing misogynists’, I don’t know if you mean just how vitriolic they have to be, or [TW] how titillating the rape scenes must be,[/TW] etc, before some ‘standard of misogyny’ is reached? Or what are the clues in a person’s writing and personality that tells someone with the lived experiences of a person identifying as a woman that that person there…that person, is definitely a misogynist. Or um….some sort of…what must someone’s politics must be in order for the label to be correct (which is fallacious, liberal misogynists are the worst, at least conservative misogynists are honest)?
What are the grounds for dismissing the evidence against the effectiveness of shaming tactics?
Personally — and I can only speak for myself, let me be clear on that — I’m not of the opinion that ‘shaming tactics’(?) — you might need to clarify what you mean here, I’m thinking you’re referring to how everyone is being so gosh-darned mean to you — effectiveness are being debated or anything? Maybe I missed that part of this 6+ months long tirade of yours? The continued use of what you call ‘shaming tactics’ is perfectly valid though, and your refrain of ‘but it’s hurting your cause!!111′ is straight from ‘Derailing for Dummies’. And just so you know, that personally identifies you as a sexist to me. If you can’t make a post on this stuff without stumbling through Derailing for Dummies’ no-no’s along the way, your opinion on feminism or feminists or other minorities isn’t worth taking the time for you to type out, or for anyone to read. Understanding derailing tactics and arguing in bad faith, and learning to avoid all the oh-so common refrains people of privilege use to derail the conversation is basic feminism 101, and you’ve obviously not even gotten that far. It’s pretty astounding to me that you think you’ve got the skill or understanding to write an unnecessarily long series of books that subtly challenges the sexist culture we live in by increasing the misogyny in your world by a factor of (what you think is a) 10, when you consistently make rudimentary mistakes on basic comprehension of the power dynamics and privilege involved in the issue.
Why are ad hominem arguments considered fallacious in critical thinking textbooks?
Because they’re all written by straight white men?
This is a question built on privilege. The question is irrelevant, it’s a tone argument. If feminists aren’t being too mean and hurting their cause that way, they’re getting too angry and hysterical or too over-emotional, if not that, they’re concentrating on the wrong issues, the minor things, when women in Africa are having their genitals cut up you know!, or they’re being too serious and need to lighten up, or, or, or. It’s not possible for feminists to be taking seriously by sexists, ad hominems or no. Your question is an attack on tone meant to delegitimize the person, instead of the subject. It’s an excuse by people of privilege to stop listening to someone who lacks that power. And after hearing stuff like this, over and over, and over, you bet feminists and other people of minority status are going to decide to stop wasting their time and just say something cathartic. If someone’s not willing to listen either way, why not? Your privileged status not not automatically entitle to the time and exhausting amount of emotional energy it takes for us to hold your hand, be nice, and walk you through the basic concepts of how to be a decent, non-bigoted person. Learn to deal with it. I assure you the inconvenience of being called a few mean things is nothing compared to the constant marginalization a minority person deals with every day by people like you.
None of your three questions are worth addressing. I hope you understand that. It’s why no one has bothered to until I decided to. If you were to ask questions not rooted firmly in Derailing for Dummies territory, you might get some folks trying to engage you for a bit. People are telling you to shut up because you’re not saying anything some other straight white guy hasn’t said before, nothing us folks of minority status couldn’t repeat from memorization from having heard it so many times. When a person of minority status is obviously fed up with what you’re saying and telling you to shut up, the most respectful thing you could possibly do is shut up, and listen to what a person with lived experience has to tell you. It’s the first and easiest guideline for a feminist ally to follow. If you’re not even willing to do that, you’re not even at feminism 101. And you’re not.
Ryan Oakley
March 16, 2012 at 11:58 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Because I want to feel totally confident that you have been answered, I’m going to reply here.
I already think you’ve been answered twice. Just here.
And, though I doubt that you’re being as forthright and well-intentioned as you claim, I’m going to do my best to treat you in this fashion.
“‘Shut up’ seems to be the chorus, doesn’t it? Why is that I wonder?”
I believe people are telling you to listen. Being quiet is usually the first step. The ol’ mouth off, ears on. You have not yet given any indication that you’ve listened to anything being said.
You only seem to have heard what you want to hear.
“The argument is always – as in this case – some version: You are A or B, where A or B varies from pompous retard to self-pitying slob! Maybe I’m both. Maybe I’m neither.”
