(1) DAYLIGHT STEALING TIME. Disney’s Alice Through The Looking Glass trailer investigates a time crime.
(2) TAKING INVENTORY. Bill Roper had some insights about being a convention dealer while doing “That Taxes Thing”.
One of the distressing things about doing the taxes for Dodeka is seeing:
– How many different titles we carry.
– And how many of them appear to have sold one or fewer copies in 2015.
Some of these are the result of having bought out Juanita’s inventory when she retired and having acquired various CDs that had been sitting in her inventory for too long. A few of them are the result of my own ordering errors.
The problem is that the boxes are large and heavy and the table is very full. But if you don’t take the CDs out to the cons with you, you can’t sell them…
Filk is an extremely regional business. And given that we’re in the eighth-or-so year of a sucky economy, I certainly understand people’s reluctance to take a flyer on something that they aren’t familiar with.
(3) BATMOBILE REPLICA MAKER LOSES. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a Ninth Circuit decision in favor of DC Comics, which had sued Mark Towle over his unlicensed replicas of the 1966 and 1989 Batmobiles, sold for about $90,000 each. So DC wins.
According to Robot 6:
Towle argued that the U.S. Copyright Act doesn’t protect “useful articles,” defined as objects that have “an intrinsic utilitarian function” (for example, clothing, household appliances or, in this case, automobile functions); in short, that the Batmobile’s design is merely functional.
However, a federal judge didn’t buy that argument… Towle appealed that decision, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals wasn’t any more sympathetic, finding in September that, “the Batmobile is almost always bat-like in appearance, with a bat-themed front end, bat wings extending from the top or back of the car, exaggerated fenders, a curved windshield, and bat emblems on the vehicle. This bat-like appearance has been a consistent theme throughout the comic books, television series, and motion picture, even though the precise nature of the bat-like characteristics have changed from time to time.”
In his petition to the high court, Towle insisted that the U.S. Copyright Office states outright that automobiles aren’t copyrightable, and that the Ninth Circuit simply created an arbitrary exception. He also argued that there have been “dozens” of Batmobiles in DC comic books over the decades that “vary dramatically in appearance and style” — so much so that the vehicle doesn’t have the “consistent, widely-identifiable, physical attributes” required to be considered a “character.”
(4) SFL SURVIVOR. Andrew Liptak retells “The Adventures of the LA Science Fantasy Society” at Kirkus Reviews.
When he [Forry Ackerman] set off on his own, he founded the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. While every other Science Fiction League chapter closed—as well as many of the other fan groups—the LASFS survives to the present day, the longest running science fiction club in the world.
In the coming decades, the club became an important focal point for the growing science-fiction community. It counted some of the genre’s biggest writers as its members: when Ray Bradbury’s family moved from Arizona to Los Angles, the young storyteller quickly found the group. “A turning point in his life came in early September 1937,” Sam Moskowitz recounted in his early history Seekers of Tomorrow: Masters of Modern Science Fiction, “when poring through the books and magazines in Shep’s Shop, a Los Angeles book store that catered to science-fiction readers, he received an invitation from a member to visit the Los Angeles Chapter of the Science Fiction League.” Through the league, Bradbury quickly got his start as a writer, publishing “Hollerbochen’s Dilemma” in the club’s fanzine, Imagination!
LASFS is not quite the lone survivor of the Science Fiction League – there is also the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society. Fancyclopedia 3 has more SFL history.
(5) ON WINGS OF STONE. You must keep an eye on these winged predators. BBC tells “How to survive a Weeping Angels attack!”
The Weeping Angels are scary. Really scary. They possess a natural and unique defence mechanism: they’re quantum locked. This means that they can only move when no other living creature is looking at them. These lonely assassins also have the ability to send other beings into the past, feeding on the potential time energy of what would have been the rest of their victims’ lives.
But how do you survive a Weeping Angel attack? Well, here’s our guaranteed, foolproof 4-step guide…
(6) TOP DRAWER. Peter Capaldi proves to have a flair for sketching his predecessors as Doctor Who.
#BehindTheScenes of yesterday's @DWTheFanShow!
Watch the video here » https://t.co/BISSjq1qgH#DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/VXcizMYQV9— Doctor Who (@bbcdoctorwho) March 12, 2016
(7) COINAGE. A horrible, fannish pun in March 12’s Brevity cartoon.
(8) MARIE WILLIAMS OBIT. New Zealand fan Marie Williams died of cancer February 27. She was a member of the board of Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand (SFFANZ), and their announcement said, “She was a valued member and we will miss her thoughtful insights and interesting comments.”
