The Rubric of Apologies: Demanded Apologies
Here’s a context-less story to set the stage for this post: Recently, I got into an argument regarding a popular SF/F character and sexism. From my perspective at the time, certain features associated with that character were undeniably sexist and, by extension, ridiculous. I still think there’s a lot of sexism involved with this character, and most of the historical details that came up in the argument simply complicated what I was saying by getting rid of all the black and white, but I would be lying if I said my argument and perspective didn’t change. During that argument, I also made a rather flippant comment to an individual. This led to someone else calling me a bigot and the offended individual’s eventual demand for an apology. I ended up closing the discussion thread and blocking one of the trolls. One of the things that makes me uncomfortable about otherwise uncomfortable situations (redundancy much?) involves that demand for an apology. It’s not that I don’t think apologies are necessary in situations where you’re wrong — quite the opposite. Rather, I think apologies must be arrived at from an honest introspection of self. An apology made by demand is no more valuable than any statement made as a result of coercion. For me, apologies should not be made in intense emotional states OR in response to an intense emotional state; doing so strips away comprehension and understanding. So when I was told I had to apologize, I refused to do so (non-verbally). Why? Because I knew I wouldn’t mean it at the time. There’s no way I could. With all the accusations of bigotry and trolling, I was undeniably in an intense emotional state when that apology-demand was made, and that meant I couldn’t think clearly about every aspect of the situation. Apologies must be honest. You cannot coerce apologies if you want them to mean anything. In some cases, demanding apologies doesn’t actually solve the issue (an offense), but simply provides a self-righteous barrier between the transgressor and the transgressed. I, for one, don’t seem much value in that. What do you all think about demanded apologies?
Top 10 Blog Posts for August 2013
And here they are: 10. The Fan: Discussing a Definition (in Dialogue w/ Jonathan McCalmont & Justin Landon) 9. Shakespeare Roleplaying (or, the Ridiculous Things Adam Callaway and I Do on Google+) 8. The #ThoroughlyGoodBooksbyPOC Reading List 7. Star Trek Movies and TV Shows: Ranked by Me 6. Top 10 Overused Fantasy Cliches 5. Talking About Wonder Woman and Her “Problems”…Again 4. Around the Pod-o-Sphere: Shoot the WISB on Pacific Rim 3. Top 10 Cats in Science Fiction and Fantasy 2. Top 10 Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies Since 2010 (Thus Far) 1. Professional Writer = No Day Job?
Oh, John Ringo and Your Silly Fantasies About People (or, I Now Like Redshirts)
In relation to this year’s Hugo Awards, I am two things: An unabashed crazy leftish pinko liberal hippy gerfferrmerrfle (whatever that is) On the record for having disliked John Scalzi’s Hugo Award-winning Redshirts (truthfully, I hated it) But #2 is over with now. I still don’t think Redshirts is a good book, and perhaps some of my disappointment comes from the fact that some of his other work has blown me away in terms of quality; this one just didn’t have the strength of the others. But, as I said, I’m done hating it now. Why? Because John Ringo said this craziness: There’s nothing wrong with Scalzi’s writing. This is a reasonably good novel (from what I’ve heard) with no real SF or literary merit beyond being a reasonably good novel. But he’s been speaking truth to power about the degradation of women in SF along with other idiocracy and so he’s beloved by all the hasbeen liberal neurotics who control the Hugo voting and balloting. Look to many more in the future as long as he toes the Party line. Huzzah. Umm, what? So let me get this straight. Worldcon 2013 is just so jam-packed with liberals who have no standards that anything Scalzi writes will automatically win or get nominated because he says things we like to hear? Logical fallacy says what? First, how does Ringo account for all those other novels Scalzi wrote which didn’t win or get nominated for a Hugo Award. Was he just not liberal enough those years? Did the secret conservative cabal take over that year? Do you have to get in a pissing match with a sexist troll to earn the respect of the imaginary establishment liberals before winning an award? He does realize that liberals don’t Google-snoop every author to intentionally avoid nominating or voting for a novel they like, right? Maybe there’s a secret Google-snooping room somewhere… Second, how do you account for all the folks who didn’t vote for Scalzi’s novel? Are we all conservatives or closet conservatives? Are we secretly objectivist monkey overlords from Nerpton 7, hell bent on rigging a relatively small literary award in favor of people who don’t like seeing women treated like turdfactories? Oh, I know! In the Ringoverse, uh…conservatives were secretly denied voting rights and so they couldn’t vote on the books and now they live in a camp somewhere (we’ll call it Fartabulous Camp) where they eat oatmeal and watch re-runs of Charlton Heston movies. No? That’s not it? Damn. And here I was getting my hopes up…Drat. I won’t deny that there are a lot of liberals in the SF/F world, but let’s stop pretending for the time being that it’s all puppies and flowers for us libbies, or that all it takes to get in our metaphorical pants is a bit of political pandering. I agree with almost everything Scalzi says on a political level, but I didn’t actually pick Redshirts because I didn’t like it. His politics didn’t come into it. I know a lot of folks of the liberal persuasion who did not vote for Scalzi’s novel, whether on the nomination or the final ballot. Shockingly, they were able to decide for themselves that they didn’t like it (or they didn’t read it). Free will is a bitch. So, with that being said, I would like to thank John Ringo for making me a fan of Redshirts. It seems all it takes to convert us is for folks like Ringo to say demonstrably nonsensical things. We should hire him to convince all our children to eat their vegetables…