(1) OUT OF STEAM. Southern California will be without one of its Halloween traditions this year, and probably for the future. “Ghost Train Cancelled by Los Angeles Live Steamers Board of Directors”. The Griffith Park model steam railroad center will not be giving rides or decorating for Halloween. Jay Carsman, a members of LA Live Steamers, told the Theme Park Adventure blog the reasons.
“The LA Live Steamers Ghost Train’s popularity finally outgrew our volunteer club’s ability to manage it,” said Carsman. “Of course, there were other issues too. For 2015 [sic], we really did not plan to have a Ghost Train at all because of the water pipeline project underway on Zoo Drive. The pipe was huge and due to the tunnel boring and the collapse of part of the old pipe, a fairly long stretch of our railroad began to sink in the ground. Just a few weeks before Halloween 2015 [sic], the city’s contractor for the pipe project shored up the mess and injected cement into the ground to stop the sinking. We went ahead and did the Ghost Train but everything was very rushed and stressful. We managed to do it, but the small group of volunteers who really made it happen were exhausted.
“Compounding the problem for future Halloween Ghost Trains were some financial issues, the city advising that our Ghost Train had become a major safety issue for the park due to the crowds, traffic on Zoo Drive, and parking issues,” stated Carsman. Last, they said absolutely no more flames, torches, and exposed hazardous electrical wiring. Then there was the continuing problem of the scale-model railroad is just not designed for such concentrated heavy use. The trains are models, not amusement park machines and the track is a very small scaled-down version of real train track. Carrying ten or fifteen thousand people on the little railroad during a 10-day period is just brutal for such small machines….”
(2) MIDAMERICON II PHOTOS AT FANAC.ORG. They’ve started a photo album for MidAmericon 2 at Fanac.org. “So far there are 42 photos up, most of them courtesy of Frank Olynyk.”
Shots of the Guests of Honor and Toastmaster are here.
(3) AWARD PHOTO. This year Orbital Comics in London beat off fierce competition to win the Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award. James Bacon who seems to collect opinions on good comic shops around the world took the photo and said; “First time at Orbital Comics since the win. The shop embodies an awful lot of what I consider to be just right in comic shops. Huge amount of small press, great events and a gallery, with a lovely attitude, and Karl and his team really deserve it.”
Spirit of Comics Retailer Award
(4) FOR ANYONE WHO HASN’T HEARD ENOUGH. Dave Truesdale appeared on the SuperversiveSF podcast today. He gives his version of the notorious MAC II panel beginning immediately after the intros.
“[The] theme of my opening remarks….was that science fiction is not for snowflakes, those people who are perpetually offended or microaggressed at every turn, these people are nothing but, they are intellectually shallow emotionally stunted thumb-sucking crybabies who are given validation by such organisations or platforms as the Incident Report Team at Worldcon, or places they can go such as safe rooms at WisCon or other safe places around the internet or social media. Science fiction is not the place for these people because SF is part of the arts and the arts should be always one of the most freeform places for expression and thought and instances of being provocative and controversial there should be. They have invaded science fiction to the point where we are not seeing the sort of fiction,, short fiction at least, any more that we used to, we are not seeing the provocative controversial stuff…”
A bit later he comments on the specifics of his expulsion
“…95% of the audience were probably somewhere along the snowflake spectrum and it was just anathema to them so they went crying to the IRT (the Incident Reporting Team) and a one-sided version of what happened got me expelled from the convention and I think it was a travesty that I never got to give my side and it was more or less just a kangaroo court and I think it was just abominable and set a very bad precedent for future Worldcons and just fandom at conventions in general”
(5) EXPULSIONS THROUGHOUT FANHISTORY. Alec Nevala-Lee, in “The Past Through Tomorrow”, discusses Dave Truesdale’s conduct at MidAmeriCon II, and ends by comparing it with the “Great Exclusion Act” at the first Worldcon.
Afterward, one of the other participants shook my hand, saying that he thought that I did a good job, and essentially apologized for taking over the discussion. “I don’t usually talk much,” he told me, “but when I’m on a panel like this, I just can’t stop myself.”
And this turned out to be a prophetic remark. The next day, the very same participant was expelled from the convention for hijacking another panel that he was moderating, using his position to indulge in a ten-minute speech on how political correctness was destroying science fiction and fantasy. I wasn’t there, but I later spoke to another member of that panel, who noted dryly that it was the first time she had ever found herself on the most controversial event of the weekend. Based on other accounts of the incident, the speaker—who, again, had been nothing but polite to me the day before—said that the fear of giving offense had made it hard for writers to write the same kinds of innovative, challenging stories that they had in the past. Inevitably, there are those who believe that his expulsion simply proved his point, and that he was cast out by the convention’s thought police for expressing an unpopular opinion. But that isn’t really what happened. As another blogger correctly observes, the participant wasn’t expelled for his words, but for his actions: he deliberately derailed a panel that he was supposed to moderate, recorded it without the consent of the other panelists, and planned the whole thing in advance, complete with props and a prepared statement. He came into the event with the intention of disrupting any real conversation, rather than facilitating it, and the result was an act of massive discourtesy. For a supposed champion of free speech, he didn’t seem very interested in encouraging it. As a result, he was clearly in violation of the convention’s code of conduct, and his removal was justified.
