The Second Apocalypse
Miscellaneous Chatter => General Misc. => Topic started by: What Came Before on May 07, 2013, 02:12:22 pm
-
Scanning through the boards, I can't find any existing threads to incorporate this into.
Anyway, sorry if you've all had your fill of this elsewhere: some have accused Bakker of sexist and, perhaps worse, unconvincing characterizations of women in his stories. He has been accused of not knowing anything about women.
It strikes me that perhaps these complaints are unreasonable from at least one angle. Namely, that Bakker is writing about particular individuals (and these are well-realized, at least) who are steeped in a cultural (Earwan) milieu totally different from modern Western whatever -so of course they'll behave in ways unexpected to us, and hold beliefs appalling to us. Plus, isn't challenging preconceptions of human psychology what Bakker's all about anyway? And doesn't speaking of "how women act" or "how men act" both beg a certain question and fall right into Bakker's trap/arms? ... Let's just take this hyper-misogynistic universe as it is for a moment (and whether that is intrinsically problematic or not, I can't say...) - how could a given female in this universe be expected to think and act? It's certainly not a universe conducive to warrior-princesses. But I've probably just committed a grave fallacy with the last couple of lines, so let's wrap it up.
Personally, being an ignoramus virtual hermit these days (see intro post), I trust Bakker to be well-acquainted enough with the cog-psych research and personal interactions to create A realistic or plausible or possible characterization, even if it's shocking in many ways.
That's all I really have to say on that front.
***
More serious, however, is this charge from one of the Larry-OF posts:
Reading the quoted passage with which you begin this post the very first thing that anybody who knows anything the condition of slavery and those who lived it is, "This guy hasn't even bothered to read the myriad slave narratives available, which make up a large part of our significant national literature." He knows nothing about being a slave.
Many slave narratives including the most 'literary' and most studied among our classics of national lit are even free, full text, online.
This guy can't be trusted about anything to do with power, gender and sex.
with respect to this passage in WLW -
A warmth climbs through her as she speaks, an unaccountable assurance, as if out of all her crazed burdens, confession is the only real encumbrance. Secrecy mars the nature of every former slave, and she is no different. They hoard knowledge, not for the actual power it affords, but for the taste of that power. All this time, even before Achamian's captivity, she has been accumulating facts and suspicions. All this time she has fooled herself the way all men fool themselves, thinking that she alone possessed the highest vantage and that she alone commanded the field.
Does Bakker's understanding of slavery seem to be lacking to any of you? She mentions the availability of slave narratives online, but I don't see how that contradicts the notion that slaves hoard secrets from their masters. It certainly sounds plausible to me, at least on the surface. Are there any specific slave-quotes from our epoch that suggest or explicitly state otherwise?
At any rate, perhaps there's a psychological difference between race-slavery and the more old-fashioned slavery depicted in TSA. And again with the cultural-milieu difference, though to repeat it here might be, I fear, a cop-out of some sort.
Anyone got better apologies for Bakker?
On a positive note, I've gotten over my former contempt for the feminist critics of Bakker. On the other hand, perhaps it's simply a sign of decreased cognitive investment in Bakker's work rather than any maturation against the biases he so often contemplates. Which is the least flattering option? :)
-
I can't say anything of the descriptions of slavery from primary sources and how it compares to Bakker's depictions, but the altercation with the feminists followed a script that you see in a lot of arguments. The goal of the critics was never to understand the work; the goal was to make an example of someone in an effort to "rally the troops" against an issue that, to be fair, is a big problem in a lot of ways. Once Bakker did respond, both parties had incentive to continue and were then compelled to escalate.
"But it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it's fatal not to go through with it."
-John Updike
Do not make the mistake of dismissing the actions of the initial instigators as being unintelligent or misguided (insert any Sun Tzu quote concerning deception here). It was manipulation designed to gain followers, and, quite frankly, it worked. Whether it actually ends up helping the original cause is a different issue.
-
Indeed.
The argument lacks any evidence that such depictions reinforce negative attitudes.
Even the censorship campaigners of the 90's had some kind of case to present when condemning popular art.
-
Meyna's post is basically right.
The crowd who criticized Bakker over misogynism never really intended to analyze and pick apart Bakker's work in a serious way - it was more about yelling "misogynist poo-poo head" as loud as possible, and create an Issue of the Day.
The stupidest thing Bakker did was to acknowledge these people at all. They feed off attention, like all other internet-activists.
-
My experience with internet social justice warriors is they are often as venemous and vitriolic as the people they are trying to denounce. It's like the kid who keeps getting swirlies in middle school so he learns karate and puts the bully in the hospital, and then starts attacking anyone who looks at him funny. It's not unheard of for victimized people to lash out but if you're gonna just continue to filter everything in the world through your myopic views and only feed the anger and hatred inside you then you are doing nothing but continuing to perpetuate the cycle of anger/victimization
edit: i want to add that I've learned a lot from feminist posters on different forums and I try to remain as conscious as possible of how I regard women, but sooner or later you need to move past the venom
-
My experience with internet social justice warriors is they are often as venemous and vitriolic as the people they are trying to denounce. It's like the kid who keeps getting swirlies in middle school so he learns karate and puts the bully in the hospital, and then starts attacking anyone who looks at him funny.
