Survivor Appendix E (5e) Authors- Ursula K. LeGWINS!

[Gradine]

I don't think it's necessarily a free pass, but to be judged on an equitable and fair platform. For example, do you eat meat? Buy clothing from the store? Let's say 100 years from now the idea of raising living animals just to eat is abhorrent. Or that anyone who ever owned clothing made from sweatshops was a horrible person. Do you think it's fair for people 100 years from now to say you're a horrible person because you do those things now, when it's the norm and socially acceptable? Especially since maybe by today's standards, you're actually one of the more aware people who tries not to eat factory farmed meat and buy your clothes that were made in sweat shops?

The thing is there's a difference between things that are "norms" or "socially acceptable" and beliefs which are universally held. The idea that racism is bad or owning people is unconscionable are not new developments in human history; when people of the past are held accountable for their atrocious beliefs/actions, it's important to recognize that those individuals had contemporaries who were saying the same things.

As a quick aside, Lovecraft's racism was particularly virulent even for the particular period in time he occupied. Howard's issues hewed closer to the norms of his time (or at the very least his particular genre), but again it's important to note that both authors had contemporaries who were writing works without their incumbent racism or sexism, or were even at times actively working against those forces. They are who I feel compelled to judge those individuals by.

From there, it's a matter of how much slack you're willing to give someone for succumbing to popular opinion rather than deducing or listening to what is morally right. For what it's worth, I think there's some credit to be had there, but not nearly as much as most others seem to be willing to extend. I mean, if we want to bring up past presidents, Abraham Lincoln himself expressed his doubt in there being intellectual equality between the races, and this was a dude who had multiple conversations with Frederick Douglas, a man who is way smarter than any of us are likely to be. It's for this reason that I try to bring a measure of empathy to my critiques to the past; that there's a difference between understanding why people were the way that they were, and accepting them (or at least refusing to judge them). Ignoring the mistakes of our ancestors simply due to how commonplace they were is how we stagnate growth as a culture.

That's why, and I recognize that I'm probably in a significant minority on this, I sincerely hope to be excoriated by my descendants for my immoral beliefs or practices. It would mean that we are continuing to evolve morally and culturally as a society. I'd hope to be able to read ahead or at least change with the times but I'm not so egotistical to believe that I do not have blind spots or that I'm dismissive of what are certainly moral rights because I consider them too extreme at this point in time. I mean, I can see pretty clearly that the person I was even ten years ago (let alone twenty years in high school) was pretty awful. If I had an abundantly high opinion of who I am now in, say, 2028, I'd take that as a red flag that I'd stopped growing emotionally, intellectually, or morally.

That said, I don't expect to sway anyone, at least not here; Survivor threads are by definition a silly little thing; I was just hoping to elucidate more the reasons on why I've been voting the way that I have, as the question happened to come up. This isn't the space I'd normally consider for proselytizing my point of view.

 

[Sacrosanct]

In the case of Lovecraft: Badly. His own contemporaries thought his views were beyond the pale.
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As I said as much directly above the part you quoted but deleted from the quote...

 

[Gradine]

But it’s also okay to like stuff and still be critical of it. To examine those problematic elements and why they’re there. I mean, I love Tolkien with the passion to have gotten a Lord of the Rings-inspired tattoo. But I can also see that there are problems with his depictions of race in Lord of the Rings.

Also this. So so so much this. I would go so far as to argue that it's important or even necessary to be critical of the stuff we like, but that's just me. We can, and I know people who, dissect every piece of popular culture imaginable to the extent that they are unable or simply unwilling to enjoy any of it. These are the smug people who say "I don't watch TV" as if that makes them morally superior. I find such attitudes and behaviors to be counterproductive, myself.

Case in point; my partner and I work on a college camps (I in academic affairs, her in student affairs), and she used to facilitate a program called "Dissecting Disney" wherein she'd watch films from the animated Disney canon with students and then deconstruct some of the problematic messages that might be involved in them. She was once asked why she hates Disney movies, and her response was along the lines of "I don't; I love Disney movies. I just want to be aware of the messages they might be sending in case I show them to my own children in the future." Which we've since done.

 

[Dausuul]

As I said as much directly above the part you quoted but deleted from the quote...

Ah - sorry, overlooked that bit. Trying to track a couple of conversational threads woven through the ongoing contest.

 

[CleverNickName]

As an aside, am I the only one who sort of rolls my eyes whenever I see people accuse long dead authors of being sexists and/or racists based on modern day standards? It seems to me that it's low hanging fruit to try to score some sort of self righteous cred or something. It's an unfortunate reality that moral relativity is a thing, and should be considered. I'm not necessarily talking about guys like Lovecraft, who was clearly a racist even by the standards of the day. I just think it's a bit disingenuous to attack someone who can't defend themselves as a sexist for how they portrayed the trope of a damsel in distress, when that was the common thinking of the day. It misses the context, which is critical. For example, you can say person X was a sexist by today's standards, but in his time, he was very progressive and fought against the status quo. Thomas Jefferson comes to mind. Was he a racist pig because he owned slaves, which is clearly abhorrent by today's standards, or is that characterization unfair when you compare his ideals to the rest of the accepted world at that time?

Again, I'm not saying none of these authors were sexists or racists, but how did their views compare during the time of the writing? I think that's how people should be judged. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to be judged by your actions now based on society's standards 50 or 100 years from now.

