When drama was first invented in Ancient Greece, people consumed perhaps twenty hours of it per year, during annual festivals. Today people typically consume that much in a week or less.
Here’s a disquieting theory: our mass-overdosing on drama is causing widespread psychological harm that weakens our ability to respond to crises like this pandemic.
For instance, people today are reacting quite differently than people did in 1969 to the Hong Kong Flu, which killed 100,000 Americans (in a smaller total population): could this be because we’ve watched so many happy-ending productions that we’re ingrained with a belief that bad outcomes can always be avoided if only we recognize and follow the right advice? I’m a product of the TV age too, but it seems to me that people who spent more time on their own life-problems and pursuits and less time watching idealized, imaginary representations of life, constructed by dramatic formulae, would have more realistic ideas about the human condition and more humility about what sort of misfortunes we can hope to avoid.
Drama uses actors, and actors gain success by conveying passionate emotion: usually not so much by showing calmness, civility, or cool-headed practical common sense. Could it be that our spooning this stuff down every day, hours at a time, has contributed to our becoming largely a touchy-feely nation of useless snowflakes, rather than a greatest-generation nation that could roll up its sleeves, make hard decisions, and do the needful?
The bad part of this rumination is: if we’re a nation of drama junkies now, how do we kick the habit? How do we persuade enough people to want to turn off the flatscreen and go do something real? I haven’t got an answer. But if you’re newly married and starting a family, severely limiting screen time for your own kids sounds to me like a good idea.
Science fiction and fantasy author, published for the first time in 2017. Also into recreational math, chess variants, puzzles, doggerel.
Showing posts with label #commentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #commentary. Show all posts
Monday, May 4, 2020
Monday, March 9, 2020
Kirk Spock & McCoy Enterprises
(Scene: the board room of Kirk Spock & McCoy Enterprises, an investment firm with offices on the 87th floor of the Empire State Building. Or somewhere like that.)
KIRK: Star date twenty twenty zero three zero nine. The novel corona virus has spread terror through the markets, wiping out in a single morning gains that took (checks notes) months to accumulate. The death toll continues to mount, and every day brings word of new outbreaks, more and more draconian measures to halt the spread of the disease. There is as of yet no cure in sight, and tantalizing hopes of a vaccine remain months away in the most wildly optimistic scenario. I am meeting with my top advisors to plan a strategy for counseling our clients. … Did you get all that, Miss Uhura?
UHURA: Yes, sir. What was that word “star” for at the beginning?
KIRK: “Star”? Did I say “star”? No idea. Strike it out. Well, gentlemen: what is your prognosis.
SPOCK (adjusting his Stefano Ricci tie): The logical strategy for such a situation is indisputable: Buy. The market is now profoundly underpriced. Take advantage of it.
McCOY (staring at SPOCK with wild eyes): I can’t believe this. Are you out of your mind, Spock?! The bottom is dropping out of the market! We have to sell, sell! Sell like there’s no tomorrow! People are dying out there, I tell you!
SPOCK (politely): Will fewer of them die if your clients lose their nest eggs to a bear market?
McCOY: But this virus could crash the world economy! Italy has shut itself down! Practically the whole government of Iran is infected! Schools are making contingency plans to close, factories could shut down to try to contain the contagion!
SPOCK: The most pessimistic forecasts of the pandemic are—if you will pardon the pun—feverish. The mortality estimates we have seen so far are most likely inflated due to our inability to count the total infected population accurately, since many of them develop only mild symptoms. Respiratory illnesses do the most harm in the winter months, and the northern hemisphere is about to enter springtime. The disease appears to be more contagious in less-developed countries with inferior public sanitation infrastructure, and for all these reasons will probably do little harm to the regions responsible for the bulk of the world economy. The epidemic may peak very soon, and when it does the markets will rebound.
McCOY (passionately): And does that do any good for the people in quarantine? Or in the ICU’s?
SPOCK (with heavy irony): McCoy, if I had a cure for the novel corona virus in my vest pocket, I would certainly make use of it to help those people. But, alas (feeling his pocket), I do not have such a thing. Do you?
McCOY: Dammit, man, I’m an investment analyst, not a doctor!
SPOCK (pointedly): So am I. And my analysis is: buy.
McCOY: And mine is SELL, you green-visored Vulcan!
SPOCK: Green-visored what?
KIRK: Never mind. Gentlemen, I think I’ve heard enough. The final decision is mine. And … I know what I’m going to do.
McCOY: And what will that be?
KIRK (turns to the window and gazes for a moment out over the panorama of New York City stretching out before him): We’ll buy.
McCOY: Jim!
KIRK (rounds on him): We have to, Bones! This enterprise has to be guided by the Prime Directive!
SPOCK (quoting): “Buy low, sell high.”
McCOY: To hell with the Prime Directive! (He storms out.)
SPOCK: Jim, may I ask you something?
KIRK (smiling crookedly): What, Spock?
SPOCK: The stock market is essentially an engine for transferring wealth from excitable investors to more phlegmatic ones. McCoy seems temperamentally unsuited to the profession. I have analyzed our respective performances over the past five years and found that, while my advice has proven correct 70% of the time, McCoy’s has proven incorrect 90% of the time. Why do you keep him as a partner?
KIRK (grinning): I would think you could figure that out with your famous logic, Spock. If I follow your advice, I make money seven times out of ten, is that right?
SPOCK: Yes…
KIRK: But you see, if I do the opposite of what McCoy recommends, I make money nine times out of ten.
SPOCK (raises one eyebrow): Fascinating!
Justin Tarquin: Hope you enjoyed this experiment in transposition of characters. I wish I knew Photoshop well enough to make an illustration ...
KIRK: Star date twenty twenty zero three zero nine. The novel corona virus has spread terror through the markets, wiping out in a single morning gains that took (checks notes) months to accumulate. The death toll continues to mount, and every day brings word of new outbreaks, more and more draconian measures to halt the spread of the disease. There is as of yet no cure in sight, and tantalizing hopes of a vaccine remain months away in the most wildly optimistic scenario. I am meeting with my top advisors to plan a strategy for counseling our clients. … Did you get all that, Miss Uhura?
UHURA: Yes, sir. What was that word “star” for at the beginning?
KIRK: “Star”? Did I say “star”? No idea. Strike it out. Well, gentlemen: what is your prognosis.
SPOCK (adjusting his Stefano Ricci tie): The logical strategy for such a situation is indisputable: Buy. The market is now profoundly underpriced. Take advantage of it.
McCOY (staring at SPOCK with wild eyes): I can’t believe this. Are you out of your mind, Spock?! The bottom is dropping out of the market! We have to sell, sell! Sell like there’s no tomorrow! People are dying out there, I tell you!
SPOCK (politely): Will fewer of them die if your clients lose their nest eggs to a bear market?
McCOY: But this virus could crash the world economy! Italy has shut itself down! Practically the whole government of Iran is infected! Schools are making contingency plans to close, factories could shut down to try to contain the contagion!
SPOCK: The most pessimistic forecasts of the pandemic are—if you will pardon the pun—feverish. The mortality estimates we have seen so far are most likely inflated due to our inability to count the total infected population accurately, since many of them develop only mild symptoms. Respiratory illnesses do the most harm in the winter months, and the northern hemisphere is about to enter springtime. The disease appears to be more contagious in less-developed countries with inferior public sanitation infrastructure, and for all these reasons will probably do little harm to the regions responsible for the bulk of the world economy. The epidemic may peak very soon, and when it does the markets will rebound.
McCOY (passionately): And does that do any good for the people in quarantine? Or in the ICU’s?
SPOCK (with heavy irony): McCoy, if I had a cure for the novel corona virus in my vest pocket, I would certainly make use of it to help those people. But, alas (feeling his pocket), I do not have such a thing. Do you?
McCOY: Dammit, man, I’m an investment analyst, not a doctor!
SPOCK (pointedly): So am I. And my analysis is: buy.
McCOY: And mine is SELL, you green-visored Vulcan!
SPOCK: Green-visored what?
KIRK: Never mind. Gentlemen, I think I’ve heard enough. The final decision is mine. And … I know what I’m going to do.
McCOY: And what will that be?
KIRK (turns to the window and gazes for a moment out over the panorama of New York City stretching out before him): We’ll buy.
McCOY: Jim!
KIRK (rounds on him): We have to, Bones! This enterprise has to be guided by the Prime Directive!
SPOCK (quoting): “Buy low, sell high.”
McCOY: To hell with the Prime Directive! (He storms out.)
SPOCK: Jim, may I ask you something?
KIRK (smiling crookedly): What, Spock?
SPOCK: The stock market is essentially an engine for transferring wealth from excitable investors to more phlegmatic ones. McCoy seems temperamentally unsuited to the profession. I have analyzed our respective performances over the past five years and found that, while my advice has proven correct 70% of the time, McCoy’s has proven incorrect 90% of the time. Why do you keep him as a partner?
KIRK (grinning): I would think you could figure that out with your famous logic, Spock. If I follow your advice, I make money seven times out of ten, is that right?
SPOCK: Yes…
KIRK: But you see, if I do the opposite of what McCoy recommends, I make money nine times out of ten.
SPOCK (raises one eyebrow): Fascinating!
Justin Tarquin: Hope you enjoyed this experiment in transposition of characters. I wish I knew Photoshop well enough to make an illustration ...
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Jeff Bezos: fighting the planet's greatest threat
Jeff Bezos made a stir this week, after causing a moment of confusion, with a pledge to donate $10 billion to combat the greatest threat to the planet: socialism.
But he initially misstated the purpose of his grant money as “climate change”, leading to many mistaken reports as journalists hurried to file their stories during the applause between Bezos’s misstatement and the correction.