(9) TOMLINSON OBIT. E-mail pioneer Ray Tomlinson died March 5 at the age of 74. The New York Times report gave a brief history of his development.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mr. Tomlinson was working at the research and development company Bolt, Beranek & Newman on projects for ARPANET, a forerunner of the Internet created for the Defense Department. At the time, the company had developed a messaging program, called SNDMSG, that allowed multiple users of a time-share computer to send messages to one another.
But it was a closed messaging system, limited to users of a single computer.
Mr. Tomlinson, filching codes from a file-transfer program he had created called CYPNET, modified SNDMSG so that messages could be sent from one host computer to another throughout the ARPANET system.
To do this, he needed a symbol to separate a user name from a destination address. And so the plump little @ sign came into use, chosen because it did not appear in user names and did not have any meaning in the TENEX paging program used on time-sharing computers.
The BBC’s Dave Lee wrote “Ray Tomlinson’s e-mail is flawed, but never bettered”.
He is widely regarded as the inventor of email, and is credited with putting the now iconic “@” sign in the addresses of the revolutionary system.
He could never have imagined the multitude of ways email would come to be used, abused and confused.
Just think – right now, someone, somewhere is writing an email she should probably reconsider. Count to 10, my friend. Sleep on it.
Another is sending an email containing brutal, heartbreaking words that, really, should be said in person… if only he had the nerve.
And of course, a Nigerian prince is considering how best to ask for my help in spending his fortune.
Chip Hitchcock says, “AFAICT, nobody saw person-to-person email coming; computers were for talking to central data, as in ‘A Logic Named Joe’ or even The Shockwave Rider. The closest I can think of to discussing the effects of mass cheap point-to-point communication is the side comment on cell-phone etiquette in the opening scene of Tunnel in the Sky. Can anyone provide another example?”
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY
- March 13, 1981 – Joe Dante’s The Howling premieres in North America.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born March 13, 1911 – L. Ron Hubbard
(12) HUGO NOMINATORS: NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER. Spacefaring, Extradimensional Happy Kittens reappears after a five-month hiatus, because it’s “Hugo Season!”
The annual SFF self-loathing theme weeks are here again — I feel (as I feel every year) like a total loser for not having read enough new science fiction and fantasy to make informed nominations for the Hugo award. I haven’t read Seveneves, haven’t seen Ant-Man, haven’t had the time for Jessica Jones, haven’t waded through a lot of short fiction.
Damn damn damn.
Then again, you’re always going to feel that way, no matter what. And it’s not football (which means “soccer”, in case you’re American), so whining doesn’t help.
And did I also forget Alan Moore's Crossed +100? Damn. #hugoawards #nominations https://t.co/8AKa1x2Zz8
— Spacefaring Kitten (@SpacefaringK) March 13, 2016
(13) BINARY BEAUTY. “Google’s AI Is Now Reigning Go Champion of the World”. Motherboard has the story.
On Saturday afternoon in Seoul, AlphaGo, the Go-playing artificial intelligence created by Google’s DeepMind, beat 18-time Go world champion Lee Sedol for its third straight win in a five game series.
The win was a historic one for artificial intelligence research, a field where AI’s mastery of this 2,500 year old game was long considered a holy grail of sorts for AI researchers. This win was particularly notable because the match included situations called ko fights which hadn’t arisen in the previous two games. Prior to AlphaGo’s win, other Go experts had speculated that ko situations could prove to be stumbling blocks for the DeepMind program as they had been in the past for other Go computer programs.
“When you watch really great Go players play, it is like a thing of beauty,” said Google co-founder Sergey Brin, himself a self-proclaimed adamant Go player in grad school, after the match. “So I’m very excited that we’ve been able to instill that level of beauty inside a computer. I’m really honored to be here in the company of Lee Sedol, such an incredible player, as well as the DeepMind team who’ve been working so hard on the beauty of a computer.”
(14) PC OR BS? Ethan Mills of Examined Worlds asks “Has Political Correctness Run Amok? Does It Even Exist?”
… I’m tempted to call this “A Prolegomena to Any Future Discourse about Political Correctness.”….