Internet-warriors are hardly a poor victimized group, nor is it a trauma from bullying that motivates them. The majority of them are just bored people who lead rather safe and uninteresting lives without many actual problems, and so feel the need to create problems.
Most of the internet-crusaders who screeched that "BaKkEr H@tEs WYmmIn, OMG" weren't bullying victims lashing out against their bullies. This isn't the impression that I got at all. From my experience with internet-activists, the odds that they've been targets of real-life abuse are pretty slim.
The goal of the critics was never to understand the work; the goal was to make an example of someone in an effort to "rally the troops" against an issue that, to be fair, is a big problem in a lot of ways.
Yeah. No better way of combating misogyny than by internet-crusading against an obscure fantasy author. Totally.
-
Funny, I was reading slave narratives not too long ago and ran into this.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mesn&fileName=041/mesn041.db&recNum=54&itemLink=D?mesnbib:2:./temp/~ammem_sRsD:: (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mesn&fileName=041/mesn041.db&recNum=54&itemLink=D?mesnbib:2:./temp/~ammem_sRsD::)
I'm as abolitionist as anyone but I would counter that they don't know a thing about slavery and/or the Reconstruction either.
-
My experience with internet social justice warriors is they are often as venemous and vitriolic as the people they are trying to denounce. It's like the kid who keeps getting swirlies in middle school so he learns karate and puts the bully in the hospital, and then starts attacking anyone who looks at him funny.
Internet-warriors are hardly a poor victimized group, nor is it a trauma from bullying that motivates them. The majority of them are just bored people who lead rather safe and uninteresting lives without many actual problems, and so feel the need to create problems.
Most of the internet-crusaders who screeched that "BaKkEr H@tEs WYmmIn, OMG" weren't bullying victims lashing out against their bullies. This isn't the impression that I got at all. From my experience with internet-activists, the odds that they've been targets of real-life abuse are pretty slim.
Well, I think we're both half right. My reasoning is the kind of vitriol I've seen can only come from bullied, victimized people. People in pain. As an outlet for a frustrated life, making people more aware of how society treats and objectifies women is certainly a noble endeavor. More power to them. Shit, I like rap music, I'd have to be a special kind of thick not to see where they're coming from. But, calling everything misogyny at the drop of the hat because it doesn't immediately gel with your views is as damaging to your cause and only alienates men who would have been more than happy to help you otherwise. Hatred doesn't cure hatred. Pretty much every holy person in history has said this, and the sooner these people realize it, the sooner they can do some real good outside of their special blogosphere echo chambers.
I also recognize that some of these people are bored and empty, like you said, so they take that out on neurotypicals or whatever the buzz word is now. I also realize reducing a subset of like-minded human beings to "these people" and trying to paint them one way or another is also a reflection of my own bias. Either way, these are extremely complex issues and the only we can get out of the woods is with a little understanding and compassion.
-
The problem wasn't that Bakker's women were unrealistic. Epic fantasy tends to have unrealistic.
The problem was that Bakker said he was deliberately doing a different thing and people decided he didn't achieve it and took him to task for it.
I believe some were very upset because they continually stated there were heaps of historical evidence that women were not existing only in the roles Bakker was using and Bakker not having women outside of the roles he choose was part of Bakker's failure/sin etc etc.
-
Well, what you have is the hidden appeal to authority - Larry seems to say that unless you've read those texts about slaves lives, you are not permitted to write about them. I don't know if someone else told him this (in which case this unnamed other person is claiming authority over what one must have read in advance) or whether Larry just made that requirement up himself, in which case he is, inutterally, claiming authority over what one must have read before one can write on the subject.
That's even assuming Scott hasn't read any of the texts.
Anyway, it's a closed circle - who here has read one of the texts on a slaves life? No, no one? Okay, none of you are qualified to talk about it? Everyone go get your coats and the last one out switches off the light!
It's a beautiful sleight of hand, really - they distract you with the 'he doesn't understand' part, while installing the notion of their speaking from authority into the speach patterns you will have to use to engage the idea that 'he doesn't understand'. They've already got you internalising they have an authority. Like a clever chess move, you've got to admire that! I presume it's purely instinctual rather than conciously made move, but still!
I think I partly agree with Meyna - I think some are looking to build their own cult and simply pick out easy victims to make their cult woop around. But I think others both genuinely believe they are dealing with an issue, yet at the same time they are building a cult following in doing so and as much as it feels good, it instills a bias.
