The Right Geek's Birthday Stream!

This was a free-form stream with a couple of my YouTube bros. And yes, I'm pretty sure the tags below don't quite cover everything we discussed.

Video: Shocking News - People Like Good Characters

This video is excellent -- and not just because the Critical Drinker recognizes Tony Stark is amazingly well-written. ;) He's basically right about every character he discusses.

Briefs

A Clarification

In my last full post, I expressed some anger that regular joes are getting short shrift in our popular fiction. Thanks to an ensuing Facebook conversation, it has come to my attention that such a polemic could easily be misinterpreted as leftist-style special pleading. Be assured that this is not the case.

Fiction is not a zero-sum game. That's actually what the SJB identitarians get so horrifically wrong in their various representation crusades. Depicting queer lives or black lives or Asian lives or whatever does not actually require that "straight, white cis-men" "get out of the way." Thanks to Amazon and the indie scene in general, literally anyone can write a story about literally anything and sell it on the open market. The only catch is that this requires work. First, you must sit your butt down in front of a screen and actually start typing something. Then you must put in the effort to connect with your likely audience and persuade them to part with their beer money -- which, generally speaking, demands you skip the hectoring lectures and actually craft three-dimensional characters and strong, sensible plots that speak to universal human concerns. Tough, I know, but everyone faces that same standard, and I think that's what true fairness entails.

So no: I'm not a Marxist, and I'm not asking for affirmative action for yet another so-called victim class. Read that last post as a general cri du coeur against any ideology that seeks the erasure of the American average from modern American books and from modern American screens. Yes, there are stories that can still be told about the derisively-termed "Podunk USA" and its working-class citizens, and I hope that other writers will agree and subsequently get down to business.

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That Being Said...

I think it's a mistake to outright deny that we have class issues here in the US -- or to poo-poo any of the subsequent resentments. There's a lot of solid scholarship out there that shows the growing reproductive, geographic, and cultural isolation of the managerial class, and this phenomenon is having a deleterious impact on our national solidarity. It's not good that the people who are, for the moment, in charge of our mainstream media, our universities, and our bureaucracies all seem to come from the same incestuous milieu. It's not good that, as a consequence, the working class is hardly ever portrayed positively - or even accurately - by the same.

Mike Rowe has it right: If you see a guy on TV with a working class job, the probability approaches one that he will be unattractive and/or flashing butt-crack. And that has knock-on effects down the line. Suddenly, we can't fill perfectly decent jobs because welders are just not our kind, dear. Suddenly, kids are taking on student loan debt to pursue credentials they may not even need.

Am I upset that this is happening? Yes. Do I understand and sympathize with the grumbling about "those out-of-touch elites and globalists"? Actually, I'm guilty of such grumbling myself. Does this mean I hate rich people? Not at all. I'm not bothered by the relative material wealth of the managerial class; I'm bothered by their blindness to the legitimate concerns of the folks they seek to rule.

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Speaking of Which...

We can add Manchester to the long list of reasons why I don't trust the ruling class in the West. Once again, these fools failed to protect their constituents and are now trotting out the same tired, patronizing rhetoric in response:

"Don't let this change us!" But you see, you are letting it change us; our Western societies used to be bastions of free speech, but now we're increasingly being told to stuff our feelings and keep our mouths shut because Muslims might get offended.

"#NotAll!" Yes, we know that. We also know that those who are terrorists make up a minority that is far from insignificant, and that many more hold beliefs that are antithetical to Western liberalism -- which makes circumspection on immigration from the Muslim world a wholly reasonable course of action.

"Combat hate with love!" Are you twelve? That's not how it worked when Hitler was gassing the Jews or the Japanese were perpetrating equally atrocious crimes in China. ISIS and other Islamic terror outfits have essentially declared war on us; the proper way to respond is to declare war right back. Pacifism has never, ever worked against totalitarian ideologies; retribution has.

Sigh. I don't know what it's going to take to get these numbskulls to accept the truth. But I hope it happens before a dirty bomb goes off in one of our cities.

Whither the Everyman?

Just the other day, Russell Newquist made an observation that actually hits me where I live:

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend over the last four decades or so (and perhaps longer). The iconic heroes of my childhood were all ordinary men. Luke Skywalker, John McClain, Rocky Balboa, Indiana Jones, etc. At least, in their original incarnations.

Consider Luke Skywalker from A New Hope (and, for a moment, pretend that none of the other films exist). He’s a nobody farmer on a backwards planet. His parents aren’t amazing to speak of, and certainly aren’t shown as royalty. He’s the son of a knight, nothing more. Even so, it proves to be a huge step up from his own life. Yet he goes on to rescue the girl, defeat the bad guy, and save the rebellion.

Next consider Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Again, pretend that the other films don’t exist. He’s an ordinary, everyday American. His parents? Not even mentioned. He earns his position himself, through hard work.

John McClain? A New York cop, an ordinary guy. Rocky Balboa? Another nobody. Every single hero Heinlein ever wrote? Still ordinary, self-made men.

Now, consider the transformations even some of these same characters have undergone over the decades.

Luke Skywalker? It turns out he’s the scion of the greatest royal family in the galaxy.

Indiana Jones? His big-name archaeologist dad set the stage.

...

The trend isn’t universal, but it trends distinctly in favor of aristocrats and away from self-made, ordinary men.

I have a few quibbles with Russell's characterization of Tony Stark, who I think became Ironman through hard work and smarts and not by virtue of his massive inheritance (at least if you look at the MCU), but yes: There has definitely been a drift away from the sort of storytelling that uplifts the Everyman.

The reason this hits me is that Everyman characters are among my favorites in SFF. Consider, for example, Vir Cotto on Babylon 5. I'm actually famous in certain circles for my obsession with Vir; in fact, I get recognized at conventions if I happen to mention my old screen name precisely because, for a while there, Vir was all I could write or talk about. The thing I adored about Vir was that, at the beginning, there was absolutely nothing special about him -- unless you consider being supremely awkward and perpetually terrified a talent. Instead, he had to grow into heroism. He wasn't born the Centauri de Sousa Mendes who would one day be emperor; he became that man in the school of hard knocks.  He became that man by looking at Londo's awful decisions and choosing to go a different way.

Consider too The Lord of the Rings. There are aristocrats in Tolkien's work (just as there were on Babylon 5), but for me, the emotional core of the story can be found in the experiences and choices of the thoroughly ordinary hobbits.

Overall, I think you have a better story if you start with average joes who become heroic through effort and evolution. So why are such characters on the decline in popular culture? I think, first of all, that this trend is a symptom of our cultural elites' profound confusion on just what makes a hero. Look at how they lauded the rich and famous Bruce/Caitlin Jenner for being "brave" when he came out as trans (and by the way, I'm not using "she" here because I'm not sure Jenner's sincere). These decadent aristos are so wrapped up in their "identities" that they've forgotten that heroes have to do things to make the world better. Simply being gay is not heroic. Simply being trans is not heroic. Simply being black is not heroic -- unless, like Ben Carson, you came from legitimate poverty and boot-strapped your way to a medical degree and a career saving lives. But identity politics emphasizes what people are rather than what they do as a matter of course; is it any wonder, then, that its practitioners can no longer conceive of a character who's defined by his actions rather than by accidents of his birth?

I also believe - and have noted many times before - that our cultural elites are now almost completely divorced from ordinary people. They don't hang out with beat cops, factory workers, or farmers; indeed, they look down on common folk as fat, uneducated, tasteless slobs who - horror of horrors - have the audacity to vote against their "betters" and their peacock proposals. Therefore, they simply have no ability or desire to write these Everymen into their fiction as heroes. Besides, if we're talking about the US, "average" usually means cis, straight, and white* -- and as every good aristo knows, those folks should just suck it up and step aside for the revolutionary vanguard.  After all, the members of the new proletariat need to see characters that look exactly like them in every story that's written or filmed  -- because human universals and cross-cultural empathy are no longer things that exist.

