Personal disappointments
I spent most of today wondering how somebody who appears to have a mind that can handle complexity and reconcile moral situations with grace can be a bigot in their public life.
That's because today was the day that I found out about the anti-gay-rights activism of Orson Scott Card. I feel rather disgusted, frankly - I sort of prefer not knowing too much about authors who appear to be willing to tackle tough issues, but most authors that I later learned more about turned out to be as awesome in their private lives as they are in their writing. Madeline L'Engle and Lloyd Alexander made up a large portion of my reading as a child, and I was one of the many, many mourners when they both died in the same year. L'Engle is a major driving force behind my own stance on religious tolerance and tolerance of religions. Also, Tolkein's response to the Nazis when questioned about his race (specifically, was he Jewish,) comes to mind: "I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people." (That's basically old-fashioned gentleman for "fuck off, racists.")
The fact is though, that I'm finding it hard to reconcile the Card that exists as the creator of Ender's game and Xenocide (and what was a fairly good reference book on characterization that my writing club's been passing around,) with the Card that advocates against same-sex marriage and makes his stance as a scientific contrarian clear with his opinions on global warming. This is the Card that apologizes for speeches against homosexuality with one hand, claiming that it was all right at the time, and gives money to organizations who continue that fight with another.
What's worse is, when I was young, I thought he understood.
I should also probably place a trigger warning here. Talking about what interaction with psychopaths does to the mind and heart is never fun.
Let me preface this by saying that I read Ender's game when I started High School and finally had some vague idea of what was wrong with me. In Ender's game, there are three siblings who were born to be trained as military leaders at battle school: the oldest, Peter, was a psychopath who skinned squirrels alive for fun, constantly threatened his younger siblings with death (and explicitly how he would get away with it,) and manipulated his sister, Valentine, and his brother, Ender, into ensuring that he rose to political prominence and eventually took over the world. Between Peter and Ender's reputation after he killed off the Hives of aliens, there wasn't any place in the known universe where Valentine and Ender could go. They eventually had to use the timeline-altering powers of interstellar travel to wait until Peter died of natural causes.
Peter gets off scott free (excuse the pun, please,) by the way. Ender becomes his apologist, excusing his brother's actions after his death as things that had to be done. Valentine even says that although he manipulated her into manipulating other people, she cooperated willingly and that Peter did great things. But overall, the way in which the book was presented, and the way in which the characters reacted later to Peter, always left me with the impression that Valentine and Ender were in denial, and were only excusing Peter because no one would believe them if they said anything, and because both of them wished to be forgiven for their own actions.
Now that I think of it, though, it seems as if that's me and my own personal connections, particularly to Valentine, putting words in the characters' mouths. After all, Peter's presentation within the story does a complete 180 once he is (mostly) grown up and ruler of the world. The children's parents, supposed geniuses, don't have the faintest clue of what is going on. To be fair, they know that Peter and Valentine are inciting revolution via their writings, and that Peter is manipulating Valentine into playing her part as the liberal reactionary who people like but who ultimately should not be taken seriously... Bias much, Mr. Card? And their parents are totally fine with this. In fact, they encourage it, because they are secretly revolutionary but must present a conventional face because Ender is away at battle school.
I'm now not entirely certain that Card knows exactly who and what Peter is, and why he's dangerous. No child should ever live in fear the way that Ender and particularly Valentine did. In fact, a large portion of Ender's and Valentine's ongoing problems can probably be laid at the doorstep of their childhood spent with a psychopath. (Battle school did nothing to help that for Ender, but that's beside the point, really.) The fact that their parents were oblivious is, sadly, truth in fiction. Valentine worries that she's like Peter near-constantly, and has to learn to predict people as a simple survival tactic. She learns to be passive and manipulatable in the interest of saving her own skin and hoping to save her brother - and the price she pays is that she lets Peter loose on the unsuspecting world. (Granted, he supposedly does some good things in the book, but... I for one can't help but think that he's learned to put on a face for the world. Besides, he's learned this whole time, via his "practicing" on Valentine, how to manipulate people by seeming rational and kind and appealing to their own interests. Valentine clearly knows that he's still the same dangerous boy that used to threaten to sit on Ender's chest until he suffocated and claim that it was an accident, because she literally goes to the furthest reaches of the galaxy in order to get away from him.)
The point is that Card, in the character of Valentine, wrote someone who had gone through nearly exactly what I had been through, and I always assumed that if he had the wisdom to handle and understand that, he had to be the kind of person who had the grace to handle himself and his opinions on other controversial things with wisdom, or at least open mindedness. But I suppose it turns out that he either hadn't the wisdom and tolerance to see beyond the faith in which he was raised, or that people who seem to shine bright have dark spots somewhere in their souls.