But finally, what if you ran an experiment where you somehow tested sexist attitudes (and more importantly, sexist actions) of readers before reading, then again after reading the books and found those sexist actions actually increased? It might be possible? Even if someone is gathering a cult following around such a notion, it wouldn't make the notion incorrect.
Of course, the hard to swollow pill there is having a disproval method against ones own prefered theory, while the other side has no disproval method and simply raves they are right. It's like making yourself vulnerable in front of a pack of howling wolves.
It's like the kid who keeps getting swirlies in middle school so he learns karate and puts the bully in the hospital, and then starts attacking anyone who looks at him funny. It's not unheard of for victimized people to lash out
Bit off topic of me, and ignoring the 'look at him funny' part for now, then what reaction is warranted that isn't just lashing out?
-
It's like the kid who keeps getting swirlies in middle school so he learns karate and puts the bully in the hospital, and then starts attacking anyone who looks at him funny. It's not unheard of for victimized people to lash out
Bit off topic of me, and ignoring the 'look at him funny' part for now, then what reaction is warranted that isn't just lashing out?
Lashing out is fine. I'm not sitting here and trying to tell victims what they can or can't do. It's just that sooner or later, you have to move out of that hate-filled state of mind for your own mental wellbeing or you risk becoming a participant in the cycle of hatred and prejudice you are railing against.
-
Interesting replies, but must always remember to avoid becoming sealed into an echo chamber.
If the critics haven't been seriously analyzing Bakker's work to establish a stance, then I invite everyone with affinity to textual analysis to do so here, if any one can stomach it.
Though I have to say I liked that early TPB-post on the Writerly Fallacies - interpretation is wholly personal and the writer can only introduce manipulations directed at a particular audience, not enforce a preferred interpretation, etc. So I can see where some of the fem-blog arguments were coming from, I suppose - but only as from shallow or incomplete (of the books) readings. We all have our biases; we all make knee-jerk judgements. So I'll have to cordially disagree on these terms, ladies (this is rhetorical and not directed at any specific person here or elsewhere), and hope you can reconsider after giving the PoN and its commentary a thorough reading, as surely you can't be qualified otherwise to expound on what are or aren't its attributes. Finally, don't forget that your readings aren't necessarily prescriptive or final. Something something...
I believe some were very upset because they continually stated there were heaps of historical evidence that women were not existing only in the roles Bakker was using and Bakker not having women outside of the roles he choose was part of Bakker's failure/sin etc etc.
Ah yes, I'd heard that as well. While it certainly destroys any argument from historical accuracy for Bakker's content, I figure my take on the culture-thing could avert it. Of course, then one would have to ask what conditions caused such a hypermisogynistic culture to arise, when economic participation by if not full political enfranchisement of women could probably be expected in most cases, as was historically the case...Hmm, maybe if Bakker had developed a less anti-egalitarian society prior to the effect of the 1st Apocalypse? Or would that have been an unnecessary distraction/detracted from his themes?
As for Bakker trying a new thing - exaggerating human biases and 'distasteful characteristics' is one of the means through which he expresses his ideas, right?
In Disciple of Dog, for instance, the protagonist's rampant sexism/chauvinism is supposed to emphasize the way everyone - and everyone - has become utterly dehumanized in his eyes as just a repetitive set of facial expressions and pleasurable fuck-holes. And pleasure doesn't get old, for Disciple...
Funny, I was reading slave narratives not too long ago and ran into this.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mesn&fileName=041/mesn041.db&recNum=54&itemLink=D?mesnbib:2:./temp/~ammem_sRsD:: (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mesn&fileName=041/mesn041.db&recNum=54&itemLink=D?mesnbib:2:./temp/~ammem_sRsD::)
I'm as abolitionist as anyone but I would counter that they don't know a thing about slavery and/or the Reconstruction either.
Thanks for that. E.g. Old-Akka's slaves, then.
Well, what you have is the hidden appeal to authority - Larry seems to say that unless you've read those texts about slaves lives, you are not permitted to write about them. I don't know if someone else told him this (in which case this unnamed other person is claiming authority over what one must have read in advance) or whether Larry just made that requirement up himself, in which case he is, inutterally, claiming authority over what one must have read before one can write on the subject.
That's even assuming Scott hasn't read any of the texts.
Anyway, it's a closed circle - who here has read one of the texts on a slaves life? No, no one? Okay, none of you are qualified to talk about it? Everyone go get your coats and the last one out switches off the light!
It's a beautiful sleight of hand, really - they distract you with the 'he doesn't understand' part, while installing the notion of their speaking from authority into the speach patterns you will have to use to engage the idea that 'he doesn't understand'. They've already got you internalising they have an authority. Like a clever chess move, you've got to admire that! I presume it's purely instinctual rather than conciously made move, but still!
I think I partly agree with Meyna - I think some are looking to build their own cult and simply pick out easy victims to make their cult woop around. But I think others both genuinely believe they are dealing with an issue, yet at the same time they are building a cult following in doing so and as much as it feels good, it instills a bias.