“Wait, did I say climate change?” said the Amazon billionaire after the hubbub died down, shaking his head and laughing at the obvious blunder. “I’m sorry, how did that come out? I meant to say, to combat socialism, of course. The greatest threat to the planet, du-uh, is socialism. Not—” he made an amused sound like pffft!—“climate change.”
The audience quieted down considerably at the correction, but Bezos went on. “I mean, think about it. Socialism can only exist under an authoritarian government powerful enough to force people to give up their stuff or do whatever the government says to do with it. Obviously, this is a recipe for bad management decisions passing without proper criticism, and hence for irresponsible stewardship of the environment. Which is exactly what we have seen under socialism.
“The greatest environmental disaster on the planet, and it's not even close, has been the destruction of the Aral Sea by the Soviet Union’s misguided diversion of water for irrigation. All the ecosystems of that erstwhile sea and its area have been destroyed. The plains left behind as it recedes are covered with salt and chemical pollutants, carried off by wind as toxic dust storms. The human cost has been enormous.
“Then you have the Chinese Three Gorges Dam. Landslides, drought, disease, millions of people living in its vicinity put in danger, endangered species and whole ecosystems disrupted—even the Chinese government has admitted it was a huge mistake.
“And of course the Soviet Chernobyl disaster, which by any reckoning was two orders of magnitude worse that the roughly contemporary Three Mile Island reactor meltdown in the United States. Estimated deaths came to thousands, a danger zone stretching 20 miles in radius all around the site more than thirty years later.
“Where does nine-tenths of the plastic waste in the oceans come from? Communist China.
“Climate change has been going on since the world began, and the planet has withstood it just fine. I mean, over the two-billion-year history of life on this planet the Sun’s radiance has varied by more than 10 percent. Ten percent! Kinda dwarfs anything you’ll get from carbon dioxide, huh? But socialism, man, that’s bad news from start to finish.
“So I’m proud to donate this money to combat socialism, the greatest threat to the planet,” concluded the world's richest man, ending his remarks to the assembly, where you could have heard a pin drop.
But he initially misstated the purpose of his grant money as “climate change”, leading to many mistaken reports as journalists hurried to file their stories during the applause between Bezos’s misstatement and the correction.
“Wait, did I say climate change?” said the Amazon billionaire after the hubbub died down, shaking his head and laughing at the obvious blunder. “I’m sorry, how did that come out? I meant to say, to combat socialism, of course. The greatest threat to the planet, du-uh, is socialism. Not—” he made an amused sound like pffft!—“climate change.”
The audience quieted down considerably at the correction, but Bezos went on. “I mean, think about it. Socialism can only exist under an authoritarian government powerful enough to force people to give up their stuff or do whatever the government says to do with it. Obviously, this is a recipe for bad management decisions passing without proper criticism, and hence for irresponsible stewardship of the environment. Which is exactly what we have seen under socialism.
“The greatest environmental disaster on the planet, and it's not even close, has been the destruction of the Aral Sea by the Soviet Union’s misguided diversion of water for irrigation. All the ecosystems of that erstwhile sea and its area have been destroyed. The plains left behind as it recedes are covered with salt and chemical pollutants, carried off by wind as toxic dust storms. The human cost has been enormous.
“Then you have the Chinese Three Gorges Dam. Landslides, drought, disease, millions of people living in its vicinity put in danger, endangered species and whole ecosystems disrupted—even the Chinese government has admitted it was a huge mistake.
“And of course the Soviet Chernobyl disaster, which by any reckoning was two orders of magnitude worse that the roughly contemporary Three Mile Island reactor meltdown in the United States. Estimated deaths came to thousands, a danger zone stretching 20 miles in radius all around the site more than thirty years later.
“Where does nine-tenths of the plastic waste in the oceans come from? Communist China.
“Climate change has been going on since the world began, and the planet has withstood it just fine. I mean, over the two-billion-year history of life on this planet the Sun’s radiance has varied by more than 10 percent. Ten percent! Kinda dwarfs anything you’ll get from carbon dioxide, huh? But socialism, man, that’s bad news from start to finish.
“So I’m proud to donate this money to combat socialism, the greatest threat to the planet,” concluded the world's richest man, ending his remarks to the assembly, where you could have heard a pin drop.
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Banned from Facebook!
On Monday it turned out I couldn't log in to my Facebook account anymore. I tried resetting the password, but to confirm my identity it said it would send a code to my phone, and it never did. I tried a few times with no success. Since a lot of people are being banned nowadays, I wonder if my account might have suffered the same fate? It gives me a warm, proud feeling to imagine that I was banned for trespassing against FB content-based censorship, so I'm going to go with that assumption.
That leaves the question of why I'd get banned, especially now. About the last thing I posted on FB was a link to this story, "The Thirtieth Amendment", a bit of science fiction flash fiction I dashed off lately. It's topical in that I make the gun-control proponent a young numbskull, though the real concept of the story isn't tied to the gun issue in particular. As I see it, it's more about the way strident politics is splitting our society into partisan factions that would rather separate than come to a compromise, and the likely result of allowing the most intolerant elements to leave and set up their own separate "safe space".
It ain't Shakespeare, but would such a story get me banned? Maybe. One thing that makes the Left so prickly, I believe, is their belief that they are "on the side of History": in other words, they take it for granted that the future belongs to them by rights. This is why so many on the Left have descended into gibbering madness at the election of Donald Trump, as so many did also at the election of George W. Bush. They can't stand the thought that their way of looking at things might lose.
And this in turn is why writing and reading science fiction that presents our vision of the future is so key: because the Left has been cranking out theirs for decades, and has taken enough control of publishers and networks and studios that the future where the Left has already won, where there are no more conservatives, no more libertarians, no more religious believers of any sort, but especially no Christians or Jews, or at least none whose religion is the most important part of their life: this becomes the standard way for many people to think about the future.
I don't mean that we should be writing "our own propaganda", that actively argues for our beliefs. I mean, unless we feel like doing that. But mainly, I mean that we should write stories where the future contains people who believe as we do, where religion is not presented as a ridiculous or despicable thing. As a dry little joke I once tweeted, "Oh, I remember this episode of Law and Order: it's the one where the fundamentalist Christians turn out to be the bad guys." I could multiply examples of the Leftward bias in SFF, but it hardly seems necessary... I remember, for instance, reading a story in one of the science fiction magazines set in a dystopian future where enemies of the state were taken off in police vans that the author called "ashcrofts", after a Republican then serving as attorney general. It was a completely gratuitous, unfair and unnecessary slam. Similar zingers, always aimed rightward, are what turned me off mainstream SFF for twenty years.
Simply writing stories that give religion, or businessmen, or patriots, or veterans, or conservatives, or Republicans a fair shake is mischievous enough to shake up the Left's monopoly.
And if they're set in the future--and if it turns out that conservative ideas have become the norm in the future--that's icing on the cake. Good stories with such backdrops are what I want to do as a writer.
I haven't tried getting back into Facebook. But it has given me an idea for a cartoon that I don't have the talent to draw. Perhaps someone else would care to. It goes like this:
First panel: Two guards in uniforms with the Facebook "f" on them are hustling a frightened-looking fellow forward, roughly holding an arm each, coming through an institutional corridor. There is a poster on the wall captioned "BIG ZUCKER IS WATCHING YOU", with Zuckerberg's face staring out. Word balloons: "That's enough out of you!" "It's off to Facebook Jail with you!" "B-but, guys, can't we talk about this?"
Second panel: They throw him through a barred door. "We don't have to explain anything to the likes of you!"
Third panel: They walk off laughing, the prisoner holding the bars, looking after them. Main word balloon: "W-wait! Wait! At least tell me--" Very small word balloon, from off to the right behind the bars, a musical note. A thought balloon with a question mark to the prisoner.
Fourth panel: The viewpoint pans far back to the right inside the "cell", and we see that it is not a cell at all: the "prisoner" is standing in an outside courtyard, open to the sidewalk and the street, where people are walking dogs, children are playing, etc. The prisoner is dumbfounded, his hands still on the bars of the door locked before him, which we now see leads to the inside of a prison.
Fifth panel: the viewpoint pans still further back and upward, and we see that the prison is a building shaped like a Facebook "f", and the "prisoner" is now running toward the street along the right crossbar.
Sixth panel: Back inside the jail, the two guards are intimidating another frightened person, who was just putting something up on a bulletin board, maybe with a heading like "New Facts About Benghazi!" Word balloons: "Hey, you! Yes, you! You better take that down if you know what's good for you!" "Yeah! You don't want to wind up in Facebook Jail like that other guy!"
Friday, January 19, 2018
Jordan Peterson interview: Chess vs Kriegspiel
If you’re interested in seeing how a mature, intelligent, professional scholar deals with a jingoistic liberal who thinks in platitudes, and you haven’t seen this yet, you’re in for a treat. It’s half an hour long and Peterson shows great aplomb and grace under fire. The most delicious part is after he’s endured about 20 minutes of the “interviewer’s” hostility, when he flummoxes her by referencing her own supposed principles ... you can see her sluggish mind creaking around to the idea she had never considered before: Oh! He means that if I apply this standard to him, then I should also apply it to myself! Huh!
There is a delightful chess variant called Kriegspiel , where each player plays without being able to see the other player’s moves. Usually they sit at separate boards, back to back or with a barrier, while a third person referees by rejecting moves that are illegal. It’s actually a fun game even for spectators to watch, which is a rarity for chess variants.
Anyway, what struck me watching that interview/debate was that while he was playing chess, she was playing Kriegspiel: flailing about making moves that had nothing to do with what was actually going on in the discussion. Such a handicap naturally turned out to be insurmountable.
There is a delightful chess variant called Kriegspiel , where each player plays without being able to see the other player’s moves. Usually they sit at separate boards, back to back or with a barrier, while a third person referees by rejecting moves that are illegal. It’s actually a fun game even for spectators to watch, which is a rarity for chess variants.