(6) BAD WOLF. Bertie MacAvoy had a science fictional encounter this weekend.
Seeing the Tardis is always unexpected:
This weekend I drove to the nearest town for some Thai take-out. As I passed down the aisle of cars I saw a dark blue van on the other side of the row. It had decals on the top of its windows. They read: POLICE CALL BOX. Carrying my tubs of soup and cardboard boxes of food, I crossed over. Each rear door had a magnetic sticker on it, such as are used by people to signify that theirs is a company car. These said SAINT JOHN’S AMBULANCE SERVICE and all the rest of the usual Tardis markings. On the rearmost window had been scrawled in white paint: BAD WOLF….
(7) INFLUENTIAL BOOKS. The Washington Posts’s Nora Krug, getting ready for the Library of Congress National Book Festival next weekend, asked writers “What book–or books–influenced you most?” Here is Kelly Link’s response:
Kelly Link’ s books include “ Stranger Things Happen ” and “ Pretty Monsters .” Her latest collection, “ Get in Trouble: Stories ,” was a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist:
The short-story collection “Not What You Expected,” by Joan Aiken, is one of the most magical of all the books I found at the Coral Gables public library during one of my many childhood moves. I checked it out on my library card over and over. In it were stories about dog ghosts, unusual harps, curses and phones that could connect you to the past. Aiken could put a whole world into a 10-page story, and she was funny as well as terrifying. She made the act of storytelling feel limitless, liberating, joyful.
(8) LOSE THESE TROPES. Fond as we are of the number five, consider “Marc Turner with Five Fantasy Tropes That Should Be Consigned To History” for The Speculative Herald.
…Having said that, here are five tropes that I’d be happy never to see again. (Please note, I’m not suggesting that any book that contains these tropes is “bad” or “unimaginative”; I’m simply saying that I would be less inclined to read it.)
- Prophecies
When I was a teen, it seemed every other fantasy book I read featured a prophecy. You know the sort of thing: “The Chosen One will claim the Sword of Light and defeat the Dark Lord”, or “Upon the death of three kings, the world will be plunged into Chaos”. Now maybe it’s just me, but if I foresaw the precise set of circumstances that would bring about the end of all things, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to share it with the world. You can guarantee that somewhere a Dark Lord is listening in and saying, “Well, that is interesting.”
And why is it that whoever makes these prophecies never sees clearly enough to be able to provide a complete picture? It’s never an entirely useful prophecy. There’s always room for misinterpretation so the author can throw in a twist at the end.
Plus, there’s so much scope for abuse. It’s a wonder the bad guys don’t have fun with prophecies more often. “Ah, yes, paradise on earth is just one step away. All you have to do is destroy that kingdom over there. What’s that you say? If you attack, you’ll leave your border with my Evil Empire undefended? Purely a coincidence, I assure you.” *Whistles innocently*
(9) GRAVELINE OBIT. Duane E. Graveline (1931-2016), a doctor who did pioneering research in space medicine, and was briefly a NASA astronaut, died September 5. According to the New York Times:
In 1965, Duane E. Graveline, a doctor who did pioneering research in space medicine, was awarded one of the most coveted jobs the government can bestow: astronaut. But he resigned less than two months later without ever being fitted for a spacesuit, let alone riding a rocket into space. His tenure is believed to be the shortest of anyone in the astronaut program, a NASA spokeswoman said.
Dr. Graveline cited “personal reasons” for his resignation. In fact, NASA officials later said, he had been forced out because his marriage was coming apart and the agency, worried about tarnishing its image at a time when divorce was stigmatized, wanted to avoid embarrassment.
Dr. Graveline, who married five more times and became a prolific author but whose later career as a doctor was marred by scandal, died on Sept. 5 at 85 in a hospital near his home in Merritt Island, Fla.
In later years, Dr. Graveline continued to consult with NASA and wrote 15 books, including memoirs, science fiction novels and works detailing his research into side effects of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, which he blamed for his own medical decline.
Graveline also was a self-published science fiction author with numerous works available through his website.
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY
- September 19, 1961 — On a return trip from Canada, while in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Betty and Barney Hill claimed to have been abducted for two hours by a UFO. After going public with their story, the two gained worldwide notoriety. The incident is the first fully documented case of an alleged alien abduction.
- September 19, 2000 — The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a novel by Michael Chabon about the glory years of the American comic book, is published on this day in 2000. The book went on to win the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
(11) TODAY IN PIRACY. It’s “Talk Like Pirate Day” and if you show up at Krispy Kreme and talk or dress like a pirate you can get a dozen free doughnuts.
Customers who do their best pirate voice get a free glazed donut. Dress like a pirate and you get a free dozen glazed donuts.
To qualify for the free dozen, customers must wear three pirate items like a bandana or eye patch.
If you’re not willing to go that far, but still want to get the free dozen, there is another option: Customers can digitally dress like a pirate through Krispy Kreme Snapchat pirate filter. Just be sure to show the photo to a team member
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS
- Born September 19, 1928 — Adam West
- Born September 19, 1933 — David McCallum in 1933. His was in arguably the best Outer Limits episode, The Sixth Finger. And then, of course, he was in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
(13) READING WITHOUT TURNING A PAGE. M.I.T. uses radiation to read closed books reports Engadget.
