From Last Year: Politics in Comics

(4/17 Note: Resurrecting this post because folks are still writing politicized trash.)

I'm sure you've heard this one a million times before: "Comics have always been political. Don't you remember that time Captain America punched Hitler in the face?"

The latest purveyor of this canard is Kurt Busiek, who took to Twitter this week to lecture #Comicsgaters for our supposed failure to understand this fact. But bruh -- as much as I loved your 1998 runs on Iron Man and the Avengers, you're revealing your ignorance about our true position.

No one is actually saying comics should be completely apolitical. First of all, that's impossible. We can't help but inject our worldviews into our creative work. Secondly, that would be boring. The reason why we human beings get exercised over politics is that we're fighting over things that actually matter. And stories? Yes, they need to talk about things that matter -- which means, at times, they need to address politics.

But there are good ways and bad ways to incorporate politics into comics -- and here's where we get to the meat of what #Comicgaters are really saying. When we bitch about Current Year comics being "too political," we are are complaining about the following:

• an excessive reliance on political themes.
• a lack of subtlety in addressing those themes.
• a boring uniformity of perspective.
• the warping of established characters to serve political ends.

Let's discuss each of these in turn.

An excessive reliance on political themes.

Comics in earlier eras sometimes got political. But most of the time, our heroes battled archetypes -- such as the lowlife thug or the megalomaniac with ambitions to dominate the world. Tony Stark, Light of My Life - just to pick one example - was most often pitted against organized crime, unscrupulous business competitors, and - oh, yes - a dude wielding ten alien rings. And that's when he wasn't battling his own psychological maladies! Indeed, the very best Iron Man comic in history, in my view, is one in which the only villain is Tony's own alcoholism.

Today, however, creators seem hell bent on injecting their political views into everything. As I observe in a video I uploaded to YouTube yesterday (which will be linked here in this Sunday's post), this very tendency is what ruins last week's Rescue 2020. What could've been a fascinating reflection on the feasibility of scientific resurrection is disrupted by annoying, off-topic feminist twaddle. And this is not an isolated case. This kind of storytelling failure can now be found everywhere.

A lack of subtlety in addressing political themes.

Sometimes, earlier comics would be on the nose -- particularly during wartime when the demand for patriotic propaganda was high. But be honest: are those the comics that truly endured? Or are they just looked upon as amusing historical curiosities -- or as convenient examples to deploy when you want to justify your own bad writing?

No: comics that last universalize. The X-Men absolutely were an allegory for the marginalized. But that's the point: they were an allegory. They allowed writers in earlier eras to tackle themes of prejudice and discrimination from a timeless distance. The upside to this approach? Those comics don't have an expiration date. They're always accessible.

Writers these days, on the other hand, seem to have no patience for subterfuge. Instead, they slap you right across the face with their so-called "resistance." Thus, their comics are both dated and extremely parochial. Like the Hitler-punching comics of World War II, they will not be endlessly re-read.

A boring uniformity of perspective.

Yes: the comics industry has always had a leftward lean. But in earlier eras, there was still an observable diversity of thought among writers and artists. Steve Ditko, the Objectivist, was allowed a place at the table. And more recently, so was Chuck Dixon.

In Current Year, meanwhile, the left is doing everything it can to purge the comics industry of even vaguely contrary voices. Hell: regardless of your own views, if you even so much as talk to a known dissenter, you're now a prime target for cancellation. See also: Blake Northcott, who's being stalked right now by a bitchy comic book Karen who imagines herself to be a legitimate political commissar. The result of campaigns like this? A monoculture. If you work at one or more of the major publishers, you can only be out and proud if you're an adherent of the D.I.E. religion and agree that Orange Man Bad.

And the more strict and picayune the enforcement of the aforementioned monoculture becomes, the more radical - and more predictable - the books become. When political topics are addressed, they're almost always addressed in the exact same way -- to the point that we all make jokes now about the ubiquity of the straight, white male villain; the female character who wuvs da science; or the butch, black lesbian.

For Christ's sake, do something else.

The warping of established characters to serve political ends.