I would not like to speak to your “retardation” or hygiene. (Have people called you a “retard” here or is that just another word you’ve decided to throw around?) Your pomposity and self-pity does come across pretty clearly. But they are, in some senses, highly compatible qualities.
An example is your mention of the drop in your book sales. Book sales are not the business of any book reviewer. Critics are not an unpaid portion of your marketing team. Expecting anyone other than you, your friends and family to care about your finances is both pompous and self-pitying. I would not, however, call you a “retard.”
We all have flaws.
But, by appealing to pity in this case, introducing a variable (sales) that has no business in honest criticism, you’re acting in a deeply self-interested fashion. And I’d usually say ‘more power to you.’ But it’s also destructive. It seems you are appealing to mercy to stifle criticism.
That you call ACM “The Dude” is especially worrying. Even if you disagree with her (and you have every right to disagree with whomever you want) calling a lesbian or feminist critic “The Dude” seems designed to insult lesbians and women in general. Is it to make an example?
To try to put yourself above critique from these quarters?
But, I said I’m going to assume the best of your intentions.
So imagine the consequences of your actions.
Imagine, for a moment, a young lesbian reader who is thinking about starting her own book review site. It’s not bad enough that when people disagree with her, they’ll call her ugly and all that vile shit — now she sees an author, one who says he cares about these issues, saying things like that . . . What sort of effect do you think that will have?
Is it one that you’re comfortable with? Even if the chance is remote, do you want to put the burden of so much bravery on people of colour, homosexuals and women?
Have you responded to many reviews with post after post after post after post of protest? Surely, you’ve been treated ‘unfairly’ in the past. God knows, I’ve even had good reviews where I feel like my work has been misunderstood. Have you just responded to this critic in this way? You see how that looks like a double standard? Even if you didn’t mean it that way.
So while I want to believe that you’re well intentioned, it’s hard. Because, if homophobia and misogyny are issues that you cared about, issues you understood, you would not have done this.
In doing that, you met my standard for misogyny. (I will get to these in a little bit.)
Now, I’ve read enough of your thinking on this subject to already hear your objections.
1.) ACM is not an honest critic since she only read 6 pages.
You and I both know that editors often judge work just as quickly. A standard submission consists only of the first 3 chapters. Buyers often judge a book by the cover.
That a critic was only able to read 6 pages of your book before giving up is a relevant criticism. That she was open about this is honest.
2.) ACM is anon so maybe she is a dude.
Looking at the things said about her, looking at the threats, insults and all that, her anonymity is surely understandable. But it’s also irrelevant. Homophobia is not only homophobia when it’s said to a homosexual. If I were to call a straight man “faggot” – that too, would be homophobic.
“But the reason I don’t shut up is simply because the argument is never about standards, never about the actually psychology of what we’re discussing, never about the history of feminism or the challenges facing it today. It’s always about IDENTITY…”
Thing is, you don’t get to control the conversation. You can tell people what you think the discussion should be about. They don’t have to listen.
Some of the reasons they might not:
Psychology: You seem interested in speaking about everyone else’s psychology but not your own. That, you want to be off limits.
Here’s a psychological mechanism for you – Author loses 30% of his sales. Something that happens and is happening all across publishing for a variety of reasons. He finds scapegoat. A lesbian person of colour who insulted him six months ago. He feels persecuted.
Everyone who disagrees with him has an issue with their psychology that only he –the only rational man in the room, dammit!– can see. But they won’t listen. They just keep talking and talking and talking. They’re all against him.
Would you want to discuss psychology with that guy?
If I was being less generous in my assessment of your character, I’d say a guy like that, with his deep love and understanding of psychology, knows exactly what he is doing.
And you see how it kinda makes you feel like you have no point at all — that there is no issue– when you put people’s problems with your behaviour into psychological terms?
You understand why people don’t want to engage in that way?
THE HISTORY OF FEMINISM AND THE CHALLENGES IT FACES TODAY: The history of feminism is a little beside the point of this post. I’m sure there’s plenty of other places to read about sufferance and whatnot.
The challenges it faces today are being discussed. You and your attitudes -whether intentional or not– have been identified, by some feminists, as one of these challenges. You don’t seem to want them to be discussed.
You want to change to subject to someone or something else. Another “challenge.”
IDENTITY: Isn’t feminism, the thing you so want to discuss, an issue of identity? This sounds to me like: “I want to talk about racism but everyone keeps bringing up skin colour!”