- Is political correctness a cut-and-dried free speech issue? Why is it that many examples of the “political correctness has run amok” narrative involve cases where one group exercises its freedom to speak against ideas or to decide what speech they want to support in their space? Is this really a threat to free speech in general if it’s limited to a particular space? Is there a right to tell people what speech to support in their space? Does political correctness threaten free speech in a more fundamental way by making people feel uncomfortable to say certain things at all? How do we decide what counts as a threat to free speech in general? Are there some things that just shouldn’t be said in certain contexts? Should all speech be allowed in all contexts? If not, how do we decide when it’s permissible to limit speech? Is there a difference between limiting speech and simply asking people not to say certain things?
- What is the difference between political correctness and politeness or basic respect? Is there a difference? What happens if what one person calls political correctness another person calls being polite, civil, or respecting the humanity of others? How do we settle these disputes? Is it possible that this whole issue is really just based on the feeling that people don’t like being told what to say? Is it possible or desirable to change that feeling and thus shift the whole narrative on this issue?
(15) PI TIME. Are you getting into MIT? Then expect notification from BB-8. “MIT parodies ‘Star Wars’ for ‘decision day’ announcement”.
The video ultimately reveals that “decision day” for the class of 2020 will take place on March 14, which is also known as “Pi Day”, as 3.14 represents the first 3 digits of pi.
Hopeful applicants will be able to learn whether or not they’ve been accepted to MIT by logging onto the admissions website starting at 6:28 p.m. on Pi Day. This time represents another reference to pi as 6.28 is known as “Tau” or two times pi.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Hampus Eckerman.]
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I was fine with the Weeping Angels right up until the point that we saw them actually moving.
Watched The Husbands of River Song this weekend and liked it quite a bit. I hope they can persuade Capaldi to stay on after Moffat leaves — I’d like to see what he’d do with someone else running the show.
@NickPheas – still finalising my Best Novel nominations; I have a couple more to read before the end of the month.
@amk – noted your recommendation of Shutter, but I’m a bit uneasy about nominating a second volume when I haven’t read the first.
If I try another Graphic Story before the deadline, it’s likely to be Sandman: Overture.
re (6)
I’m a big fan of Capaldi, and I’m happy to hear that he’s probably doing a season past Moffit. Now I know a traditional part of Dr. Who fandom is saying how Doctor X was the only REAL doctor, and ALL new Doctors are MERELY FANFIC, and that the new show runner is DESTROYING DOCTOR WHO with stories are AREN’T REAL DOCTOR WHO, but I have to say I like No. 12, and I like the idea of someone who will have Moffit’s new BBC production values only with new stories to tell. Some of the Capaldi stories are strong, particularly strong, and I really like the fact that it’s moved away from the adorkable moody dream boy tendencies that Smith era Who occasionally indulged in.
re (14)
It helps to replace “PC” with “power dynamics.” Namely, the power dynamic between the groups of people who are interacting in the situation. ??If people who could always rely on people being polite to them have people who could be insulted at will ask for that same politeness, it’s PC fascism destroying free speech. If those same people who could be insulted at will who criticize those who could traditionally expected deference, it’s rudeness causing the decline of civil society.
As far as “politeness not trumping objective reality” one does tend to notice that the people saying that will react poorly when they are called on how their version of thing just isn’t true. Such as how Muslims don’t all have kill switches in their heads that will turn them into things you are a-okay with treating as real-life versions of the Walkers in Walking Dead, regardless of what Mr. Trump or Dr. Dawkins told you.??Again, power dynamics. These are generally white, generally professional class people who should get to say whatever they want about those non-white immigrants from a different culture with their funny customs, thus anyone saying maybe treating them as the exotic Other might be a bad idea are PC fascists demanding that politeness trump objective reality.
@TheYoungPretender re (14)
Well said.
(6) TOP DRAWER.
Peter Capaldi is a graduate of the Glasgow School of Art. It’s no surprise he can sketch well.
Darren Garrison:
So there is an objective reality!
I note that VD’s novel list is posted, with a book [surprise!] by John C Wright. What would a VD list be without Wright!
I note also that it’s a Castalia publication, which is the thing that irks me most about VD’s lists. The Nebs, at least, have [had?] a rule against people nominating their own stuff.
@ Darren Garrison
Given the relatively small percentage of human interactions in which “being right” can be easily, quickly, reliably, and unambiguously determined, I tend to feel that prioritizing “being polite” is one of the foundations of civilized society.
I tend to think of it by analogy to traffic laws. I prefer to be around people whose driving prioritizes human life and safety than people whose driving prioritizes legal right of way and strict rules of the road. Legal right of way is a tool intended to support human safety, but it isn’t a higher priority.