It's fair to say that the comics of earlier eras, for the most part, expressed a broadly liberal worldview. But what did that mean exactly?

Well, for one thing, it meant that Captain America went on record defending free speech for bigots:

Click to embiggen.

It also meant a rejection of retaliatory, supremacist attitudes, as we see here with Machine Man:

The comics of earlier eras were generally pro-Civil Rights, pro-worker, and skeptical of war. Tony Stark - to once again dip into the lore I know the most about - eventually left the weapons business for more idealistic pursuits, was very generous with his employees, and always demanded ethical conduct from his corporate board. But to suggest that you can draw a straight line from this sort of classical progressivism to today's radicals is to pull a fast one. No: SJW writers have more in common with an Iron Man villain like Firebrand - the guy who wanted to start riots and tear down the system - than with the legacy heroes.

And because a bunch of Firebrands are now in charge of the comics sold in the direct market, said legacy heroes? They're being absolutely butchered. The most recent simulacrum of Tony Stark is dead now (sorry about that spoiler), but before his demise, he was leading a terrorist movement. Steve Rogers has been deconstructed and consequently robbed of his agency. She Hulk has apparently become a violent feminist vigilante. The X-Men are now segregationist mutant supremacists. Need I go on?

TL;DR: There's no continuity between early canon and the present. On the contrary, there's been a fundamental rupture.

Conclusion:

To be sure, none of the above commentary is meant to suggest that there are no readable comics coming out of the mainstream industry. There are -- but they're getting increasingly harder to find amongst all the dreck. And yes: we contend this is because comics have become "too political" in all the ways described in this post.

If you're going to argue against this charge, at least take the time to accurately comprehend what we mean.

Blast from the Past: Why I Support the Human Wave

Originally written in 2012.

"All the science fiction authors I like are either dead or dying."

Sub.Spike, our father, said this to me the other day, and I don't think he's the only fan who's in danger of dropping out the moment Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven finally leave this mortal coil. As the cold, hard numbers reveal, "literary" science fiction has been hemorrhaging readers for years. Why? In large part because, to quote the folks who've bumped into Brad Torgersen at various literary cons, "Everything written since (insert year here) has been annoying political crap!"

If you are moderate, libertarian, or conservative, perusing the science fiction/fantasy section of the bookstore these days is like navigating a minefield. While there are writers and publishers out there who don't go out of their way to insult what is in fact the American majority - and I will discuss those in a minute - I can't tell you the number of times I've been thrown completely out of a promising story by anti-Christian, anti-military or anti-conservative agitprop.

Which is not to say that there aren't conservative authors who lay their messages on a bit thick. There are -- but in my experience, those writers tend to be pretty upfront about their intentions. They don't have the political Tourette Syndrome that drives many leftist writers to bitch about "the theocrats on the Religious Right," "the patriarchy" or "the eeeeeeevil Republicans" in entirely unexpected - and inappropriate - contexts. A conservative author knows he's in the minority in the literary world, so his conservatism is painfully self-conscious. A leftist author, on the other hand, occupies a position of privilege -- and on that perch, it's very easy to assume that everyone thinks the same way you do.

The disaffection of "legacy" fans like our father, however, goes much deeper than mere politics. As Sarah Hoyt has noted in her recent posts, much science fiction today looks upon human nature with a decidedly cynical, pessimistic eye. There are two different strains in this school of thought - the transhumanists believe that we should use science and technology (and the force of the state) to drive the imperfections out of mankind, while the more ecologically-minded assert that technology has allowed humanity to become a blight upon the Earth and should be discarded - but the underlying belief is consistent in either case: People are stupid and irredeemably corrupt.

The problem with this perspective is that it doesn't reflect ordinary American attitudes. Most American readers, I think, believe that technology has been - and can continue to be - a boon to the human race, but they would also like that technology to be restrained by traditional ethical norms. Most Americans are also unreconstructed modern humanists (whether they are secular or religious). On the whole, they believe people are good -- not perfect, mind, but still capable of achieving greatness. Heroes still exist and there is still hope for the future -- that's the average American's worldview in a nutshell, and it's what he looks for in his fiction.