“So ya, I will keep going on and on and on, pointing out, as politely as I can manage in the face of what are, in some cases, brilliant attempts to make me feel foolish or ashamed or whatever people think it takes to get me to SHUT UP. Because as I say to all my classes, the OTHER GUY is always ME.”
I think I can safely speak on behalf of quite a few people here when I say we’ve certainly noticed your ability to keep going on and on and on and on and on. Also that you’re not getting anywhere. One might liken your ideas to a treadmill.
I’m not sure what you mean when you say to your classes, “the OTHER GUY is always ME.” Are they? Then who are you? Me? You? The other guy? I’m a little confused.
“As for the research on the tendency to moral superiority and the ways it skews reasoning, the best place to begin is with the chapter entitled “The Merest Decency” in David Dunning’s wonderful Self-Insight (which I have referenced continually). But I actually devoted a whole post Jonathan Haidt’s interview with Bill Moyers – the post which actually received the most traffic through the whole kerfuffle.”
I have not read this book. So I can’t speak to it.
(But, if you’re going to get all big about critical thinking textbooks, with your ad hominems and whatnot, I’d say, citing a book that you feel (from click-throughs) no one has read is an
argumentum ad verecundiam.)
Also, that people have not uncritically accepted your interpretation of this book, should show you that people can think critically about these things. It is a capacity you do not extend to ACM’s readers. But, perhaps, you should.
On the surface, I don’t think anyone denies the existence of this mentality. I don’t. I’m merely asking that you see it in yourself. As the member of the dominant group.
“Less than one half of one percent actually clicked on the link. For some reason…”
Is the ellipsis meant to imply that something sinister is afoot? That people just don’t care about knowledge? Because my click through rates are often that low.
“So what are the standards for outing misogynists?”
In the manner you’ve phrased this — the only sensible reply would be that they’re misogynists.
(I’m sure you know this but to “out” someone as something means they are that which they’ve been outted as. It means you reveal them. Think Wizard behind curtain in Oz.)
But I’m not sure that you mean it how you’ve asked it. Do you mean, by what standards can someone be accused of misogyny? Are you asking what misogyny is?
You’re leaving me guessing as to your meaning.
I don’t want to be purposely obstinate so I’m going to guess that you’re asking ‘by what standards can someone be accused of misogyny?” Your question still contains a flaw. It’s loaded. You see, there is no Royal Commission on this subject. There’s no total agreement on this. Feminism is not a hive mind. Different people have different standards.
(That you don’t seem capable of acknowledging this indicates that you think there’s an in-group vs an out-group here and, in itself, speaks to a sort of sexism. There’s just individuals here. We’re not a gang or cabal. Just folks, ya know.)
To speak to my own standards, I would accuse someone of misogyny if they use sexist slurs to degrade a woman, if they directly express a belief that woman are inferior, if they speak or act in a patronising fashion towards women (don’t worry your pretty lil’ head; I love women, they’re so much smarter than men, etc), if they contribute to an atmosphere that facilitates that, if they hold women to a different behavioural/moral/intellectual standard than they hold men and a variety of other things. Some subtle. Some brutal. Most in between.
And their intention in doing any of this is more or less irrelevant. Most people think they’re great guys. Even Klansmen.
Now, when I say holding men and women to a different standard, I can already hear the objection: ‘But ACM called me a name? Why can’t I call her one?’
You can. But you called her ‘The Dude.’ This is a homophobic slur just as ‘rabid animal’ is a racist one. There is a degree of collateral damage to these insults which cannot be excused.
(After you’re done here, I think you should read this:
http://www.mariabuszek.com/kcai/PoMoSeminar/Readings/BangsWhite.pdf
it’s a pdf)
I was bothered by Watt’s use of ‘rabid animal’ but was willing to think – maybe he just mis-spoke, not understanding the difference between what he was called and that. As Morgan pointed out, an insult is not to protect anyone’s finer feelings.
But being an insult does not put it above meaning and context. It should be wary of collateral damage.
What drove me to the point where I felt the need to speak on this, was Watt’s second post. Having his language pointed out to him, so no longer able to plead ignorance, he wrote a Hinterland Who’s Who on ACM. This is an animal show. Writing about a POC in this fashion is not cute and it’s not clever. It’s ugly and purposeful and sickening.