Similarly, “being right” is a useful tool in achieving certain aspects of a civilized society, but it isn’t necessarily the preferred option when the two are in conflict. And especially when the nature of the conflict involves whether “being right” is a clear-cut state. I think that a certain amount of the arguing over “political correctness” is a matter of who you are willing to be polite to even when you think they’re wrong. (For a value of “being polite to” that includes “not doing physical, legal, or emotional damage to”, not simply a matter of conversational formulas.)
According to his 2015 Reading List, VD only gave Somewhither and Seveneves 3 out of 5 stars.
Agent of the Imperium and Golden Son/Sun show up on his 2016 Book List sidebar.
I don’t see the Butcher yet.
Hmm.
Teddy has nominated some John Wright stuff that I assume was unedited, Cinder Spires which I found a sadly disappointing paint by numbers affair (and I’d had some high hopes…), Golden Sun which was fun, Seveneves we all know, and this Agent of the Imperium which seems to something made for Man Feels, Which Will Not Be Called ‘Feels,’ Because ‘Feels’ Involves Feelings, Not Felt By Manly Men Who Are Manly And Men.
I think Seveneves and Golden Sun are the sooooper genius plans of sekrit sooooper geniusing. Each involves women with agency, and Golden Sun seems to criticize instead of support a system that thinks genetic superiors should lord it over their inferiors, so quite off message for Teddy. In fact, considering how Golden Sun smuggles some thoughts on the propaganda that supports privilege and exploitation in through the back door of bloody manly action, I’m really thinking this is some XanaD’Oh! Gambit by Teddy.
The term “politically correct” was coined by conservatives to use against liberals. It’s a nasty, insulting way to call someone a liar and simultaneously insult the disadvantaged groups that the person was trying to support.
Politically correct meant “a lie that you tell to support some disadvantaged group whose political support you want.” Anything implying that blacks, gays, women, Native Americans, etc. were equal or deserved equal treatment got dubbed “PC”–politically correct, but not correct in any other sense.
I’m not sure the term has really moved that far from the original definition, although I know that some folks do use it innocently with respect to themselves. “I’m just trying to be PC here.” I always wince at that, because I see it as giving the enemy a win.
I see that John Wright has completely missed “SJWs” pointing out the flaws in his work?
“I have noticed the same thing. They never criticize my real flaws (which do exist) but only imaginary flaws (which do not) invented to fit their narrative that not honest, honorable, or talent person can possibly disagree with this week’s goodthink. “
Heading out on book tour. Pray for me, O Filers! Every time I enter a room with 200 4th graders, I wonder if this is the time they go Lord of the Flies on me.
Incidentally, if we haven’t done Lord of the Filers yet…
Johan P
Not long ago a group seeking to bid for NASFIC 17 wrote a very wonderfully phrased statement about their commitment to diversity etc. etc. etc. There was some comment on File 770 about this, and the group asserted still further their commitment to diversity etc. etc. etc.
Since I am disabled myself, and all in favour of diversity, I went to have a look at reviews of the hotel which the bidders propose to use.
Hotel was not very handicapped friendly. transport to basement hall via an elevator required a key from maintenance. Almost no one knew anything about it and when found demonstrated that it was a bother to get and use.
And at that point I gave up; I didn’t even bother to quote it here because I have learned from years of experience that it is a waste of my limited energy to engage with people who are convinced that if they use the right language then they needn’t bother with actually doing something to enable the diversity they claim they want.
I only mention it now because your comment rang very loud bells…
ETA
RedWombat
I’m pretty sure the Force is with you, though a light saber might help…
@RedWombat
Praying and sending warm thoughts. May the children enjoy but not eat you. 😀
——
Objective truth/always telling the truth
Relative you haven’t seen in a while:
1. You look fat
2. It’s great to see you again
Assuming both are true. Some people claim saying the first is more truthful (I had an aunt who always found a flaw but loved me dearly). If you are happy to see x how is it more truthful to say something hurtful?
Almost everything is objective. What you find trite might be my passion. Your passion I might think is a waste of time.
In every argument there are 3 sides
1. Yours
2. Mine
3. The truth
Most of the argument happens in your head not with the other person and we are absolutely convinced what we think happened did. Filmed arguments always surprise both sides as it doesn’t resemble eithers truth.
The science we know today may found to be wrong tomorrow.
History is written by the victors and women, children, minorities, slaves, are usually written by the powerful default so they are erased or accomplishments are lessened.
Objective truth is a contradiction in terminology 90% of the time.
