politics

The Banality of SFWA

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So I was reading Darin Strauss’s The Banality of Butter: What Hannah Arendt Can Tell Us About Paula Deen in The Atlantic Wire and I reached this section:

… sometimes what we call evil — and what can bring about the most horrible outcomes — can often more accurately and simply be thoughtlessness of a sort. That is to say, people, and communities, are often no good at the kind of abstract thought that helps us understand the experience of others. [italics original]

This lesson comes from Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, and as Strauss says in his Atlantic article, it’s absurd to compare what Paula Deen did with what Eichmann did.

I’d like to pause here to emphasize that: for Strauss, the point here is not to compare what Deen did with what Eichmann did, and I have no interest in trying to compare what serial harassers inside SFWA or other convention spaces with what Eichmann did. That would be absurd.

But the way that communities react to these issues is very much to the point. Deen’s supporters have refused to acknowledge that her behavior was worth condemnation, or that their assertion that what she did was no big deal stems from a cultural abscess that should have been lanced a long time ago.

Another quote:

Again, Arendt was perhaps the first to write coherently about the trouble communities have in seeing the world as being something other than what they have been conditioned to see — without any kind of cultural empathy.

Isn’t that what we see from the harasser-apologists? People with no empathy for the way women are treated in their shared spaces, and who think women should just suck it up, or laugh it off, or consider that maybe possibly kinda could this all be a misunderstanding?

It seems to me that there are few more effective ways to rile up a bunch of people than to puncture their self-image as people of virtue.

DOMA Cracks

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Today’s SCOTUS decision overturning the Defense Of Marriage Act is more than welcome, it’s long overdue. Clinton should never have signed it, but the further we get to fairness and justice in the U.S., the more intense the pushback. The nice thing is that “gay marriage” can be simply “marriage” for now, as far as the federal government is concerned.

Speaking of pushback, the Voting Rights Act was struck down yesterday. This is bad news for voters in NY, CA, and the other states affected by that law, but it’s also a rallying cry to the rest of the country. There’s no excuse for making black voters wait twice as long as white voters in this country. Jim Crow may be gone, but historic injustice remains.

So the work isn’t done. Same-sex marriage legislation needs to be passed in states all across the country. National legislation that ensures convenient access to voting booths nationwide needs to be enacted, not just in the parts of the country covered by the VRA.

We can do this. It’s up to the people to create a just society; no one will do it for us. If you want to know what to do, writing a personalized letter to your elected representatives–even if they’re far on the other end of the political spectrum from you–is surprisingly effective.

SFWA Bulletin and sexism in the genre

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I’ve been following the fight over sexist content in The Bulletin and sexist content in the genre in general, but I hadn’t planned to comment on it any more than I already have.

However! I want to drop a couple of relevant links and make a point I haven’t seen elsewhere. First, the links:

My very complicated reaction to issue 202 of the Bulletin by Mary Robinette Kowal encapsulates a lot of what I’ve been thinking about the whole shit smear. SFWA is not required to put out sexist commentary and the fact that it does (or simply lets it slip through the editorial sieve) is a major distraction from the good work it does. Her whole post is worth reading.

Ben Rosenbaum asking Malzberg and Resnick to be better people.

Ann Aguirre came into the professional part of the field only a few years before I did, but the sexism she details is ridiculous. Worse, if you read down to the ETA on that post, you see that she’s still getting vicious emails that include rape threats. I can’t stand that this bullshit is still going on.

Finally, I just want to comment on this quote from Mike Resnick in his most recent column:

The next question is: is this an overreaction to attempted censorship? The answer is simple and straightforward: I don’t think it’s possible to overreact to thought control, whether Politically Inept of Politically Motivated or merely displaying the would-be controller’s personal tastes and biases

For the record, the “attempted censorship” is the online criticism he and the magazine that published him has received. Never mind that criticism is not censorship; the point here is that Resnick thinks that only his speech should have power. He seems to think the people who criticism are welcome to do so as long as nothing comes of their speech: no one can be swayed by the points they make, no one can have their minds changed. If Resnick’s editor sees the criticism, thinks they have merit, and ends the column, that’s “censorship” and must be fought.

Which is bullshit, obviously. Speech has consequences. Speech sways the opinion of others, and maybe–just maybe–that might have an effect on your life. Resnick has that power; he’s going to have to get used to the idea that others have it, too.

Randomness for 5/19

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1) Decoding the Range: The Secret Language Of Cattle Branding.

2) If you’re going to deface a textbook, this is how to do it. (Although I’m dubious about the adverb “geniously”)

3) Funny, mean reviews of Dan Brown’s Inferno.