To my mind, the term "Human Waver" denotes a writer - or reader - who represents the afore-described proletariat. Human Wavers seek to bring back optimism, heroism, and simple declarative sentences -- but more importantly, they want science fiction to tell the truth about who we are. As Ms. Hoyt writes in a recent post, the point of the Human Wave is not to blithely ignore everything that is awful and ugly in the human experience. The point is to say, "Yes, we are fallen creatures, but don't despair! Redemption is not impossible." Balance is the gold standard because it is balance that mirrors our lived reality as human beings.

I am a Human Waver because of my upbringing. When I was at that magical age - twelve - Dad didn't hand me the science fiction that was published at the tail-end of the eighties. He handed me The Tripods Trilogy and Heinlein's juveniles. The books I read emphasized adventure, human striving, and/or fate-of-the-world storytelling, so that's what I learned to love. Then I discovered Star Trek. Despite its silly collectivism and fanciful utopian notions, Star Trek is still very much an embodiment of the Human Wave ideal -- especially DS9, which SABR Matt and I consider to be the greatest of all the Treks partially because it honestly portrays the darkness in human nature and yet still retains the franchise's essential optimism.

I am also a Human Waver because I'm a conservative Christian who's sick of being bopped on the nose by leftist science fiction writers who think they are smarter and more moral than I. But really, the ideological issues are secondary. The main reason I'm attracted to the Human Wave has to do with the style of storytelling the movement champions. I appreciate the promotion of genuine realism -- not the phony sort of realism that supposes all is horror, pain, iniquity, and really bad sex.

Finding literary science fiction that fits the Human Wave takes work, but I have not been completely unsuccessful. Most of the writers in the Baen stable are Human Wavers (whether they realize it or not). Even Eric Flint, Baen's token communist, pens fundamentally positive works. There's also Connie Willis; when Willis writes a story with a downer ending - like The Doomsday Book - you still walk away feeling good about the human race as a whole. And if you're looking for up-and-coming writers to support, may I suggest Brad Torgersen? Torgersen's short stories are absolutely what the Human Wave is going for, as they feature normal, flawed human beings struggling through difficult circumstances who discover that, yes, there is reason to hope for something better.

In sum: The Human Wave is relevant to my interests, and I wish to subscribe to its newsletter.

Years after the debut of this essay, Brad Torgersen published a Dragon-Award-winning novel. Find that novel here!

Blast from the Past: The Contempt of the Elites

Bringing back another snippet from 2014:

"[...] 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?

[...]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."

It's amazing how many things I wrote years ago are still fully germane today. 

Blast from the Past: Defining "Strong Female Characters"

From a still-relevant post originally written in 2013:

"If you want to write a truly strong female character, it is not enough to put a weapon in her hand and make her 'kick-ass' and clever. It's not enough, in other words, to make her pseudo-masculine. There's nothing wrong with making a female character physically strong, of course - such women do exist - but it is more important to create a female character who is intellectually, morally, and spiritually centered.

This is going to get personal for a moment, but -- when I try to define what makes a 'strong' female character in science fiction or elsewhere, my thoughts always turn to my own mother. Mom was one of the first women admitted to the Naval Academy, but she elected not to pursue a military career; instead, she chose to stay home to raise my co-blogger and me. She certainly isn't 'kick ass'; as a matter of fact, her physical health is touch-and-go at best and has been ever since my childhood. Her life's pursuits - sewing and care-taking - are as stereotypically 'feminine' as you can get. But - and this is critical - she is also a survivor. As a child and young woman, she was the victim of sexual abuse -- and ultimately, that has not destroyed her emotionally. There were rough patches - and an eating disorder - early on, granted, but she has been happily married to my father for 35 years and counting, has raised two Odd but reasonably well-adjusted children, and has forgiven her attacker. Based on my admittedly unscientific observations, this is astounding; others in her same situation have not done nearly as well.