But finally, what if you ran an experiment where you somehow tested sexist attitudes (and more importantly, sexist actions) of readers before reading, then again after reading the books and found those sexist actions actually increased? It might be possible? Even if someone is gathering a cult following around such a notion, it wouldn't make the notion incorrect.
Of course, the hard to swollow pill there is having a disproval method against ones own prefered theory, while the other side has no disproval method and simply raves they are right. It's like making yourself vulnerable in front of a pack of howling wolves.
It's like the kid who keeps getting swirlies in middle school so he learns karate and puts the bully in the hospital, and then starts attacking anyone who looks at him funny. It's not unheard of for victimized people to lash out
Bit off topic of me, and ignoring the 'look at him funny' part for now, then what reaction is warranted that isn't just lashing out?
Oh sorry, I should have made clear: it wasn't Larry who made the comment, but a commentator under the handle "Foxessa", who from the several posts of hers I read in [url]this blog entry seemed at least a little formidable.
http://ofblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/few-thoughts-regarding-tempests.html
-
I have to say I kind of dislike the 'you need to read it thoroughly' approach, primarily because there are so many books I don't want to read myself - not thoroughly. It's what you spend your life on - and it's kind of like saying one should spend more time with Hitler than ones own children. Maybe you do and he turns out to be Hitleur and not Hitler, a kind of goovy hipster who is cool. But the prospect of spending ones lifespan there...
There should be a quicker method I think, than saying 'no, dedicate several dozen hours to this before you can talk'. I mean, it's what they are doing with the 'read the slave texts' thing.
I don't know what the quicker method is - I'm too lazy to hash out an idea for it right now, I'll admit! So ya got me there!
While it certainly destroys any argument from historical accuracy for Bakker's content
WHY?
Seriously, how many books are there where some dude leaves a farm and becomes king - okay, lets look at history, how many freakin' times does that happen over the average population? Not alot!
This is real selective bias - when the subject is happy a go-go bootstrapping, sure, it's fine! When it involves looking at the sort of sex slavery which not only happened in the past, but still goes on in the third world and even some places in the first world (many places, depending on your definition and opinion of porn), suddenly it's unrealistic?
Books look at edge cases. People are biases toward accepting happy edge cases and rejecting unhappy edge cases. More so if they are actually relavant to RL society.
Of course, then one would have to ask what conditions caused such a hypermisogynistic culture to arise, when economic participation by if not full political enfranchisement of women could probably be expected in most cases, as was historically the case
Maybe I'm on a rant here, so take the above and below with salt, but: Isn't it obvious the subjugation of women IS economic participation? The economy rides on the back of put upon women? It still does - except now you have stay at home dads as well putting effort into bringing up children for free so the system and it's masters can profit from them.
I mean, how is economic participation/full political enfranchisement 'historically the case'?
When did women get the vote? The middle ages? Before the birth of Jesus?
What is this 'as was historically the case'?
As said, I'm trying to get at the argument, but if in my rant it seems I'm aiming for you, I'm not, I really want to get at the argument.
Oh sorry, I should have made clear: it wasn't Larry who made the comment, but a commentator under the handle "Foxessa", who from the several posts of hers I read in this blog entry seemed at least a little formidable.
Well, I hadn't gotten my torch and pitchfork out to hunt Larry with, so it's okay - it applies to whom it applies to.
-
It's like the kid who keeps getting swirlies in middle school so he learns karate and puts the bully in the hospital, and then starts attacking anyone who looks at him funny. It's not unheard of for victimized people to lash out
Bit off topic of me, and ignoring the 'look at him funny' part for now, then what reaction is warranted that isn't just lashing out?
Lashing out is fine. I'm not sitting here and trying to tell victims what they can or can't do. It's just that sooner or later, you have to move out of that hate-filled state of mind for your own mental wellbeing or you risk becoming a participant in the cycle of hatred and prejudice you are railing against.
Well I guess it's the hard question of when sooner or later arrives? Anyway, I'm being off topic!
-
I have to say I kind of dislike the 'you need to read it thoroughly' approach, primarily because there are so many books I don't want to read myself - not thoroughly. It's what you spend your life on - and it's kind of like saying one should spend more time with Hitler than ones own children. Maybe you do and he turns out to be Hitleur and not Hitler, a kind of goovy hipster who is cool. But the prospect of spending ones lifespan there...
There should be a quicker method I think, than saying 'no, dedicate several dozen hours to this before you can talk'. I mean, it's what they are doing with the 'read the slave texts' thing.
I don't know what the quicker method is - I'm too lazy to hash out an idea for it right now, I'll admit! So ya got me there!
While it certainly destroys any argument from historical accuracy for Bakker's content
WHY?
Seriously, how many books are there where some dude leaves a farm and becomes king - okay, lets look at history, how many freakin' times does that happen over the average population? Not alot!