4) Banned SF/F novels.

5) Girl makes jacket out of Ziploc bags, wears sandwich and snacks where ever she goes.

6) Why Manhattan’s Green Roofs Don’t Work–and How to Fix Them

7) Theres a Question Mark Hanging Over the Apostrophes Future. (I see what you did there.)

As news media announces an arrest in the Boston bombing…

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Let me link to this article in the NY Times: Richard Jewell, 44, Hero of Atlanta Attack, Dies

When the name of the person arrested has been released, do not rush to Facebook to harass people with the same name. Do not start digging into the personal lives of complete strangers to see what dirt you can find or what political prejudices you can confirm. Jewel was harassed for months simply because a newspaper said the FBI was investigating him. Police asked him to sign a confession they had written up as a “training exercise.” In truth, his life was ruined.

And he’s not the only one.

The modern news media may be in a headlong rush to share every rumor or minor development, but we don’t have to follow. We’d be better off spending time with people we love or writing to our members of Congress about pending legislation. The last thing this country needs is to crowd-source our criminal justice system.

A Proposal for SFWA and Other Writers Re: Publisher Bankruptcy

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One of the worst things about the Night Shade business is that a publisher going into bankruptcy takes all their books with them. Even if a writer’s contract specifies that the rights revert to the author upon bankruptcy, that clause can’t be enforced because the bankruptcy court seizes those rights as one of the few (if not only) asset the publisher has.

It’s a little more complicated than that, as stated in the link in my previous post on this subjects, but that’s the basics. If a publisher goes bankrupt, in all likelihood a writer’s publishing contracts will be sold off to a third party without any input from the writer.

That’s just a matter of the law, though, isn’t it? Couldn’t legislation change that?

This is something I’d like to see SFWA (and other writers groups, and writers in no group at all) take up. Surely there are legislators on the federal level who are sf/f fans. Does anyone know who they are? Who their favorite writers are? I would bet that a contact from a writer they admire might persuade them to introduce legislation protecting right of reversion contracts.

Ten Years Ago I Turned Away From My Ideals And Supported Evil

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Ten years ago tomorrow was the start of the Invasion of Iraq. To my shame (not chagrin, not embarrassment. Shame.) I was an early supporter of the war.

I had long believed that war never be taken on as an adventure overseas, but I let myself be turned by the propaganda leading up to the attack. Did I believe the evidence supporting the presence of WMDs? No, actually, but I thought Hussein needed to allow inspections to continue. Did I believe Iraqi oil reserves were part of the reason we went to war? Yes, of course I did, but I thought there was good to be done anyway.

Which is completely ridiculous. Of course it is. How often are the tools of empire and destruction put of a positive use?

What’s more, I was a grown man who knew better. So what happened? I let myself get caught up in all the talk of chemical weapons used against Iraqi citizens and “rape rooms.” I let myself be convinced that the Iraqi people would be grateful.

At the time, there were anti-war marches in the streets. I remember looking out my window at them as they passed the office building where I worked: they were the usual far left hippie types with their giant puppets, long hair, and birkenstocks. They agreed with me that the war was about oil (a stance that was sneered at in the media at the time) but they were sure it was a huge mistake.

Of course they were right. Of course they were. At the time I thought their protests were ridiculous and self-marginalizing. They seemed more interested in confirming their cultural cred as outsiders than in winning people to their side. The civil rights marchers in the sixties wore coats and ties; these people were in tie dye and sandals that showed their dirty feet. These people don’t represent me.

And that’s utterly ridiculous. They weren’t trying to represent me. They were warning us that the nation was about to make a huge mistake, and they were 100% correct.

Shortly before the invasion, when talk of war was ever-present, I remember Hans Blix coming to the media to say that Hussein had knuckled under and agreed to allow inspections again. I spent half a day foolishly thinking that the invasion planning had done it’s job… until Bush administration officials declared that it was too little too late and the invasion was going to happen anyway. That’s when I realized what an immature asshole I’d been, although I still held out thin hope things would turn out all right.

It didn’t.

What I realize now is that I should have been out in the streets with those protesters. I should have held on to my beliefs and my mistrust and marched against the war. It’s not the responsibility of political protesters to make themselves palatable to me; it’s my job to recognize right from wrong and speak out about it.

Randomness for 1/1

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1) The 50 Worst Columns of 2012. So many trainwrecks.

2) What would cities look like without light pollution? h/t Richard Kadrey

3) Outtakes for ST:TNG Season 2. Video.

4) Politics in 2012, in graphs and gifs.