There are some books that are simply too delicate to crack open — the last thing you want to do is destroy an ornate medieval Bible simply because you’re curious about its contents. If MIT has its way, though, you won’t have to stay away. Its scientists have crafted a computational imaging system that can read the individual pages of a book while it’s closed. Their technology scans a book using terahertz radiation, and relies on the tiny, 20-micrometer air gaps between pages to identify and scan those pages one by one. A letter interpretation algorithm (of the sort that can defeat captchas) helps make sense of any distorted or incomplete text.
(14) EMMY NOTES. Steven H Silver lists all the Emmy Award winners of genre interest at SF Site News. And he sent along this summary to File 770:
As I noted in my coverage of the Emmy Awards, with their nine wins earlier this week and their three wins last night, Game of Thrones now has the record for the most Emmy wins for a scripted prime time series with 38 (it took the record from Frasier, which has 37). The record for most Emmys of any type seems to be Saturday Night Live, with 43 (including Kate McKinnon’s win this year). It took GOT only six seasons to rack up that total, Frasier took 11, and SNL took 41 years.
(15) ALAN MOORE TALKS TO NPR ABOUT HIS NEW PROJECT. The writer of Watchmen is writing a book (without pictures) based on his hometown: “In ‘Jerusalem,’ Nothing You’ve Ever Lost Is Truly Gone”.
Recently, Moore said he’s stepping back from comics to focus on other projects — like his epic new novel, Jerusalem. It’s full of angels, devils, saints and sinners and visionaries, ghost children and wandering writers, all circling his home town of Northampton, England.
Moore still lives in Northampton, about an hour north of London. He rarely leaves, so I went there to meet him.
“This is holy ground for me,” he told me as we stood on a neglected grassy strip by a busy road. It doesn’t look like holy ground — nothing’s here now except a few trees, and a solitary house on the corner. But it wasn’t always this way.
“This is it,” Moore says, pointing to the grown-over remains of a little path behind the corner house. “This is the alley that used to run behind our terrace. This is where I was born.”
(16) OWN HARRY POTTER’S CUBBYHOLE. The house used to stand in for the Dursleys’ house in the Harry Potter films is on the market.
Until he went to Hogwarts, Harry was forced to live there with Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and his cousin Dudley, and returned there every summer.
The house in Bracknell, Berkshire, rather than the fictive Little Whinging dreamt up by J. K. Rowling, but is otherwise as it appeared in the films.
On the market for £475,000, it has three bedrooms, enough for a married couple, their over-indulged son, and their over-indulged son’s second bedroom. Whether there is room for a child to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs is unclear.
[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Mark-kitteh, Martin Morse Wooster, Steven H Silver, John King Tarpinian, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint and Cadbury Moose.]
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“Why are you a fan? You look normal.”
In fact, given his behavior as a moderator, I would assume that he would turn any “attempt to present his side” into another opportunity to present his manifesto, then claim that he was kicked out because the “other side” didn’t listen or didn’t understand it. I really find that once you get past the fallacy that the Puppies are actually interested in engaging with ideas not their own, they become much easier to deal with. No matter what you say or do, they’re going to complain that their viewpoint isn’t being given sufficient respect, because they just want you to shut up and agree with them. So why give them a platform?
But that’s the thing about dog-whistle statements–they’re specifically intended to be just vague enough that well-meaning people will defend them as “broad-brush”. In this case, the use of the word ‘microagression’ is a very clear and obvious reference to a long, ongoing conversation about the way that someone who makes an effort to present as non-xenophobic (racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic) without changing their underlying attitudes can let slip small indicators of their true intentions with comments or actions that taken individually are insignificant, but when accumulated over the course of a long period in the working environment present a picture of hostility.
By saying that microaggression is a false concept created by over-sensitive people, Truesdale is very clearly insisting to anyone cued into that conversation that women, LGBTQ individuals and minorities have no right to expect the same respect given to ciswhitehetmales, and they should be grateful for the lack of overt discrimination. It’s a racist comment–not just racist, as you’ve pointed out, but it is racist. It’s just racist in that way that allows weasels like Truesdale to claim they were misunderstood if anyone calls them on it.
@Aaron:
Serious question: Why do you think calling something a “microaggression” helps change that in a way that some other language would not? Why is saying “that’s a microagression” more effective than “that’s rude”? Either way, there’s a further explanation to be made if communication is going to happen. Saying “rude” at least gives someone a concept that’s widely understood to hang their further understanding off of. Saying “microagression” doesn’t do that.
Why is saying “that’s a microagression” more effective than “that’s rude”?
Because telling people “that’s rude” when they do something they manifestly think is not rude isn’t going to convince them. They know they were trying to be nice, so they will reject “rude” out of hand. Or they know they were just stating facts. If you tell someone who says something like “You’re not like other black guys, you like science fiction!” that they are being rude, then they will think you’re being ridiculous. In their mind, they were paying the black guy a compliment, and not being rude at all.
“Because telling people “that’s rude” when they do something they manifestly think is not rude isn’t going to convince them.”
Saying something is a microaggression is not going to convince them either. By and large, they will simply regard that as a pretentious way of saying that you don’t like them.