Especially when one considers the vile tone of much of his comment section. Instead of just dedicating himself to reigning that shit in, he acted like a ringleader.
I find this inexcusable.
And it’s god-damn funny to me that anyone would think I should be embarrassed to meet him.
Shiteater will not offend anyone but shiteaters. Same with cockroach. (Though using it against the victim of a genocide, who was called that in propaganda, would be terrible.). Motherfucker is the same. If you had’ve called her a fuckhead, an asshole or a jerk, I wouldn’t have a problem with that aside from her being a critic and you being an author and, seriously, grow the fuck up.
Look, just in case this isn’t getting through, let me tell you a story . . .
I’m a baseball fan. Huge. Love my Blue Jays.
Last year, two reporters from ESPN wrote a terrible hatchet piece on Jose Bautista and the Jays, claiming that they had a ‘man in white in the outfield’ who was relaying them signs that allowed the Jays to hit a tonne of homeruns.
There’s a number of reasons why this is physically impossible and they presented no evidence to back their case except some cherry picked numbers.
One of the reporters was a woman. Parts of the The Jays blogsphere, being a foul mouthed bunch (I do love them) made some pretty sexist comments about her. They got called on it.
You know what they did? They didn’t wring their hands, ask by what standards this had occurred or complain that they’d been shamed. They just basically said: ‘Shit, you’re right. We’re sorry. We do insult everyone here and that’s what we told ourselves but, yeah, there’s no call for being sexist about it. It’s bullshit. We apologize. Won’t happen again. And we’re sorry we contributed to that climate. And smarten up in the comment section.’
That’s sports bloggers. Foul mouthed, team spirit, girls in bikinis, sports bloggers.
And they’re more progressive than you.
“What are the grounds for dismissing the evidence against the effectiveness of shaming tactics?”
Loaded question. So loaded, in fact, that it’s hard to think you’re asking it honestly. But I’m going to assume that you are being honest.
You assume there is evidence and we’ve dismissed it. Also, see above story. So-called shaming tactics worked there. They work on me.
Look, it sounds like you’re a teacher and that maybe puts you in a different environment than me. I’m a bartender, server and dishwasher. I’ve been a line cook, worked in a mailroom, done field work and worked in a factory. In many of these cases, I’ve been a white minority.
And I’ve said some shit in my day. My co-workers have called me out on it. Not always in nice ways. When I was young, I still tried to defend it. I’d move on the inevitable recitation of my family woes and the struggles of the Irish people. Try to defend myself and all that.
But after a while, it just got through to me: Why is the front of the room white and the back of the room brown? Why are my friends always getting pestered by cops when I’m not? I don’t have it hard. I have it good. To act like I don’t, is just plain fucked up.
I shut my fucking mouth and opened my ears.
And god-damn, it was a weight off my back.
Not only did I realize that no one was trying to say that my people had never suffered, that no one was trying to make me feel ashamed for being straight, white and male, that no one was doing the things I thought they were, I also realized that the best way to help all of us was not to be divided by this bullshit and, furthermore, it wasn’t them doing the dividing. It was me.
I had no right to negate their experience by saying it was equivalent to mine. It’s not. It’s different. And that shit has GOT to be respected.
There’s no tactic here. There’s no shaming of you. You’re talking shit. You’re getting called on it. You find it keeps happening? Instead of writing it up to being ‘e-stinky’ maybe think about the shit you’re getting called on. You feel shame? No?
Then what the fuck do you care anyway?
If I say some foul shit and someone calls me on it, I stop and think. If I feel shame about what I said, I apologize. With no expectation I’ll be forgiven. I’ll say sorry anyway. Cause I don’t want to make myself ashamed. I want to make myself proud. But that’s just me.
And, if I don’t feel shame – then fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
I’m shaking my head here, trying to be patient with you, trying to assume that you’re being honest and asking honest, if misguided, questions. But you make it hard. Real. Fucking. Hard. At this point, it’s much easier to assume you’re acting and speaking in bad faith — that you’re more interested in proving you’re right than learning anything.
Shaming tactic? What the fuck, buddy? Calling you out on your words is a shaming tactic?
It’s a tactic? Like there’s winners and losers here? Like it’s a war?
Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?
“Why are ad hominem arguments considered fallacious in critical thinking textbooks?”