Because the media - with only a few exceptions - have focused solely on physical strength and worldly ambition, they have left an enormous well of female experience completely untapped -- and that's a shame, because real women are more amazing than you can possibly imagine. You need only crack a history book - or a book on the saints - to discover that breathtaking reality. Consider the female Doctors of the Church. Consider Joan of Arc (who was way more awesome historically than she is typically portrayed). Consider Mother Teresa. None of these individuals really fit our popular culture's desiccated vision of what it means to be a 'strong' woman, but the impact they had on the world is incontrovertible.

If I might make a suggestion to any pop-media writers out there: Look beyond the 'strong woman' tropes that swirl around Hollywood and seek out some flesh-and-blood females to serve as your models. What's more, push past your coastal-urban prejudices and try to find women who don't necessarily live or think the same way you do. If you do these two simple things, what you produce can only improve."

BFTP: My FANifesto

Originally published in 2015 but still in effect.

At the request of Brad Torgersen, I hereby present my FANifesto:

I was born to be a fan. Indeed, I was born on the tenth anniversary of the moon landing. If that wasn't a significant omen, I don't know what is.

I entered this world the daughter of a table-top gamer and science fiction fan who used the money he earned at the Naval Academy to amass a trunk full of books. Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Niven, Pournelle -- he bought and read them all. And when I was old enough, he started giving those books to me.

I was carefully trained: trained to imagine what it'd be like to live on Mars or to farm on Ganymede; trained to be curious about the wild universe "out there" beyond our modest planet; trained to value human achievement and technological progress. And the training began early; when I was a mere toddler, Dad's choice for bedtime reading was Scientific American. He used to set me on his knee and coo that quarks were even smaller than the end of my nose.

And Mom? Mom's tastes ran more toward horror and the paranormal, but that certainly didn't mean she was mundane.

When we were young children, my brother and I created and acted out elaborate tales about a futuristic family who lived in a climate-controlled dome in Antarctica. Back then, we didn't know this was called science fiction, but we still knew it was fun.

Years passed; the grooming continued. Consequently, when I discovered Star Trek in 1993 after the premiere of DS9, I was ready to welcome it with open arms. And when Babylon 5 aired for the first time shortly thereafter, I embraced that series as well.

In high school, I started going to conventions -- and even spoke on a few panels. At a discussion covering "strong female characters" in Star Trek, I - an upstart kid who'd dressed as a Bajoran - broke with the prevailing opinion and declared that Captain Janeway didn't hold a candle to Major Kira. This is a memory that still amuses my father to this day.

In college, at my father's urging, I convinced one professor to let me write a term paper on the evolution of science fiction as seen through an analysis of Starship Troopers, The Forever War, and Ender's Game -- and got an A.

In my early adulthood, I picked up a few other fandoms, including Farscape, Stargate, and the new Battlestar Galactica. I also got involved with Dragon Con; Dragon Con 2015 will be my 12th -- and my 9th as a volunteer with the Science Fiction Literature programming track, for which I've spoken on topics ranging from the writings of C.S. Lewis to the worlds of Larry Niven. Through Dragon Con, I became acquainted with Baen, Tor, Ace, Pyr and a whole slew of micro-publishers and independents. I also learned to describe what I really wanted in a work of fantastic literature - inspiration - and came to dislike those within fandom who seek to turn fantasy and science fiction into instruments of social engineering -- and to exclude fen who commit Badthink and have Wrongfun.

Let me hereby declare that if you consume science fiction and/or fantasy on a regular basis, you are a fan and are welcome in my tent -- even if what you enjoy does not come stamped with an elite seal of approval. You don't have to attend conventions or pass any other tests to "prove" your fannish bona fides. I know some of you are shy or are in financial straits and would never assume you share the privileges - for example, an understanding boss - that I enjoy.

And let me also declare my firm belief that fandom is not a zero sum game -- that this little universe is big enough for all of us and that there is no need to pull anyone down so that others may be lifted up. We don't all have to agree. Lockstep agreement, in fact, is poisonous for any field of endeavor and is especially poisonous for fiction, which hinges on the ability to render characters who are complete and sensible human beings. In order to build a functioning and open-minded fandom, we must instead allow genuine conversations with predictable rules that apply to everyone equally. "Punching up" is merely a rationalization for hatred and vengeance; there should be no punching period. "Othering" is not arguing in good faith -- even if your target is the "white, straight cis male."