I don’t intend to pre-empt Aaron from answering the question in his own context, but I do have a thought about this.
As I understand it, “Micro-aggression” is a term coined not to discuss one rude encounter, but to facilitate the discussion of what it’s like to live in a society where one endures many such encounters because something about the person is not freely accepted by the majority society — color, sexuality, whatever.
All human beings have to deal with (and are hopefully resilient enough to move past) some number of minor rude encounters. Some human beings are in social situations where the quantity they deal with is increased.
I also tend to see “micro-aggression” as a term intended to sound a bit more scientific than “rude”, and therefore to be more acceptable in academic and social science discussions.
So which word to use probably depends on what kind of discussion the writer thinks we’re having here.
@JJ I didn’t like Star Wars: Aftermath, but it had nothing to do with “the gay agenda.” It had everything to do with Wendig’s writing and some of the decisions he made that kept knocking me out of the story.
The Good:
He avoided the “focus on the main characters we all know” trap, relegating them to background and flavor roles. He also managed to not use them in a deus ex machina role, either, which too many folks do in SWEU fiction.
The basic plot was decent, and felt like something I’d expect from Star Wars
The Bad:
He wrote in present tense. It requires a very deft hand to successfully pull off present-tense writing, and Wendig does not have that deft hand.
He kept referencing things that knocked me out of the setting. Like “Light Bulbs” and “Kick the Can” and (of all things) “Space Diapers.”
Cliched and hyperspecialized (and hypercapable) characters.
Taken as a whole? I wish someone else had written it. Seriously. I’d love to read this novel as written by someone else.
@Arkansawyer
I totally agree. A proportionate response would have been giving her a warning. Suspending her for the last full day of the convention was an overreaction.
Truesdale, on the other hand, fully deserved being ejected from the convention.
@Mike Glyer:
That’s along the lines I was thinking on. I’ve given up on social science mostly and spend more of my time as a social engineer, gone from theory to practice. It’s not that I disregard the need for theory, I just understand that it’s not what I use on a day-to-day basis when trying to change people’s behavior, which is what matters.
To me, of course. And I still do read theory. I just try not to let it read me.
“That’s along the lines I was thinking on. I’ve given up on social science mostly and spend more of my time as a social engineer, gone from theory to practice. It’s not that I disregard the need for theory, I just understand that it’s not what I use on a day-to-day basis when trying to change people’s behavior, which is what matters.
To me, of course. And I still do read theory. I just try not to let it read me.”
If you are acting in good faith in trying to change a right wing person’s behavior, ‘microaggression’ is not a term you should use. They regard it as an antagonistic term in the same way that a left wing person regards the term ‘social justice warrior’ as an antagonistic term.
@idontknow: I think this is a time to gather stones together, so I’m mostly talking with people who have good hearts and just don’t understand.
Catching up…
@JJ. I thank you for those reviews (on the other hand, my wallet curses you) for those book reviews.
@Aaron, Cheryl S and John Seavey. You guys are seriously rocking the Truesdale discussion. I had stuff to say but both of you have already said it better than I could. I completely agree that many of Truesdale’s statements were dog whistles and they definitely felt like personal attacks. They were overtly sexist (the pearl clutching) but also targeted towards minorities, LBGT individuals, disabled etc. As a member of several of those groups, the very clear message was that *I* don’t belong.
“Micro-aggression” is just another way of saying “passive-aggressive.”
idontknow said: “If you are acting in good faith in trying to change a right wing person’s behavior, ‘microaggression’ is not a term you should use. They regard it as an antagonistic term in the same way that a left wing person regards the term ‘social justice warrior’ as an antagonistic term.”
Is there a term you can think of that wouldn’t be regarded as antagonistic? Because in general, what I find antagonizes most right-wingers is the suggestion that there’s anything wrong with what they’re saying and doing at that time.
To the point where there’s actually a whole other term coined just for that, “white fragility”, which is the tendency for white people to become hostile and defensive when challenged even mildly or indirectly on their attitudes regarding race. For some people, even kid gloves are too harsh.
“Is there a term you can think of that wouldn’t be regarded as antagonistic? Because in general, what I find antagonizes most right-wingers is the suggestion that there’s anything wrong with what they’re saying and doing at that time.”
Most of the time, no matter who I am talking to, I try to use language that is as neutral and non-offensive as possible. For example, if I know that Theodore Beale prefers to be called ‘Vox Day,’ I will call him ‘Vox Day,’ even if I am saying something I know he and the others at his website are going to disagree with. The same goes here. I lose the advantage of being regarded as an insider anywhere, but generally I am not met with hostility.
I lost that advantage here, mainly because I responded to insulting and aggressive language directed at me in kind early on, so there are several here who regard me as a troll. Not necessarily because I used insulting and aggressive language, but because I am an outsider who did so, while simultaneously arguing viewpoints that were not part of the echo chamber. That was unfortunate, but it happened and I cannot change it.
At any rate, if you are sincere about attempting to persuade anyone of anything, I wouldn’t approach them with preconceptions about why they hold the opinions that they hold or try to convince them that they they hold those opinions solely based on what you believe about their race.