Anyway, what struck me watching that interview/debate was that while he was playing chess, she was playing Kriegspiel: flailing about making moves that had nothing to do with what was actually going on in the discussion. Such a handicap naturally turned out to be insurmountable.
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
The Wood Where Things Have No Names
This is one of those all-too-common weeks where the airwaves and the Web are so full of rancor, so much of it aimed at figuring out whom to call a “White Supremacist” or a “White Nationalist” or a “Nazi”, whether “Alt Left” is a suitable name, whether “mainstream conservatives” believe this or that, and have we denounced everyone belonging to some named group strongly enough—without specifying whether they belong to the group because they say so themselves or because someone else says it of them, or because they fit one person’s definition of the group, or the current dictionary definition, or the definition that held for fifty years until 2008, or what—that it reminded me of this peaceful section from Chapter 3 of Lewis Carroll’s THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS.
It could be a bit of fantasy flash-fiction on its own, but I notice today that in the book it comes just before Alice reaches the Eighth Square, where she becomes a Queen. Was Carroll suggesting this experience of things-in-themselves, without having their names to remember our prejudices about them, was an important step before becoming a mature adult? It's a very thought-provoking passage, to me; I think it's deep enough to be worthy of the excellent Sci Phi Journal, if they published vintage content. I thought it was an especially refreshing read today.
The Wood Where Things Have No Names
She came very soon to an open field, with a wood on the other side of it: it looked much darker than the last wood, and Alice felt a little timid about going into it. However, on second thoughts, she made up her mind to go on: “for I certainly wo’n’t go back,” she thought to herself, and this was the only way to the Eighth Square.
“This must be the wood,” she said thoughtfully to herself, “where things have no names. I wonder what’ll become of my name when I go in? I shouldn’t like to lose it at all—because they’d have to give me another and it would be almost certain to be an ugly one. But then the fun would be, trying to find the creature that had got my old name! That’s just like the advertisements, you know, when people lose dogs—‘answers to the name of “Dash:” had on a brass collar’—just fancy calling everything you met “Alice,” till one of them answered! Only they wouldn’t answer at all, if they were wise.”
She was rambling on in this way when she reached the wood: it looked very cool and shady. “Well, at any rate it’s a great comfort,” she said as she stepped under the trees, “after being so hot, to get into the—into what?” she went on, rather surprised at not being able to think of the word. “I mean to get under the—under the—under this, you know!” putting her hand on the trunk of the tree. “What does it call itself, I wonder? I do believe it’s got no name—why, to be sure it hasn’t!”
She stood silent for a minute, thinking: then she suddenly began again. “Then it really has happened, after all! And now, who am I? I will remember, if I can! I’m determined to do it!” But being determined didn’t help much, and all she could say, after a great deal of puzzling, was, “L, I know it begins with L!”
Just then a Fawn came wandering by: it looked at Alice with its large gentle eyes, but didn’t seem at all frightened. “Here then! Here then!” Alice said as she held out her hand and tried to stroke it; but it only started back a little, and then stood looking at her again.
“What do you call yourself?” the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet voice it had!
“I wish I knew!” though poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, “Nothing, just now.”
“Think again,” it said: “that wo’n’t do.”
Alice thought, but nothing came of it. “Please, would you tell me what you call yourself?” she said timidly. “I think that might help a little.”
“I’ll tell you, if you’ll move a little further on,” the Fawn said. “I ca’n’t remember here.”
So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice’s arms. “I’m a Fawn!” it cried out in a voice of delight, “and, dear me! you're a human child!” A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.
Alice stood looking after it, almost ready to cry with vexation at having lost her dear little fellow-traveller so suddenly. “However, I know my name now,” she said, “that’s some comfort. Alice—Alice—I wo’n’t forget it again….”
It could be a bit of fantasy flash-fiction on its own, but I notice today that in the book it comes just before Alice reaches the Eighth Square, where she becomes a Queen. Was Carroll suggesting this experience of things-in-themselves, without having their names to remember our prejudices about them, was an important step before becoming a mature adult? It's a very thought-provoking passage, to me; I think it's deep enough to be worthy of the excellent Sci Phi Journal, if they published vintage content. I thought it was an especially refreshing read today.
The Wood Where Things Have No Names
She came very soon to an open field, with a wood on the other side of it: it looked much darker than the last wood, and Alice felt a little timid about going into it. However, on second thoughts, she made up her mind to go on: “for I certainly wo’n’t go back,” she thought to herself, and this was the only way to the Eighth Square.
“This must be the wood,” she said thoughtfully to herself, “where things have no names. I wonder what’ll become of my name when I go in? I shouldn’t like to lose it at all—because they’d have to give me another and it would be almost certain to be an ugly one. But then the fun would be, trying to find the creature that had got my old name! That’s just like the advertisements, you know, when people lose dogs—‘answers to the name of “Dash:” had on a brass collar’—just fancy calling everything you met “Alice,” till one of them answered! Only they wouldn’t answer at all, if they were wise.”
She was rambling on in this way when she reached the wood: it looked very cool and shady. “Well, at any rate it’s a great comfort,” she said as she stepped under the trees, “after being so hot, to get into the—into what?” she went on, rather surprised at not being able to think of the word. “I mean to get under the—under the—under this, you know!” putting her hand on the trunk of the tree. “What does it call itself, I wonder? I do believe it’s got no name—why, to be sure it hasn’t!”
She stood silent for a minute, thinking: then she suddenly began again. “Then it really has happened, after all! And now, who am I? I will remember, if I can! I’m determined to do it!” But being determined didn’t help much, and all she could say, after a great deal of puzzling, was, “L, I know it begins with L!”
Just then a Fawn came wandering by: it looked at Alice with its large gentle eyes, but didn’t seem at all frightened. “Here then! Here then!” Alice said as she held out her hand and tried to stroke it; but it only started back a little, and then stood looking at her again.
“What do you call yourself?” the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet voice it had!
“I wish I knew!” though poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, “Nothing, just now.”
“Think again,” it said: “that wo’n’t do.”
Alice thought, but nothing came of it. “Please, would you tell me what you call yourself?” she said timidly. “I think that might help a little.”
“I’ll tell you, if you’ll move a little further on,” the Fawn said. “I ca’n’t remember here.”
So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice’s arms. “I’m a Fawn!” it cried out in a voice of delight, “and, dear me! you're a human child!” A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.
Alice stood looking after it, almost ready to cry with vexation at having lost her dear little fellow-traveller so suddenly. “However, I know my name now,” she said, “that’s some comfort. Alice—Alice—I wo’n’t forget it again….”
Censoring the Past
I was watching the 1934 movie GENTLEMEN ARE BORN on TCM the other day, and came to a scene where one of the young women, who had been working in a library, was called on the carpet by her stern old boss. It seems she had heard a report that the young lady was no longer living with her female roommate; and so WHERE might she be living now? The library must not have scandal attached to it, after all.
The young woman pleaded that she needed this job, because…she had just gotten married the other day.
Why didn’t you tell me this? demanded the boss lady. Then of course you cannot continue to work for us. You know the policy.
Terrible, right? A young woman, one of our main sympathetic characters, thrown out of her job because she had gotten married! And then the boss lady said this:
“You have been depriving some other girl with no outside means of support from obtaining a position here.”
Huh.
There was a reason for this policy…and the reason, whatever we may think of its effect on our heroine, was…to take care of society’s less fortunate, according to the economic and social circumstances of the time.
It was an interesting moment. That’s why I went back and played it again, and noted the exact words that I reproduce here. It’s not terribly deep, but it stopped me for a moment, and made me think a bit. It made me sympathize with the cross old termagant with her hair in a bun: she knew what was right, and it was right in her eyes because it was one of the few measures they could take to spread scarce jobs around in a world where people were going hungry for lacking them. The past is a different country, as someone famous has said.
Another allegedly famous person (at least he has a blue checkmark in Twitter) is John Levenstein, and he also said something just Wednesday, as the nation is in a frenzy of statue destruction:
“Now that we’re talking, there are casually racist +sexist +homophobic moments in classic movies that don’t need to be classics anymore.”
I suppose the moment I just described is one of the ones Mr. Levenstein would like to get rid of.
Of course, making people think is the last thing the modern SJW wants to do.
The young woman pleaded that she needed this job, because…she had just gotten married the other day.
Why didn’t you tell me this? demanded the boss lady. Then of course you cannot continue to work for us. You know the policy.
Terrible, right? A young woman, one of our main sympathetic characters, thrown out of her job because she had gotten married! And then the boss lady said this:
“You have been depriving some other girl with no outside means of support from obtaining a position here.”
Huh.
There was a reason for this policy…and the reason, whatever we may think of its effect on our heroine, was…to take care of society’s less fortunate, according to the economic and social circumstances of the time.
It was an interesting moment. That’s why I went back and played it again, and noted the exact words that I reproduce here. It’s not terribly deep, but it stopped me for a moment, and made me think a bit. It made me sympathize with the cross old termagant with her hair in a bun: she knew what was right, and it was right in her eyes because it was one of the few measures they could take to spread scarce jobs around in a world where people were going hungry for lacking them. The past is a different country, as someone famous has said.
Another allegedly famous person (at least he has a blue checkmark in Twitter) is John Levenstein, and he also said something just Wednesday, as the nation is in a frenzy of statue destruction:
“Now that we’re talking, there are casually racist +sexist +homophobic moments in classic movies that don’t need to be classics anymore.”
I suppose the moment I just described is one of the ones Mr. Levenstein would like to get rid of.
Of course, making people think is the last thing the modern SJW wants to do.