Once again, bizarre question. You’ve read those books. I assume you know the answer. You’re asking a leading question. I think you’re throwing down some type of Socratic gadfly method here. Must be. Cause otherwise, you’d just ask google. But it’s more than a little patronizing to assume no one gets that. And being patronizing is what got you into this mess in the first place.
Are you speaking to the white privilege thing? Why does this get mentioned?
Once again, I’m going to have to guess at what’re you mean to ask.
Here’s my read on white privilege, speaking as a white, straight male. I believe it points out bias. The bias of the normal or, as some would prefer, the normative. This bias is often invisible to the people who have it because it is normal. A majority bias created by being the majority. A rarely questioned, consensus reality.
So, when people say you (or I) are speaking from a privileged place, they’re not saying that we have nothing to say. They’re not saying that white people can’t have ideas. They are pointing out a bias that a white person would and often does take for granted. They’re asking that we consider that. It really isn’t too much to ask.
For example, easy to think all cops are good guys when they’re not pulling you over for nothing on a regular basis. Easy to think all sorts of things about human sexuality when, as a straight person, we never have to come out the closet. Easy to think that men and women are being treated equally when it’s rather rare that you or I, will be considered a hysteric, on our period or just a ditzy bitch when we express a thought.
Privilege names a bias. One that is often invisible. And, if you’re an honest searcher for truth, it’s an insight you should be grateful to have.
But that’s just my read on it. I’m not an academic. I don’t know if that’s correct but I’ve found that this interpretation holds up pretty well in my personal life. It leads to real questions about the things I say and do — the lies I take for granted because I can. Because I have that privilege.
Let me tell you another story. It’s one I’m not proud of.
In my job, homeless people sometimes come into the restaurant. I have to kick them out. I find this task repulsive. I’ve tried to be kind. They’ve ripped me off, pushed co-workers around, spat in my face, punched others in the face, left needles in the washroom and, well, I reach the end of my liberalism when I have to clean up another human’s shit.
These people have serious problems. And I have a job.
Still, I try to do things in a polite way that doesn’t completely dehumanize them. Mother Teresa, I know.
Once, I had a homeless fellow come in. He sat down next to an affluent white couple. Then he nodded out. Junkie. I got him to leave.
That couple shot me daggers the rest of their meal. But here’s the thing. The only reason they’re eating in that place is because that fellow is kept out. There’s a bar up the street where he’d be welcome. They’re not going there, though. And he’s not in their workplace.
There is zero chance that they will have to clean up his shit, zero chance that when they take the garbage bags out that they –or a co-worker– will prick themselves on a used needle cause he shot up in the bathroom, there is zero chance they will have to deal with the problems. Zero. Like you or me being victims of racism.
So they get the warm fuzzy feeling of being good people. They get to look down on me. They get to do so because they’re privileged. Their bias comes from not having to deal with it. Same source as their warm, fuzzy notion of themselves as good, liberal people.
They have that because they are being protected from junkies and whatnot by me. It is part of what they pay for. And the moment, he throws up at the table – who are they going to call?
Me.
I don’t get to have those feelings. I don’t get to think I’m some great guy.
I know damn well that I’m insulating these sanctimonious pricks and that I’m doing it for money. I don’t think it’s right. I do it anyway. I’m just happy that this process is, at least, visible to me.
Cause the other part of all this, is making it invisible to them. They just need to take for granted that they’re in a place without the homeless. That this is just how it is. That there is no ugly side to it. Shit, they don’t even think this happens unless they see it.
The bias they have is privilege.
It is, in part, my own invention. This privilege shit is consciously manufactured. I know. I manufacture it. And it only works when people don’t see it.
As straight, white people, we have the same bias. We can say and do things that other people can’t. Other people pay. And if the people who pay, take my thoughts about as seriously as I would take the thoughts of that couple, well, fine. I’ll listen.
After all, they’re the ones that have to clean up the shit.
And if all that falls under an ad hominem argument to you, I don’t know what I can tell you.
You should be grateful to have this or any bias pointed out.
You should say thank you.
“Why does everyone – literally everyone! – slagging me, refuse to answer these questions?”
I hope you see that I’ve tried to answer them. Reason I didn’t want to is that they don’t seem like serious questions. They’re loaded. Sometimes they’re insulting.
“I’ve been told by what seems a thousand people why I should feel ashamed or embarrassed, but the fact is I don’t. Maybe that’s a warning sign that I’m too desensitized to insults to be trusted with my online reputation. Or maybe that just makes me a pompous ass. I dunno.”