On the whole, I think our cultural elites simply don't believe that regular working stiffs could ever really be heroes. To them, heroism requires breeding, education, the right political views, and - if possible - some sort of victim cred. The John McClanes of the world, on the other hand, are seen as gross -- byproducts of a patriarchal, racist, and less enlightened age.

And thus the collapse of our civilization proceeds apace.


*Which is not to say you can't write nonwhite, non-straight Everymen. That absolutely can be done -- but probably not by our elites, who've climbed into bed with minority radicals in their own class and don't really have contact with the rest.

#SpaceOperaWeek: Steph Weighs In

Over the past week, many geek bloggers have been sharing their thoughts on what makes a successful space opera, and I do feel the obligation to chime in -- especially since, as I mentioned in my apology post on Wednesday, I am a total space opera girl. Whether it comes to us on film or in print, I just eat that stuff up.

Definitions are murky when it comes to literary genres, but when I think of space opera, I think of several key features:

• Interstellar travel via faster-than-light drives or wormholes.
• Far-future technology that is semi-magical (but will sometimes be explained by minimally-plausible handwavium).
• Multiple space-faring civilizations with divergent worldviews that interact with each other through trade, diplomacy, and military conflict. 
• An arc of galactic history - either explicit or implied - that covers centuries -- if not eons.

So what, exactly, appeals to me in this genre? When I pick up a space opera, what are some of the things I look for?

Well, first of all, I'm going to echo others and say that a successful space opera absolutely needs to have that sensawunda. The galaxy in a space opera should be chock-a-block with mysterious ruins, fearsome "old ones," and natural dangers that will lead our protagonists down surprising roads of discovery and exploration. Or, to put it another way, a space opera should inspire humility. As a reader, I want to walk away feeling like I don't know everything -- like there are things in the universe undreamt of in my philosophy that I should approach with circumspection and even awe.

Secondly, I like high stakes. I want the characters in a space opera to fight for things that really matter. Existential "fate of the quadrant/galaxy" threats work very well for this criterion (and happen to be awesome) -- but freedom, love, and truth are also excellent motivators. Whatever you choose for the lodestone, it has to be something that will force the principals to become better people in its pursuit.

Third, I like characters with agency. They should be animated by the belief that their actions can make a difference in the universe -- even in the face of the wondrous, the frightening, and the seemingly unknowable. They should want to make things better and should seek to understand whatever they encounter. They don't always have to succeed, mind you; tragedy does have its place here -- but nihilism and passivity don't.

And there are some smaller things I like as well. For example, I have to admit that I enjoy political intrigue and/or philosophical rumination. This does not mean I appreciate a space opera's getting bogged down in today's fad-of-the-moment. It does, however, mean that a space opera shouldn't avoid the big questions; after all, where are the aforementioned high stakes if we aren't exploring the purpose of existence, say, or the nature of good and evil? Indeed, space opera provides a fantastic context in which to meditate on these issues at a far remove from our present-day concerns.

Also, while I don't think aliens are a necessity, I do gravitate to them quite a bit -- especially when it is clear that an author has thought them through and consequently has struck the perfect balance between stretching the reader's imagination and preserving readability.  

Do I think realism is dumb when it comes to space opera? Well, it depends on what you mean by "realism." If by "realism" you mean a close resemblance to our own mundane lives, then yes, "realism" is dumb as hell. But I think internal sensibility and psychological verisimilitude are a must. For a space opera to work, we must be able to comprehend its rules and, even more importantly, relate to the choices made by the characters. Ultimately, the story a space opera tells should, like the myths of old, map onto the habits and yearnings of the human mind; this is genuine realism, and it leaves plenty of room for Barsoom and all the rest. 

Blast from the Past: More Adults Should Read Children's Books

This post, originally written in December of 2010, still holds generally true -- though in the years since, many enterprising authors of adult fiction have been trying to buck the trends described below.

I read a lot of history and my fair share of adult science fiction and fantasy. I also frequently visit the “Current Events” shelf, and I love Catholic writers such as Scott Hahn or the late Fulton J. Sheen. But let’s be honest: I am also an adult who reads children’s books — and I personally think other adults should do the same.

A while back, sci-fi author Brad Torgersen complained in an excellent blog post that science fiction has lost its sense of adventure in its eagerness to be ideologically correct. I would like to expand that insightful lament and state that adult literature in general has gone down that same path.

It’s all a part of a wider trend in the arts. Just as the power to shock and repel is prized in the visual arts, “serious” authors desperately seek to be outré and thereby win the praises of our supposed cultural elites. The result of this mad dash for accolades is paradoxical: these authors try so hard to cut a flash, but they end up turning out mere variations on the same dreary theme. I can’t recall off the top of my head who it was who first observed that sin is, in reality, terribly boring and uniform, but I can’t think of a better proof of such a statement than what currently passes for adult literature, in which irredeemable characters stumble their way through their irredeemable universes.

I’m generalizing, of course, but what I’ve found in a lot of adult literature, science fiction or no, are worlds that are not only devoid of adventure but also lacking in hope. This is not true of the children’s books I read. Even a very dark YA outing like The Hunger Games usually manages to end on at least a vaguely positive – though bittersweet – note.

In children’s literature, I have found the realistically flawed though redeemable characters, the sense of wonder, the hope that good will ultimately prevail in its battle against evil — everything that, for the past few decades, has been sadly missing in critically acclaimed adult literature. When I call to mind the works of fiction that have inspired me, children’s titles dominate the list. The Chronicles of Narnia. The Wingfeather Saga. The Tripods Trilogy. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. If you are looking for profound explorations of the human condition, you will find them in these works — and you will do so without having to wade through a sea of melancholic dreck.

Of course, it is not true that C.S. Lewis only wrote children’s books. But if Governor Palin or any other politician should one day admit that he or she gets enjoyment out of reading children’s literature, that will only make me want to vote for that politician all the more. To me, an unapologetic love of children’s works signals a glorious lack of self-consciousness and, more importantly, a personal questing after decency and virtue that can only bode well for our republic.

Blast from the Past: On Star Trek's Prime Directive

In 2006, I participated in a lively panel debate on the merits and flaws of Star Trek's Prime Directive. Below is an essay based on the outline I drew up for that event.

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Starfleet General Order 1 - the Prime Directive - has gone through something of an evolution since Trek's inception in the 1960's. Originally, its purpose was to protect pre-warp civilizations from the meddling of their technologically advanced galactic neighbors; over time, it has come to include regulations against intervening in the affairs of warp capable societies as well. But however it is defined, it is an indisputable fact that this "most important law" of non-interference has provided the skeleton upon which many Trek episodes have been built; in fact, it can be argued that the Prime Directive is one of the cornerstones of the entire Trek philosophical edifice. Thus, it behooves us to critically examine its premises and effects. Is the Prime Directive good policy - or is it an easy way out?

As several episodes demonstrate, the consequences of accidental or deliberate interference with an alien society can be quite serious. Take, for example, John Gill. In the 1968 episode Patterns of Force, Gill, a well-meaning historian and cultural observer, finds the pre-warp Ekosians in a state of anarchy and decides to help their development along by introducing them to the statist efficiency of Nazi Germany. Gill, of course, tries to keep the Ekosians from drifting into Nazi sadism as well, but he is soon deposed by an ambitious local who has no such scruples. In the end, only the intervention of the Enterprise crew prevents the Ekosians from launching a war against neighboring Zeon. A case like this reveals that, whatever its flaws, the Prime Directive does contain within it a core of wisdom. We do need to be circumspect in our interference; indeed, sometimes it is best not to interfere at all.

But should the Prime Directive be treated as an absolute mandate? This is where I (and my co-author, for that matter) part ways with many Trek fans, as, quite frankly, I believe some applications of the Prime Directive just don't pass the common sense - indeed, the common decency - test.