Monday, August 14, 2017
Socrates and the Hugos
Writing projects underway:
- “The Kings of the Corona”: 17000 word story: finished, accepted for the upcoming anthology TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, edited by Anthony Marchetta. Publication date not yet scheduled. #Fantasy #Arthurian #YoungAdult
- “The Stowaways” (working title): projected as 8000 word story. #ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera
Socrates and the Hugos
I was at the agora the other day buying some baklava and some ripe olives stuffed with feta and nuts when I ran into my old friend, Socrates, and we fell to talking about the Hugo Awards. Our dialog went something like this:
JUSTIN M TARQUIN: It depresses me that the Hugo Awards nowadays can go to mediocre works as long as their authors espouse popular leftist political viewpoints, or have personal identities that the political left associates with a “victim group”, rather than to works that deserve the award.
SOCRATES: Is there, then, some quality a work can have, besides giving homage to leftist political causes, that would better deserve the award?
JMT: Why, of course, Socrates. I think the Hugo award should go to science fiction that’s fun to read, and that excites the imagination, inspires wonder, draws the reader to a sense that the world is grander and finer than he might have supposed.
S: Such an award would be useful for guiding readers who desire such science fiction! But, of course, then it would not be useful for leftist readers who prefer science fiction that echoes their political views and congratulates them for holding them.
JMT: Surely, Socrates, you do not suggest that such puerile sycophancy is as suitable to an award called “the most prestigious in Science Fiction” as the criteria I have mentioned.
S: That does seem an odd state of affairs, does it not? Perhaps there is something to be learned from considering the question. Here, let us sit upon this bench and snack on our olives while we talk. Well then: the matter before us is what is ‘suitable’. I believe we are agreed that suitability is a quality that depends on its object.
JMT: What do you mean, Socrates?
S: I mean what you already implied when you questioned the suitability, not of political bias per se, but bias in a particular object: namely, in an award called the most prestigious in Science Fiction. Are not the robes of a king suitable to a king?
JMT: Of course.
S: But would they be suitable for a shepherd?
JMT: Clearly not, Socrates!
S: Or a shepherd’s tunic, would it be suitable for a surgeon?
JMT: No.
S: Or again, would a surgeon’s outfit be suitable for an olive-picker?
JMT: Not at all.
S: But the garb of each of these men would be suitable to himself, or another in his station?
JMT: Correct.
S: Then suitability is a relationship that matches a subject and an object?
JMT: You make it perfectly clear.
S: But what if a shepherd’s master were pleased to call him a king. Would royal robes then become suitable to him, while he remain a shepherd?
JMT: Why, no.
S: Or say that a surgeon’s patient insists upon calling him a shepherd. Would it then be suitable that he perform surgery in the stained and dirty tunic of a keeper of flocks?
JMT: No, no.
S: Then what is suitable depends not on what a thing is called, but upon what it truly is?
JMT: Clearly so, Socrates.
S: Then to inquire whether awarding the Hugo to works that tickle the egos of leftists is suitable or not, we must determine what the Hugo Award actually is: and not merely what it is called. As you have remarked, the award is called “the most prestigious award in science fiction,” but is it that in reality? And again, does “prestigious” mean that it is in reality the award most worthy of respect, or only that people believe it so or call it so? There are layers of shadow and illusory perceptions to be peeled away before we arrive at the reality of what the Hugo Award really is, my good Tarquin.
JMT: But, Socrates, here we are only returning to what I began by saying: I want the Hugo Award to go to science fiction that is fun and uplifting. One might say, to works that are enjoyable to read and enjoyable afterward to reflect upon.
S: Then let us begin there our inquiry into what the Hugo Award is. Is the Hugo Award bestowed to such works?
JMT: It once was. But not for many years, no.
S: Let us confine ourselves to the Hugo award of today, since that is where your complaint lies. Do you determine how the Hugo is bestowed?
JMT: No; though I may vote.
S: Is your vote dispositive of the result?
JMT: No.
S: Then many others also vote?
JMT: Certainly.
S: Do these others share your desires for the Hugo?
JMT: Sadly, most do not.
S: Is it widely known that those who vote for the Hugo do not share your notions of merit?
JMT: Quite so. Indeed, the news criers hail the results of each Hugo ceremony as a victory for trendy left-wing victim groups.
S: Then do even the winners of the award see it as a prize for political views and group identity?
JMT: None that I know of have said so explicitly, though some have made public statements after winning that indicate what is uppermost in their mind is not the qualities of the work they wrote, but rather their personal identity as a member of a group underrepresented among Hugo laureates. Possibly they were led in their remarks by the agendas of those who reported their words. But it would seem impossible they are not aware and approving of how their personal identities influence the decision.
S: What of people like yourself who object to the present nature of the Hugos?
JMT: There was a movement called the Sad Puppies that strove to nominate works that did not meet the left-wing political criteria; but though they succeeded in gaining nominations, the results of the election among the nominees chose “No Award” over any non-left-approved works.
S: And the authors whose work is passed over by this system, do they understand the nature of the award?
JMT: They do, indeed. I have even heard an author I favor say in a podcast that he would be embarrassed to win and thereby join the ranks of the recent winners, their work is so unimpressive.
S: Why then, all the world appears to understand the meaning of this award. The organizers know, the fans who vote for leftist works know, the Sad Puppy sympathizers know, the authors whose works do not win know, even the authors whose works do win Hugos appear to know that the point of the award is to gratify the political left’s view of the world. And therefore, you are wishing the award to signify what the world does not expect it to signify. Indeed, if works that satisfied your definition of merit were to win Hugo awards, the public understanding would be that the authors belong to leftist-approved groups, and that the works promoted leftist-supported positions, which they do not; and why would you wish the public to be so deceived?
JMT: But, Socrates, I think you misunderstand. The Hugo award is supposed to be an award for the best science fiction, chosen by the fans themselves.
S: You must explain this to me. When you say “supposed to be”, by whom is it supposed that the Hugo award is given to science fiction that first of all provides the most enjoyment to readers? For we have just established that it is generally understood by all involved that the Hugos are awarded politically.
JMT: Why, but the other is what the organizers of the Hugo award themselves say of it.
S: Ah, yes, it is then a boast that certain people make of their own project.
JMT: Well, yes.
S: In my life I have heard many who made boasts for themselves, and when I have inquired into the basis of their vaunting I very often found it lacking. But has the practice of self-puffery vanished since my more active years?
JMT: Well, no.
S: Is there not, in fact, an entire industry now devoted to self-aggrandizement, wherein fantastic sums of money are expended, and the ceaseless labor of thousand upon thousands of highly-skilled workers, present to the public hundreds of times a day, on every billboard, on every cereal package, every coffee cup, interspersed every few seconds in every television show or radio broadcast, on the margins of every Web site, these self-same substanceless boasts that the secret to happiness lies in consuming the goods and services they offer?
JMT: Indeed, it is so, Socrates.
S: And every two or four years, barrages of similarly vain boasts about candidates for public office?
JMT: You have said a mouthful, Socrates.
S: Then have not the people become skeptical of such claims?
JMT: True, Socrates, and yet if an award like the Hugo is to be seen as a claim about a work of science fiction, are not those who make false claims doing evil by telling falsehoods, even if they are not believed?
S: We can agree, Tarquin, that to speak falsehood, knowingly, is clearly wrong. For the value of language lies in its power to exchange truths among men; to put even a single deliberate falsehood into language is like striking a gold coin with an admixture of lesser metal: the surfeit of counterfeits in circulation debases the value even of the true coins. But when the choice of an awardee is divided among hundreds, they cannot all be held responsible for the choice of the group: but each man is responsible only for his own choice. No more could a man sentenced to die by a jury of five hundred think of the entire jury as his enemies, but only those who cast the vote for his condemnation. But, Tarquin, are not those voting for the winner of the Hugo award asked to vote for whichever nominee they feel should receive it?
JMT: Why, yes.
S: And surely there is no thought of any voter not voting for the work they wish to receive the award?
JMT: Well, no.
S: Then, among the voters it would seem that no question of dishonesty occurs. It is an instance of what you might call “free speech”.
JMT: And yet it still seems to me that the works that win a Hugo award ought to deserve to win it.
S: Why, but whether or not the Hugo winners deserve to win Hugos is a question we have not yet touched upon, Tarquin!
JMT: What do you mean? Have we not been discussing it this whole while?
S: Not at all! Up until now we have only considered to what sort of qualities the Hugo award actually does attest. Now that we have established that it awards works on the basis of stroking the egos of leftists, and is understood to do this both by the fans who vote for it, the people who receive it, the authors who do not receive it, as well as to you and to me, we can at last proceed to the question of whether the Hugo and its winners are suitable to one another.
JMT: And are they, then?
S: Is it not quite clear, Tarquin? The nature of the present-day Hugo award is that it is given to those works voted in by a group who are strongly disposed to favor works that promote leftist ideology and are written by authors who themselves support leftist ideology, by their public opinions and identities as members of groups the political left is pleased to extol. Therefore, works that promote such ideology, written by such authors, are perfectly suitable to the Hugo awards.
JMT: Do you mean to say that the Hugo winners, in fact, do deserve Hugo awards?
S: I think it would be more complete, elegant, and illuminating, to say that these authors and this award deserve each other.
JMT: I confess I am floored by this conclusion, though I can find no fault with the logic.
S: We must follow the argument where it leads us, Tarquin.
JMT: Why, but Socrates, it occurs to me that there is nothing about your argument that is specific to the Hugo awards. This would apply to any honorary award whatsoever—to the Oscars, the Emmies, the Grammies, the Edgars; to the kings and queens of all the proms, all the big-city parades and all the small-town festivals; to prizes that are awarded with rank nepotism, cheating, to contests with slipshod ballot-counting, where errors change the result. Can you say that all of the winners of all of these contests deserve the awards they receive?