My wife is a research historian, and she would like to remind us that this is not an "either-or" situation. When learning about the past, we must consider context of historical attitudes and actions to get a clear idea of intent and social expectation. But we must also relate them to their context today, and frame them with the ethos and social expectations that we are living in. It's vital that we do both. We must measure past events by their past context, and measure them by their current context. Failure to do either is a failure to learn, and a missed opportunity for progress.

She is glad that you mentioned Thomas Jefferson, because that is a good case-in-point. Yes, he was a slave owner. But slavery was not "acceptable" back then. In fact, it was considered morally abhorrent in most of the Christian world at the time. The abolitionist movement started in the 1600s when the Roman Catholic Church condemned it, continued to 1732 when James Oglethorpe publicly argued against slavery in his proposal to found the Georgia colony, and gained strength in 1777 the brand-new State of Virginia abolished slavery. Slavery was a major point of contention among the nation's Founding Fathers even before the Declaration of Independence was signed, but it seems that those facts are never part of the discussion today. We are too quick to just tell ourselves "well it was okay back then, but times were different" and not measure that difference (and especially the similarities) between Then and Now.

Slavery was not "okay", not even back then, unless you were profiting from it. It just so happened that slavery profiteers controlled most of the land and wealth (and therefore, most of the political power) in America for more than a century. That is a very important thing to remember, especially in the modern era. The complete picture is so much more applicable in both time frames.

So when you find yourself saying "well that author might have been a complete jerk, but everyone was a jerk back then so it's okay," stop and ask yourself...who said it was okay? Was truly everyone a jerk back then? and if so, was everyone truly okay with it? What changed, and why, and how?

She also recommends we read more history books and fewer works of fiction, but she gives that advice to everyone.

 

[Grognerd]

Alexander, Lloyd 23
Cook, Glen 20+1=21
Jemisin, N.K. 18-2=16 At least I don't have to find a new person to downvote whilst battling against the upvotes. Keeps ye olde conscience clear!
Kay, Guy Gavriel 20
LeGuin, Ursula 21
Lynch, Scott 19
McKillip, Patricia 21
Peake, Mervyn 9
Pratchett, Terry 21
Wolfe, Gene 19

 

[Prakriti]

My wife is a research historian, and she would like to remind us that this is not an "either-or" situation. When learning about the past, we must consider context of historical attitudes and actions to get a clear idea of intent and social expectation.

Speaking for myself, after the fair amount of research I did into all of the folks left (I didn't want to downvote any of the name I already recognized) it came down to simple guilt by association. "Great buds with H.P. Lovecraft" is not a descriptor that endears one to me, personally.

What do you say to all the protesters, 100 years from now, who are tearing down statues of Martin Luther King Jr. because he was a meat-eater?

What do you say to the people, 100 years from now, who are burning and banning the works of Le Guin, Jemisin, Alexander, Martin, Sanderson, Jordan, Kay, Tolkien, and Moorcock because they dared to depict meat-eating in their books or were meat-eaters themselves?

What do you say to those same people, 100 years from now, who look down on the people of our time and everything we wrought because we were largely meat-eaters?

Keep in mind, the modern vegetarian movement predates us by over 100 years, so no one alive today can say that they didn't know any better.

 

[OB1]

Alexander, Lloyd 23-2=21
Cook, Glen 21
Jemisin, N.K. 16
Kay, Guy Gavriel 20
LeGuin, Ursula 21
Lynch, Scott 19
McKillip, Patricia 21+1=22
Peake, Mervyn 9
Pratchett, Terry 21
Wolfe, Gene 19

 

[Gradine]

What do you say to all the protesters, 100 years from now, who are tearing down statues of Martin Luther King Jr. because he was a meat-eater?

What do you say to the people, 100 years from now, who are burning and banning the works of Le Guin, Jemisin, Alexander, Martin, Sanderson, Jordan, Kay, Tolkien, and Moorcock because they dared to depict meat-eating in their books or were meat-eaters themselves?

What do you say to those same people, 100 years from now, who look down on the people of our time and everything we wrought because we were largely meat-eaters?

Keep in mind, the modern vegetarian movement predates us by over 100 years, so no one alive today can say that they didn't know any better.

I wouldn't have much to say to these folks, but only because they're hyperbolic fever dream creations that have little to no bearing on the discussion we're actually having.

You might have skipped the part where several of us mentioned it's okay to like something and be critical of it at the same time. I don't judge anyone for liking Lovecraft; I myself am quite fond of Lovecraftian Horror as a genre. I don't judge anyone for the content they consume (unless it's The Big Bang Theory, anyway ), just that it's important to point out where those works might contain harmful messaging if consumed uncritically. Lovecraft's fear of the unknown or other or "alien" didn't spring from a vacuum; it's important to recognize the racist and ableist undertones within; not as an excuse for book burning, but simply to guide readers into not taking those specific lessons to heart, or at face value.

 

[Lanefan]

I must confess surprise at some of the survivors. I mean, sure Mervyn Peake wrote Gormenghast, but he should be better known as a (non-fantasy) poet and an artist. And Brandon Sanderson and Scott Lynch?? Maybe in 20 years or so they'll be fit to polish the shoes of LeGuin, Wolfe, and Pratchett.

This is always going to be a problem when trying to put newer authors with potentially most of their careers still in front of them (e.g. Lynch, Sanderson) against older authors whose career has already finished or mostly finished (e.g. LeGuin, Pratchett).

Lynch for me has already completely redefined and vastly expanded an entire D&D class (Thief or Rogue) with his books, which is more than enough to get upvotes here.