First of all, it is pure folly to behave as if the Federation high ideal of non-interference is universally respected. In reality, other galactic powers don't recognize the authority of the Prime Directive and do interfere with other cultures without compunction. In the 1968 episode A Private Little War, Kirk and the others are dismayed to discover that the Klingon Empire has been arming one of two rival tribes with flintlock firearms. In the trilogy that opens DS9's second season, meanwhile, the Cardassians are caught covertly smuggling arms to a radical faction on Bajor in an attempt to instigate a civil war and make possible a new Cardassian occupation. In both instances, the cost of hardline Federation non-interference would've been unacceptably high. In the former case, an entire tribe of people would've been massacred; in the latter, the Bajorans would've once again found themselves toiling under the Cardassian jackboot. Thank goodness both Kirk and Sisko had the good sense to bend the rules. Ultimately, it all comes down to game theory: if we don't do something to stop the malefactors, we and a lot of innocent people are going to get kicked in the teeth.

Secondly, absolute application of the Prime Directive often has as its premise an untenable moral relativism. The citizens of the Federation are humane and liberal in the small-L sense, but the Prime Directive often forces them into the incongruous position of defending practices and beliefs that they should rightly abhor. It is horrifying to me, for example, that Timicin is returned to his planet at the conclusion of TNG's Half a Life even though his people believe he should die by ritual suicide for the crime of being too old - and that Lwaxana acquiesces to this turn of events! Cross-cultural dialogue is all well and good; by no means do I advocate running roughshod over foreign societies in a zeal to force our own values on others. But eventually, we have to be willing to draw some Lines That Must Not Be Crossed; we have to be willing to declare some human rights inviolable and be willing to defend them. Truth is truth on every planet.

And this discussion of universal human rights brings me to my last point: sometimes the Prime Directive has been wielded as an argument against intervening when a world faces an entirely natural cataclysm. In TNG's Pen Pals, for instance, we must endure this inhuman scene in which the characters debate over whether they should use their technology to halt the break-up of Drema IV and rescue little Sarjenka and her people. Why this matter should be so controversial entirely escapes my understanding. People have a right to life, full stop. If someone's house is burning down, you run and you help them. Standing back and acting as if the fire is somehow preordained by the laws of "natural development" is insane. Also insane is doing nothing while a disease wipes out an entire population because inaction will theoretically enable the ascendancy of a rival race - but this is precisely what Dr. Phlox urges Archer to do in ENT's Dear Doctor.

Humans are not meant to be Social Darwinists. It is natural – in fact, it’s a moral imperative – to help those who are in genuine need. Mother Theresa is revered for a reason; she and aid organizations like the Peace Corps and the Red Cross represent our best instincts. When sentient life is in danger, humanity should win out over "evolution." Moreover, Federation citizens should be allowed to live and act according to a code that respects freedom. They should not be forced to tolerate exploitation, political oppression, or slavery when it is present in other cultures. To apply the Prime Directive as an absolute vitiates our humanity and demonstrates a profound lack of trust in a Federation citizen’s ability to tackle difficult moral and political questions. The complex societies of the Milky Way – and the complex interactions between those societies – demand that we avoid forcing our policies to conform to a one-stop-shop ideology.

What is needed is a commission charged with making interference decisions on a case-by-case basis. This government body would better reflect the on-starship reality of the Prime Directive’s application – a reality in which starship captains frequently decide to violate the Prime Directive in large part because it has come into conflict with one or more of their basic values. Furthermore, when the Prime Directive Council makes a decision in favor of interference, it should also assume complete responsibility for any negative consequences. This is where thinking, moral human beings are meant to live – smack dab in the center of the storm of cause and effect. Retreating to the Prime Directive in all cases is retreating from reason and adulthood.

Guest Post: What Makes Good Science Fiction, by Declan Finn

I don't share Declan's antipathy vis-à-vis Star Trek, but his insistence on world building and good characters is certainly on point.

Good science fiction requires two things: good world building, and good characters.

Obviously, all writing requires good characters, but in the world of SF, the world and the characters are interlinked. The world created by the writer is going to shape the characters as much as anything else.

Let's look at why the original Star Trek worked, shall we? While the Federation wasn't as well
developed as it would become, most of the places the Enterprise visited had fairly simply ideas behind it, but you could see how that worked. Even if it included Roman Imperial Nazis, or a world run on the model of the gangs of Chicago. They took simple ideas, made a world around them, and tossed in their semi-iconic characters, who are all perfectly likable, into the mix.

Then you go into Babylon 5. It had a deep world in the background, and that's evidence from the
various and sundry guide books for role playing games. It it depth, it had science that obeyed the actual laws of physics. It had politics – and none of this Utopian, one-world BS of the Federation. Star Trek was one big happy fleet, while B5 had opposing views and opinions, and hate groups and civil war, without the aliens fresh from Mordor. Even at Star Trek's deepest, they had, what, three episodes of DS9? The Maquis? Who, on Voyager, were assimilated by the Federation after one episode and half a season? Even the Klingons, at their worst, had a bought of internal strife that lasted for ... an episode? Three? B5 had a year and a half, if not three (depending on how you count it).

The best science fiction has a whole range of culture and society, as well as spiffy technology. I believe it was Sarah Hoyt who pointed out to me that SF has two core tenets: either it's hard SF, or cultural SF (much of which is owned by SJWs). But what happens when you have someone like John Ringo or David Weber, or a Babylon 5, who cover science, history, technology, culture, economies, and how things get done not only from a technology aspect, but also a governmental aspect? Star Trek really never had a history behind it until later, and none that was ever really felt during the show, and made up as they went along, and we won't even go into whether or not they don't need money (as Troi once told Mark Twain) or if they operated on a system of small gold bars (DS9)

Heck, when I wrote Codename: Winterborn, I went through a lot of trouble trying to apply all of these lessons. A lot of it was so easy, I'm surprised more people don't do it more often.

When my co-author, Allan, first mentioned his world to me, before I even signed on, he had a simple
premise: the world had been nuked on 4-1-2090, with San Francisco cut off by miles of wasteland from the “real world.” From there, a lot of it was easy. I just asked questions. And what he didn't know, I reasoned.

What's the economy? For San Francisco, locally, it's a barter system. However, since the larger corporations still have connections to the outside world, money is still good. Why would corporations be in San Francisco? Because there are now no limits on off-coast drilling. Duh!

What's the history? Allan wanted Israel to take over the Middle East in the 2060s. From there, I created the Bethlehem Catholic Church ... because Rome was nuked when everyone started breaking out their own atomic toys. And since the Franciscans were long ago given places of worship to run in the Holy Land (this goes back to Saint Francis), Bethlehem sounded like a great place to move. Yup, the Catholic Church. We're like roaches. We WILL survive being nuked. You can't stop us, you can't kill us. We'll always come back in three days. MUAHAHAHAHAAHA....

Anyway...

Also, when I did the math on anti-ballistic missile systems (which are already up and running, by the by), I figured that Allan's United States would only be partially nuked. But that would certainly take a good chunk out of congress.

The nuclear war led Allan to create San Francisco, but I figured “So, there's a real world out there, right? And the real world has satellites, right? Well then, that means the rest of the world knows. World governments know, if nothing else. This makes San Francisco a great place for dropping off the inconvenient of their population. Why kill them when you can just be rid of them?” This created Exiles. When I suggested making a spy to be dumped there, Allan said “I'll call him Mister Anderson, like The Matrix.” He became Kevin Anderson.

But what horrible, horrible sin could Kevin commit to send him to a little backwater hell? Something to do with a mission. Do I know any places that'll be the enemy in 2093, since the Middle East will be run by an ally?

Oh, wait! I know where all the remaining Islamofascists will be! Europe! Let's make it France! (Whose birthrate in 2003 was less than half that of the fringe elements who tended towards radical Islam, meaning that by 2050, France might just be the Islamic Republic of France). You can see how the progression goes from there. After a while, and after enough time, the world writes itself. But in order to get there, a writer has to bring something to the table. A worldview, a knowledge of how the world works (either theirs or the real world), and it proceeds from there.