S: Absolutely, Tarquin. Though, of course, the honors that they get, and deserve, are worthless in such cases.
JMT: I can only say, Socrates, that this would come as a great shock to the many thousands, the millions, who spend a great deal of time arguing about whether the winners of all these contests deserve their prizes, or whether it should have gone to another.
S: It does seem a great waste of time, when they might be arguing about the nature of beauty, or justice, or of goodness, of piety, or the nature of poetic inspiration, or the immortality of the soul, or of knowledge, truth and wisdom itself.
JMT: Yes, well, most people would consider arguing about all those things to be a waste of time.
S: A waste of time?
JMT: So they say.
S: Discussing truth, beauty, and virtue?
JMT: I’m afraid so.
S: While arguing about who deserves a trophy is worthwhile?
JMT: I can only report what I have heard men say, Socrates.
S: Well. I have nothing to say.
Coincidentally, we had just finished the baklava.
Coincidentally, we had just finished the baklava.
Saturday, June 17, 2017
A Tale of Two Hecklings
So two undercover drama critics in New York City attended the "Shakespeare in the Park" production of Julius Caesar in order to disrupt it by denouncing the cast and audience. Some people are referring to them as "free speech advocates" for this action, which is rather problematic, since disrupting someone else's free speech is hardly free speech. On the contrary, it's an instance of the "heckler's veto" that we have deplored when it was used to prevent Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking at Berkeley in February.
Yes, but I have to ask myself why I feel so differently about the actions of these two than about the "hecklers" (rioters, actually) who kept people from hearing what Milo had to say. Is it just because I am a hypocrite, and feel more in sympathy with the position of these two hecklers, and with Milo, than I am with the Berkeley thugs or the Julius Caesar crowd's revelling in assassination porn (if you just woke up from a coma, the producers are using the play to depict the murder of Donald Trump to the infantile glee of their audience)? No doubt my hypocrisy is part of it. But I also see some objective differences between these two hecklings.
(1) The two Caesar hecklers are named Laura Loomer and Jack Posobiec. No one knows the identities of the Berkeley rioters; they appeared in hoods.
(2) Loomer and Posobiec did no violence to anyone's person or property. The Berkeley rioters both hurt people and destroyed things.
(3) After the two were escorted from the scene by security, the play continued, so its "message" was delivered. Milo's talk was cancelled.
(4) The "message" that raised the hecklers' hackles was not an actual idea that you could express verbally: it was the mere depiction of Julius Caesar as Donald Trump, so that his assassination could be presented as a kind of editorial cartoon. This is speech rather in the same way that exotic dancing or burning flags is speech: it is protected, legitimately, but I would call it peripheral rather than core free speech. Milo's speech, by contract, would clearly have been core free speech: a man standing up to speak his opinions, including opinions about public policy, in plain language before a crowd who had come to hear them.
(5) Loomer and Posobiec knew that they would get no sympathy from the local government of NYC: they really were, at least in their minds, speaking truth to power. The Berkeley rioters knew that Berkeley would be on their side rather than Milo's. They were using power to counter truth.
(6) Last, and to my mind most important, Loomer was arrested and charged with trespassing for her outrageous behavior. The Berkeley rioters were not charged. I've read that the Berkeley police stood by watching as they did what they had come to do. One of the most important aspects of civilly disobedient protest actions is that the person who performs them is engaged in minor infractions of the law and is willing to accept the punishment that the law applies for such disobedience. Martin Luther King did so, Henry David Thoreau did so, Loomer did so; the Berkeley thugs did not.
I don't see Loomer and Posobiec's actions as examples of free speech. In a society that properly safeguards and respects free speech, their actions would not be permitted. But then, neither would the Berkeley rioters have gone unpunished. And with the Left glorying more and more in perverse, demented fantasies of violence against the Right, and with shots having now been fired in an attempt to murder a Republican congressman, I can't help but feel heartwarmed by these two standing up and delivering their own message to the sick, snobbish theatergoers in Central Park.
The worthy Robert Kroese says such tactics are stupid and don't work, and that's probably true; but it's not like I have a tactic that would work in my shirt pocket. If he has one in his I wonder that he's not using it. The not-so-esteemed David French says I'm guilty of tribalism for defending these two. I've never been in favor of tribalism; but then I've also never lived through a civil war when New Yorkers in Central Park cheered on the murder of people like me. This is not where we want to be. But it's where the Left has brought us.
Yes, but I have to ask myself why I feel so differently about the actions of these two than about the "hecklers" (rioters, actually) who kept people from hearing what Milo had to say. Is it just because I am a hypocrite, and feel more in sympathy with the position of these two hecklers, and with Milo, than I am with the Berkeley thugs or the Julius Caesar crowd's revelling in assassination porn (if you just woke up from a coma, the producers are using the play to depict the murder of Donald Trump to the infantile glee of their audience)? No doubt my hypocrisy is part of it. But I also see some objective differences between these two hecklings.
(1) The two Caesar hecklers are named Laura Loomer and Jack Posobiec. No one knows the identities of the Berkeley rioters; they appeared in hoods.
(2) Loomer and Posobiec did no violence to anyone's person or property. The Berkeley rioters both hurt people and destroyed things.
(3) After the two were escorted from the scene by security, the play continued, so its "message" was delivered. Milo's talk was cancelled.
(4) The "message" that raised the hecklers' hackles was not an actual idea that you could express verbally: it was the mere depiction of Julius Caesar as Donald Trump, so that his assassination could be presented as a kind of editorial cartoon. This is speech rather in the same way that exotic dancing or burning flags is speech: it is protected, legitimately, but I would call it peripheral rather than core free speech. Milo's speech, by contract, would clearly have been core free speech: a man standing up to speak his opinions, including opinions about public policy, in plain language before a crowd who had come to hear them.
(5) Loomer and Posobiec knew that they would get no sympathy from the local government of NYC: they really were, at least in their minds, speaking truth to power. The Berkeley rioters knew that Berkeley would be on their side rather than Milo's. They were using power to counter truth.
(6) Last, and to my mind most important, Loomer was arrested and charged with trespassing for her outrageous behavior. The Berkeley rioters were not charged. I've read that the Berkeley police stood by watching as they did what they had come to do. One of the most important aspects of civilly disobedient protest actions is that the person who performs them is engaged in minor infractions of the law and is willing to accept the punishment that the law applies for such disobedience. Martin Luther King did so, Henry David Thoreau did so, Loomer did so; the Berkeley thugs did not.
I don't see Loomer and Posobiec's actions as examples of free speech. In a society that properly safeguards and respects free speech, their actions would not be permitted. But then, neither would the Berkeley rioters have gone unpunished. And with the Left glorying more and more in perverse, demented fantasies of violence against the Right, and with shots having now been fired in an attempt to murder a Republican congressman, I can't help but feel heartwarmed by these two standing up and delivering their own message to the sick, snobbish theatergoers in Central Park.
The worthy Robert Kroese says such tactics are stupid and don't work, and that's probably true; but it's not like I have a tactic that would work in my shirt pocket. If he has one in his I wonder that he's not using it. The not-so-esteemed David French says I'm guilty of tribalism for defending these two. I've never been in favor of tribalism; but then I've also never lived through a civil war when New Yorkers in Central Park cheered on the murder of people like me. This is not where we want to be. But it's where the Left has brought us.
Friday, February 10, 2017
Letter from NaNoWriMo, and Reply
Received Feb 10, 2017, 4:32 PM, from NaNoWriMo
What we stand for, what we stand against.
Dear Wunderscribbler,
As a creative writing nonprofit, we’re not a political organization. We don’t endorse candidates or support any particular party. In an ideal world, we would focus only on empowering people to write.
Yet we find ourselves in a time where people’s ability to tell their stories—and even to safely exist—is at stake.
NaNoWriMo strives to be a gateway and sanctuary for people’s voices. Our guiding belief is that every person’s story matters, and we celebrate the inclusion of all religions, races, genders, sexualities, and countries of origin. We help people find a safe space to be who they are—creators, storytellers, and world changers.
Because of this core organizational value, we join the many voices standing against the presidential executive order that bans refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.
For over 15 years, we’ve had the privilege of writing alongside a community from over 200 countries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. We don’t build walls. We strive to dissolve borders through stories, the vital human narratives that expand our worlds.
So while we are not a political organization, we feel moved to take action.
In response to the executive order, as well as any future government efforts that threaten people’s basic freedoms, we will:
If you have concrete ideas for how we can work toward these goals (or if you have feedback about anything in this message), please share your thoughts.
Thank you for being part of NaNoWriMo. We are all individuals of different beliefs and backgrounds, but we come together through a shared passion. We pledge to remember that, and to look to our community as a model and inspiration, as we get to the work ahead.
With gratitude and optimism,
Grant Faulkner
Executive Director
-----------------------------------------------------------
Thanks!
I also favor people's ability to exist, and to tell their stories, and celebrate the inclusion of all religions, races, genders, and sexualities, and countries of origin.
In words composed by a great speechwriter, "it is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American flag.
"And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their hearts with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same Almighty Creator." (Inaugural Address, President Donald Trump)
I fail to see, however, why these commitments would move you to send an email on behalf of NaNoWriMo opposing the executive order that temporarily suspends immigration from a list of nations, compiled under President Obama as posing a particular risk of terrorist attacks, until the nations in question can comply with informational needs of the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to give our government reasonable assurances that their citizens entering our country are who they say they are, and do not present a risk of attacking our people. Perhaps you have not read the executive order and are relying on mainstream media accounts for your understanding of it. The order is here. Whatever one says about the wisdom or need for such an order, the immigration policy of one nation is hardly relevant to the business of writing novels in a certain month.