@John Seavey: I had a talk with some folks about “white fragility” today. It’s not a term I use with most people. It’s too fraught. The folks feeling it are already feeling the fear of becoming a minority, with an underlying strain of guilt helping feed the fear. Telling them they’re “fragile” to boot doesn’t help.
The only thing that works for me is talking directly about those fears, acknowledging them, especially the demographic reality, and doing my best to make them at ease with their discomfort. It doesn’t always work and it’s a strain when it does, on me and them both, but it’s better than nothing.
@idontknow: I don’t feel I have anything useful to say to Mister Beale, so I just refer to him formally and forget it. Some battles aren’t worth fighting.
If you are acting in good faith in trying to change a right wing person’s behavior, ‘microaggression’ is not a term you should use. They regard it as an antagonistic term in the same way that a left wing person regards the term ‘social justice warrior’ as an antagonistic term.
Well, I guess that just shows what easily offended special snowflakes some right wing people are. Or was that not what you intended to say?
“@idontknow: I don’t feel I have anything useful to say to Mister Beale, so I just refer to him formally and forget it. Some battles aren’t worth fighting.”
I don’t speak to him directly that often, but generally when I do, it is on his turf, so on those rare occasions, I think it’s best to extend him the same courtesy I would expect if he came over to my turf. That also serves not to wear out my welcome there and probably makes them more likely to listen to me when I do happen to have something pertinent to say about whatever subject they happen to be talking about that peaked my interest.
@John Arkansawyer – Serious question: Why do you think calling something a “microaggression” helps change that in a way that some other language would not?
I’m not sure that any specific phrasing changes anything ever, but precision matters and is more likely to be effective. Telling someone they’re rude doesn’t define the behavior and generally gets rejected; it’s not all that common to respond, “Oh, hey, you’re right, I *was* being rude.”
Telling someone they’ve engaged in a microagression, to wit X, not only defines the specific action, it slips under the automatic defense of being able to defend yourself from the whole because you can mentally reject part of it. You might still object vociferously (and probably will if, like Truesdale, you belong to a group that has erected barriers to understanding the other as a defensive measure), but the precision itself is a tool.
“Well, I guess that just shows what easily offended special snowflakes some right wing people are. Or was that not what you intended to say?”
No, what this shows more than anything else is that you don’t care whether you are courteous or not.
I think specialized vocabulary makes it easier to talk about the things those terms were created to describe. Sounds like a tautology, yes–but having words like “microagressions” and “mansplaining” and “kyriarchy” make the discussion so much less clunky.
“Microagression,” being the example under discussion, carries meaning and implies a context that “rude” simply doesn’t. It references the cumulative effect of the comment/actions which, while acknowledged in the very terminology as being small (and not necessarily socially coded as “rude,” although, guess what? Privilege dynamics influence what is socially coded as “rude”!), create a large weight on the individual that those in a privileged position simply never have to bear.
That said, specialized vocabulary isn’t the best tool for every job. It’s one thing to use it in a conversation between people for whom Kyriarchy 101 is a long way behind them, and another to use it to try to explain to a well-meaning but clueless acquaintance why “It’s not so bad, grow a thicker skin” isn’t as appropriate a response as they might think.
Example from my real lived experience: I’m a woman, and woman are often simply expected to take up less room in the world than men are. I went to a local bar to enjoy the live-band karaoke event they were having. I was alone, so I sat in a tall chair beside the bar to watch the show.
About 20 different people, mostly men, bumped and jostled me or stood practically pressing their backs up against me to have a conversation with their friends. It was like I was invisible.
When I finally exploded, “Hey. HEY! I am not a piece of furniture, I am another human being, quit banging me with your shoulder!” the man in question had the typical “What is your DEAL, it’s not like I’m murdering you, lighten up, it was just a mistake, jeez, I’m SOOOOOOrry,” reaction.
I think it is not at all contradictory to appreciate the term “microagression” for usefully describing that night’s experience, yet to also acknowledge that the term would not have been the best tool for explaining to this man why his accidental pummeling of me with his shoulder had an effect by virtue of being the twentieth such instance that night in addition to its effect as a lone incident.
…Amusingly, given Truesdale’s chosen insult term, “snowflake” is a good metaphor for microaggressions. One of them landing on you may be harmless, but an accumulated pile of them is cold and heavy and suffocating.
Well bless their right wing hearts.
idontknow said: “I don’t speak to him directly that often, but generally when I do, it is on his turf, so on those rare occasions, I think it’s best to extend him the same courtesy I would expect if he came over to my turf.”
Translation: Vox Day has established a safe space in which his identity is to be respected, so please don’t commit the microaggression of intruding on his safe space and doxxing him by using his real name. That’s toxic behavior.
Hmm. Sounds like the only thing separating Vox Day from the SJWs is that he doesn’t apply the rules he expects others to follow to himself.
“Translation: Vox Day has established a safe space in which his identity is to be respected, so please don’t commit the microaggression of intruding on his safe space and doxxing him by using his real name. That’s toxic behavior.”