This is real selective bias - when the subject is happy a go-go bootstrapping, sure, it's fine! When it involves looking at the sort of sex slavery which not only happened in the past, but still goes on in the third world and even some places in the first world (many places, depending on your definition and opinion of porn), suddenly it's unrealistic?
Books look at edge cases. People are biases toward accepting happy edge cases and rejecting unhappy edge cases. More so if they are actually relavant to RL society.
Of course, then one would have to ask what conditions caused such a hypermisogynistic culture to arise, when economic participation by if not full political enfranchisement of women could probably be expected in most cases, as was historically the case
Maybe I'm on a rant here, so take the above and below with salt, but: Isn't it obvious the subjugation of women IS economic participation? The economy rides on the back of put upon women? It still does - except now you have stay at home dads as well putting effort into bringing up children for free so the system and it's masters can profit from them.
I mean, how is economic participation/full political enfranchisement 'historically the case'?
When did women get the vote? The middle ages? Before the birth of Jesus?
What is this 'as was historically the case'?
As said, I'm trying to get at the argument, but if in my rant it seems I'm aiming for you, I'm not, I really want to get at the argument.
Oh sorry, I should have made clear: it wasn't Larry who made the comment, but a commentator under the handle "Foxessa", who from the several posts of hers I read in this blog entry seemed at least a little formidable.
Well, I hadn't gotten my torch and pitchfork out to hunt Larry with, so it's okay - it applies to whom it applies to.
1. Well, perhaps. On one hand, it shouldn't be necessary to read the whole work before being able to comment on it. On the other, surely one can not claim to have a total thematic mastery of the book - deeper than anyone else's - when one has only read the 5-page prologue!
2. That's fiction, then - fiction that pretends to historical accuracy is another genre entirely, right? All this is just in reference to the critic's position in opposition to the apologist argument that Bakker's depictions of women in society are historically accurate.
3. Well, OK. I can only go shallowly here, but I'll try. By the way, I said "if not full political enfranchisement" which is to say that women had an economic role besides that of prostitute or sex-slave while not almost ever being seen as politically even close to the equals of men.
But certainly, throughout history women have held many vital economic roles. Women were doing heavy agricultural work, small-time manufacturing, etc. In Egypt (though this is a somewhat special case) women could unilaterally divorce their husbands and own private property - that is, strike up contracts on their own initiative. Usually they had to get men to sign for them, but that's only because despite this economic privilege nearly all women were still totally illiterate. :D
AFAIK the modern concept of gender roles - that is, occupations from which women should specifically be excluded because they are not correctly constituted (so note that I'm not referring to gender roles in general but this specific manifestation) - only arose during the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. The core of the argument around historicity, is then, that back in the day, society wasn't so heavily restrictive on the forms of female economic participation; women just did whatever was needed to be done, because there wasn't the luxury of allowing/restricting them to always sit cooped up in the house, caring for children, or servicing their horny male masters.
Summary: It's not really accurate to say that women in the ancient or medieval worlds were always only sex-slaves, prostitutes, or child-carers.
Despite this, I do think it should be acknowledged that pretty much everywhere (in the old Europe/near East), women were up to the 20th c. seen as politically subordinate to males, etc.; though to varying degrees, it was always there.
Is that all clear and satisfying?
-
Plus, isn't challenging preconceptions of human psychology what Bakker's all about anyway? And doesn't speaking of "how women act" or "how men act" both beg a certain question and fall right into Bakker's trap/arms?
+1 Anachronistic Dialogue.
Personally, being an ignoramus virtual hermit these days (see intro post), I trust Bakker to be well-acquainted enough with the cog-psych research and personal interactions to create A realistic or plausible or possible characterization, even if it's shocking in many ways.
You're showing, Bakker User. I'm glad you decided to dive in. I'd hazard that you and Bakker both have much knowledge to offer.
Does Bakker's understanding of slavery seem to be lacking to any of you? She mentions the availability of slave narratives online, but I don't see how that contradicts the notion that slaves hoard secrets from their masters. It certainly sounds plausible to me, at least on the surface. Are there any specific slave-quotes from our epoch that suggest or explicitly state otherwise?
I had thought you picked the quote til I read your linked Larry's blog. I'm not sure that highlights any of Bakker's understanding of actual historical slave narratives, as you said - there's but one real metaphor to dissect...
the altercation with the feminists followed a script that you see in a lot of arguments. The goal of the critics was never to understand the work; the goal was to make an example of someone in an effort to "rally the troops" against an issue that, to be fair, is a big problem in a lot of ways. Once Bakker did respond, both parties had incentive to continue and were then compelled to escalate.
...
Do not make the mistake of dismissing the actions of the initial instigators as being unintelligent or misguided (insert any Sun Tzu quote concerning deception here). It was manipulation designed to gain followers, and, quite frankly, it worked. Whether it actually ends up helping the original cause is a different issue.