By all means, let us have Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations so long as diversity of thought is also respected and revered. There is literally nothing stopping us now; the guards have left the gates unlocked. What a shame it would be if we did not take advantage of the opportunity. What a shame it would be if we stayed in the prison yard, too occupied with purging the impure to realize we can all run free, the wind blowing through our hair. 

Dragon Con 2019, by the way, was my 15th -- and my 12th as a volunteer. I was at World Con in 2016, but otherwise, my Dragon Con attendance has been continuous since 2004. If you've never been, alas. It's totally worth the Con Crud.

BFTP: The Trouble with Grand Sociological Theories

Since delegates at a recent event for the Democratic Socialists of America were using what I recognized to be the language of radical disability activism, I think this rerun (originally published in 2016) is timely once again:

This is another post that will likely attract ire. However, my own personal experiences - and the experiences of loved ones, friends, and students - compel me to speak up and counter what I feel is a dangerously distorted "theory" of the world whose accuracies are marred by much that is partially or wholly false.

Which personal experiences are germane to this discussion? When I was in my early twenties, I developed a severe, systemic, and rapidly progressive form of rheumatoid arthritis. It started with swelling and pain in the first two fingers of my right hand. Within months, it had rendered both my hands barely functional claws. Only a year later, I walked like an eighty-year-old lady, as the disease had taken out my feet, ankles, and knees. Fortunately, it was at this point that I was finally diagnosed and prescribed my first medications, and as a result, my condition now can be best described as "stable." I have never experienced a full remission and have never recovered full functionality, but at least the condition has been substantially slowed and I can actually move.

I know I am better off than many; I'm still basically ambulatory, for one. But there are limits beyond which my body cannot go and many ordinary activities that my body simply cannot do -- which is why I have often chosen to rent a cart for large conventions and why I have trouble at subway stops that lack elevators. I do know, intimately, how tough it is to navigate, say, Dragon Con when you're wheelchair-bound. I do know, intimately, that many spots in older cities are essentially inaccessible if you have mobility issues. I remember, vividly, breaking down one night after discovering that a certain retro party my friend wanted to attend in lower Manhattan could only be reached by climbing three flights of very steep stairs.

I also have two immediate family members who are in far worse straits than I. My mother suffers from an as yet unidentified immune deficiency that has left her open to a number of nasty infections, including one that has damaged a lobe of one of her lungs, one that has damaged her hearing in one ear, and one that basically destroyed what was left of her right knee (which had already been disabled by arthritis and replaced). She also has severe degenerative disc disease, which means, like me, she deals with limited mobility and chronic pain. My brother, meanwhile, was born albino and consequently has a vision impairment that has left him unable to do many things that we sighted folks take completely for granted. 

Here's the thing: Matt's experiences and mine are different. I will never be able to see exactly what Matt sees with his eyes, and unless Matt also develops my disease (or something similar), he will never know precisely what it's like to walk around in my skin. But because we lived under the same roof for roughly twenty years and we care for each other profoundly, we both still understand, at least on some level, the challenges the other one faces. Over the course of our relationship, we've developed imaginations capacious enough to comprehend, imperfectly but still sincerely, not only the differences we find in each other but also the differences we find in others. This is what happens when love leads the way.

All of these experiences - in addition to others I have yet to share - helped to drive my deeply disturbed and even angry reaction when a self-described "disability activist" visited my blog and started pushing a very aggressive view of the relationship between disabled persons and the larger society that is influenced, according to his own description, by the "social model of disability."

Read more at the original post.

Blast from the Past: Reclaiming "Literary"

Originally published in 2014.

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.

Apologies, by the way, for re-running some of my greatest hits instead of posting brand new content. I'm going to be pretty busy until the 4th of July.

Blast from the Past: A Father's Day Reflection

Originally posted in 2016.

I've never had the patience or the time for today's brand of western feminism. The reasons for this are several; indeed, recent outrages have inspired me to resurrect and update an old multi-part essay I wrote several years ago on the follies of feminism's later incarnations. But to stuff all my thoughts into a tiny little nutshell: I'm not a collectivist, I'm leery of any movement that seeks to use government force to manipulate human society, and - to be even more blunt - I've simply got my priorities straight.