It seems more likely that you felt a strong need to be affirmed in your hatred for all things Trumpian, and an assurance that the people you associate with share that hatred, so that you could pretend that it makes you better than people who do not share it. At some level, you must know that the hatred that makes Trump opponents physically attack people going to listen to a Trump supporter speak in Berkeley, and makes them scream epithets at Trump supporters in the street, and physically block a Trump appointee from entering a school in the District of Columbia, and physically attack people they thought were Trump voters in Chicago, in Maryland, in Virginia and Connecticut, California, and Florida, and murder a man in Georgia--this Trump-hatred is not a virtue, but a terrible, soul-destroying sin: and if you ever calm down enough, you will also be able to see that a nation's measures to protect its borders are by contrast not hatred at all.
In any case, this kind of bilge from NaNoWriMo I don't need. I've unsubscribed to your list. I trust you will be pleased.
Justin M. Tarquin
What we stand for, what we stand against.
Dear Wunderscribbler,
As a creative writing nonprofit, we’re not a political organization. We don’t endorse candidates or support any particular party. In an ideal world, we would focus only on empowering people to write.
Yet we find ourselves in a time where people’s ability to tell their stories—and even to safely exist—is at stake.
NaNoWriMo strives to be a gateway and sanctuary for people’s voices. Our guiding belief is that every person’s story matters, and we celebrate the inclusion of all religions, races, genders, sexualities, and countries of origin. We help people find a safe space to be who they are—creators, storytellers, and world changers.
Because of this core organizational value, we join the many voices standing against the presidential executive order that bans refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.
For over 15 years, we’ve had the privilege of writing alongside a community from over 200 countries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. We don’t build walls. We strive to dissolve borders through stories, the vital human narratives that expand our worlds.
So while we are not a political organization, we feel moved to take action.
In response to the executive order, as well as any future government efforts that threaten people’s basic freedoms, we will:
- Celebrate creativity over apathy, diversity over fear, and productivity over despair.
- Welcome all stories and continue to make NaNoWriMo a safe space for all writers.
- Advocate for the transformative power of storytelling to connect people and build a better world.
If you have concrete ideas for how we can work toward these goals (or if you have feedback about anything in this message), please share your thoughts.
Thank you for being part of NaNoWriMo. We are all individuals of different beliefs and backgrounds, but we come together through a shared passion. We pledge to remember that, and to look to our community as a model and inspiration, as we get to the work ahead.
With gratitude and optimism,
Grant Faulkner
Executive Director
-----------------------------------------------------------
Thanks!
I also favor people's ability to exist, and to tell their stories, and celebrate the inclusion of all religions, races, genders, and sexualities, and countries of origin.
In words composed by a great speechwriter, "it is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American flag.
"And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their hearts with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same Almighty Creator." (Inaugural Address, President Donald Trump)
I fail to see, however, why these commitments would move you to send an email on behalf of NaNoWriMo opposing the executive order that temporarily suspends immigration from a list of nations, compiled under President Obama as posing a particular risk of terrorist attacks, until the nations in question can comply with informational needs of the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to give our government reasonable assurances that their citizens entering our country are who they say they are, and do not present a risk of attacking our people. Perhaps you have not read the executive order and are relying on mainstream media accounts for your understanding of it. The order is here. Whatever one says about the wisdom or need for such an order, the immigration policy of one nation is hardly relevant to the business of writing novels in a certain month.
It seems more likely that you felt a strong need to be affirmed in your hatred for all things Trumpian, and an assurance that the people you associate with share that hatred, so that you could pretend that it makes you better than people who do not share it. At some level, you must know that the hatred that makes Trump opponents physically attack people going to listen to a Trump supporter speak in Berkeley, and makes them scream epithets at Trump supporters in the street, and physically block a Trump appointee from entering a school in the District of Columbia, and physically attack people they thought were Trump voters in Chicago, in Maryland, in Virginia and Connecticut, California, and Florida, and murder a man in Georgia--this Trump-hatred is not a virtue, but a terrible, soul-destroying sin: and if you ever calm down enough, you will also be able to see that a nation's measures to protect its borders are by contrast not hatred at all.
In any case, this kind of bilge from NaNoWriMo I don't need. I've unsubscribed to your list. I trust you will be pleased.
Justin M. Tarquin
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Getting along ... or not
At the end of 2018, a curious event will occur that has happened before only twice: at the end of 2010 and at the end of 1926. The first occasion, at the end of the third year of Calvin Coolidge's presidency (he took office in 1924 on the death of Warren G. Harding), was the first time that the US had had Republican presidents for exactly half of the preceding century: 1926 completed the fiftieth such year.
For the next fourscore and four years the number of Republican presidency years was consistently higher than 50, as high as 64 for the end of the Eisenhower administration and the beginning of Kennedy's. From that high point, the running-century total crept steadily downward as the Reconstruction years aged out of the window, finally reaching the exact 50-50 split between Republican and Democrat presidency-years at the end of President Obama's second year in office. (Of course, for the earlier years of this analysis, the beginning of the 100-year window included a lot of time before the GOP was even founded in 1854, and in which the older parties would have been included. This is why the two-decade Roosevelt/Truman administrations made no dent in the Republican total: that total included no years at all from the period 100 years before those two Democratic presidents.)
Under Obama the percentage of Republican presidency-years over the previous century went down to its post-Coolidge minimum of 48% in 2012, and remained there for the rest of his time in office, as the Obama years being added onto the front replaced Wilson years departing from the rear. But at the end of 2018, we will once again be at an exact 50-50 split, divvying the time evenly between the two modern parties.
I bring this up, not because I'm obsessed with puzzles and numerical trivia (oh, who am I kidding? Of course because I'm obsessed with puzzles and numerical trivia), but (also) because it shows something being forgotten in today's rancorous political feuding: a simple fact, one that anyone would think painfully obvious, but somehow so very conveniently forgotten, so temptingly neglected, that in partisan times like ours most of us would rather sweep it under the rug. Still, putting an elephant (or even a donkey) under a rug is actually not a practical way of disposing of it, or of the problems it's going to cause. So I propose that we simply face it:
This country is about half Democrats and half Republicans.
About half the time, Democrats are going to run the federal government, and about half the time, Republicans will.
This of course has policy implications, to anyone who thinks about a government program that he likes while envisioning it in the control of people he trusts, but not thinking about how the other party would use it. Did Republicans like expanded government surveillance powers under GWB? Well, how about under Obama? Did Democrats think the IRS targeting conservative groups was, well, hilarious? Are they still laughing now the Trump will be controlling it? How about the Department of Education: wonderful that the federal government can impose Common Core on everyone, right, Democrats? Oh my gosh, now Betty DeVos is the Secretary of Education--pull your kids out of the public schools, quick! And Republicans, before you get too contented with the thought that Trump is going to make all your gripes go away for good, remember that half the country is still Democrats; his victory in 2016, no matter how much of a relief it was to his supporters, was still a historically slim Electoral College victory, and that was with the very. Worst. Candidate. Ever, as his Democratic opponent. Who better than Clinton the Democrats will run in 2020 is unclear, but they could hardly find anyone worse.
In other words, half the country is Democrats, and half are Republicans.
There was a marvelous movie, made probably fifty or sixty years ago. If I ever knew its name I've forgotten it now, along with nearly everything about it except for the basic premise. But the premise was so mythically, allegorically significant that I'm sure I'll remember it always. I doubt that watching the movie again would even be as stimulating as simply contemplating the situation. A group of prisoners, probably in the American South in the 1950s or earlier, are being transported in a van, manacled together in pairs. Or maybe they were manacled to links welded to the van itself, but the guards were short one pair of cuffs, and so the last two prisoners had to be handcuffed to each other: a black man and a white man. They object to being so attached, because neither one likes the other on principle, but the guards laugh off their complaints.
The van has a road accident, and everyone aboard is killed (I suppose), except for our pair. The two of them escape, still cuffed together, and have poignant adventures as they are forced to work together to make it to freedom. I recall one point where they were trying to ascend a steep, muddy slope, in the rain: maybe they had been going through a gorge, and a flash flood would soon send a wave upon them that would drown them both unless they made it to the top. But for a long time each kept trying to climb without considering the other one's difficulties, and so both kept falling back again. Eventually they caught on that they had to cooperate to make it up together, but quickly forgot this lesson again as soon as their danger was past.
The most dramatic, haunting, and absurd scene came later, when their frustration with each other reached a climax and their tempers were worn away to nothing, and they set upon each other in an insane fight. Each of them was shouting, "I'll kill you!" at the other--still manacled together, of course--as we in the audience sat open-mouthed at the lunacy of trying to corpsify your handcuff-mate while still desperate to evade your pursuers.
The allegory was presented in terms of racial prejudice, but it could apply as well to today's centrifugal politics.
Unfortunately, recognizing the relative desirability of peace over war does not help to achieve it. There is something called the J-curve theory of revolutions, which my brother once described to me as "first things get better, then things get worse, then things go kablooey". Wikipedia has a longer but hardly more vivid description. If the Left considered the Obama years as "things getting better" and the Trump years as "things getting worse", perhaps the outrageous behavior we're witnessing has its explanation there. Will it escalate still further in the years ahead?
I have a feeling it's going to be hard to write science fiction concerning the decades ahead that won't quickly be overtaken by events. Writing good, inspirational SF/F is one way of fixing the culture, but fixing a culture is slow work: pray that we have enough time left. And get back to writing.
I have about seven hundred words done on my second story, and hope to get at least a couple thousand done over the weekend.
For the next fourscore and four years the number of Republican presidency years was consistently higher than 50, as high as 64 for the end of the Eisenhower administration and the beginning of Kennedy's. From that high point, the running-century total crept steadily downward as the Reconstruction years aged out of the window, finally reaching the exact 50-50 split between Republican and Democrat presidency-years at the end of President Obama's second year in office. (Of course, for the earlier years of this analysis, the beginning of the 100-year window included a lot of time before the GOP was even founded in 1854, and in which the older parties would have been included. This is why the two-decade Roosevelt/Truman administrations made no dent in the Republican total: that total included no years at all from the period 100 years before those two Democratic presidents.)