+1 Meyna. However, I think Bakker was right to engage. Man's got a serious predilection for affecting change.
The argument lacks any evidence that such depictions reinforce negative attitudes.
I've never actually engaged this content much - there was one instance, Kalbear and I went at it for a couple posts but mostly I never felt right suggesting that I knew anything about Feminism.
The crowd who criticized Bakker over misogynism never really intended to analyze and pick apart Bakker's work in a serious way - it was more about yelling "misogynist poo-poo head" as loud as possible, and create an Issue of the Day.
The stupidest thing Bakker did was to acknowledge these people at all. They feed off attention, like all other internet-activists.
+1 - though, I'm getting interested in Bakker User's proposal that we do any work those critics lacked.
However, again, I support Bakker engaging each corner. Many of us attempted, in different fashions, to engage acm and Vox on their blogs - for my part, I asked acm what she thought she was accomplishing and if she had ever pursued cognitive psychology, for that was promptly banned and accused of being Bakker's Sockpuppet...
Vox, on the other hand, actually engaged - and I him and some of the Ilk's more eloquent comments. To that end, I managed to elicit that Vox thought that without guiding moral principles, like those Christianity offers, no one would behave. And that they should hunt me down and kill me for threatening the stability of their worldview. It's a shame he clears his comments from past blogs.
The point is that people, groups, exist in our world that have measures of control over the dominant narratives - fictions that we all embody. Engaging disparate groups is one of the only ways to save us from ourselves, neh?
That's not strictly a response to you, Auriga, but I know the ineffectiveness of engagement was echoed by others - I got on a roll there... and bogged down reading old ROH posts.
My experience with internet social justice warriors is they are often as venemous and vitriolic as the people they are trying to denounce.
Some can only express themselves in limited capacities. The onus of communication is on those of us more practiced?
I'm as abolitionist as anyone but I would counter that they don't know a thing about slavery and/or the Reconstruction either.
Thanks for that link, Ajokli. I'd hazard this strays into Bakker's argument, regardless. Immediate emancipation of the slaves marginalized those freed even more than slavery, in some instances. Like the freedom offered by Kellhus' gender utility...
The problem was that Bakker said he was deliberately doing a different thing and people decided he didn't achieve it and took him to task for it.
“yes, the text is problematic as it stands now, but future developments will hopefully show that there is much more going on under the surface,"
From Bakker User's link to Larry's blog post. Take him to task when the Second Apocalypse is done. Prince of Nothing is a premise.
But finally, what if you ran an experiment where you somehow tested sexist attitudes (and more importantly, sexist actions) of readers before reading, then again after reading the books and found those sexist actions actually increased?
I just wrote a midterm on this, Callan. There's a variety of case studies but directly from my study notes:
Pornography & Sexual Violence:
- Even women often believe that other woman might enjoy being sexually overpowered, though few think it of themselves (Malamuth, 1980).
- After viewing either a neutral, erotic, or an aggressive-erotic (rape) film, university and college men who watched the rape film delivered stronger shocks to women (Donnerstein, 1980)
- Exposure to pornography increases acceptance of the rape myth (Oddone-Paolucci et al., 2000).
- A consensus statement by 21 leading social scientists sums up the results: “Exposure to violent pornography increases punitive behaviour toward women” (Koop, 1987).
- Those who read erotic rape stories and were then fully debriefed became less accepting of the “women enjoy rape” myth (Malamuth & Check, 1981).
Purposeful bolding for here at the last... though, also what I'd highlighted on my study sheet ;).
It's just that sooner or later, you have to move out of that hate-filled state of mind for your own mental wellbeing or you risk becoming a participant in the cycle of hatred and prejudice you are railing against.
+1. Enjoying your perspective, bb.
If the critics haven't been seriously analyzing Bakker's work to establish a stance, then I invite everyone with affinity to textual analysis to do so here, if any one can stomach it.
I'd be interested in this, as I mentioned above.
As for Bakker trying a new thing - exaggerating human biases and 'distasteful characteristics' is one of the means through which he expresses his ideas, right?
Thanks for the link. I'd almost hazard that Earwa is so purposefully extreme as to better contrast what comes next.
AFAIK the modern concept of gender roles - that is, occupations from which women should specifically be excluded because they are not correctly constituted (so note that I'm not referring to gender roles in general but this specific manifestation) - only arose during the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. The core of the argument around historicity, is then, that back in the day, society wasn't so heavily restrictive on the forms of female economic participation; women just did whatever was needed to be done, because there wasn't the luxury of allowing/restricting them to always sit cooped up in the house, caring for children, or servicing their horny male masters.
Summary: It's not really accurate to say that women in the ancient or medieval worlds were always only sex-slaves, prostitutes, or child-carers.
Despite this, I do think it should be acknowledged that pretty much everywhere (in the old Europe/near East), women were up to the 20th c. seen as politically subordinate to males, etc.; though to varying degrees, it was always there.