You are assuming that this is some rule that Vox Day has demanded. That isn’t the case. These are rules that I impose upon myself and amount to little more than basic civility. If Mike Glyer decided that he wanted to be called SpaceNeptuneTridentBunny, I would call him SpaceNeptuneTridentBunny, because I am coming to his space and doing so is the polite thing to do. I attempt to extend the same basic civility to anyone I talk to, regardless of whether I find their views abhorrent or not, up until the point when they give me a reason not to. Obviously, there are people in the world who will never extend me the civility I try to extend them. But those people are actually relatively few and far between, whether they are left wing or right wing. The basic, fundamental necessity of dialogue isn’t agreement. It’s politeness. The fundamental divide between the right and the left these days isn’t because of issues. The issues are basically the same as they’ve been for decades or centuries. The main problem these days is that despite all of the mediums of communication we have, people have forgotten how to communicate with each other because they forgot how to be polite.
Translation: Vox Day has established a safe space in which his identity is to be respected, so please don’t commit the microaggression of intruding on his safe space and doxxing him by using his real name.
It is not doxxing Theodore Beale to use his real name. Vox Day is a known pseudonym for Theodore Beale, and has never been a secret.
It is not doxxing Seanan McGuire to reveal that she is Mira Grant. It is not doxxing Orson Scott Card to reveal that his is Scott Richards. It is not doxxing Stephen King to reveal that he is Richard Bachman. It is not doxxing Sarah Monette to reveal that she is Katherine Addison. And so on and so forth.
idontknow – If you are acting in good faith in trying to change a right wing person’s behavior, ‘microaggression’ is not a term you should use. They regard it as an antagonistic term in the same way that a left wing person regards the term ‘social justice warrior’ as an antagonistic term.
Eh. I am not optimistic about polite avoidance of particular words being a particularly useful tool if the goal is to change someone’s mind. Sure, civility makes discussion easier, but that doesn’t make it effective as a tool of social change.
However, changing one person or group’s mind isn’t the point of using words like microaggression and privilege. The point is to alter the larger conversation within (in this case) the US and shift it from the one where we all act as if we believe the fiction that white, cisgendered men are the majority and therefore their view of the world is the default to one where all voices are heard and valued.
“Eh. I am not optimistic about polite avoidance of particular words being a particularly useful tool if the goal is to change someone’s mind. Sure, civility makes discussion easier, but that doesn’t make it effective as a tool of social change.”
I am not saying that it will. If you want to convince anyone of anything, you have to make the necessary arguments that will eventually do that. But as a general starting point, to avoid having them tune you out completely at the very start, polite avoidance of particular words is necessary, because no one is ever going to be convinced of anything if they are already offended.
@Cheryl S.: If you know a way to “shift the conversation” without changing hearts and minds, I’d love to hear it, because I’m sick to death of trying but don’t see an alternative. Except force. There’s always force. That’s certainly what the protagonist of Kaleidoscope Century says. It’s a great book, but he’s a shit.
For that matter, it’s also not a microaggression to point out that Vox Day is a hypocritical bigot, and it’s not intrusion on his safe space to point it out to him directly. That’s right–Beale is actually demanding more censorship and silencing of opposing viewpoints than any SJW ever would. 🙂
idontknow – I am not saying that it will. If you want to convince anyone of anything, you have to make the necessary arguments that will eventually do that. But as a general starting point, to avoid having them tune you out completely at the very start, polite avoidance of particular words is necessary, because no one is ever going to be convinced of anything if they are already offended.
And I’m saying the point is not to convince any one person. In fact, I’d go farther and say the likelihood of my injecting – through conversation and polite avoidance of trigger words – sufficient empathy into someone like Truesdale that he becomes aware of how he is using his privilege to act like the most special of special snowflakes is pretty much zero.
The goal is not to shift individuals. The goal is to create a society that is better for more of us. So, those of us who aren’t white, cisgendered men, and some who are, are raising our voices and using precise language to alter the cultural conversation.
Do you think marriage equality wiped out homophobia? Nope, but the shift from societally approved discrimination and overt homophobia happened quickly, not least because the conversation shifted enough that fewer and fewer people felt comfortable treating those of us not who are not heterosexual poorly. In public.
“The goal is not to shift individuals. The goal is to create a society that is better for more of us. So, those of us who aren’t white, cisgendered men, and some who are, are raising our voices and using precise language to alter the cultural conversation.”
And I suppose I would argue that society is made up of a lot of individuals. Changing policy is fine, and education is fine, but without convincing individuals that your point of view is the superior one. To your point, it was probably more like a gradual reduction in homophobia finally resulted in lawmakers being willing to embrace marriage equality, because the self-interest of lawmakers told them that more than 50% of their constituents were in favor of this change in policy.
I honestly don’t believe it happened all that quickly. I think it happened over a period of decades where people convinced other people that gay people weren’t all that bad after all.
I don’t know if the chance of convincing Dave Truesdale of something is pretty much zero. I think the chances of me changing his entire worldview is slim. And I also know that if I shut off all avenues to talk to the guy, my chances of convincing him of anything will be zero. I don’t know what I might be able to convince him of, but as long as the bridge isn’t burned, one day, I might be in a position to convince him of something.
And if it never happens? Well, that’s not great, but in the interim, I may have brought 10 other individuals closer to the things I believe, even if I haven’t managed to make them totally embrace the things you believe.
But as a general starting point, to avoid having them tune you out completely at the very start, polite avoidance of particular words is necessary, because no one is ever going to be convinced of anything if they are already offended.