And you know what's even more important? You know what drives me to reject the covert and overt misandry of third-wave feminism more than anything else? I had - and have - a wonderful relationship with the first man I ever met.

Granted, I don't actually remember our initial meeting. All I have are photographs lovingly collected in two old books -- photographs captioned with the same neat hand that recorded the story of my birth. When I was in high school, I tried to imagine what that first day might've been like for this man that I loved, and I wrote a sappy poem about it -- a bit of doggerel that has since been lost (probably fortunately) to the mists of history.

The first man in my life read Scientific American articles to me when I was a wee little Steph. I don't actually remember that part either. I do remember his giving me other books to read on my own as my literacy blossomed and eventually outpaced what was being taught in school. Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke -- I know all of these names now because of him. This man - who let me steal books from his collection and allowed me to run lose in the East Lyme Public Library without a chaperone - made me an incurable, inveterate Reader with a capital R and a lifelong science fiction fan.

The first man in my life was a nuke; consequently, he was often temporarily absent from our lives. That didn't really matter to me though. When he was here, he made that time count. He openly and passionately loved the woman who bore me, teaching me through example what St. Paul means when he enjoins husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church. In fact, even today, this man treats my mother as if she personally hung the moon and would do anything to make her happy. Once, on a YouTube podcast, a commentator remarked half in jest that if it were announced that women everywhere prefer men to walk on their hands, acrobats and gymnasts would make a solid living as hand-walking instructors. When I think of the very first man I ever met, I know at once that this is both funny and 100% true.

With us kids, the first man in my life was a trickster who subtly undermined our lessons in manners by blowing straw wrappers in our faces in family restaurants, cracking jokes at seemingly inappropriate times, and giving us pointers on how to spit phlegm out the window of a moving car without getting back-splash. His antics would often mortify Mom, but when all was said and done, I think they also taught both Matt and me the importance of balance. Sometimes you have to be serious, and sometimes it's okay to just let your hair down and be silly. I can't be too sure, but I suspect my appreciation for weird tourist attractions and hilariously wrong doodads comes from this particular man's joie de vivre.

Today, the first man in my life is getting on in years, and a mild stroke has imposed upon him a new fragility. But in all the ways that matter, he is still the same man I fell in love with as a girl -- and I hope with all my heart that God does not welcome him home for many years yet.

Dad -- I love you, and I am both proud and grateful to be your daughter. The vision of manhood you embodied in your very being and actions seems to have inured me to one of the worst ideological mistakes of our age.

Today, Dad is in the hospital recovering from a shoulder replacement and is now more significantly disabled due to the second stroke he had in the fall of 2017, but the sentiments above remain true.

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.

*****

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.

Blast from the Past: Modern-Day Pharisees

Today, I over-extended myself in an attempt to clean my bathroom. While I rest my aching joints, please enjoy this five-year-old post whose theme, alas, is still fresh.

Modern-Day Pharisees

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector…” – Luke 18: 9-11

Last week, CNN anchor T.J. Holmes caught the attention of the blogosphere when, in honor of Earth Day, he publicly confessed that he drives a gas-guzzling Chevy Tahoe just because he can, drinks bottled water without recycling the bottles, and uses old-fashioned incandescent lightbulbs. “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!” he cried, beating his penitent chest. Okay, no — that last part didn’t actually happen. But the quasi-religious nature of Holmes’ statements prompted Ed Morrissey to snark:

Er … say five Rachel Carsons and sing three Bob Dylan songs, my fellow planetary traveler, and go thee out and sin no more.

Meanwhile, Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, is once again begging for higher taxes. He and his (also wealthy) allies, who call themselves the “Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength,” have even written up a petition asking the government to repeal the Bush tax cuts. How special.

What do these two gestures have in common? They are both textbook examples of the political theater put on by our modern-day Pharisees.

