Okay, rant time...
I frequently see a sentiment come up in discussions of writing and authors, a sentiment that really bothers me. It is this, here espoused by someone I generally consider spiffy:
So after the whole TOC of Mindblowing Sci-Fi sans people of colour and women, I was having an interesting discussion with a friend of mine. I said, I will now never buy a novel of Paul di Filippo's, or any anthology where he is a contributor. I said it for the same reason I will not buy anything that Orson Scott Card has written: These men are aresholes, and I do not want to support an arsehole in any way, shape or form.
But, said my friend, just because he's (and by this stage we were talking about Card) a homophobic areshole, that doesn't affect his ability to write good stories. Are you saying his stories are bad?
I said: I will not comment on the quality of the writing, because I have never read it, so I can't.
He replies: But what if they're really good?
I don't care, I said, I will not buy any of his books, ever.
You realise you could be missing out on a lot of great fiction, right?
Yes, I do. But even if his work is fantastic, there are plenty of other fantastic authors who don't write bullshit stuff on the internet. If I can't take a stand, then what's the point of having these feelings?
It's difficult for me to even describe how much I find wrong with this. But let me try, because it's a really common thing I see whenever "$fail"s of whatever sort come up, as they do with depressing regularity in the blogoverse.
First, let me state for the record that I don't mean this to insist that anyone read anything. People refuse to read things all the time, and I'd go so far as to say that most people's reasons for refusing to read things are personal, silly, or pointless.
And "refusing to read something" can be less about "I'll never look at that," and more about "I currently have no way to look at that without paying to do so, and I'm bothered by the idea of giving monetary support to someone who holds $ickyview." So some of this may be less about "no one should read that guy, ever" and more about "I care where my money goes." And I have far less of an issue with "I care where my money goes" than with "I shall never pollute my mind with anything so and so said."
But now, my issues:
First, refusing to read something because the author has repellent views has some weird implications if we're talking about anything old. Historically, all kinds of *ist views were perfectly socially acceptable in the past that now are not (or, at least, it's now considered gauche to blatantly espouse them.) I find it profoundly bizarre that many socially conscious people I know will write off the writings of various people from the past on the theory that they somehow should have known better. While one can often find people from any historical period who have opinions that are very progressive for the time, many of us humans are far more influenced by the social mores of our time than we care to admit. And even when we're not, we may have progressive opinions about Social Justice Issue A and no clue whatever about Social Justice Issue B. I'm not sure why this would disqualify us from saying good things about A.
Much less from, say, writing something innovative, fun, or brilliant that has nothing to do with social justice issues at all.
But perhaps people who are into "taking a stand" like this are only referring to things that are relatively modern. Are there still problems with this if people are giving stuff from 1830 a pass?
IMO, definitely.
Second, focusing on one reprehensible thing an author believes and having one's entire reaction consist of only that ignores humans' complexity, making people around us into White Hats or Black Hats. This just plain isn't how humans work; witness all the people who are really good about Issue A (generally one they understand well or one that directly deals with them), but absolutely cringeworthy with respect to Issue B. When we expect people to be perfect role models about everything, we hold them to standards we probably don't meet ourselves.
And yeah, I do mean "don't meet ourselves" absolutely seriously. Witness the evolution of civil rights activism. Issue A comes up, time passes, none of us can believe anyone would discriminate on the basis of A (at least not openly; how gauche), and then suddenly up rises B and we all have to rethink how we felt about that.
Third, even if Author is a repugnant festering bedsore on the hairy, sweaty ass of humanity, not reading what Author said is a terribly bad way to arm yourself to critique Author. If you want people to understand why Author is such a festering bedsore, "well, I never read him, buutttt..." is not a very convincing way to begin any of your sentences, even if you're right.
Relatedly, sometimes if you read Author, her writing will offer clues to why she holds such repugnant views. Sometimes actually hearing, from the horse's mouth, just what issue she has with $foo makes her issues with $foo a little less godawfully horrific. Sometimes when we get hints of someone's past or someone's situation, we still find her views repellent but don't hate her quite so much for holding them.
Fourth, authors sometimes have to pick and choose what they say. Sometimes characters or plot points pop into our heads that we know are a little creepy, or weird, or wrong, but the story needs them. I know people don't like to hear "the story called for it." But sometimes, in order for a character to be internally consistent or a plot to move as it should, we have to let something controversial-in-a-sketchy way stand and take our lumps. People's refusal to even allow this as a possibility really annoys me.
Haven't they ever written something, gone back over it (especially during the $fail of the week), realized someone's gonna go nuts over $foo and had to decide what to do about it?
Never?
Really?
Either I'm more prolific or more of a bastard than I thought.
Fifth, writing is not always intended to be political. Sometimes it's personal. Which means that sometimes our demons end up on paper. Sometimes we have irrational prejudices, hatreds, and bitternesses. Sometimes, these make it into our characters not because we want to ensure that our readers come away from our work with a sufficient hatred of members of group $foo, but simply because we have our own issues with $foo and it's dishonest -- or impossible -- for that not to show up somewhere in our work. Authors get angry, get depressed, get bitter and vitriolic, just like anyone else.