It's interesting - Larry and Bakker both danced around defining Feminism on Larry's blog and I think this strikes to the pith.
2) Given radically changing factual and social conditions, why should anyone defend the feminist status quo?
What do you mean by "feminism?" I've never seen it as a monolithic bloc, but rather as an umbrella term for a series of competing and sometimes compatible views on the relationships between women (itself a term open for further division into cis/trans now) and the cultures/environments in which they move. A second-wave and third-wave feminist will likely disagree when it comes to defining patriarchy and how sexism is inherent in society. Marxist feminists, especially those influenced by critiques of E.P. Thompson's classic social history, The Making of the English Working Class, certainly will emphasize the Industrial Revolution as the place where the Public/Private sphere split reached its apogee and which established certain prejudices about "women's roles" that two centuries later are still being argued over.
With that in mind, it's nearly impossible to answer that question. Might as well ask a Tennessean, a Hawaiian, a Vermont resident, and a Nebraskan what constitutes "American" values/language.
My bold. Exactly, Larry... and how has gender equality answered this historical relevancy? Well, mostly by adopting gender utility normalized by social discourse as gender equality.
I would hazard Bakker's question again with a single caveat: Given radically changing factual and social conditions, why should anyone defend the feminist status quo, when, as the feminist status quo exists, it is seriously at odds with actually recontextualizing gender roles to reflect equality?
Cheers. I don't think this is an echo-chamber, Bakker User - rather this is how it appears when charitable communication is exercised...
Doesn't mean I agree with you... just means I'm trying to communicate with you ;).
-
1. Well, perhaps. On one hand, it shouldn't be necessary to read the whole work before being able to comment on it. On the other, surely one can not claim to have a total thematic mastery of the book - deeper than anyone else's - when one has only read the 5-page prologue!
Oh, I wouldn't count ACM's 6 page read as being any genuine effort. I just mean for other folk. I think some/perhaps many people on her forum are interested in engaging issues - I posted on requires only hate that Vox was posting on the TPB. One poster thought it was a good idea to engage - ACM was like 'you are so obvious' to me. Yeah, I was - I was obvious like I was pointing out an illegal whaling ship to someone who calls themselves a greenpeace activist. I think many on her forum genuinely do want to be activists. But I kinda digress...
Maybe 6 pages could cut it? Probably not - but the thing is, do you have to read 9 books (some not written yet) to understand? That seems the opposing extreme end to six pages.
2. That's fiction, then - fiction that pretends to historical accuracy is another genre entirely, right? All this is just in reference to the critic's position in opposition to the apologist argument that Bakker's depictions of women in society are historically accurate.
I'm not sure I understand? Before we were talking about an argument coming from history. If I wrote about middle ages villages and say they had to grow food rather than go to the supermarket, I argue from history. That doesn't mean I'm writing a historical genre? I could say hobbits have to grow their own food and I'm not just trying to be historical, yet I am recreating our history to an extent?
I don't think if you include some arguement from history, suddenly you are attempting to be historically accurate. I heard an arguement recently like that where someone seemed to think that if someone wants some dragons in their reading, then they want 100% fantasy, with no percentage of what we might call real/similar to history material.
If you or they want to argue that it's either historically accurate or it has to be absolute fantasy, you can pitch it.
3. Well, OK. I can only go shallowly here, but I'll try. By the way, I said "if not full political enfranchisement" which is to say that women had an economic role besides that of prostitute or sex-slave while not almost ever being seen as politically even close to the equals of men.
How many of them are socially mobile enough to engage in social circles they don't normally enter? Maybe you have a seamstress, but if you take it fiction is often about meeting new people, who does that? Her husband? Or do you imagine a single woman making her way along with a middle ages war, being a seamstress?
It seems more like the 'unprotected' woman is the character that will engage new social circles, which is essential for being a main character.
I'm inclined to think a woman who has a job in the setting wont leave it for an unprotected position?
If the seamstress is one example, how does she follow along with a war, for example? Without the character just going "Hey, how about I just stay at home where I have a job!"? Ie, not adventure/not be a main character?
Summary: It's not really accurate to say that women in the ancient or medieval worlds were always only sex-slaves, prostitutes, or child-carers.
It does seem you've skipped my point above: It's also not really accurate to say that every farmhand who left his farm became king.
But no one argues with that being accurate.
When you want to argue against stories where a farmhand becomes king (and you just want a story about farmhands) or for settings where wizards or other special occupations are rare if you want to argue that they shouldn't be in the story at all (instead of turning up every second page), I'll think your position is consistant. Otherwise the fiction you and they like is littered with edge case characters given the spotlight.
And who's more edge case than a whore?
Indeed in a way it almost seems like the lowly whore is downtrodden again? That they would be denied spotlight? Or else the author is considered sexist!
So how does the seamstress travel with a war? Or what job would women have that lets them be location mobile and socially mobile?