“You’re not being polite enough” is a pretty common way to shut down people arguing for change. It is deployed on a regular basis by someone who doesn’t want to actually deal with an issue as a silencing tactic. And often it doesn’t matter how polite someone is being, there will always be an extra mile they are told they could go to be nice, and if they are just nice, then those in power would listen to them, but not before then.
Black Lives Matter was being “too impolite” by protesting. Colin Kopernick is being much more polite – he’s merely kneeling when the anthem is performed at football games – but he’s not being polite enough. He should protest in some vague “more polite” manner. And so on.
I see we’ve returned to the idea that all white males who participate in a discussion about inclusiveness in SF/F must have the same opinion. I think it’s a buzzkill when people on File 770 are put on the defensive about their race and gender instead of their opinions.
Here’s an opinion I can offer that should be better received:
It’s ironic that Dave Truesdale complained about a “one-sided version of what happened” getting him kicked out of Worldcon. His own version is pretty damning:
If he had been given a chance to explain himself to the con and he talked like that, does anyone think it would’ve helped?
@idontknow: “Translation: Vox Day has established a safe space in which his identity is to be respected, so please don’t commit the microaggression of intruding on his safe space and doxxing him by using his real name. That’s toxic behavior.”
You are assuming that this is some rule that Vox Day has demanded. That isn’t the case.
Actually it is: https://voxday.blogspot.ca/2013/06/mailvox-undead-corpse.html#c5593077190977604188
@John A Arkansawyer – If you know a way to “shift the conversation” without changing hearts and minds, I’d love to hear it, because I’m sick to death of trying but don’t see an alternative. Except force.
Nobody has been able to correctly explain why a butterfly’s wing starts a hurricane (or if they have, don’t tell me, because I love that metaphor), but I think that’s how social change starts. Not by one person convincingly talking to another, but by imperceptible shifts in the larger group. Just one person here and there saying the equivalent of, “hey, Polish jokes aren’t funny.” I mean, it’s been a long time since anyone tried to tell a Polish joke in my hearing, so clearly something changed and it wasn’t just because I kept saying that shit wasn’t funny. So, somewhere the snowballs picked up enough momentum that ethnic jokes left the cultural lexicon.
You probably couldn’t have forced them out of existence though, because force alone isn’t a very effect positive change agent.
Also, “SJW” is an INSULT. Even if there was a time when it wasn’t, it damn well is an insult now. “Microaggression” is NOT an insult. You may not like the concept. You may disagree that it exists at all. But spare me the false equivalence between the two. It makes it sound like, yanno, you’re arguing in bad faith.
“Actually it is: https://voxday.blogspot.ca/2013/06/mailvox-undead-corpse.html#c5593077190977604188”
That’s my error then. I’ve never run afoul of the rule, so I’ve never seen him actually say that.
I see we’ve returned to the idea that all white males who participate in a discussion about inclusiveness in SF/F must have the same opinion.
Really? Who said that?
Cheryl S.: Force is unfortunately a very effective change agent. That’s a thought I try not to think, or at least not to dwell on, but it’s still true.
That’s part of the truth, but not the whole truth. The mass exodus from the closet made it clear to people that they had a choice to make: They could either learn to hate people they loved or they could learn to love them as they were. Some people made the first choice, as we all know too well, but a lot more made the second choice. And yeah, there are a fair number of people who are singing the second song but thinking the first. Anyone who doesn’t think that hasn’t thought too much or too deeply about what changed and what didn’t about race the last few decades. But I’ve seen that change fought out in family. I’ve seen it recently. I tell you, Love Is Real.
“Also, “SJW” is an INSULT. Even if there was a time when it wasn’t, it damn well is an insult now. “Microaggression” is NOT an insult. You may not like the concept. You may disagree that it exists at all. But spare me the false equivalence between the two. It makes it sound like, yanno, you’re arguing in bad faith.”
Are the specific terms really all that important to the larger point?
There are any number of terms that right wing people use and any number of concepts they espouse that left wing people find offensive. There are any number of terms that left wing people use and any number of concepts they espouse that right wing people find offensive.
The bottom line is simple:
1.) No matter what ideology a person is, if they know that a term or concept is offensive to people of the other side, but they use it anyway, they are not attempting to have dialogue or persuade. They are are attempting to incite.
2.) If you want to have a dialogue with or persuade someone on the other side, know the concepts and words they find offensive and don’t use them, because someone who is offended is not persuadable.
@idontknow
In this hypothetical conversation with people who don’t like the term, how would you express it instead?
“@idontknow
In this hypothetical conversation with people who don’t like the term, how would you express it instead?”
It depends very much on the specifics of the situation under discussion and my relationship with the person I was attempting to persuade. A lot of different variables would come into play. How much do I know about their attitudes about gender/race/identity politics in general? If I know enough about them, what types of persuasion affect them the most? Are they the type of person who gets more out of a laugh or are they the type of person that prefers a dialogue or are they the type of person who tends to feel uncomfortable dealing with these kinds of things at all? In that case, it might be better to wait until we are alone and not in public to broach the subject?
There are too many variables in play to give a strict answer. If it is a stranger I know little about, I would try to keep my language as neutral and respectful as possible, but let them know there is a reason that they were talking to might not have approved of what they just said or did.