@Greg Hullander
The one example I saw was a book written in the 80’s by someone on the left where the term was largely used about other people likely on the left. The book in question was And the Band Played On, written by Randy Shilts about the AIDS epidemic. Shilts was the first out reporter for a major national paper; he tended to use the phrase to describe the reasons a lot of LGBT advocacy groups dropped the ball during the early stages on the epidemic.
Quick version was that acknowledging the epidemiology and virulence of AIDS early on also meant calling for some fairly large changes to the culture and lifestyle of chiefly the gay community in large cities at the beginning of the 1980s. Shilts called the unwillingness to start educating an example of being “politically correct,” as the desire not to make waves that would be required hamstrung the response of a lot of LGBT advocacy groups ability to say that AIDS was a disease, was uniformly lethal, and that the sole cause of it was a blood borne virus that made most of its transmission sexual.
It’s like the only time in print I’ve seen “politically correct” used by the left, on the rest of the left.
I’m not sure what’s so terrible about having to “police” what you say. Most of us do this all the time, as Tasha pointed out–we try to use language that is appropriate to our audience and situation. Not because we are hypocrites and liars, not because we are trying to manipulate others, but because we don’t want to be the asshole, you know, that jerk who cusses in front of Grandma or asks Little Bobby why his toys don’t challenge the patriarchy.
The argument against political correctness (and as Greg Hullender says, this concept is itself a strawman) may sound like an argument for honesty, but in practice, that is rarely the case. We can ask ourselves: when Trump claims that Mexican immigrants are mostly rapists, or Rowling uses Navajo beliefs in a rather strange way, or when some guy calls people who disagree with him retards–are those people speaking an unpleasant truth? Well, no. What they’re saying is not truth, but statements based on unexamined assumptions (a.k.a., “bullshit”) that don’t look so great in the light of day.
So the opposite of “politically correct” is usually not “speaking your truth.” Far more often, it is simply “asshole.” And getting called out for your bullshit is never pleasant, but if you’re actually an honest person, it should be something that, in the long run, you’ll appreciate.
@ Greg Hullender
While this is certainly the predominant use currently, my first encounters with the phrase in US usage (back in the ’80s IIRC) align with the origin discussed in this article — i.e., humorous self-deprecation used by social progressives to poke fun at their own inconsistencies of behavior. As in, “I know it’s not politically correct to wear leather, but I’m not giving up my motorcycle jacket.”
“PC run amok” becomes an issue, insofar as it can be an issue, I think because there is a difference between the meaning of the phrase now and in the 1990s when it first came to prominence in public discourse.
Back in the 1990s it was a term initially used to refer to phrasing that was considered politically expedient but not necessarily factually correct–though not necessarily factually incorrect, either. It was generally indifferent to factual accuracy, and exclusively concerned with the effect the language had on listeners (this is literally Harry G. Frankfurt’s definition of “bullshit”).
But! The phrase has morphed a bit and now generally means phrasing/behaviour that takes into account factors not necessarily apparent at a surface level. An example is discussions I’ve seen around Margaret Atwood’s famous quotation “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” Generally your hard-right MRA sort of person would respond to that with statistics about murder. I’m a 36 year old straight, white, cisgendered male. Which makes me about 1.5x more likely to be murdered than the equivalent woman. If I were a black, straight, cisgendered teenage male that number would jump to about 8x more likely. There is *no* demographic (age, race, economic status) at which women are murdered at a higher rate than men in North America. None. This is a statistical fact, and therefore your hypothetical MRA would say your fears are not rational. However, a person being politically correct by current definitions, would say: well, that’s all well and good, but that is only selectively factual. Women suffer significantly greater sexual violence (both in terms of physical assaults and things like verbal harassment), domestic violence generally, and are dramatically more likely to be murdered by their partners, all of which is the underlying context for Atwood’s statement, and makes that specific fear perfectly justified because all those other things create a feeling of constantly being under threat from men.
The thing is, our current understanding of the phrase requires both speaker and interpreter to process a lot more context (both social and specific to the individual) than the 1990s understanding of the phrase did. It’s a really heavy cognitive load, and it’s one you have to take on more or less continuously for every situation you encounter in order to not be an asshole. The thing is, people in minority or other marginalized communities have always had to take on this cognitive load to varying degrees just to get by (women, people of colour, poor folks–even poor white men, to an extent, etc.). Our current, updated understanding of the phrase is now asking straight, cisgender, middle and upper class white folks to take on this cognitive load as well, and they are balking at it.