As noted in the verses from Luke that I quoted above (and as noted elsewhere in the New Testament), the Pharisees in Jesus’ day were the ultimate attention-whores. They ostentatiously displayed their righteousness by praying where everyone could see them, “sounding their trumpets” whenever they gave alms, and “disfiguring their faces” whenever they were fasting. On the other hand, Jesus counseled his followers to pray, give alms, and fast in secret so as to draw the attention of the Heavenly Father only:

“But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” – Matthew 6: 3-4

These days, I have noticed a consistent pattern among leftists: They love to talk the talk, but they frequently behave as if mere talking gives them carte blanche to be assholes. One example: A few years ago, Amy Alkon, an advice columnist who describes herself as fiscally conservative and socially libertarian, made the mistake of noting the blindingly obvious fact that single-parenthood is destroying the black community. For her Thoughtcrime, representatives of the “tolerant” and progessive left filled her blog with trollish comments claiming that Alkon was secretly a transexual.

A second example: While I was away this past week, a leftist at Wonkette decided it would be HIGH-larious to make fun of little Trig Palin on his birthday. Fortunately, enough people found this attack on a disabled toddler so disgusting that Wonkette eventually lost the backing of several of its advertisers. Score!

A third example (this time from my personal experience): Back in 2009, a meme in which the participants admitted their unconscious racism and their “privilege” spread like wildfire throughout Live Journal. Over and over again, I saw leftist individuals publicly flagellate themselves for the sin of being white. Why did this suddenly become all the rage? Simple: These Live Journalers needed a license to bully. You may think that’s harsh, but consider what happened when science fiction author and avowed Democrat Elizabeth Moon put down her customary carafe of liberal Kool-Aid and challenged the hard-left orthodoxy on immigration and Islam. Instantly, Moon – who frequently irritates me with her uncritical regurgitation of the usual left-wing talking points on a host of other issues – was mauled by the anti-ist hounds. She was disinvited from a feminist science fiction convention, and many threatened to boycott her books.

It’s not for nothing that Thomas Sowell once declared leftist politics the “politics of self-congratulation.” As many other bloggers have pointed out, Warren Buffett is certainly free to write out a check to the U.S. Treasury. Nobody’s stopping him. But Buffett is a modern-day Pharisee. He knows that making a quiet donation to the government is not going to bring him half as much attention as a dewy-eyed declaration – in front of the news cameras, of course – that he wishes to be taxed more. Leftism, you see, is all about kicking up a lot of sound and fury to demonstrate to the watching world how oh-so-compassionate you are — sound and fury that ultimately signifies nothing.

Blast from the Past: Dismantling the Obama/Warren Argument

Oops! I fell asleep early this evening and forgot to put up an actual post. To keep the content flowing, I'm going to pull a page from Sarah Hoyt's book and repost something I wrote in 2012 that, yes, is still relevant.

Dismantling the Obama/Warren Argument

There’s a line of argument that has really begun to irritate me, and Obama is only the most recent politician to promulgate it:

"There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back.  They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own…

"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen…

"The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.  There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own.  I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service.  That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.”

Allow me to call out the two ridiculous assumptions that lurk behind this rhetoric:

First of all, as I noted in Friday’s post, this is a reply to an argument no one has made. Everyone understands that a community can accomplish many things that a lone individual cannot. After all, why have people created publicly-traded corporations if not to access the resources of thousands of investors? Why do people band together in service organizations if not to maximize the impact of their generosity? Alexis de Tocqueville once observed in his famous description of the early American republic that:

"Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it is proposed to inculcate some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association.

"I met with several kinds of associations in America of which I confess I had no previous notion; and I have often admired the extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the United States succeed in proposing a common object for the exertions of a great many men and in inducing them voluntarily to pursue it."

And does the conservative movement discourage this activity — this spontaneous formation of associations for the purpose of accomplishing some larger public goal? Of course not. Indeed, de Tocqueville is fairly well revered on our side of the aisle.