Under Obama the percentage of Republican presidency-years over the previous century went down to its post-Coolidge minimum of 48% in 2012, and remained there for the rest of his time in office, as the Obama years being added onto the front replaced Wilson years departing from the rear. But at the end of 2018, we will once again be at an exact 50-50 split, divvying the time evenly between the two modern parties.
I bring this up, not because I'm obsessed with puzzles and numerical trivia (oh, who am I kidding? Of course because I'm obsessed with puzzles and numerical trivia), but (also) because it shows something being forgotten in today's rancorous political feuding: a simple fact, one that anyone would think painfully obvious, but somehow so very conveniently forgotten, so temptingly neglected, that in partisan times like ours most of us would rather sweep it under the rug. Still, putting an elephant (or even a donkey) under a rug is actually not a practical way of disposing of it, or of the problems it's going to cause. So I propose that we simply face it:
This country is about half Democrats and half Republicans.
About half the time, Democrats are going to run the federal government, and about half the time, Republicans will.
This of course has policy implications, to anyone who thinks about a government program that he likes while envisioning it in the control of people he trusts, but not thinking about how the other party would use it. Did Republicans like expanded government surveillance powers under GWB? Well, how about under Obama? Did Democrats think the IRS targeting conservative groups was, well, hilarious? Are they still laughing now the Trump will be controlling it? How about the Department of Education: wonderful that the federal government can impose Common Core on everyone, right, Democrats? Oh my gosh, now Betty DeVos is the Secretary of Education--pull your kids out of the public schools, quick! And Republicans, before you get too contented with the thought that Trump is going to make all your gripes go away for good, remember that half the country is still Democrats; his victory in 2016, no matter how much of a relief it was to his supporters, was still a historically slim Electoral College victory, and that was with the very. Worst. Candidate. Ever, as his Democratic opponent. Who better than Clinton the Democrats will run in 2020 is unclear, but they could hardly find anyone worse.
In other words, half the country is Democrats, and half are Republicans.
There was a marvelous movie, made probably fifty or sixty years ago. If I ever knew its name I've forgotten it now, along with nearly everything about it except for the basic premise. But the premise was so mythically, allegorically significant that I'm sure I'll remember it always. I doubt that watching the movie again would even be as stimulating as simply contemplating the situation. A group of prisoners, probably in the American South in the 1950s or earlier, are being transported in a van, manacled together in pairs. Or maybe they were manacled to links welded to the van itself, but the guards were short one pair of cuffs, and so the last two prisoners had to be handcuffed to each other: a black man and a white man. They object to being so attached, because neither one likes the other on principle, but the guards laugh off their complaints.
The van has a road accident, and everyone aboard is killed (I suppose), except for our pair. The two of them escape, still cuffed together, and have poignant adventures as they are forced to work together to make it to freedom. I recall one point where they were trying to ascend a steep, muddy slope, in the rain: maybe they had been going through a gorge, and a flash flood would soon send a wave upon them that would drown them both unless they made it to the top. But for a long time each kept trying to climb without considering the other one's difficulties, and so both kept falling back again. Eventually they caught on that they had to cooperate to make it up together, but quickly forgot this lesson again as soon as their danger was past.
The most dramatic, haunting, and absurd scene came later, when their frustration with each other reached a climax and their tempers were worn away to nothing, and they set upon each other in an insane fight. Each of them was shouting, "I'll kill you!" at the other--still manacled together, of course--as we in the audience sat open-mouthed at the lunacy of trying to corpsify your handcuff-mate while still desperate to evade your pursuers.
The allegory was presented in terms of racial prejudice, but it could apply as well to today's centrifugal politics.
Unfortunately, recognizing the relative desirability of peace over war does not help to achieve it. There is something called the J-curve theory of revolutions, which my brother once described to me as "first things get better, then things get worse, then things go kablooey". Wikipedia has a longer but hardly more vivid description. If the Left considered the Obama years as "things getting better" and the Trump years as "things getting worse", perhaps the outrageous behavior we're witnessing has its explanation there. Will it escalate still further in the years ahead?
I have a feeling it's going to be hard to write science fiction concerning the decades ahead that won't quickly be overtaken by events. Writing good, inspirational SF/F is one way of fixing the culture, but fixing a culture is slow work: pray that we have enough time left. And get back to writing.
I have about seven hundred words done on my second story, and hope to get at least a couple thousand done over the weekend.
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Dr. Matrix explains 2016
The year just ended seemed so, well, odd to me that I felt a need to get some insight on it from the spirit world. I had lately learned a system for consulting with the souls of the departed, so I gave it a try. Not to bore you with the details of preparing for the seance, in a few hours I found myself in conversation with a spirit who identified himself as Dr. Irving Joshua Matrix.
"Dr. Matrix!" I exclaimed. "I thought you were a fictional creation of the late, great Martin Gardner!"
Martin Gardner wrote a series of esays recounting his interviews with Dr. Matrix over a period of many years from the 1960s to the 1980s. Dr. Matrix was a numerologist and always explained contemporary events through numerical coincidences. His theory was that numbers control human behavior, in some mystical way.
"Well, here I am," he (it?) said. "You wanted to ask something about 2016?"
"Of course. I mean, what's with Pokemon Go? And clown attacks? And how does who can go to which bathroom in North Carolina become a national issue? And..."
"My time is limited, you know. Maybe you should prioritize?"
"Well...how does the Republican party come to nominate a candidate that past Republican presidents wouldn't endorse, and whose nominating convention prominent Republicans wouldn't even attend?"
"That's more like it. You know the GOP was founded in 1854, right?"
"Um, yeah, sure, I knew that."
"Making it 162 years old in 2016. You'll note that 2016 is a shuffling of the digits of 0162, leaving no digit in the same position. Hence, the shuffling of the power within the party."
"Holy cow! I would never have thought of that! But then, how did Trump come to win out? Everyone seemed to think Hillary Clinton would win."
"Hillary was overconfident," he said, smirking. How I could tell that a disembodied spirit was smirking I can't say, but I could. "I'm afraid her numerologists were not as competent as I would have been." Hillary Clinton used numerologists? I thought. "They were deceived into thinking 2016 would be auspicious for her by the somewhat remarkable fact that 2016 times 81833 turns out to contain all the digits from 1 through 9, each one exactly once."
"Uhh," I said, whipping out my calculator. I punched in the product and found it to be 164,975,328. "Yep, all nine digits. But so what? What was that 81,833 about?"
"Translate the letters HRC, her initials, into their positions in the alphabet," explained the spirit patiently. "H is letter 8, R is 18, C is 3. So HRC is 8183, and if you repeat the last 3, there you are."
"Huh," I said. "Well."
"But what they neglected to consider is that an even more significant product is to multiply 2016 by 818330, so that you get all ten digits in the result. And that suggests HRC 30. You see?"
"Umm," I said, not seeing. "But the alphabet has only 26 letters?"
"Good lord. Don't you know the significance of the number 30 in journalism? You put it at the end of a story. It lets the next person handling the paper know that he's at the end."
Light dawned. "You mean..."
"Absolutely. 2016 marks THE END of HRC's political career."
Somehow, he seemed to be making sense. "But why Trump, of all people?"
"Well, 2016 is something new in American politics. This is, of course, the first election year in US history that's a triangular number."
"A triangular number? Let's see, that is..."
"You call yourself a math major? A triangular number is a sum of consecutive integers starting with 1. Such as 1 itself, 1+2=3, 1+2+3=6, and so on. Fifteen pool balls form a perfect triangle at the start of a game because 15=1+2+3+4+5, and those are the numbers of balls in the five rows of the triangle."
"I see," I said. "And 2016?"
"Is the 63rd triangular number. Hence the departure from previous trends, such as the GOP nominating a candidate whose last name did not have either 6 or 4 letters."
"Wait, now--what's that about?"
"Great Gauss's ghost, you really are a beginner, aren't you? You haven't noticed that ever since the Watergate scandals, every GOP presidential candidate's first and last names have had either 6 or 4 letters?"
"What? Wait a minute," I said. How could anything so bizarre have escaped notice? Let's see: Gerald Ford; Ronald Wilson Reagan, George Bush -- two of those -- Robert Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney: holy guacamole, he's right!
"But what could account for that?" I said, baffled.
"Gerald Ford set it off, of course. The Republicans were so relieved to be done with Watergate, and FORD suggested F or D, which translated to their alphabet positions, meant 6 or 4. The trend held for nearly 40 years. It even affected most of their vice presidents. Up until the overwhelming influence of the triangular number, 2016, when you elected the 45th president: 45 being the 9th triangular number. Hence, Donald John Trump, whose name has 15 letters..."
"The fifth triangular number!"
"Now you've got it. It didn't hurt that 2016 divides into 20 and 16, which are the positions of T and P in the alphabet, the first and last letters of his name.
"Of course, once he got the nomination it was practically over, since 2016 is pretty obviously a Republican year, based on its remainder when divided by 17. Since 1968, every election year whose remainder when divided by 17 was from 1-7 has had a Democrat president, and all others Republican."
My head was spinning by this time. "Then--then, for instance, that's how Barack Obama won reelection in 2012? It was fated all along? I mean, even Karl Rove was flabbergasted--"
The spirit snorted. Imagine something that could make a spirit snort. "Of course he won in 2012. It's four times 503, a prime number. The Democrats haven't lost an election in a year that was four time a prime since Reconstruction. I mean, if people would pay attention to just rudimentary numerology--"
"Okay, hang on. What can you tell me about 2017?"