Sixth, not reading it means making it much harder to have nuanced conversations about these issues. If we read it, and we post or sit around chatting and can say "You know, I really wanted to like this book because I know that $foo and $bar are deeply original and a profound influence on $genre, and some of my love of $genre stems in a direct line from $bar, but... I really just couldn't get past the sexism. Dammit." that strikes me as far more useful to the genre, to various fandoms, and to thoughtful authors who love Author's work despite the icky than "I'll never read that. I've got principles." (Does that mean the rest of us don't?)
Seventh, if you're intentionally unfamiliar with Author's work, this heightens the possibility that you're misunderstanding what Author meant to say. In some cases, it's obvious what Author does or doesn't espouse, either because the work is really didactic or because Author has admitted it or has a pattern of talking or writing in gross ways. In others, though, we may well misunderstand, particularly if something subtly satirical is going on. Yeah, I'm accusing a few people of being stupid here, but I have seen it happen. And sometimes, an author's intent just plain isn't clear, and fans will swear the point is that the *ist character is a disgusting jerk, while detractors will feel totally sure that the *ist bastard is an insert who's supposed to be a role model, and people who are on the fence will see the merit of either interpretation. Before you refuse to pick the book up, have you made certain that you know you're right?
Eighth, sometimes characters are intended to be off-putting or creepy. There are a lot of authors out there who write just about everyone as an epic bastard. Sometimes one of said epic bastards is a container for our personal hatreds. Perhaps we espouse those hatreds, and perhaps we don't. But I worry sometimes that people hate the slivers of us they see in the bastards without realizing that we know that we're writing a bastard -- and that the bastard we've written is, yes, a window into the bastard who just won't die in us. Don't expect us to neuter our villains because you can tell that they're actually patterned on the disgusting parts of us.
Ninth, ignorance is bad. Whatever happened to "keep your friends close and your enemies closer?" I worry profoundly about this tendency to refuse to expose ourselves to the views of our enemies. Not reading something because of principles exalts ignorance: "I'm so committed I fear contamination by... actually knowing what I'm talking about." Is that really what you want to make of yourself: exquisitely pure and infinitely ignorant?
I write. As I said in comments to the post I respond to here, I'd much rather see someone eviscerate my story and expose just how horribly wrong I got the trans woman character, the man of color, the poor characters, than I would want to see someone saying I'm so awful she'll never read me.
And I'd much rather see the equivalent of this than "Trinity? Oh gods, she's so repugnant I have no idea what she wrote. Ew."
Selfish, perhaps. But we're not heroes and villains. We just write those.
Sometimes, anyway.
So after the whole TOC of Mindblowing Sci-Fi sans people of colour and women, I was having an interesting discussion with a friend of mine. I said, I will now never buy a novel of Paul di Filippo's, or any anthology where he is a contributor. I said it for the same reason I will not buy anything that Orson Scott Card has written: These men are aresholes, and I do not want to support an arsehole in any way, shape or form.
But, said my friend, just because he's (and by this stage we were talking about Card) a homophobic areshole, that doesn't affect his ability to write good stories. Are you saying his stories are bad?
I said: I will not comment on the quality of the writing, because I have never read it, so I can't.
He replies: But what if they're really good?
I don't care, I said, I will not buy any of his books, ever.
You realise you could be missing out on a lot of great fiction, right?
Yes, I do. But even if his work is fantastic, there are plenty of other fantastic authors who don't write bullshit stuff on the internet. If I can't take a stand, then what's the point of having these feelings?
It's difficult for me to even describe how much I find wrong with this. But let me try, because it's a really common thing I see whenever "$fail"s of whatever sort come up, as they do with depressing regularity in the blogoverse.
First, let me state for the record that I don't mean this to insist that anyone read anything. People refuse to read things all the time, and I'd go so far as to say that most people's reasons for refusing to read things are personal, silly, or pointless.
And "refusing to read something" can be less about "I'll never look at that," and more about "I currently have no way to look at that without paying to do so, and I'm bothered by the idea of giving monetary support to someone who holds $ickyview." So some of this may be less about "no one should read that guy, ever" and more about "I care where my money goes." And I have far less of an issue with "I care where my money goes" than with "I shall never pollute my mind with anything so and so said."
But now, my issues:
First, refusing to read something because the author has repellent views has some weird implications if we're talking about anything old. Historically, all kinds of *ist views were perfectly socially acceptable in the past that now are not (or, at least, it's now considered gauche to blatantly espouse them.) I find it profoundly bizarre that many socially conscious people I know will write off the writings of various people from the past on the theory that they somehow should have known better. While one can often find people from any historical period who have opinions that are very progressive for the time, many of us humans are far more influenced by the social mores of our time than we care to admit. And even when we're not, we may have progressive opinions about Social Justice Issue A and no clue whatever about Social Justice Issue B. I'm not sure why this would disqualify us from saying good things about A.
Much less from, say, writing something innovative, fun, or brilliant that has nothing to do with social justice issues at all.