Good science fiction has depth, of both world and of character. The world building can be cultural, technological, or both, but there's got to be something there that warrants it being a tale of science fiction. But most of all, the characters must carry it. If it doesn't, then the writing just sucks. I'm not going to read books about technology. I never even read the Star Trek technical manual.

Guest Post: GamerGate, by Declan Finn

The other day, we discussed SJWs, Social Justice Warriors, and why they're various and sundry types of lying pond scum. Mostly because they are. And while I would like to seek revenge for all the harm they've done to normal people, we don't have to resort to any such tactics, because, well, they're going to do it to themselves in the long run.

Also discussed the other day was one Anita Sarkissian, lying sociopath. She's part of the larger whole that is GamerGate? It started with one Madam Zoe Quinn, a female video game developer in a world that generally lacks female developers.  During her declared monogamous relationship with her boyfriend Quinn, she cheated on him.

Do we care? Not one whit. So why does it matter? Because Quinn, this bastion of womanhood, this secular saint among women … slept with her married boss, as well as video game reviewers. What was that I heard about feminism? Is this thing on?

So yeah, it's not about Quinn. It's about how video games – and mostly gamer journalism – is corrupt. Sleeping with reviewers? Journalistic ethics? Anyone?

Quinn and her company released a minor game that hasn't gotten many reviews.

However, the SJWs protect their own. What happens when the story doesn't serve the ends of an SJW? If you answered “Change the story,” you can pat yourself on the back.

How is this possible, you ask? Because gaming journalists have been using a mailing list to coordinate on how to shape the news on the Quinn scandal – making it less about the corruption in their industry, and all about the gamer. Their customer.

Yup. I note that the “jerks” here are the gamers. Not the ones who gave good reviews in exchange for “favors.” Not Quinn’s married employer. Not even Quinn.  Quinn is a delicate flower who must be protected, not a sociopathic liar and manipulator.

It gets better. Here are some other choice quotes from the gaming industry:

• Gamers are “socially awkward weirdos who dress like garbage”. (Devin Faraci, Badassdigest)
• “These obtuse s***slingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers — they are not my audience.” (Leigh Alexander, Gamasutra)
• Regarding the scandal, gamers represented the side who “folded its arms, slumped its shoulders while pouting like an obstinate child”. (Chris Plante, Editor-at-Large, Polygon)

Yup. Zoe Quinn is a good little SJW. “All” of the critics were single white male losers (and we can ignore all of those who are plainly not white or male).  Let’s also ignore that Quinn has actively gone after other women who want to get into the gaming industry.  Quinn might find it difficult to be special if she was one of dozens.

The story is misogyny. That's it. And if you disagree, make sure you're behind bulletproof glass.

Enter standard censorship.  Anyone with an opinion was no longer allowed to have one on comment threads. Gamers couldn’t even comment on the silence from news outlets. Forget gaming journalists, now gamers were told to sit down and shut up.

This is an unholy mess, and the gaming journalists conspiring to manipulate the media coverage of GamerGate to distract from their own corruption? That’s just icing on the cake.  It’s hard to imagine any other industry that would deliberately twist the story to paint their own consumers as the villains.

No matter what anyone says, GamerGate is about media corruption, and the lengths journalists will go to in order to cover their asses.  The gamer media have declared war on the casual gamer, the serious gamer, and anyone who isn’t out and out “One of Us,” on the their side of the spectrum.

But just remember, they're SJWs, and they care.

Yes. Caring kills.

Guest Post: The Social Justice Warrior, by Declan Finn

Do not change your channel. We are in control. We control the justification. We control the font...

Anyway, now that that's out of the way, I should introduce myself. I am Declan Finn, author of the novel Codename: Winterborn, and a few other books that are in the wrong genre. Stephanie will return eventually, after she chews through the restraints in the closet (don't worry, I left air holes). So, what shall we talk about today?

Well, let's perform a study of an SJW, a Social Justice Warrior. A rare, but vicious breed, the SJW knows all, sees all, and is quite happy to tell you what's wrong with you, what you like, what you think, and all of your bad habits. The Corps is mother, the Corps is father … oh, wait, never mind.

It's why a bunch of Staten Island cops piled onto a New Yorker for selling loose cigarettes: Cigarettes are bad for you, after all. Didn't you know that? Don't worry, the SJW knew all about it, and they're happy to set you straight. If they happen to kill you along the way, well, omelets, eggs, you know how that works.

That's a real-life example of an SJW, you ask? Let's take someone we in the video game industry all know well – one Anita Sarkeesian. If you've not heard of this creature from the black lagoon, she's the one who insists that video games demean women, are cruel, vicious, and just plain mean about it. If you happen to disagree with her, you're a misogynist. If you're a woman and disagree with her, you're a brainwashed woman who needs to be reeducated by Anita. Don't worry, I hear they'll have camps for that sort of reeducation soon enough.

What's that? I'm being harsh with Anita? Well, she and her ilk have accused gamers like me of putting threats on her life. Nevermind that the FBI have dismissed these threats after a thorough investigation, she's quite happy to say her life is under threat. After all, if people want to kill her, that means she's right. See how that works?

A particularly fun bit of business is when Sarkeesian labels particular video games as sexist. Usually, in order to do this, she cherry picks at will. Like ….

A Metal Gear Solid game, where the hero saves himself!

… Except that the same video game has a heroine fighting her way past guards, while the guy fakes being ill.

Or how about Hitman: Absolution, where there's a strip club! With strippers! That you murder!

… Except that to even run into said strippers is to use one of three routes through said club. And the game penalizes you for being seen by them, or harming them.

Then there's Watch Dogs, where the game shows you topless women!

… Except that it's a sex slave ring that our hero is going to break up. And why should the game soften the horrors of this sort of thing?

But Anita is an SJW! She knows what's best for you. She cares. She says the right things to the right people, and she's a secular saint. Understand? If you know what's good for you, you'll smile, nod, or the SJWs will care for you until you can't breathe.

The nice thing about the SJW is that they don't breed very often. Well, they breed quite a bit, actually, but thankfully, they never spawn. They an an endangered species, and the only way they can germinate their beliefs is to inject it into other people. Unless something radically changes, Anita Sarkeesian will never spawn, because motherhood is demeaning, don't you know? It oppresses women. The SJWs tell us so.

Thankfully, normal people like us – graded for values of normal – don't have to go to any extreme to fight off this menace. They are a self-defeating group whose very ideas spell their doom.

Stephanie speaks from the closet: If only I could be so optimistic. The problem with these SJWs is that they still have most of the organs of culture on their side. Anita learned her mendacious feminist analysis from professors in our universities, and she's backed whole-heartedly by our media. Until we retake those leftist strongholds, there's always a chance our children will be led to the dark side (which, unfortunately, does not have cookies -- or fun either).

Another (Delayed) Monday Commentary: Reclaiming "Literary"

In my circles, the word "literary" is often thrown around as a pejorative -- and given the developments of the last century, it's really no wonder. Literary fiction, you see, has become tightly associated with a certain background and cast of mind that many of my associates do not share. It is now rooted in the humanities departments of academe, where Marxist dialectic reigns triumphant and cultural pessimism rules the day. When it is not overly obsessed with style and method - when, in other words, it has genuine substance - it is quotidian and parochial in its attitudes and sentiments. It is usually penned by graduates of literature, "studies", or fine arts programs and is judged by the same; consequently, it exists not to speak to the general public but to stroke the egos of the elite.

But this was not always so.