It could range from something as brief and simple as me expressing my opinion of their behavior, (“Hey, that’s not cool, man.”), to something as involved as a serious conversation about it. But above all, no matter how brief or how involved it was, I would not use language that I knew they found offensive, because as soon as I did that, that would be the moment I lost any chance to persuade them.
Well, lets use a different set of terms. Group A would be antagonized if someone called them (or members of their group) racial slurs in a discussion. Group B would be antagonized if you said that blacks are equal to whites. So to make sure I don’t antagonize group B when convincing them, I should never bring up that blacks are equal to whites.
Ugh. That part bugs more each time I read it. Wasn’t the Incident Report Team the one who responded to Alyssa Wong when she was being harassed and afraid to leave her room? I wonder how that would have played out in the snowflake-free world that DT is advocating.
Oh, right. She would felt unsafe and unsupported, left the con and probably stopped attending them going forward, and possibly felt unwelcome in SF entirely and stopped writing.
(And don’t tell me her writing is safe or unprovocative.)
“Well, lets use a different set of terms. Group A would be antagonized if someone called them (or members of their group) racial slurs in a discussion. Group B would be antagonized if you said that blacks are equal to whites. So to make sure I don’t antagonize group B when convincing them, I should never bring up that blacks are equal to whites.”
If you are seriously making the effort to persuade a group of White Supremacists, it’s not a good idea to tell them that blacks are equal to whites, because that will offend them and you won’t be able to persuade them of anything from that point forward.
If you are trying to incite the White Supremacists, then go ahead and incite them.
In either case, whether you called a member of Group A the racial slur or told the White Supremacist that blacks were equal to whites, they would be offended. At that point, you would have no chance to achieve your goal, which ostensibly is to try to convince this person of something. Now, someone with entrenched beliefs like this is probably going to be difficult to convince, but it can be done.
In this case it would probably be best to start out with something simple that would be easy for the person to agree with you on. Like, whether he or she wants something to drink or eat.
Nah, I have better things to do then to hang out at Vox Day’s blog.
It really shouldn’t be necessary to say this, any more than the observation that most pickpockets have fingers requires the disclaimer that not all those who possess fingers are pickpockets.
“The sky is blue” does not mean “All that is blue is the sky.”
But, well.
Mike:
If “white dudes” implies racism, then surely it implies sexism, too, so including women doesn’t really change anything. The dudes are being noted for their whiteness and their dudeness.
I would guess they’re mostly straight white dudes, too, which does not constitute a claim that all straight white dudes agree with Truesdale, merely that he’s making an argument for the restoration of familiar levels of entitlement, and the beneficiaries of that kind of entitlement tend to be dudes. And white. And straight.
I say this as a straight white dude who does not agree with Truesdale, and I don’t think it should be necessary for me to make that qualifier, because there’s plenty of room in the world for his supporters to be largely SWDs and still have millions of SWDs left over to disagree.
@idontknow: It’s not all about you, or people who share your views. As you say, there are a lot of individuals, and a great many of them don’t agree with you much. Of those, a great many don’t really have any firm feelings at all; others agree with a general take on the problem(s) but aren’t at all sure what’s an appropriate response.
I’m sure you’ve had the experience being in a store, waiting for service behind someone who is resolutely determined not to be satisfied. They simply won’t accept the size, or make, or color, or some other feature of the thing they say they want, and if somehow store people get them to agree that feature A is actually just what will serve them well, they’ll move on to be dissatisfied by feature B. It takes some combination of massive pandering and throwing them out to get anything done.
You’re one of those customers for this topic, and folks you keep wanting us to give more respect are much more so. Look: you know we’re pushing a nefarious SJW agenda which you despise and find potentially dangerous. You are not available as a potential convert to our crusade. You have strong objections, strongly put. From our point of view, trying to satisfy you is as pointless as it would be for Beale to try satisfying, say, Kyra or Cheryl that his agenda is in her best interests. Na gonna happen, as some of the kids say.
From my point of view – and pretty clearly from the point of view of a bunch of others – we have a lot better prospects talking to people who find the overall ideas of social justice as we understand them to be at least somewhat appealing, who might end up deciding that we’re not any closer to good answers than them but who may well be persuaded that we’ve got some of the answers and want to work with us toward making them real and figuring out other parts. They have potential solvable objections, unlike you.
None of this is intended to be insulting, by the way. It’s just a fact of life: you have strong priors against anything in the way of humanistic center-to-left visions of social justice and supporting policy. Anyone betting on persuading you would be starting off thousands of dollars in the hole, as opposed to being at zero or even up some with someone else. What is it about your posts here that makes you think the rest of us should regard you as a good prospect for persuasion?
Use of “SJW” and its variations is similar to Brad et al referring to those outside their echo chamber as “puppy-kickers” and *crybullies” – eg it’s a term meant to insult and other a group of people.
Use of “microaggression” is referring to the socially observable phenomenon that Aaron and others have given many examples of already. It’s not a deliberate insult to a particular group of people, unless that group of people are going out of their way to feel insulted.
These terms are not alike in their usage and conflating the two isn’t helpful to a continuing dialogue.
I think it is clear by now that IDK isn’t engaged in any useful conversation, but is in fact, just sealioning.