Foolishly jumping into the Hugos mishegas

[ianrandalstrock]

I told myself I wasn't going to get involved. I don't have the time or interest to argue Hugo rules. But enough of my friends are involved in the current debate that I keep hearing about it, so I have formed an opinion, which I want to share

Comments

[sethg_prime]

I strongly disagree.

Organized political parties become necessary in politics because the government cannot simultaneously raise and lower taxes. (OK, the government can raise taxes for some people and lower them for others, but you know what I mean.) So it’s natural for politicians to organize themselves into rival parties, one of which has a “raise taxes” platform and one of which has a “lower taxes” platform. From a voter’s point of view, as long as the politicians keep their pants on and aren’t caught taking bribes, the platforms they represent matter far more than anything else. If your guys win the election, taxes go the way you want, and you can be happy; if the other guys win the election, taxes go the way you don’t want, and you can try harder to win next time.

But in voting for a literary award, I can simultaneously like space operas and sparkly-vampire novels. I can choose a space opera as Best Novel one year and a sparkly-vampire novel the next year. I can say “I usually hate sparkly-vampire novels, but this one is the best novel of the year.” I can say “I usually love space operas, but this one sucks.” If the Hugo ballot becomes a contest between Team Space Opera and Team Sparkly Vampire, what honor is there, even in victory?

[ianrandalstrock]

I didn't say you'd like the outcome. I said those who place value on the award and can convince others that working together means they can get the award for their chosen nominee will have more power than a bunch of uncoordinated individuals who vote for what they like. It's not that those who want their taxes to go up and those who want them to go down represent the entirety of the populace; it's that about 40% of the voters have decided the Democratic Party (mostly) represents their views, while another 40% feel that way about the Republican Party, and so those two Parties can maintain control in a two-party system. As for the final 20%, they're sometimes called the swing voters or the deciders, but their opinions don't matter, because they don't align with one of the two major parties. In the Hugos world, after the formation of the Puppies Party, I expect there will form another party on the other side of the issue (I leave it up to you to decide what precisely that issue is), and the adherents of those two philosophies (the members of the parties) will wind up controlling the Hugo Awards, while the rest of us, who agree with neither party, will continue to vote for our favorites, and we'll be happy when our favorites align with one of the party choices, and grumpy when they don't.

But there's also the mitigating factor of the preferential ballot in Hugo-land. In US political elections, it's a single-vote, winner-take-all ballot; you can only vote for one candidate, and whoever gets the most votes wins (ignoring majority and plurality rules). In Hugo elections, you rank the candidates, and the one with broadest appeal across all levels of ranking tends to win, which makes it a little harder for one party to control everything, unless (as they did this year), they manage to swamp the entire ballot.

[sethg_prime]

The thing is, if the award is seen as being merely the outcome of a tug-of-war between political factions, it loses its prestige value, which is really the only value it has. (If you get elected President, regardless of who you stabbed in the back to get there, you can live in a nice big house and get to invade countries you don’t like and fun stuff like that. If you get a Hugo... not so much.) So even people who would otherwise agree with the values of the X Party have an incentive not to affiliate themselves with the X Party Slate. Note that several of the authors invited to join the Puppies slate declined, and several others have asked to be delisted from the ballot.

Vox Day, he of he Rabid Puppies faction, has said that he wants to burn down the Hugos, not win them. So none of these incentives apply to him and his comrades.