No – the real difference between Obama’s ideology and ours is this: Obama emphasizes the role of the government – and only the government – in providing for the common good. We conservatives, on the other hand, believe the government should be our last resort — that the voluntary associations that were one of America’s key features in de Tocqueville’s time can often achieve superior results depending on the problem at issue. The conservative creed does not suppose an atomized society in which each individual must go it alone. Indeed, even your most radical libertarians understand the theoretical importance of a police force at the very least (even when they criticize its alleged excesses). And as for those of us on the socially conservative end of the spectrum, I recommend you read It Takes a Family, in which Rick Santorum spends almost 500 pages emphasizing the importance of rebuilding our civic capital. Santorum may be a little too reliant on government solutions for the average conservative’s taste, but I think we generally agree with the former senator’s larger point — that broken families and broken neighborhoods are what make big government so attractive to so many and that the government does have at least a minimal role in ensuring that our aforementioned voluntary associations can survive and thrive.

To put it simply: Do we conservatives acknowledge that some taxation is necessary if we are to have things like fire houses and policemen and an Air Force? Yes. But we also believe in the principle of subsidiarity — i.e., the idea that any problem must be tackled by the smallest group that is competent to do so. Military research is certainly the province of the federal government; bullying in the schoolyard, however, should be handled by the local principal and not by federal or state mandates. And as for all the issues that lie between? Well, unlike the left, we believe there is room for legitimate debate — that we should be allowed to examine the effectiveness of every government program without being vilified as puppy-kickers who wish to starve Grandma.

Now to the second ludicrous assumption: When Obama and his supporters proclaim, repeatedly, that the rich must “give back” and “pay their fair share,” they are implying that the rich don’t do so already — a viewpoint that is so overwhelmingly false that it makes me laugh. Let’s destroy this pernicious claim, shall we?

• Since the age of the so-called “robber barons,” the rich have poured millions of dollars into various philanthropic causes. Name any art museum, theater, hospital, university, research facility, or homeless shelter, and I guarantee I can produce a list of very rich people who helped to make it happen without being forced to do so by the dead hand of the federal government.
• According to the CBO, the hated “one-percent” earned 13.4% of the total income generated in the US in 2009 and paid 22.3% of all the federal income taxes collected. What’s unfair about this exactly? It seems pretty proportional to me.
• More importantly, if a man has a lucrative business, he doesn’t dump all the money said business earns into a private pool to swim in it all day. Obviously, he pays taxes (see the second point above), but his prosperity travels even further than that. Number one, he pays his employees (thereby acknowledging their contribution to his success) and buys new materials and equipment (thereby funneling capital to other economic ventures). Number two, this business owner may use his take-home profits to buy a house (thereby giving money to a cadre of realtors, architects and construction workers), shop for groceries (thereby giving money to point-of-sale clerks and farmers), or hire a tutor for his children (thereby giving money to people like me). The upshot? This man may make a million dollars before taxes, but most of that money will not stay in his pocket. It will be spread throughout his community.
• Lastly, the aforementioned business owner cannot compel anyone to pay for his product or his services. Consequently, if he is making money hand over fist, we can rely on that as a signal that he is adding value to many people’s lives just by making a living. Let’s say I spend several hundred dollars on a new laptop. The lucky computer company may get my money, but guess what? I get a laptop in return — and my life is incontrovertibly enriched. Give back? No — I’m not going to demand that the CEO of Dell “give back” because, in making relatively affordable laptops available to people like me, he or she already has. Similarly, I’m not going to insist self-righteously that the CEO of Walmart pay his “fair share” because providing the rural and urban poor the opportunity to buy groceries and other consumer goods on the cheap is a contribution to society that is quite sufficient.          

Do I think it’s nice when wealthy people go above and beyond what is legally required when it comes to their giving? Yes. Do I hope that most wealthy people will be inspired to do so by the call of Christian charity? Of course. But Obama is not appealing to the teachings of Jesus Christ — or, at the very least, he is doing so inaccurately. What Obama and his ilk are proposing is that we take by force the fruits of other men’s success — and they are attempting to justify their outright denial of the rich man’s natural rights by misusing the concept of a social contract. It is vacuously true that no man can achieve success wholly on his own — but if the reality that we all have teachers to teach us, policemen and firemen to protect us, and highways on which to transport our goods is reason enough for “society” to confiscate a man’s wealth, no one’s property is safe.