Neither do I.
I would say that a little less concern with your reputation and a little more with the effect of your words and actions might go a long way. Did you really get into this writing game to hurt people? To make them feel small? I hope not. So try not to.
Like, I really feel that if you spent a quarter of the effort trying to figure out why people feel the way they do –without trying to say that they have a psychological problem (a standard you ask to be applied to yourself) while casting yourself as the only reasonable person in the room– as you do trying to protect your reputation or image of yourself, there would be no problem.
Cause it really isn’t that hard.
“All I know is I keep asking what seem to me to be simple, nonoffensive questions–”
Don’t seem that way to me.
“I don’t resort to offensive language or character assassinations,”
Really? Turns out other people think you have. I happen to be one of them.
And I don’t resort to swearing. I fucking love it.
“and all I get are ad hoc psychoanalytic accounts of my personality in place any real response. Identity claims.”
I’ve seen you get real responses. There’s two right above this comment. Do you determine the reality of the response by whether or not you agree with it? Is it possible that this is the very psychological mechanism that you’re warning everyone else about?
What constitutes evidence to you in literary criticism? Because ACM presented evidence. Her readers will judge her case just as they judge yours. They may agree or disagree.
People are capable of critical thought about criticism. I disagree with some of my favourite critics. I even know that if some of them hate something that I’ll love it.
I’m not sure you understand the review process as being anything other than marketing.
Is that conclusion ad hoc psychology? Maybe. If that’s what you choose to call reaching conclusions –generous ones, incidentally– based on the ideas you’ve expressed.
But, in doing so, you do yourself a serious disservice.
Diomedes
March 16, 2012 at 6:19 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Richard,
I tried reading one of your textual dungs once. I put it down after 23 pages, and then I decided to watch some paint dry. You. Really. Should stop. Writing. Sentences like. This.
Scott,
You are a shitter writer than Richard, who in turn is a shittier writer than Meyer (yeah, that Meyer), Dan Brown, LKH and Paolini all combined. Think about that for a while.
Potsherds, <3.
Jay
April 12, 2012 at 1:47 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
This was truly fascinating. Watching a grown man experience his Lacanian mirror stage in a comment section of a blog was so far away from what I was expecting for when I clicked through from DJF and read back a page or two. “The OTHER GUY is always ME.” Classic.
BTW, blogger totally isn’t excluded here, especially in the context of the psycho IC people he blogged about later subsequent to this post. You keep intervening for those poor pseudonymous thai lesbians and stand up for them against the wicked whiny white men.
I will say from now on I’m only buying sci fi written by people of non-white non-hetero non-male backgrounds (really non-human since they’re apparently the only ones who can understand sci fi contexts anyway) and the rest of you can keep your book sales to yourselves, how’s that for racism? I know this last part doesn’t even make any sense, but this was a long slog and I’m supposed to be working.
Ryan Oakley
April 13, 2012 at 7:28 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hi Jay,
I’m happy you brought that up. As the Kony IC post should show, this wasn’t something I was completely comfortable doing. I didn’t want to rush in and rescue a damsel in distress. I don’t see ACM that way. But, in some ways, it’s a valid criticism and I’m happy to speak to it.
SF is a pretty small community and it’s one I’m a part of. This isn’t a foreign intervention. This is happening right in my backyard. I don’t even really see it as an intervention. Aside from issues of race, gender and orientation, there’s a wide variety of reasons why I could be lumped in with the authors in question here –we know some of the same people, go to some of the same parties, run in many of the same circles, share a profession and, I think, are members of some of the same organizations. I don’t think it would be unfair for anyone to look at all that and assume that we share the same beliefs. That’d be a reasonable assumption.
At the time of writing it, I felt that my silence (which would be my preferred state) could easily and reasonably be viewed as complicity. To my mind, it would have been complicity. This made me uncomfortable.
I wasn’t trying to intervene on ACM’s behalf. I was trying to let these people know that I’m not down with what they’re doing. On my behalf.
Also, I’ve been a book critic and I am an author so I have a fairly decent grip on the issues at play here. Unlike the IC backers, I didn’t just watch a clip on the internet. This isn’t my first exposure to this nonsense. And, unlike the IC people, I have to face the consequences of this. Whether or not, I said or did anything, I would still feel the consequences. When authors come down on critics in this fashion, they’re hurting the genre in ways they don’t even care to understand. They’re cheating writers, fans and critics.