Consider William Shakespeare. On those occasions when a Western literary canon is acknowledged to exist (which is not always, mind), Shakespeare floats to the top of the list. Many still deem his plays masterworks for the ways in which they capture both the flaws and the virtues of our human nature. Was all of this writing bound up in literary magazines to be consumed by the Few? No! These plays were presented at the Globe in front of audiences that included everyone from the Queen to the illiterate commoner. And while Shakespeare definitely had some identifiable political and religious opinions, these thoughts did not completely dominate what he wrote. This, in fact, is what has allowed his plays to endure in the centuries since.

I would like to take back the term "literary" from the arrogant poseurs who've stolen and sullied it. "Literary" to me should involve grappling with the universals. It should reveal who we are in all of our glorious messiness. And no -- this does not mean focusing on everything that's awful and base in the world, as that is no more a true representation of humanity than is pat optimism. A genuinely "literary" fiction would show the courage as well as the cowardice, the virtue as well as the sin, and the love as well as the mindless hate. It wouldn't absorb itself with the fads and fashions of our narrowly-educated clerisy but would instead seek to reach the minds of all men.

And literary science fiction? Again, many on my side of the Social Justice Wars chafe at the very idea that science fiction should seek such a label, but if we take care to properly define our terms, no dichotomy need exist between the sense of wonder that was once the defining feature of our genre and the exploration of the human psyche that makes a story "literary." We could live in a both/and universe in which a science fiction that "comments upon society and civilization at a safe remove" is also a science fiction that is enjoyable to read.  We could live in a both/and universe in which a science fiction that is entertaining is also a science fiction that "makes us better people." Hasn't this been done before? Don't you feel that the stories you've read have actually shaped your worldview and led, in a subtle fashion, to your own improvement? I know I do!

So we shouldn't completely set aside the didactic function of Story simply because certain social justice warriors are abusing it. We should, instead, outperform them at their own game.

In Lieu of the Monday Commentary: A Tuesday Link

I'm still running a little behind on my blogging duties, so while you wait, I recommend you read the following thought-provoking essay:

Death by Bebop

"H. Smiggy McStudge" may be talking about modern art, jazz, and literary fiction, but the tendencies he describes - for example, the refusal to actually engage the common man - are also emerging in the sci-fi/fantasy fandom as certain folks scramble to prove their highbrow bona fides. This passage in particular seems especially relevant to our interests:

We encouraged painters to become more and more interested in the weave of the canvas, the weight of the brush-strokes, the plasticity of the paint; less and less interested in what the painting was about. The ideal picture was not a window on reality, but a sculpture a quarter of an inch thick; and for the most part, I am happy to report, the new art was as shallow as its medium. Painters stopped talking to their audience through imagery; now they only talked to one another about texture and impasto. We killed that art in a generation, and despite valiant efforts to revive it, it has remained safely in the grave. You can tell this is so, because whenever a painter dares to produce a vivid representation of a real or imagined scene, all the critics hiss and sneer and call him an illustrator: the worst insult in their vocabulary. The fear of ostracism (and of losing grants and gallery space) keeps the artists in their place; and their place is as far away from the viewing public as we can put them. 

Beginning about 1940, we played the same trick on the jazz musicians, with great success; it took us just twenty years to kill jazz, as a creative medium accessible to the people, stone dead. The game was the same: make the artist so interested in technique that he forgets all about his audience. 

And so far, such a game has been diabolically effective wherever it's been played.

Monday Commentary: The Contempt of the Elites

Readers: Have you heard of The Future Library?

The Future Library project, conceived by the award-winning young Scottish artist Katie Paterson, began, quietly, this summer, with the planting of a forest of 1,000 trees in Nordmarka, just outside Oslo. It will slowly unfold over the next century. Every year until 2114, one writer will be invited to contribute a new text to the collection, and in 2114, the trees will be cut down to provide the paper for the texts to be printed – and, finally, read.

Granted, time capsules are cool. I have a dim recollection of burying one in elementary school. The thing is, my class selected mementos - like popular toys, favorite books, and newspaper clippings - that were currently meaningful to kids in the 1980's in coastal Connecticut. We didn't try to divorce the capsule completely from our present because the whole point was to show the future who we really were in our particular time and place. So what are we to make of a "library" for which authors will write only for an audience not yet born? What is its purpose -- its genesis?

When this article first appeared on Facebook a few weeks ago, many Huns remarked that such a project would offer no real motivation to write something that was actually good -- and this is true. If your intended audience does not, at the moment, exist, you can project whatever you want onto that audience whether it jives with human nature or not. You can, for example, imagine that these future readers - unlike readers in the barbarian present - will have put aside all religious sentiment and accepted the inevitability of atheism. You can also imagine that said future readers will have abandoned their national ties and embraced one-world governance. The possibilities are basically endless.

And it was here in the thought process that I had my epiphany: The Future Library is, in fact, the apotheosis of recent trends in the literary world.

As many folks have observed, those authors who yearn for the approbation of the cultural elite don't seem to care all that much about connecting with real-life, flesh-and-blood potential readers. First of all, the fiction they produce is calculated to repulse, not to inspire or engender sympathy. They create unlikable characters who move through pointless universes because to do otherwise is to be "simple-minded." They dwell on everything that is ugly and base and deviant because to do otherwise is to fail to write something "profound." When it comes to science fiction and fantasy in particular, they also indiscriminately attack common tropes, declaring them stupid and derivative without recognizing why they exist and why they persist. And overall, they have little respect for the common man's reason for reading, which is to escape the tortures of the ordinary.

Secondly, these status-seeking authors perversely resist anything that broadens access to books and to reading. Back at mid-century, when the paperback book finally put the classics into the hands of longshoremen and construction workers and touched off a miniature cultural renaissance among America's middle and working classes, the elites sneered. And today? Those self-same elites are raging over Amazon's dominance. I don't mean to suggest, of course, that Amazon should be nominated for sainthood. But when writers wax eloquent about the terrible loss of our book stores and the "book store culture" and complain about the "commodification" of their "art" by large internet retailers, that signals to me that they live in very privileged zip codes and have no concept of what it's like to live in, say, rural Appalachia, where the nearest book store may be an hour away.

The common emotion - the overarching theme - that links the above tendencies together is contempt. At bottom, these authors seem to hate the regular people who make up their present-day core reading audience. Those folks, you see, are just too damned hidebound by their traditions and their genre-related expectations, which are uniformly racist, sexist, and every other "-ist" you can name. So why not abandon today's readers entirely and seek out the audience one can invent out of whole cloth in one's own mind?

So yes: It isn't likely that the books written for the Future Library will be appealing to the average reader -- but that is precisely the point.  These authors don't want to attract the average reader. They are writing for themselves and for their like-minded compatriots. And as many have observed, this self-focused approach to creativity actually destroys literature from the inside.

Monday Commentary, Take Two

I had hoped that the intent of my last post would be obvious - especially given my track record as a reviewer and fan commentator - but as soon as I posted the link on Facebook, argument erupted again. In the interest of addressing certain misunderstandings that cropped up over the course of that thread, here is a quick list of things I'm pretty sure I did not say:

• John Ringo should stop doing what he's doing. On the contrary, as evidenced by the extremely positive review I just gave the Black Tide Rising series, I want Ringo to continue writing in the military SF genre for many years to come; the style clearly suits his personality and he is very, very good at it.
• John Ringo is writing women wrong. When I remarked that Ringo tends to write "men with tits," I was not using that descriptor in a pejorative sense. In fact, I was using it the way Ringo himself has used it in panel discussions on writing "strong female characters." As he's noted in the past, when women are working with men in dangerous, high-stress environments, they instinctively damp down their feminine qualities so as not to distract their male colleagues. They become - and again, these are Ringo's own words - "guys with tits" because to do otherwise is to risk getting themselves killed. And this, actually, was the core argument of my previous post: Ringo is not writing women wrong because he's writing a very particular type of woman who fits into a very specific context.
• Ringo's women are "average." There's one especially annoying poster who keeps citing examples that "prove" that women are weaker than men (and that, by extension, Ringo's female characters are ridiculous concessions to feminist dogma). Well, duh. We all know that women-in-the-aggregate are weaker than men-in-the-aggregate and that a woman who hits the 99th percentile for women in strength and fitness would probably still be beat by a man in the 99th percentile for men. We also know that women-in-the-aggregate are less likely than men-in-the-aggregate to opt for a career in killing people and breaking things -- or to opt for a career that involves physical danger of any kind. That's why, as conservatives, we tend not to worry about "gender parity" in the professions: We recognize that there are inborn differences between the sexes and that these differences will impact job choices later in life. But authors don't write about aggregates. They write about individuals -- and as many folks have been trying to get through the aforementioned gentleman's thick skull, the individual women who play dominant roles in a Ringo-type story are not going to reflect the inclinations and skills of women-in-the-aggregate because if they did, they really would look ludicrous. The characters have to fit the setting -- and if you're talking about a Ringo book, the setting is NOT average. (And if it's this poster's intent to claim that no women should appear in a military-SF setting, then he's wrong. While they are unusual, women who fit Ringo's "type" do exist.)
• More average women should be shoe-horned into military SF.  In my peroration, I wrote that we should "come up with story ideas and settings that demand skill sets of our female characters that go beyond the physical." That phrasing was chosen very carefully and for a specific reason: I did not want to suggest that authors should artificially squeeze more "feminine" women into a story where they don't belong. Again, the characters have to fit the setting -- which means to get a broader snapshot of the female experience, we will need to come up with a broader range of story ideas. We've been joking around on Facebook about writing stories of SF housewives programming lunchboxes (because a bunch of us saw that and immediately thought, "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED"), but in all seriousness: Technological change will impact the hearth and home in profound ways, and there's no reason why we shouldn't explore those realities. Said stories are likely to be quieter and more reflective, but that doesn't necessarily mean they won't be interesting.
• People should be forced to write and/or read things I'd like to see. I'm not an SJW, guys. If military SF and action/adventure is your wheelhouse and you have no interest in writing/reading anything else, fair enough: You can ignore my suggestion secure in the knowledge that I won't judge you a bad-dog-dirty-male for liking what you like. (Hell, I like a lot of that stuff myself!)  My post was addressed more to those conservative authors and readers who are looking for something a little different (and notice I said different, not "better" or "superior") and are, perhaps, interested in challenging the badass/victim dichotomy (not that there's anything wrong with the badass end of that scale).   

Okay: After all of those qualifications and extensions, is my position now perfectly clear? If not, feel free to ask me follow-up questions in the comments.

Monday Commentary: Right-Leaning Science Fiction and the Men with Tits Phenomenon

While I was away at Dragon Con, an argument erupted on Facebook that I would like to address -- and since I've just reviewed John Ringo's zombie plague novels, now is as good a time as any.

The argument in question began in a private conservative/libertarian author's group with a post that complained that John Ringo writes women badly. In creating female characters who are overtly sexual and kick a lot of ass, the poster asserted, Ringo is merely bowing down to feminist ideology, consequently betraying his conservative principles.

Now: Does Ringo write "men with tits"? Well, yes. To cite just one example, Faith - from the previously reviewed Black Tide Rising series - is an Amazon who outright enjoys getting into "scrums" with the infected. But having heard Ringo discuss his work in multiple venues over the past several years, I'm confident that his female characters are determined by the settings he chooses and not by political considerations; indeed, Ringo has gotten into at least one notorious fight with the feminists, so the very idea that he's been slavishly catering to that mindset seems rather ludicrous.

Here's what is happening: Ringo and many other right-leaning science fiction authors hail from modern-day military backgrounds and tend to cluster in the military-SF sub-genre, where the emphasis is placed on the characters' experiences in combat. Thus, their stories usually require principal characters, regardless of their gender, to fall on the skinny end of the bell curve when it comes to personality and physical strength. After all, only a certain kind of person would realistically take up a line of work that, let's face it, involves killing people and breaking things.

The upshot? Yes -- the portrayal of women in a lot of conservative science fiction is skewed, but the distortion is an accident -- a side-effect of these authors' inclination to explore military themes and a consequence of their own real-world experiences. Ringo and the others are writing the women they know: women who are "masculinized" and therefore fit into our current military subculture. They are not attempting to represent all women.

I do think, though, that as conservative writers, we can - and should - do a better job creating strong female characters who don't fall into either the "kick-ass" template favored by a lot of military-SF or the "victim" template favored by bathetic feminist SF. As I've noted elsewhere, world history is replete with promising models, so it's not as if we're lacking in potential sources of inspiration. Further, because we are conservative, we have an advantage the other side does not: We see people as individuals and not as interchangeable members of stereotypically-defined collectives who must all behave the same way and embrace the same causes. Therefore, it should not be difficult for us to write women from multiple walks of life who feel three-dimensional and wholly real.

In sum: Let's cast our net a little wider and come up with story ideas and settings that demand skill sets of our female characters that go beyond the physical. As conservatives, we are uniquely suited to rise to that challenge.

Link of Interest: Warning Signs of LSE (Literary Status Envy)

Eric S. Raymond has written some interesting reflections on the current state of science fiction, and while I don't agree with him on every particular, his most recent post is freakishly reminiscent of my own complaints in re: recent short lists for the Hugo Awards. Behold! Here are just a few of the key warning signs of "literary status envy", a terrible affliction that has turned much of today's science fiction into unpalatable grey goo:

1. Evinces desire to be considered “serious artist”.
2. Idea content is absent or limited to politicized social criticism.
3. Heroism does not occur except as anti-heroic mockery.
4. All major characters are psychologically damaged.
5. Wordage devoted to any character’s interior monologues exceeds wordage in same character’s dialog.
6. Repeated character torture, especially of the self-destructive variety.
7. Inability to write an unambiguously happy ending. In advanced cases, the ability to write any ending at all may be lost...

Etc. There are seven more signs at the link, and all of them are pretty damned accurate. I do wonder, though, whether we should change the name of this master list to "Warning Signs of Post-Modern Literary Status Envy." Granted, I'm no expert -- but I could swear literary fiction used to have heroes and plots and happy endings once upon a time. My high school English career - spent largely in honors and AP-level courses - was not an unending sea of pointless torment. If I recall correctly, mush didn't really enter the picture until we hit the twentieth century and literary movements that emphasized form over substance. Am I wrong?

Edited to Add: And by the way, if you're looking for ways to combat LSE, Cedar Sanderson has a very good "anti" list over at her blog.

Fantastic Fiction: An Organizational Chart

I need a little more time to finish Dave Freer's book, so in the meantime, enjoy my first attempts at organizing the science fiction and fantasy genres in a handy-dandy chart:

At the top of the chart is the title: "Fantastic Fiction". Below, I have defined "fantastic fiction" as any story "in which the fictional world differs from ours in a radical and comprehensive way." That means you can't just throw in one talking animal and call the story fantasy -- unless it is suggested that talking animals are normal for your verse.

On the next level down, I have roughly defined the "Science Fiction" and "Fantasy" categories. In my conception, "Science Fiction" is the appropriate label for any fantastic story in which some attempt - however flawed - is made to rationally explain the other-worldly elements. These explanations, of course, exist on a sliding scale from "hard" (scientifically accurate) to "soft" (requires suspension of disbelief), but the explanation is still present or heavily implied. "Fantasy," on the other hand, is the appropriate label for any story that emphasizes "magic" or the irrational.

On the third level, we have our sub-categories. Beneath "Science Fiction," we have:

• Alternate History: Change one historical event and follow through on the consequences.
• Time Travel
• Future Projection: 1) Impact of new tech on society; 2) impact of sociological trends.
• Military: 1) Boot camp experiences; 2) hierarchy; 3) battle tech.
• Space-Based: Characters are either not on Earth or they leave Earth at some point. 