There is also a fair amount of “PC” behaviour that makes it permissible to speak in generalities about people who have more privilege than you in one way or another. I know, for example, that I get to walk down the street at night in the assumption of safety because I’m a big white dude, while my gf can make no such assumptions, so she often (rightly) talks about my greater degree of privilege. But I was also desperately poor for most of my adult life and quite a bit of my childhood. A great many people in the same position as my gf also tend to assume that I have enjoyed class privilege my entire life as well, since I am statistically more likely to have those privileges, even though I actually didn’t until I hit my mid-30s. I get *deeply* upset and resentful when people make those assumptions about the kind of class privilege I’ve got, because my actual lived experience was of pretty serious poverty and wealthier people of all genders treated me like dirt more or less continuously. But because I enjoy other privileges based on my race and gender, my class resentment can be and often is delegitimized in the name of political correctness by those people who have had less privilege than me in those other areas (even while possibly having had more economic privilege). This is not necessarily wrong, but neither is it necessarily right. It’s complicated, and we’re still figuring it out, and we need to leave room for people to make mistakes.
The extreme pushback is coming from two areas, I think. First (and worst), is from people who don’t want to take on that extra cognitive load, and feel like they shouldn’t have to, and still see “politically correct” as meaning what it did in the 1990s. The second is from people who are willing to make the effort, but who feel like room is not being left for them to make mistakes. The first group’s point, I think, is not valid. The second group’s sometimes is.
Anyway, I don’t think anything has “run amok,” but it’s a hell of a lot more complicated than just “being polite.”
If one of RedWombat’s school visits goes awry we could end up seeing headlines about 3C running amok.
The trajectory of “politically correct” offers a compressed example of semantic shift. In my adult lifetime it has changed from an ironic, self-satirizing phrase (as pointed out above by Young Pretender and Heather Rose and by that KnowledgeNuts piece*) used by leftists to the current contentious label for a bundle of decorum rules whose moral valence changes depending on one’s general political-cultural orientation. Is it used sloppily as an insult or smear from the right? Yes. Can it degnerate into nitpicking political-cultural scrupulosity among lefties? You betcha. (I’ve spent fifty-plus years in the university environment. Don’t get me started.)
* Reinforced by the testimony of a good friend who recalls the ironic usage from her more activist days. We’re both Old and have decent memories.
RedWombat:
You go Battle Royale on them and all will be fine.
The term “politically correct” dates from the Stalinist era, when it was first used unironically [by Trotsky iirc, which is ironic indeed] for those who failed to toe the Party line, but quickly took on the ironic flavor it’s had ever since.
@August
Thank you for that comment. That’s very insightful.
@Darren Garrison
But you can also choose that being right is more important than being polite.
That reminds me of the old saying, “Would you rather be right or be married?”
@RedWombat – I helped out with my daughter’s 1st grade class once fo recess.
When all 30 of them thought it would be fun to jump on me, it looked like a mammoth being brought down by wolves.
@Redheadedfemme – Exactly the advice my Father gave me at the rehearsal.
@August: Thank you for that very insightful comment. As a general point, I think Americans are pretty terrible at dealing with issues of class.
Seveneves is an interesting choice given all the reasons he dislikes it.
@NickPheas
The correct term there is “persons of hay”. Coined and TM by moi, FWIW. 😉
@August
Thanks for this. Nicely done.
—–
Contrary to impressions, I try to make full use of inclusive language whenever possible. Problems arise for me when terminology crosses the line from being considerate to obfuscation. The illustration above about being unable to talk about AIDS without suggesting changes to in the lifestyle of QUILTBAGs is a pretty good indicator of the sort of thing that raises my hackles. Other permutations include the hypocrisy of extending deference to non-Christian faiths without extending similar deference to Christians. I’m pretty firmly in the “skeptical of all religions” camp, but that sort of hypocrisy is a bit panty twisting.
On another subject, I just started the comic “Monstress”. Promising.
Also, started the Netflix series “Between”. Episode 1 is certainly interesting, but we’ll see how it goes.
—
Regards,
Dann
(14) PC OR BS? I like this part of the essay:
Does political correctness exist? Is there some vast cabal of PC Police imposing the dictates of political correctness on the non-PC masses? Is it a more subtle cultural force that dampens freedom in deeper, more insidious ways? Is it possible that the “political correctness has run amok” narrative is like a mythological narrative in that, much like the real phenomenon of thunder is explained by mythological deities (Thor, Zeus, Set, etc.) there are real isolated politicized disputes about modes of expression but there is no overarching cultural force of political correctness? What would count as evidence for any of these claims that everyone could accept?