How common this is and how unevenly it is applied was nicely examined here:
http://yuki-onna.livejournal.com/675153.html
To me, it’s much less like Kony than like opposing a war your own country is waging. But really, it’s not much like either . . .
Like, I’m not trying to pay military advisors, have people shot or finance any sort of military adventure. Nor am I turning any sort of profit off this post. I don’t get advertising dollars and, believe it or not, this blog isn’t how I generate most of my booksales. (The over-hyped relationship between social media, internet presence and booksales is probably a whole other post.) I’m simply speaking my mind. So, while your comparison may be theoretically similar, the practical differences are rather large.
But people should be cautious of white knights. I’ve tried to be. There’s things I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t tell women, POC or homosexuals how they *should* feel about being called names nor would I involve myself in planning, organizing or speaking on their behalf. I’m speaking on my behalf. And I think what happened was fucked up.
If you’re interested in how other people feel about this post, well, you’ve read Bakker’s impression in the comments. ACM’s is here:
http://requireshate.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/links-of-interest-because-i-dont-read-fast-enough-to-review/
I’m sure other people feel differently than either of them.
And if I can’t be completely excluded for what I’ve done here, well, shit, I can live with that. But I wouldn’t have been very happy with myself if I had’ve seen the rest of this shitshow and kept my mouth closed. We have to make our own choices.
What books you buy and your reasons for doing so are, of course, completely up to you. But you should probably get back to work if you wish to have the money to buy anything.
Jay
April 13, 2012 at 10:38 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thanks for the response Ryan. I was actually just being kind of snarky at that point (really I just thought the other/me thing was too funny in the context of a conversation about identity and prejudice among writers) and I could/should be taken to the woodshed for equating ACM and Africa like they’re the same thing at all (definitely a sexist/racist/prejudiced equation, but it made for an easy rhetorical jab), not to mention the rest of the context that 100% differentiates between the two issues, but it popped into my head and there it is, a passing thought memorialized and published forever thanks to my beloved interwebs.
The booksales point was really ’cause I very much dislike the notion that Bakker shouldn’t try to write a feminist dystopian blah blah because he has no real life reference to base it on, especially in the context of sci-fi fantasy writers where none of you have any reference points for anything (I’m assuming none of you know elves or understand how a warp drive works).
I agree direct intervention has such a long history of failure that we’re all better off allowing for self-determination and agency (although I’m not 100% convinced there’s an a priori argument that intervention must be bad, only that we, white western society, suck at it). Attempts at criticism and analysis are different and Bakker can be blamed for being totally shit at it or you can say it’s a veil for just being a racist sexist dickbag (I wouldn’t know either way), but I have no problem with a white guy trying to write something equivalent to the handmaid’s tale. It’s a fair point among authors (but IMO much harder for a critic to make fairly) that he’s taking on a needless challenge and could tackle other issues with a lighter degree of difficulty, but that doesn’t mean he can’t or shouldn’t try because there’s a risk of failure, just don’t whine when people don’t agree that you’ve pulled it off.
Also, if his audience is predominantly white males, then he may be able to communicate those ideas to his audience because of his shared experience with them where other texts may be too alien to get a message across. That idea is fraught with other problems that need pages and citations to sort out so I don’t mean it as evidence of much of anything.
What is plain silly is blaming the reader for misinterpretation of texts. The goddamn author’s been dead for at least 50 years and Derrida’s come and gone. If a text is read as misogynist, then the author communicated misogyny. If that wasn’t the author’s intention, then he/she failed as a writer not the other way ’round, and only in the context of their own perspective (you can’t fail at communicating, the message gets sent either way).
And my guess is, based on the covers I often see at the bookstore, there’s a much larger market for sexist sci-fi or fantasy than there is for a dystopian feminist tome in the first place, so by many people’s standards it likely didn’t fail at all (assuming it is what it’s been accused of, ’cause I haven’t read it), just being called that in public might not be so great.
Anonymous
January 14, 2013 at 10:17 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
A steady diet of hate can have a ironic consequence. You become what you hate.
links of interest because I don’t read fast enough to review :( « Requires Only That You Hate
February 28, 2012 at 10:00 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
[...] but not least, Ryan Oakley speaks up about the Watts/Bakker brouhaha. Having prejudice is entirely human. So is attempting to do [...]