That's because today was the day that I found out about the anti-gay-rights activism of Orson Scott Card. I feel rather disgusted, frankly - I sort of prefer not knowing too much about authors who appear to be willing to tackle tough issues, but most authors that I later learned more about turned out to be as awesome in their private lives as they are in their writing. Madeline L'Engle and Lloyd Alexander made up a large portion of my reading as a child, and I was one of the many, many mourners when they both died in the same year. L'Engle is a major driving force behind my own stance on religious tolerance and tolerance of religions. Also, Tolkein's response to the Nazis when questioned about his race (specifically, was he Jewish,) comes to mind: "I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people." (That's basically old-fashioned gentleman for "fuck off, racists.")
The fact is though, that I'm finding it hard to reconcile the Card that exists as the creator of Ender's game and Xenocide (and what was a fairly good reference book on characterization that my writing club's been passing around,) with the Card that advocates against same-sex marriage and makes his stance as a scientific contrarian clear with his opinions on global warming. This is the Card that apologizes for speeches against homosexuality with one hand, claiming that it was all right at the time, and gives money to organizations who continue that fight with another.
What's worse is, when I was young, I thought he understood.
I should also probably place a trigger warning here. Talking about what interaction with psychopaths does to the mind and heart is never fun.
Let me preface this by saying that I read Ender's game when I started High School and finally had some vague idea of what was wrong with me. In Ender's game, there are three siblings who were born to be trained as military leaders at battle school: the oldest, Peter, was a psychopath who skinned squirrels alive for fun, constantly threatened his younger siblings with death (and explicitly how he would get away with it,) and manipulated his sister, Valentine, and his brother, Ender, into ensuring that he rose to political prominence and eventually took over the world. Between Peter and Ender's reputation after he killed off the Hives of aliens, there wasn't any place in the known universe where Valentine and Ender could go. They eventually had to use the timeline-altering powers of interstellar travel to wait until Peter died of natural causes.
Peter gets off scott free (excuse the pun, please,) by the way. Ender becomes his apologist, excusing his brother's actions after his death as things that had to be done. Valentine even says that although he manipulated her into manipulating other people, she cooperated willingly and that Peter did great things. But overall, the way in which the book was presented, and the way in which the characters reacted later to Peter, always left me with the impression that Valentine and Ender were in denial, and were only excusing Peter because no one would believe them if they said anything, and because both of them wished to be forgiven for their own actions.
Now that I think of it, though, it seems as if that's me and my own personal connections, particularly to Valentine, putting words in the characters' mouths. After all, Peter's presentation within the story does a complete 180 once he is (mostly) grown up and ruler of the world. The children's parents, supposed geniuses, don't have the faintest clue of what is going on. To be fair, they know that Peter and Valentine are inciting revolution via their writings, and that Peter is manipulating Valentine into playing her part as the liberal reactionary who people like but who ultimately should not be taken seriously... Bias much, Mr. Card? And their parents are totally fine with this. In fact, they encourage it, because they are secretly revolutionary but must present a conventional face because Ender is away at battle school.
I'm now not entirely certain that Card knows exactly who and what Peter is, and why he's dangerous. No child should ever live in fear the way that Ender and particularly Valentine did. In fact, a large portion of Ender's and Valentine's ongoing problems can probably be laid at the doorstep of their childhood spent with a psychopath. (Battle school did nothing to help that for Ender, but that's beside the point, really.) The fact that their parents were oblivious is, sadly, truth in fiction. Valentine worries that she's like Peter near-constantly, and has to learn to predict people as a simple survival tactic. She learns to be passive and manipulatable in the interest of saving her own skin and hoping to save her brother - and the price she pays is that she lets Peter loose on the unsuspecting world. (Granted, he supposedly does some good things in the book, but... I for one can't help but think that he's learned to put on a face for the world. Besides, he's learned this whole time, via his "practicing" on Valentine, how to manipulate people by seeming rational and kind and appealing to their own interests. Valentine clearly knows that he's still the same dangerous boy that used to threaten to sit on Ender's chest until he suffocated and claim that it was an accident, because she literally goes to the furthest reaches of the galaxy in order to get away from him.)
The point is that Card, in the character of Valentine, wrote someone who had gone through nearly exactly what I had been through, and I always assumed that if he had the wisdom to handle and understand that, he had to be the kind of person who had the grace to handle himself and his opinions on other controversial things with wisdom, or at least open mindedness. But I suppose it turns out that he either hadn't the wisdom and tolerance to see beyond the faith in which he was raised, or that people who seem to shine bright have dark spots somewhere in their souls.