Ah, evidence. My favorite part. Shirtstorm, Gamergate, Lawrence Summers, and this week, this thing: http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.ca/2016/03/war-on-men-opens-new-front-at-harvard.html Also Pierson’s Milkvetch, from yesterday, and last month’s obscene witch burning of Selena Rosen in this very space.
I think one can safely say that there’s more involved than simple politeness. PC is now a placeholder for “you’re not allowed to talk about that, so shut up!” The Trump debate of course is SHUT UP writ large, with baseball bats and guys trying to tackle Mr. Trump.
August
It’s more complicated than that; you have attributed to Margaret Atwood things which were said to her:
I appreciate that quite a lot of people don’t know this, including you, but at the moment you are tackling a non-existent assertion. The incidence of male on male murder rates is wholly irrelevant to the answer given by a guy when someone asks him why men feel threatened by women.
The incidence of male violence in general, including male on male, does come into play when women are asked why they feel threatened by men; the fact that men kill more men than they kill women isn’t much consolation. It just means that men kill lots of people, which is a very sensible reason for being afraid…
Tasha:
I commented on one particular part of your comment: Your statement that political correctness cannot run amok. It can. I don’t mean this as a criticism of the ideals that get pegged as “political correctness” in general, but I think it’s worthwhile to be aware of some potential dangers involved.
Greg Hullender:
The history I’ve heard is that the term was first used in infighting between various brands of communists and socialists, in the early to mid-20th century. In the 1970s it became more of a satirical, self-critical injoke among leftists. And in the 1990s it was picked up by conservatives. While conservatives have given the term their own spin, they way they use it is not very far from the earlier internal use by leftists: It was originally used critically about being too dogmatically loyal to the party line of the Communist party.
@PhilRM: @August: Thank you for that very insightful comment. As a general point, I think Americans are pretty terrible at dealing with issues of class
We don’t have classes* in America so no problems dealing with them. 😉
Many Americans believe we live in a classless* society
Are there countries which deal with class well?
*wow it was impossible for me to respond to this without finding myself punning. I’m sorry. I take this issue quite seriously and wish more of my fellow Americans would get a clue.
@Stevie:
I was posing a hypothetical, but if you’d like me to break down the relevance, I can. If the general murder rate of men is higher than that of women, then a man is more likely to be murdered just going about their day than a woman is. Just living life makes me more likely *overall* to be murdered than my gf (these statistics are overall murder rates, by the way, not just male on male violence, by which I mean they include the times women murdered man). Our hypothetical MRA’s rationale behind using that statistic would be: I am more likely to be murdered than you are, therefore it would be more rational for *me* to be afraid of being murdered. The rebuttal I presented is why this point of view is not correct; it is a hard, factually correct number, that says utterly nothing about the context. (Just like the 8x higher murder rate of young black men does not, by itself, make any statements about poverty, discrimination at the hands of police, or any of the other actual reasons the number is so much higher: you need to do the cognitive work to explore the context, and my point was that our old-definition-using MRA *refuses to do that work*.)
You’re right, I did misattribute the quotation. That is utterly irrelevant to the point I was making, though.
@Tasha:
Would it help for me to say I’m not American? 🙂
Ah, evidence. My favorite part. Shirtstorm, Gamergate, Lawrence Summers
If that’s your “evidence” of political correctness, then you’ve lost the argument already. Do you not realize just how stupid you sound when you cite these in defense of your position?
(You do know that people can actually read the report of the Harvard University and see you’re lying about what it said in your blog post, don’t you?)
Task Force on the Prevention of Sexual Assault
@August
Does your country deal with class issues well? 😉 LOL
——
You go to respond to someone because:
1. Someone’s wrong on the Internet
2. They ignored what you had to say, latched onto a word/phrase, so they could beat their drum
3. They use your post to launch into a favorite rant
What should you do:
A. Get into an angry response cycle
B. Read a book
C. Drink to world peace
D. Other – please explain
@Tasha:
Sadly, no.
Also sadly I tend to choose option A, although that may also be a function of boredom at work. B and C would be my preferred options (in that order, even) if I were smart enough to step back and think about it.
That should be:
(You do know that people can actually read the report of the Harvard University Task Force on the Prevention of Sexual Assault and see you’re lying about what it said in your blog post, don’t you?)
But then again, lying about things is your usual tactic, isn’t it?
