Posts by Emma Hart
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to Bart Janssen,
He's also a producer. And if this rates really well? There are all those other Ender books still to go.
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So I have a question. Would Ender's Game be more acceptable if OSC was dead and not activity spewing his bile?
If he was dead we could dismiss his views as being a product of history, of course we can dismiss his views as being a product of his location now.
Does it become easier to view the art as separate from the artist over time?
I think it does, tbh. For a start, you don't have to worry so much about the direct income stream. I mean, I'm a little surprised it hasn't come up yet, but if the point where you get uneasy with him is the money, you can consume his art without giving him money. Get his books from the library or buy them second-hand.
However. Unlike Renaissance dramatists or (arguably) Heinlein, Card's views aren't typical of his time. You could argue, yes, that they are typical of his religion, that they're a product of his upbringing as a Mormon, as the great-great grandson of Bringham Young.
But Card is still different. He's the only Mormon who's a Director of NOM. Other Mormons do not feel the compulsion to take the active hand that Card does. So yeah, no matter how much time goes by, Card is still too outstanding for me to excuse. I think. I mean, obviously speculating.
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to TracyMac,
So maybe in terms of population proportions, geeks have greater queer acceptance compared to the general population, but there are still plenty who have issues.
This. Also, I think that's partly because the geek community is queerer than the general population. (At least, that's my perception. We can't know, because we have no data on the proportion of LGBT people in the population. If only there were some way of gathering that kind of social data... Wait, that's a whole different can of bitching.)
Also, as Bart says, geek texts are gayer. Not only do they deal with concepts of 'outsiders' a lot, but 'mainstream' geek stuff - Dr Who, Buffy, BSG - have LGBT characters.
I don't want to in any way suggest that there aren't real problems with eg misogyny in geek culture, or that there aren't geek Jerkwads. But actually, things like the geek idea of masculinity is, I think, way less destructive than that in mainstream culture.
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to Peter Darlington,
Reading all this makes me so pleased that Philip K Dick was a freak and Iain Banks is a leftie.
Heh, yeah, the flip side of this is the pleasure you get in finding that an artist whose work you love has a life or politics you can admire. Hence my delight when Joss Whedon did this:
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to Bart Janssen,
What I'm saying is that even if that was what OSC intended, that wasn't what I read. So either OSC didn't intend that or OSC failed (with me at least).
So, yeah, I think we agree that we read it differently, and that both readings are perfectly possible from the text?
or Friday where our eponymous heroine ends the book in a group marriage including a man who once raped her.
I'm still quite fond of Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and a bunch of Heinlein's other work, but Friday made me feel physically sick.
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Okay, I'm not sure whether we're disagreeing here. Let me see if I can make this clearer.
Ender doesn't see himself as innocent. Ender sees himself as culpable. But that view, Ender's view of himself, is presented by the book as flawed. He's taking responsibility for things that every other character, and I'd argue the author POV as well, says he's not responsible for. Ender doesn't feel that he's just a tool, but that's how he's presented: as a victim. He's "innocent" not in terms of feeling guilty, but in terms of culpability. You're supposed to feel sorry for Ender, and perceive him as a victim. What the essay is saying is that Card posits a world where people are inherently either "good" or "bad", and that matters more than their actions. Nothing Ender does can stop him from being a "good" person. That's not how Ender sees it, but that's just another sign that he's a Good Person.
Reading the book as a teenager, I was really disturbed by its utter, placid acceptance of violence as not just "a" solution, but as the only solution. That in itself stopped me from buying in to the idea of Ender as an innocent victim, but I do think it's what at least the first book is trying to sell.
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I never thought Ender believed himself to be innocent.
He doesn't, and I don't think that's what the essay is saying. Ender feels very real guilt. But the fact that he blames himself is part of the way the book excuses him from blame. (I haven't read the book in about twenty years, so my memory may not be great, and I've only read the first three.)
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to James Butler,
Meh, they're too busy reading Terry Goodkind.
Burn! My good friend jsr once said, "I've read Atlas Shrugged. I don't need to read it again while it's wearing a wizard hat and calling itself Faith of the Fallen."
One has to wonder what exactly Card was doing in the US Democrat Party for years. Or was he just one of them in name only?
NOM prides itself on persecuting Democrats and Republicans alike.
While I'd like it to be true, I haven't really seen much evidence for this.
Well, there's about 90% of the geeks I know, and there's the 14000 signatures on the petition objecting to Card's Superman comic even after it was a Done Deal. And there's slash-fic...
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The Select Committee have reported back. Their report, for those interested, is here.
The recommendations are as follows:
- clarification of Section 29 of the Marriage Act to make it absolutely clear that no celebrant is obligated to conduct a marriage that conflicts with their religious views or the views of their organisation
- the repeal of Section 56 of the Marriage Act, which currently makes it an offence to impugn the validity of any person's marriage, as incompatible with the Bill of Rights
- delaying the commencement to allow Internal Affairs time to prepare. The suggestion is a four-month delay
- consequential amendments to 14 other pieces of legislation " to ensure that there will be no legal differences between different kinds of marriages". "We note the concerns raised by a number of submitters regarding the potential for New Zealand to follow overseas experiences of removing gender-specific language from statutes. Most of the numerous statutory references to "husbands" and "wives" and other gender-specific terms are not affected by this bill."
And that's it. I'm not sure what's so offensive about the word "spouse".
Other things of interest to note.
"We wish to highlight" the distress caused to transgender people and their families by having to divorce or convert to a civil union if they change the sex on their birth certificate.
The committee notes the absurdity that single LGBT people can adopt as individuals, but not as couples. "We consider that allowing same-sex couples to marry would grant an appropriate legal right to those families that are already raising children."
The dissenting, minority opinion noted in a couple of cases boils down to "you have civil unions, that's good enough surely."
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Up Front: Twenty-Two Two, Two, in reply to Hebe,
A small measure of progress I found this morning: there are no road cones in my street outside the house to decorate with flowers; only new channel and kerb and tarseal in these two blocks. Every other road cone I saw on the way to the city and back has been decorated. Nice.
There are too many road cones on Linwood Ave. At least three of us have been out there by the looks of things, but about half of them are still empty.
Emma, can you take me to The Hop?
Absolutely, darling. I shall look at organising PAS CHCH drinks next weekend when I get back. People whose contact details I don't have (Hebe, Gudrun, looking at you), drop me a note.
I am finding it a bit hard to cope with how cold and gray and lowering it is today - just like it was this day last year.