Beneath "Fantasy," meanwhile, we have:

• Epic Fantasy: 1) Quest; 2) clash of empires; 3) Lord of the Rings (as the exemplar)
• Superheroes
• Contemporary, or "Urban," Fantasy: 1) Set in present day (usually); 2) monsters; 3) borrows from the horror genre 

Of course, many works exist in the overlap between different categories, so in the above diagram, I have also started accounting for those. For instance, I have drawn a join between "Space-Based Science Fiction" and "Epic Fantasy" for "Space Opera" -- and I have stuck the Honorverse in the join between "Military Science Fiction" and "Space-Based Science Fiction." And if I were to try to classify, say, Larry Correia's Grimnoir series? I'd probably have to draw a big loop to join "Alternate History" with "Urban Fantasy." Whee!

So what do you guys think? Do you have your own mental flow-chart? Does it look anything like mine? Feel free to discuss your thoughts in the comments below!

When Fandom Is Ugly

Let me first make this very clear: I love fandom. When you're Odd, going to a con is a relief. Finally, you can use the word "grok" in a sentence without people giving you the side-eye. Finally, you can wear a Bajoran earring without people questioning your fashion sense. In the ordinary work-a-day world, I don't have many folks with whom I can gab about this year's Hugo nominations (which I will be discussing next week before the ballot deadline); at a con, however, I can hang with My People and feel secure that my passion for, say, Babylon 5 or Larry Niven won't be seen as peculiar.

But fandom can be ugly -- and before people start accusing me of "body shaming," I'm not talking about aesthetics. I'm talking about certain prevailing attitudes that detract from my enjoyment of fandom, either because they personally make me feel disrespected and unwelcome or because they just make me feel skeevy even though I'm not actually the target.

First of all, we have the science worship and the consequent ridicule of religious belief. In the July 21st issue of National Review (which is unfortunately behind a pay wall, but if you like, you can follow this link and drop a quarter for the relevant article), Charles C. W. Cooke notes that many media personalities in our supposed elite class have glommed onto "Science!" as a way to differentiate themselves from the proles. Well, I have seen that very same trend seep into fannish spaces, where folks who have no formal scientific training whatsoever nevertheless latch onto pop science as an excuse to mock people they don't like. What follows, of course, are smug obeisances to the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" and "his noodle-y appendages" -- or a string of memes that endlessly flog the depravities of the Westboro Baptist Church. 

Granted, the WBC is an easy and deserving target; those protesters are so far off the Christian plantation that they wouldn't be able to see orthodoxy even if they used a high-powered telescope. And that's why using the WBC as the exemplar of Christendom is so insulting. Quick thought experiment: What do you think would happen in the fandom if someone started holding up Boko Haram as an exemplar of Islam? Are you kidding? We all know exactly what would transpire: The offending individual would be run out of town on a metaphorical rail, and the fannish blogosphere would subsequently spend weeks discussing the rich history of Islam and how equating Islam with the radicalism of Boko Haram made Muslims in the fandom feel "unsafe." 

Well, guess what? When the fandom starts talking about Christianity as if all it is is prudery and gay hatred, I, as a practicing Catholic Christian, feel "unsafe." Why don't my feelings matter? Why is fandom so scrupulously careful to differentiate between moderate Islam and its radical off-shoots -- and yet so eager to lump us Christians together under the same "fundamentalist" banner? Why is it beyond the pale to "hit" a Muslim fan -- and yet a-okay to "hit" me?  Because Christianity happens to be America's majority faith? Treating a group differently because they are a minority is wrong -- but treating a group differently because they are the majority is just as wrong. As I've argued in previous posts, genuine justice demands that all people be subject to the same code of conduct and accorded the same respect. I know that some folks in the Church have attacked fandom and fannish pursuits (like, for example, the Christians who insist that Harry Potter encourages interest in the occult), and this I deeply regret. The wrong-headedness of a few of my Christian brothers and sisters does not, however, justify your abusive (and ignorant) straw-man characterizations of my faith. Revenge may make you feel better, but to call it "social justice" is a blatant misuse of the English language.

The other thing that bothers me about the fandom is the ease with which fans point to their subjective tastes and educational backgrounds as signs of their overall superiority. Like most fans, I prefer Firefly to American Idol -- but that fact does not make me better than my mother, whose tastes run in the opposite direction. Like most fans, I would rather stay home and watch Star Trek than go to a football game -- but that fact does not make me better than the guy who paints his chest orange and roots for Clemson. It is true that, as a group, we fans are unusually well-credentialed (and I use that descriptor because a college degree and an education are not necessarily synonymous), but even that demographic reality does not magically impart upon us special wisdom, moral perfection, or the divine right to lord our supposed "smarts" over others. 

And yet, on a particular Dragon Con social media page I occasionally visit, it is apparently considered axiomatic that the college football fans who share our convention hotels over the Labor Day weekend are all stupid brutes who would like nothing more than to grope the pretty con attendees who visit the lobby bars wearing barely legal fairy costumes. To be sure, inappropriate contact probably has happened at said bars; what else would you expect in an environment in which people are consuming literal buckets of liquor?  But the assumption that drunk sports fans are somehow more prone to harass girls than are drunk science fiction fans has no actual basis in reality. What it is, instead, is an expression of lingering adolescent resentments. Because quite a few of us were bullied by popular jocks in high school, we have constructed this defensive view of the world in which we fans are wonderful and blameless and mundanes are very much the opposite. But things are not that simple. Indeed - and people are probably going to jump on me for saying this - there are times when sci-fi fans invite their harassment either by ignoring basic standards of personal hygiene (people have started dressing as "Febreze fairies" at Dragon Con for a reason) or, more importantly, by treating non-fans with open contempt. If you don't want your head to be dunked in a toilet - either literally or metaphorically - it might be a good idea not to talk to that Clemson football enthusiast like he's an idiot. Which is not to say that toilet-dunking is somehow justified by the victim's being an asshole -- but all the same, even people with, perhaps, a lower IQ than yours can detect condescension, and even though the bullying itself isn't valid, the feeling of degradation behind it is.

In sum, while I am happy to be a part of fandom, it may be time for some of us to use our powers of critical thought to challenge our own conduct and root out unbecoming behavioral tics that make us look like arrogant bastards. Such self-examination can only make fandom a more pleasant and inviting place.

Why I Love Amazon: A Consumer's Take

Many folks in the fandom, I hear, have been dumping on Amazon lately for a whole host of perceived evils -- and to a certain extent, I understand the fear. As my mother remarked just last week, "Amazon does everything." That's not 100% true, of course; as far as I know, for example, Amazon has not yet gone the Netflix route and started offering "Amazon original" television content.  [Edit, 7/26: Actually, a respondent below informs me that Amazon is developing original television content. You learn something new every day!] When it comes to writing, however, Amazon is both a publisher in its own right and a major distributor, and its vertical integration and resultant influence have bankrupted booksellers and eaten into other publishers' profits. But, per Frederic Bastiat, I would like to invite you to consider That Which Is Unseen: the positive impact Amazon has had on its consumers.