"Twenty-seventeen, now that's when things are going to get really interesting," he said, but his voice seemed to be coming from farther away. "You see ..."
It was as if he were retreating down a hallway. "Dr. Matrix!" I cried. "Talk louder! I can't hear!"
I could still make out his voice, but only snatches of words now. "... prime ... expressed in base ... cube root ..."
And that was all.
"Dr. Matrix!" I exclaimed. "I thought you were a fictional creation of the late, great Martin Gardner!"
Martin Gardner wrote a series of esays recounting his interviews with Dr. Matrix over a period of many years from the 1960s to the 1980s. Dr. Matrix was a numerologist and always explained contemporary events through numerical coincidences. His theory was that numbers control human behavior, in some mystical way.
"Well, here I am," he (it?) said. "You wanted to ask something about 2016?"
"Of course. I mean, what's with Pokemon Go? And clown attacks? And how does who can go to which bathroom in North Carolina become a national issue? And..."
"My time is limited, you know. Maybe you should prioritize?"
"Well...how does the Republican party come to nominate a candidate that past Republican presidents wouldn't endorse, and whose nominating convention prominent Republicans wouldn't even attend?"
"That's more like it. You know the GOP was founded in 1854, right?"
"Um, yeah, sure, I knew that."
"Making it 162 years old in 2016. You'll note that 2016 is a shuffling of the digits of 0162, leaving no digit in the same position. Hence, the shuffling of the power within the party."
"Holy cow! I would never have thought of that! But then, how did Trump come to win out? Everyone seemed to think Hillary Clinton would win."
"Hillary was overconfident," he said, smirking. How I could tell that a disembodied spirit was smirking I can't say, but I could. "I'm afraid her numerologists were not as competent as I would have been." Hillary Clinton used numerologists? I thought. "They were deceived into thinking 2016 would be auspicious for her by the somewhat remarkable fact that 2016 times 81833 turns out to contain all the digits from 1 through 9, each one exactly once."
"Uhh," I said, whipping out my calculator. I punched in the product and found it to be 164,975,328. "Yep, all nine digits. But so what? What was that 81,833 about?"
"Translate the letters HRC, her initials, into their positions in the alphabet," explained the spirit patiently. "H is letter 8, R is 18, C is 3. So HRC is 8183, and if you repeat the last 3, there you are."
"Huh," I said. "Well."
"But what they neglected to consider is that an even more significant product is to multiply 2016 by 818330, so that you get all ten digits in the result. And that suggests HRC 30. You see?"
"Umm," I said, not seeing. "But the alphabet has only 26 letters?"
"Good lord. Don't you know the significance of the number 30 in journalism? You put it at the end of a story. It lets the next person handling the paper know that he's at the end."
Light dawned. "You mean..."
"Absolutely. 2016 marks THE END of HRC's political career."
Somehow, he seemed to be making sense. "But why Trump, of all people?"
"Well, 2016 is something new in American politics. This is, of course, the first election year in US history that's a triangular number."
"A triangular number? Let's see, that is..."
"You call yourself a math major? A triangular number is a sum of consecutive integers starting with 1. Such as 1 itself, 1+2=3, 1+2+3=6, and so on. Fifteen pool balls form a perfect triangle at the start of a game because 15=1+2+3+4+5, and those are the numbers of balls in the five rows of the triangle."
"I see," I said. "And 2016?"
"Is the 63rd triangular number. Hence the departure from previous trends, such as the GOP nominating a candidate whose last name did not have either 6 or 4 letters."
"Wait, now--what's that about?"
"Great Gauss's ghost, you really are a beginner, aren't you? You haven't noticed that ever since the Watergate scandals, every GOP presidential candidate's first and last names have had either 6 or 4 letters?"
"What? Wait a minute," I said. How could anything so bizarre have escaped notice? Let's see: Gerald Ford; Ronald Wilson Reagan, George Bush -- two of those -- Robert Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney: holy guacamole, he's right!
"But what could account for that?" I said, baffled.
"Gerald Ford set it off, of course. The Republicans were so relieved to be done with Watergate, and FORD suggested F or D, which translated to their alphabet positions, meant 6 or 4. The trend held for nearly 40 years. It even affected most of their vice presidents. Up until the overwhelming influence of the triangular number, 2016, when you elected the 45th president: 45 being the 9th triangular number. Hence, Donald John Trump, whose name has 15 letters..."
"The fifth triangular number!"
"Now you've got it. It didn't hurt that 2016 divides into 20 and 16, which are the positions of T and P in the alphabet, the first and last letters of his name.
"Of course, once he got the nomination it was practically over, since 2016 is pretty obviously a Republican year, based on its remainder when divided by 17. Since 1968, every election year whose remainder when divided by 17 was from 1-7 has had a Democrat president, and all others Republican."
My head was spinning by this time. "Then--then, for instance, that's how Barack Obama won reelection in 2012? It was fated all along? I mean, even Karl Rove was flabbergasted--"
The spirit snorted. Imagine something that could make a spirit snort. "Of course he won in 2012. It's four times 503, a prime number. The Democrats haven't lost an election in a year that was four time a prime since Reconstruction. I mean, if people would pay attention to just rudimentary numerology--"
"Okay, hang on. What can you tell me about 2017?"
"Twenty-seventeen, now that's when things are going to get really interesting," he said, but his voice seemed to be coming from farther away. "You see ..."
It was as if he were retreating down a hallway. "Dr. Matrix!" I cried. "Talk louder! I can't hear!"
I could still make out his voice, but only snatches of words now. "... prime ... expressed in base ... cube root ..."
And that was all.
Friday, December 30, 2016
Why Liberals Do Like That
It's endlessly fascinating to watch the Left shoot itself in the foot by their compulsion to "express their feelings" about affairs like Milo Yiannopoulos's upcoming book. People keep pointing out to them that such reactions are counterproductive; obviously Milo's book has gotten a heap of free publicity since it was announced yesterday, but they really can't seem to help themselves.
It occurs to me that this could be related to another long-standing observation about the leftist-mindset: liberals, people have often observed, judge policies by their inputs while conservatives judge them by their outputs. For instance, liberals will lament when not enough is being spent on something they like, such as education; conservatives prefer spending as little as possible, but are upset when the results are unsatisfactory.
It's a matter of short-term thinking, I suggest. If you only see as far as the good feeling you get when you do something with good intentions (or, in the case of their heads exploding over Milo's book, expressive intentions), then the actual results don't matter. Thus, they not only won't take advice on ending (e.g.) protests that only make them less popular with voters, they won't even see the point. They don't see the protest as a means to an end, but as an end in itself.
Surprising that they ever win elections at all.
It occurs to me that this could be related to another long-standing observation about the leftist-mindset: liberals, people have often observed, judge policies by their inputs while conservatives judge them by their outputs. For instance, liberals will lament when not enough is being spent on something they like, such as education; conservatives prefer spending as little as possible, but are upset when the results are unsatisfactory.
It's a matter of short-term thinking, I suggest. If you only see as far as the good feeling you get when you do something with good intentions (or, in the case of their heads exploding over Milo's book, expressive intentions), then the actual results don't matter. Thus, they not only won't take advice on ending (e.g.) protests that only make them less popular with voters, they won't even see the point. They don't see the protest as a means to an end, but as an end in itself.
Surprising that they ever win elections at all.
The Banned Lad
"Why, Milo, old chum! Has my mind me forsook,
Or is that your dear phizz on a best-selling book?
How did you get such fame and such cel-eb-rit-y?"
"Oh didn't you hear how they banned me," said he.
"You were studying English and drama and stuff
With an eye to be some kind of theater buff.
Now you're jetting around, talking on the TV!"
"Yes, that's what you do when they ban you," said he.
"Back in school you were shy and reserved, not inclined
To outrageous ideas. Now you speaking your mind
Makes a feminist screech like a flipping banshee!"
"True, your confidence grows when they ban you," said he.
"And those garms never came out of Selfridge's aisles,
That's a Savile Row suit like the uppercrust styles!
You've got personal trainers and hench arm can-dy!"
"Consolations there are, when they ban you," said he.
"At Manchester you were obscure, I recall,
No one noticed you left; but this thing at DePaul!
Your fans crashed their ratings on Facebook, with glee!"
"Well, you win lots of friends when they ban you," said he.
"I wish I had your followers, watching my back,
And six-figure advances, and fame!" "Come on, jack!
A blog that does take-offs on Thomas Har-dy?
You're kidding me, right? No one bans that," said he.
(Note: suggestions about Milo's pre-notoriety lifestyle are pure speculation on my part and not at all probable.--JMT)
Or is that your dear phizz on a best-selling book?
How did you get such fame and such cel-eb-rit-y?"
"Oh didn't you hear how they banned me," said he.
"You were studying English and drama and stuff
With an eye to be some kind of theater buff.
Now you're jetting around, talking on the TV!"
"Yes, that's what you do when they ban you," said he.
"Back in school you were shy and reserved, not inclined
To outrageous ideas. Now you speaking your mind
Makes a feminist screech like a flipping banshee!"
"True, your confidence grows when they ban you," said he.
"And those garms never came out of Selfridge's aisles,
That's a Savile Row suit like the uppercrust styles!
You've got personal trainers and hench arm can-dy!"
"Consolations there are, when they ban you," said he.
"At Manchester you were obscure, I recall,
No one noticed you left; but this thing at DePaul!
Your fans crashed their ratings on Facebook, with glee!"
"Well, you win lots of friends when they ban you," said he.
"I wish I had your followers, watching my back,
And six-figure advances, and fame!" "Come on, jack!
A blog that does take-offs on Thomas Har-dy?
You're kidding me, right? No one bans that," said he.
(Note: suggestions about Milo's pre-notoriety lifestyle are pure speculation on my part and not at all probable.--JMT)
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