If...

[bellatrys]

all you can do in response to specific criticisms, is to invoke Authority - be it of official credentials, or age, or popular acclaim, be it on one's own behalf or on the behalf of others being criticized - and never once to actually address the specific criticisms made, then you're not going to get very far with me

Comments

True.

[nenya_kanadka]

So what particular bit of asshattery inspired this rant? *curious*

Immediately?

[bellatrys]

Ellen Datlow in comments to the last post. (I was a feminist before you were born, sonny! Ryman's been to Cambodia! Emshwiller's been writing for 40 years and anyway you mistyped her name, neener neener! - but nowhere an actually address to the specifics of any of the objections I raised about the *stories* themselves.)

But it's pretty common tactics all over the blogosphere, basically because it *works* usually as an intimidation tactic as most people aren't trained to spot and analyze them but we *are* trained to defer to Authority.

But "I'm a nice person!" or even "I'm a doctor!" doesn't answer or invalidate "Hey, you stepped on my foot!" so this is kind of like "The Gift of Fear" to help people not get fooled or silenced by it, in online debates.

Re: Immediately?

[nenya_kanadka]

Ohhh. I did see that, at least a comment or two thereof, and went, "Er, okay, it looks like you're totally missing the point--even if the guy DID live in Cambodia for ages, that makes it worse, not better, if he is being an insensitive ass."

But it's definitely applicable lotsa places....

[fledgist]

Well, there's also appeal to the Ultimate Authority -- it says so right here in the Bible -- good for suppressing thought instantly.

Next best (if RC) is, "Monsignor So-And-So Says its okay"

[bellatrys]

and there's nobody more orthodox than Msgr. So-and-so!"

Seriously , that happened on a date with an ex-seminarian, abut the handing out of the Pill to nuns in war torn areas - and all it did was shake my rickety certainties & make me even more dubious about our hierarchy. (Also got "Bishop Such-and-such didn't find anything objectionable in it, do you think you're more qualified than Bishop Such-and-such?" from an acquaintance re POTC and again, for some reason it just didn't impress me very much.)

Re: Next best (if RC) is, "Monsignor So-And-So Says its okay"

[fledgist]

Those are more standard ad verecundiams. The one that gets my goat is some idiot saying that to be an atheist one must be a fool, and then disclaiming responsibility because 'it says so in the Bible'.

Yes...

[bellatrys]

...and being totally incapable of seeing how recursive that "argument" is, and thus how unimpressive. Way to make your own side look bad, guys, aka "with friends like this"

[buggery]

One good thing about being trolled is that sometimes it leads to wonderful (and useful, as I'm sure there will be occasions for linking back to it before long) posts like this one.

I'm still not sure whether the level of trollery she eventually descended to is more amusing if she really is who she says she is or not.

*g*

[bellatrys]

Allus glad to be of service!

I'm still not sure whether the level of trollery she eventually descended to is more amusing if she really is who she says she is or not.

Hm. I actually know someone who might know IRL. I can ask next time I see them.

If so, it really is funny that these Big Name Authors have to rush like a 16 year old protecting her Very First 'Sue when some low-tier blogger criticizes them. --Though it does help explain the Curiously-Unwelcome Feelings that largish numbers of female authors have expressed... ("How dare you suggest we're unwelcoming! What, you think we should roll a red carpet out for you or something?")

Well, you wanted to stimulate discussion

[deiseach]

I have no idea if that really *is* Ellen Datlow or not; all I know of her is as an editor of anthologies.

Which means that, if I see a horror anthology edited by Stephen Jones, I usually get it (based on previous experience of anthologies edited by him, I know I'll find at least one story I like and usually much more); based on reading Ellen Datlow-edited anthologies of fantasy, I usually give them the go-by.

What that contributes to the discussion, I don't know. But it's my opinion, and I've been reading skiffy for thirty-eight years, so I oughta know, y'know!!!!

Ah, but you're just another pixel-stained technopeasant, D!

[bellatrys]

and mere unwashed fen like you and me, we don't have the *right* to disapprove of what Our Betters have selected for us to read!

(I'm really not sure if it's more Evil or Chaotic of me to get such a kick out of grownups throwing stompy-fits in public. "Yes, but you DON'T go!")

Is this an attack? Am I attacking her?

[deiseach]

Because the person signing off as Datlow is very proud of having been fiction editor of OMNI, and I have to say, OMNI was *not* All That

Re: Is this an attack? Am I attacking her?

[bellatrys]

the way the stories were broken up I remember that too. And granted, depending on the organization of an outfit, a fiction editor may have no say in the page layout (publications are often very idiosyncratic as to how choices are made, I have learned the hard way!) but the whole Readerly Experience contributes to whether a zine stands or falls, breaking things up intuitively *can* be done (magazines aren't laid out *entirely* by computers, with no human override control) and if this response (assuming for the sake of arg't that this really is Datlow and not someone pretending) is typical of the pro zine's attitudes towards reader dissatisfaction, I wonder if OMNI cared whether or not they repelling readers at all

[anna_wing]

Having one's character, work and values impugned on the internet by some nobody is absolutely normal, for anyone with any name-recognition at all. She had the choices of addressing your criticism civilly, thus getting points for gentlemanly (sic) behaviour, or even uncivilly, thus possibly at least getting points for creative invective, or best of all (and in my experience the preferable path in most circumstances not involving libel or credible threats of violence) not responded at all.

In some ways it was reminiscent of Jo Walton's mini-meltdown on the Making Light website some months ago, in which she stated that

(i) having fanfic written about her books was like being raped;

(ii)if it happened there would be no more Jo Walton books Ever;

(iii)the whole sub-thread (a fan had very politely and respectfully asked her if there was any kind of fanfic of her books that might be acceptable) had distressed her so much that she had been unable to write for the past two days and she was Leaving The Discussion.

Tsk.

Missed that

[bellatrys]

(ii)if it happened there would be no more Jo Walton books Ever;(i) having fanfic written about her books was like being raped;

Kind of rich coming from someone who writes Arthurian fanfic herself.

Who's Jo Walton?

[deiseach]

No, that's a serious question. If she's threatening to never again write any books, the threat would be more damning if I knew there were books by her in the first place, never mind ever having read any of them.

Big fish, small pond. Other ponds out there, y'know.

Re: Who's Jo Walton?

[lyorn]

She did a very nice take on Goldilocks and the three bear in Viking style on her LJ. Won't link, though.