In the broader context of political correctness, cultural appropriation, bullying, etc, I came across this today: When You’re Accustomed To Privilege, Equality Feels Like Oppression – which makes a fair amount of sense.
@Tasha: And of course, I should have added: “As opposed to issues like race, gender, and religion, at which we do so well!”
Hugo-related reading note: Just read Elizabeth Hand’s Wylding Hall, which is brilliant, and has jumped to the top of my novella list.
@Tasha
Woot. Another area where we agree.
??
I hope.
Admittedly, there are larger relevant discussions about race, gender, society, culture, and economic mobility. But in general, I believe that we do a decent job at minimizing the “class” axis.
—
Regards,
Dann
@Lois Tilton
Thanks. I’d not have guessed it went back that far.
@TheYoungPretender
I had the pleasure of meeting Randy Shilts back in the 80s and talking with him at length. He was furious at our community for refusing to accept that some things needed to change (e.g. no more anonymous sex) in the face of the epidemic. He got a lot of flak from other gay people over it. By that point, though, we were already hearing conservatives saying that the only reason we didn’t quarantine all gay people was political correctness.
I liked Randy. I was sad when he died.
But wasn’t the question to men about threat from women? Men may be overall more likely to be murdered, but they’re not more likely to be murdered by a woman. If the question was “what are you most afraid of from other people?” and men picked laughter while women picked murder, then I could see it being relevant. But it wasn’t.
@Viverrine:
To world peace!
But in general, I believe that we do a decent job at minimizing the “class” axis.
I think class matters more in the U.S. than most people think. It isn’t formalized, but there are definite distinctions that people make based upon things like accent, language usage, clothes, and other public presentations that mark someone right off the bat.
Due to odd circumstances, though my family could have never actually afforded it, I attended a fairly elite boarding school for high school. The academic standards of the school were quite high, but in terms of marking its graduates, the culture of the school and the social lessons it taught were just as important as anything else. The shorthand I have used in the past is simply that since that experience I have never once had to wonder what “business casual” meant, or how to dress for dinner, or any number of other social cues.
@dann665
I’m not sure but I think you missed my sarcasm on America being a classless society. I said we like the perception not that we actually are.
(14) What Tasha, Nicole, Lis, Tasha and August said.
You are hitting the ball out of the park today!
@dann665
I’ll thank you not to misconstrue my reference to the And the Band Played On as somehow justifying any distaste you have for the “lifestyle” of the LGBT community. That book is largely an example of ignorance in the face of scientific reasoning – as I recall, when the conversation turns to climate, you find your own skepticism. Also, the unwillingness of the community to commit early and extensively pales in comparison with the ignorance displayed by Reagan’s HHS secretaries in the face of people dying who they couldn’t give a crap about.
This may sound harsh, but I’m not in the mood today for your standard practice of strongly implying support for some positions and then you engaging in what you call “panty-twisting” when people call you on that support and you don’t have the intestinal fortitude to stand beside what you were willing to imply.
@Gregg
The first reaction to reading Shilt’s book was to look up to see if he did speaking tours, and then finding the sad truth that he too had fallen to the epidemic. I brought it up as an example that stuck in mind because yes, “politically correct” is usually brought up in the context of conservatives slagging people, or nerd rage of nerds being told they can’t do whatever the fuck they like at cons.
I have heard it remarked that Americans do not have class; we have money. Which is not quite true, either, but I think the person who said it was on to something.
August
It’s not the misattribution of a quotation which is the central problem; it’s the fact that no one individual said it. Margaret Attwood didn’t ask her male friend what threatened him most; that’s a completely separate question which could have a huge array of answers, including male on male violence. I’m not disputing the statistics, nor am I disputing the fact that, for example, guys who are far more likely to be murdered by other guys in day to day living may well feel more threatened by terrorist action, even though it’s completely illogical.*
On the other hand, when the women were asked why they feel threatened by men, they were logically correct to identify extreme violence, but again they weren’t asked what threatened them most. That question also has a wide array of possible answers, and we cannot assume that they regarded men as topping the list. We simply don’t know.
And whilst I recognise that MRAs tend not to be statistically sophisticated, I doubt that reasoned discussion is going to change their attitudes.
*I don’t live in the US either; I live in England where our homicide rates are a tiny percentage of those in the US, but I’m doing my best to use US figures since these seem to be the ones you are using.
ETA
And Viverrine just expressed it with far greater clarity, and brevity; I have been Ninja’d!