As the final Test of this Ashes series dies the death…
… a last bit of fandom critical analysis (I truly do loathe the term ‘meta’).
I admit it: I bang on about Doing the Research (including but by no means limited to Britpicking). (Note: admit, not confess: I’m not at all ashamed, nor need I be.) It is, I am aware, long past the point at which some people in fandom resent it, and me, and my existence in fandom: and the use of ‘resent’ may be a mild and temperate exercise in understatement.
I have argued that if you are one of those fen who prides herself on Opposing Oppression, Othering, and Appropriation (which is all well and good) and who believes that this opposition requires that a writer write, of a group or culture not his own, only sparingly (and only because of a duty not to vanish them), with trepidation, and to semi-official guidelines from advocacy groups professing to represent that group or culture, you really cannot - without coming over either all thick or all hypocritical - then say of some groups or cultures, ‘I’m writing for fun! What are you saying - I need a degree in this shit first, ’s that what you want? These are universals, and I can treat a text, a group, or a culture as a prop! It’s a HOBBY, you squee-harsher!’
I don’t wish to be a complete Kant about this (sorry: old Sidney Morgenbesser anecdote, there), but…. Simply: make up your minds, won’t you?
Yes, I understand that this common view - common confusion, really - goes claw in talon with the proposition that there is a hierarchy of privilege which is determined by you and your judgement and that of your friends, and that you shall decide which groups have been disprivileged in the past sufficiently that you graciously condescend to grant them, from On High, the compensation of Doing the Research and Dealing Sensitively With Them. (Naturally enough, Wicked Old Britain, Which Has Never, Ever Been a Force for Good in the World, is not to granted this indulgence and favour.) And I am aware that We All Know - Because Everyone Who Is Anyone Says So, Darling - That Logical Consistency Is Rubbish and Morality Is Not Objective. Which is a relief, isn’t it. Because, were this not the case…. Well.
I’ll leave the subject for a bit, now. I’ll leave you, though, with this. If you’d rather be Kant than the other thing … the next time a tale you wish to tell requires writing of cultures, groups, or milieus not your own, and you are tempted to say, ‘Well, I’m only having a lark, there’s no need to treat these people as real people entitled to respect and a bit of research’, ask yourself if that should be your view if, for Group X, you substituted, say, Jews, or Roma, or Black British, or African-Americans, or loyal and peaceable Muslims, or trans people.
I admit it: I bang on about Doing the Research (including but by no means limited to Britpicking). (Note: admit, not confess: I’m not at all ashamed, nor need I be.) It is, I am aware, long past the point at which some people in fandom resent it, and me, and my existence in fandom: and the use of ‘resent’ may be a mild and temperate exercise in understatement.
I have argued that if you are one of those fen who prides herself on Opposing Oppression, Othering, and Appropriation (which is all well and good) and who believes that this opposition requires that a writer write, of a group or culture not his own, only sparingly (and only because of a duty not to vanish them), with trepidation, and to semi-official guidelines from advocacy groups professing to represent that group or culture, you really cannot - without coming over either all thick or all hypocritical - then say of some groups or cultures, ‘I’m writing for fun! What are you saying - I need a degree in this shit first, ’s that what you want? These are universals, and I can treat a text, a group, or a culture as a prop! It’s a HOBBY, you squee-harsher!’
I don’t wish to be a complete Kant about this (sorry: old Sidney Morgenbesser anecdote, there), but…. Simply: make up your minds, won’t you?
Yes, I understand that this common view - common confusion, really - goes claw in talon with the proposition that there is a hierarchy of privilege which is determined by you and your judgement and that of your friends, and that you shall decide which groups have been disprivileged in the past sufficiently that you graciously condescend to grant them, from On High, the compensation of Doing the Research and Dealing Sensitively With Them. (Naturally enough, Wicked Old Britain, Which Has Never, Ever Been a Force for Good in the World, is not to granted this indulgence and favour.) And I am aware that We All Know - Because Everyone Who Is Anyone Says So, Darling - That Logical Consistency Is Rubbish and Morality Is Not Objective. Which is a relief, isn’t it. Because, were this not the case…. Well.
I’ll leave the subject for a bit, now. I’ll leave you, though, with this. If you’d rather be Kant than the other thing … the next time a tale you wish to tell requires writing of cultures, groups, or milieus not your own, and you are tempted to say, ‘Well, I’m only having a lark, there’s no need to treat these people as real people entitled to respect and a bit of research’, ask yourself if that should be your view if, for Group X, you substituted, say, Jews, or Roma, or Black British, or African-Americans, or loyal and peaceable Muslims, or trans people.