But perhaps people who are into "taking a stand" like this are only referring to things that are relatively modern. Are there still problems with this if people are giving stuff from 1830 a pass?
IMO, definitely.
Second, focusing on one reprehensible thing an author believes and having one's entire reaction consist of only that ignores humans' complexity, making people around us into White Hats or Black Hats. This just plain isn't how humans work; witness all the people who are really good about Issue A (generally one they understand well or one that directly deals with them), but absolutely cringeworthy with respect to Issue B. When we expect people to be perfect role models about everything, we hold them to standards we probably don't meet ourselves.
And yeah, I do mean "don't meet ourselves" absolutely seriously. Witness the evolution of civil rights activism. Issue A comes up, time passes, none of us can believe anyone would discriminate on the basis of A (at least not openly; how gauche), and then suddenly up rises B and we all have to rethink how we felt about that.
Third, even if Author is a repugnant festering bedsore on the hairy, sweaty ass of humanity, not reading what Author said is a terribly bad way to arm yourself to critique Author. If you want people to understand why Author is such a festering bedsore, "well, I never read him, buutttt..." is not a very convincing way to begin any of your sentences, even if you're right.
Relatedly, sometimes if you read Author, her writing will offer clues to why she holds such repugnant views. Sometimes actually hearing, from the horse's mouth, just what issue she has with $foo makes her issues with $foo a little less godawfully horrific. Sometimes when we get hints of someone's past or someone's situation, we still find her views repellent but don't hate her quite so much for holding them.
Fourth, authors sometimes have to pick and choose what they say. Sometimes characters or plot points pop into our heads that we know are a little creepy, or weird, or wrong, but the story needs them. I know people don't like to hear "the story called for it." But sometimes, in order for a character to be internally consistent or a plot to move as it should, we have to let something controversial-in-a-sketchy way stand and take our lumps. People's refusal to even allow this as a possibility really annoys me.
Haven't they ever written something, gone back over it (especially during the $fail of the week), realized someone's gonna go nuts over $foo and had to decide what to do about it?
Never?
Really?
Either I'm more prolific or more of a bastard than I thought.
Fifth, writing is not always intended to be political. Sometimes it's personal. Which means that sometimes our demons end up on paper. Sometimes we have irrational prejudices, hatreds, and bitternesses. Sometimes, these make it into our characters not because we want to ensure that our readers come away from our work with a sufficient hatred of members of group $foo, but simply because we have our own issues with $foo and it's dishonest -- or impossible -- for that not to show up somewhere in our work. Authors get angry, get depressed, get bitter and vitriolic, just like anyone else.
Sixth, not reading it means making it much harder to have nuanced conversations about these issues. If we read it, and we post or sit around chatting and can say "You know, I really wanted to like this book because I know that $foo and $bar are deeply original and a profound influence on $genre, and some of my love of $genre stems in a direct line from $bar, but... I really just couldn't get past the sexism. Dammit." that strikes me as far more useful to the genre, to various fandoms, and to thoughtful authors who love Author's work despite the icky than "I'll never read that. I've got principles." (Does that mean the rest of us don't?)
Seventh, if you're intentionally unfamiliar with Author's work, this heightens the possibility that you're misunderstanding what Author meant to say. In some cases, it's obvious what Author does or doesn't espouse, either because the work is really didactic or because Author has admitted it or has a pattern of talking or writing in gross ways. In others, though, we may well misunderstand, particularly if something subtly satirical is going on. Yeah, I'm accusing a few people of being stupid here, but I have seen it happen. And sometimes, an author's intent just plain isn't clear, and fans will swear the point is that the *ist character is a disgusting jerk, while detractors will feel totally sure that the *ist bastard is an insert who's supposed to be a role model, and people who are on the fence will see the merit of either interpretation. Before you refuse to pick the book up, have you made certain that you know you're right?
Eighth, sometimes characters are intended to be off-putting or creepy. There are a lot of authors out there who write just about everyone as an epic bastard. Sometimes one of said epic bastards is a container for our personal hatreds. Perhaps we espouse those hatreds, and perhaps we don't. But I worry sometimes that people hate the slivers of us they see in the bastards without realizing that we know that we're writing a bastard -- and that the bastard we've written is, yes, a window into the bastard who just won't die in us. Don't expect us to neuter our villains because you can tell that they're actually patterned on the disgusting parts of us.
Ninth, ignorance is bad. Whatever happened to "keep your friends close and your enemies closer?" I worry profoundly about this tendency to refuse to expose ourselves to the views of our enemies. Not reading something because of principles exalts ignorance: "I'm so committed I fear contamination by... actually knowing what I'm talking about." Is that really what you want to make of yourself: exquisitely pure and infinitely ignorant?
I write. As I said in comments to the post I respond to here, I'd much rather see someone eviscerate my story and expose just how horribly wrong I got the trans woman character, the man of color, the poor characters, than I would want to see someone saying I'm so awful she'll never read me.
And I'd much rather see the equivalent of this than "Trinity? Oh gods, she's so repugnant I have no idea what she wrote. Ew."
Selfish, perhaps. But we're not heroes and villains. We just write those.
Sometimes, anyway.