In a number of ways, Amazon has made my life a lot more pleasant:

• First of all, it's easy to access. Both my mother and I love shopping, but we also have chronic medical conditions which make trawling through brick-and-mortar stores especially onerous, so the opportunity Amazon provides to stay home and shop is a great boon. Do other people who are sick and/or disabled feel the same way? I suspect so.
• Second, it offers more. I love an out-of-the-way used bookstore as much as the next person. Indeed, the last time I was in New York City, I visited a few just to explore. But because Amazon has assembled a huge associated network of outside sellers, its selection is simply better. If I pop into the local C&W, the chances are pretty slim that I will find, say, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Carson of Venus; just now, however, I typed "carson of venus" in the Amazon search box and found twenty-seven listings. That's amazing -- and convenient.
• Third, while Amazon doesn't always have the lowest available price, its prices are usually reasonable. It's a little like Wal-Mart in that way. Now, people crap on Wal-Mart too - and sometimes for good reason - but the fact remains that most of us can't pay the premiums attached to boutique goods that make our social betters feel good about themselves, and without Amazon and Wal-Mart, we would not be living quite as comfortably as we are now (in absolute terms).
• Fourth - and probably most important - Amazon has radically democratized the sci-fi/fantasy genre, thus giving voice to writers who would not be heard otherwise. Yes -- Sturgeon's Law applies. But I love being wholly free to decide on my own what I would like to read without prissy elites butting in and controlling what's made available. And personally, I find it ironic that the same people who are so concerned about making fandom a "safe" and "welcoming" space are also the ones most likely to denigrate what is probably the most promising platform for promoting diversity currently in existence. Folks: Because of Amazon, there are no more gatekeepers. True -- if you go indie and publish on Amazon, you and you alone have to do the hard work of finding your likely audience and promoting your book. But if you really want more stories that "explode the gender binary," there is literally no one who'll stop you from writing them yourself. Amazon has created wild and perfect liberty.

So before you start talking about "regulating the behemoth," please take the time to see things from the customer's point of view. We are willing to give Amazon our cash not because we are mindless sheeple but because Amazon offers concrete benefits that we feel are worth the expense.

A Brain Dump on "Diversity" in SF/F - Part II

Two weeks ago, I published some reflections on diversity in SF/F -- in particular, how hard-left fans get it disastrously wrong. Today, I'd like to attempt to answer the question posed in the final lines of that post:

But how do we promote diversity while also avoiding Marxist sand traps?

First of all, it's critical to properly define diversity. As I suggested at the link above, you can assemble a "rainbow coalition" of authors and fans that still utterly fails to be diverse; all you need to do is create an environment that exclusively caters to folks who hail from America's new clerisy while driving away everyone else. Genuine diversity should - indeed, absolutely must - center on diversity of experience and diversity of thought. Yes -- ethnicity, gender, and sexuality do shape these things, but if you stop there, you've missed an entire universe of other relevant factors. I would venture to say, for example, that in a room full of middle class American academics, a black author who is also a middle class academic will add less in the way of diversity than will a white author from Eastern Kentucky who enlisted in the military instead of going to college and is entirely self-taught. And if those middle class American academics are practical atheists, a gay academic who's also a practical atheist will add less in the way of diversity than will an Orthodox Jew or a practicing evangelical Christian.

Which is not to say that I oppose encouraging black or gay writers, or that I think black or gay writers add nothing to our genre. I believe the fandom should welcome all comers -- and so, I'm convinced, does everyone else who's taken the "conservative" position on this issue. In the end, though, the supposed benefits of ethnic and sexual diversity will only accrue if people are allowed to speak openly when conflicts inevitably arise. And that brings me to my second point: If you want to have true diversity, a vibrant interchange of ideas, and the possibility of positive change in our own community and in society as a whole, you must hold the line on freedom of expression. The illib-progs subscribe to this bizarre idea that if they police what people say and how they say it, they will usher in a new era of racial and sexual harmony -- but in reality, forcing everyone to stuff his or her true opinions and adopt the mannerisms and speech patterns of the aforementioned clerisy on threat of shunning doesn't change minds or hearts. Instead, it hardens old hatreds and resentments.

Growth and change will only arise through conversation. Yes -- that conversation will not always make us feel "safe" and comfy-cozy. We evolved to see "outsiders" as possible threats to our lives, and so we all feel that rush of anger and adrenaline when we encounter people whose worldviews fundamentally contradict our own. But the instincts of our lizard brain shouldn't be afforded instant legitimacy just because they are so powerful and so disturbing. Because we are sapient, we have the capacity to stop, think, and discern the difference between something truly threatening and something emotionally upsetting -- and we should exercise that capacity to its fullest.  Naughty words? A breach of etiquette, but not a threat. A verbal challenge to your ideology, your lifestyle, or your faith? Not a threat. Actions have the potential to be threatening, but notwithstanding the bloviations of Hillary Clinton, opinions can not and do not "terrorize."

And as any family therapist or marriage counselor will tell you, a conversation can only be productive if no one is told to shut up, the participants all abide by the same rules, and everyone argues in good faith. You can't allow people in certain protected classes to act like assholes without consequences and then, as in the latest Twitter-based slap-fight, turn around and attack Larry Correia for calling another author a "pussy." It's funny, actually: In SJW circles, mistreating someone and then scolding them for getting angry is considered to be a form of emotional abuse. Well, how is Larry's situation any different? He has been unjustly libeled as a misogynist, a racist, and a homophobe by people who don't even bother to provide evidence for their assertions despite repeated pleas to do so, and yet these same people attack Larry for responding heatedly like practically any other human being on the planet who's been wronged! If a group of white authors started uttering vicious, racist calumnies against a black author and then subsequently derided that author for punching back, we (rightfully) would never hear the end of it. So why, in Larry's case, has tone policing suddenly become okay? Oh, right -- because social justice warriors aren't actually interested in "justice" or "fairness," but in procuring special status for those whom they perceive to be "victims." They want to exact revenge -- to push people around without fear that the targets of their rage will fight back. It's toxic nonsense, and we shouldn't stand for it.

Thirdly, if we want to have true diversity, we have to go upstream. What do I mean by this? Well, consider the following scenario: One day, as a group of people are walking near a river, someone spots a small child struggling desperately to stay afloat in the river's swift current. The adults band together, create a "lifechain," and wade out into the river to scoop up the boy before he drowns. All seems well -- until the next morning, when, astonishingly, the same group finds another child - this time, a little girl - flailing in the river and gasping for breath. As the days pass, more and more children are dumped into the river, and the rescuers start to lose hope as the demand exceeds their abilities -- until, that is, a man among their number stands up and says, "This is bullshit! I'm going upstream to find the bastards responsible for this so I can kick their asses and stop them from trying to drown little kids!" The moral: We need to be that man. If there are certain groups who are under-represented in the fandom - and I think there are - we need to think hard about the reasons for that disparity and tackle them at the source.

And no -- the source is not that publishers are racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. Are you kidding? Publishers are desperate to take on authors with minority viewpoints. It's also not that the fandom itself is brimming with racists, sexists and homophobes. This is 2014, not 1960. There are a few awful folks hanging around in our spaces (as the recent revelations regarding Marion Zimmer Bradley have revealed), but in a group as large as ours, that's pretty much an inevitability. There are also quite a few more who (correctly) bristle at PC diktats, but in the universe of the sane, that's what is known as a "reasonable difference of opinion" -- which, by the way, has included zero calls to block any minority's entry into the fandom despite the illib-progs' fever dreams to the contrary. We all want authors from under-served groups to feel they belong here; it's just that many of us would rather not sacrifice intellectual honesty and constructive discussion in furtherance of that goal.

Inequities in the fandom, I suspect, stem from inequities in the way we rear and educate our children. Writers are not born; they are bred. My parents tell me that I've always had an imagination and a natural talent for writing, but that talent would've wholly languished were it not for my "word-rich" childhood. In order to write, I had to read first to see how it could be done effectively -- and my parents were educated enough to encourage the habit. What's more, I had to attend strong schools at which I could learn the conventions of my native language and be exposed to literature that was not available in my father's personal library -- and here too, my parents' eternal vigilance ensured that I largely got exactly what I needed.  Unfortunately, not all children are offered these same opportunities -- and that is where the true problem lies.  If you want more minority authors in the fandom, take the long view: Catch good prospects when they're children and make damned sure they are not shortchanged by the lousy curricula and disciplinary chaos that disproportionately impact their communities via the dysfunctional urban public schools. Band together and create after-school tutoring clubs to build proficiency in reading and writing. Start writing groups for inner city kids. Drive around in a truck and pass out books to kids in culturally impoverished neighborhoods. Build literacy and cultural capital wherever they are absent or tragically insufficient.

In sum: Go from the ground up, and the impact will be lasting.