5) WW2: Full of ridiculous plot holes. h/t James Nicoll

6) The lowest-grossing theatrical release of 2012 goes to Christian Slater’s latest. It was a one-week release, though, and averaged more than “The Oogieloves in the BIG Balloon Adventure.”

7) Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil. An oldie but a goodie.

Reforming U.S. Gun Laws Will Be The Work Of A Generation

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The shooting in Connecticut happened early this morning, but late enough that I was already away from home with my internet turned off when the news hit. It was only after work was done and I was connecting to the cafe wifi that I found out what had happened.

It’s awful and unbearable. That goes without saying. It needs to stop, too. That also goes without saying.

Remember MADD? That was Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Before MADD formed, drunk driving was a thing a whole lot of people did, and there was a “Let them sleep it off in jail” attitude, assuming the cops liked you. I remember reading editorials from men who didn’t understand why everyone kept talking about drunk drivers as if they were bad people. Gosh, it’s just friends out to have a good time!

MADD changed all that. It took time. They argued with people who wanted the status quo. They spoke about lives lost. They talked about common sense.

Nowadays, drunk drivers are treated like people who put other people’s lives at risk. The culture changed. We need to do the same thing with guns.

A friend of mine suggested that the idea we could regulate (or even eliminate) guns in a nation with an estimated 300 million of them was an impossible task. It sure can seem that way, even to pundits writing about the success of buy-back programs in other countries, but if we don’t start now, we’ll never finish.

Maybe it’s the novelist in me, but the way to finish a long, difficult task is to begin immediately and work hard for an extended time.

A good place to start would be these facts about guns and mass shootings in the U.S.

A good thing to do would be to write to your representative and your senators. Write to your governors. There are many simple, sensible things the United States could do to reduce the endless string of gun deaths in this country: Every gun must be registered. Every gun must be insured. If a person is caught with an unregistered, unlicensed weapon, that should be a felony.

The first time it happens wouldn’t have to involve jail time, if there were no other laws broken. A fine and suspended sentence would be enough. And of course, felons in most states lose their right to vote during their sentence and in a few states for long after that. Maybe that would finally end the practice of denying former convicts of their voting rights.

It won’t be easy and it won’t be perfect. No system ever devised by humans can function perfectly. The real choice here is what flaws we’re willing to accept. Are we going to continue with mass murders all over the news and 30-some thousand gun-related deaths a year? Or are we finally, finally going to start changing things.

Added: Per a suggestion on the LiveJournal mirror for this blog, consider also supporting the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

The Election Is Not The End

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Well, Nate Silver’s book THE SIGNAL AND THE NOISE is ranked #3 on Amazon as I write this.

Obama won and I won’t pretend to be sad about it. I don’t think Romney was trying to become president for nefarious reasons–I’m sure he wanted to do good for the nation–but the policies he promised would have been terrible. Obamacare and financial reform might have been weak sauce, but that’s better than an empty bowl.

What’s more, I think he could have won if he hadn’t become so cynical about the process. It wasn’t just his 47% comment, which hurt him badly; he campaigned as though the strategy to win the White House was to say just about anything that sounded good at the moment. Yes, Nate Silver and the pollsters showed the superiority of their numbers-driven system, but the other big winners here were the fact-checkers. The media is changing the way it addresses untruth, and it’s about time.

The Senate has lost Lieberman and Nelson, two of its most conservative Democrats. Can we have a public option now? And filibuster reform? Republicans retained their majority in the House and have enough to seats in the Senate to continue to block, thwart, and slow the people’s business. With luck, McConnell et al will abandon their Deny Obama Everything strategy and work with him.

As for Obama, support for same-sex marriage didn’t hurt him at all, and neither did his demands to increase taxes on the wealthy. Those are welcome changes, too. Still, I know most Americans don’t vote based on this or that policy: does the country seem to be on the upswing? That’s what drives most votes, not the thickets of policy and personality that drives most political junkies.

But here’s the important thing: It’s not over. Voting isn’t the end. I mean it. Too many people think that the only influence we have over our political choices is our vote.

It’s not. Politicians pay attention to the letters they get, and a small number of them can have a real impact. Here’s the text of the letter I’m going to send today:

Dear Mr. President:

I voted for you and I’m happy that you have won a second term. I believe you’ve been a good leader for this country and that you are a decent man.

That’s why I’m asking you to end predator drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The loss of innocent lives in this way is unacceptable. Also, dropping bombs only hardens the resolve of the target population, creating more enemies than we could ever destroy.

As an American citizen and a voter, I’m saying we must end this program.

Thank you,

Your vote is not your voice. Your voice is your voice. Speak up. Be heard.