Never mind if you have a setting where they all have black sheets over their heads - oh, that'd be the author being sexist, for a setting like that, surely...
-
Heya Madness,
Thanks for that link, Ajokli. I'd hazard this strays into Bakker's argument, regardless. Immediate emancipation of the slaves marginalized those freed even more than slavery, in some instances.
I'd like to go into more detail - why didn't the freed slaves simply continue to work on the farms they were previously on (never mind how clear that makes wage slavery appear, for now)?
They couldn't afford them?
But that's an environmental/resource issue (well, I'll assume money at that point is somewhat a reflection of natural food resources to spare)? Seems unfair to blame the emancipation?
- After viewing either a neutral, erotic, or an aggressive-erotic (rape) film, university and college men who watched the rape film delivered stronger shocks to women (Donnerstein, 1980)
How do they test that? The guy has a dial in front of him? What, do the ones who saw the rape film spin the dial? How do you test that?
How do you measure sexual violence, btw? I know of a man who recieved rather too vigorous fellatio from his GF and it left a wound (not that big a wound, but you know, any wound there...). She didn't notice. He then proceeded to fake an orgasm during sex so he could stop, because it hurt that bad!
I myself feel a chuckle coming on about. On the other hand, I think that chuckle is somewhat missplaced. I also feel a chuckle coming on about the guy chased by a women with scissors in her hands, that I know of (that the woman who told me also chuckled about). It's one thing about men is that we can't quite accept the idea of sexual violence toward us - it's probably why we (we as in various cases one might encounter) can't sympathise too well with women in regard to sexual violence. We project our own (false) sense of immunity.
-
Did you read Auriga (Quick Edit) Ajokli's link, Callan? Aside that, in some cases, as good as people were as masters, they simply didn't want to pay former slaves. Or the rights of an emancipated individual were too much for former slaves to contend with - their agency in the world changed so drastically and instantaneously some couldn't adapt and deal with their new social skins (no pun intended).
Also, Callan... common. You don't get to just play the ambiguity... Look it up. Google Scholar, Donnerstein 1980, and this is the first experiment that comes up. Of course, my study notes don't have the full explanation.
Abstract: Examined the effects of aggressive-erotic stimuli on male aggression toward females when 120 male undergraduates were angered or treated in a neutral manner by a male or female confederate. Ss were then shown either a neutral, erotic, or aggressive-erotic film and given an opportunity to aggress against the male or female via the delivery of electric shock. Results indicate that the aggressive-erotic film was effective in increasing aggression overall and that it produced the highest increase in aggression against the female. Even nonangered Ss showed an increase in aggression toward the female after viewing the aggressive-erotic film.
-
Very, very nice post, Madness. It gave me joy to see such a word. That's dangerous.
Cheers. I don't think this is an echo-chamber, Bakker User - rather this is how it appears when charitable communication is exercised...
Doesn't mean I agree with you... just means I'm trying to communicate with you ;).
Of course; it's just a reminder to us, and mostly myself at that. Playing both sides and all... maybe...
***
Callan, I think there's a misunderstanding. I'm not against you on this - I'm not saying that pure fantasy must be totally unreflective of historical or even general reality to the point of being Dr. Seuss - Lewis Carroll on PCP. I wouldn't assert that gender relations is a special case and should be treated with historicity in mind, above other things like social mobility.
My entire point is that I noticed a couple of Bakkerites making the claim (on various blog comment sections) that Bakker's depiction of women is historically accurate and so defensible on those grounds. (And here I would like to note that some of the feminists made your very argument here, namely that even if this were the case why should historicity here be maintained when...yeah yeah yeah, you get it? Your very stance! We need more emoticons...) A significant feminist counter to this, which I accept and seems to ring true, is that women were not in fact historically pigeon-holed into sexual or childcare roles.
That's all. You definitely took it further than I meant. Does that make sense?
I think the problems between us arise from inarticulacy. With me, it's poverty of speech and general disorganization of thought. Your inarticulacy is something probably closer to the opposite - and don't take this badly.
Please tell me you've untangled my thread. It always gets my leg shiveling to be misconstrued. :?
With that aside, I can indulge in a tangent :idea: : your point on Esmi's whorehood - I like it. I wouldn't be surprised if that happened to be, in some way, one of Bakker's considerations in shaping the character. He does seem to get all the details fine, at least.
Excuse the crumbly English. It's an expression of agitation.
-
Did you read Auriga's link, Callan?
Wasn't my link. It was pretty interesting, though, and says a lot about how humans can adapt to such conditions and even feel secure in them - although, obviously, the fact that a few ex-slaves preferred the slave life doesn't excuse the savagery of institutionalized slavery.
The same goes for women's status in Bakker-world. Even though some of them (like Xerius' mother) have power behind the scenes, the vast majority of women in Eärwa are still powerless and basically the property of their male relatives.
(Django Unchained is a pretty interesting movie on the topic of slavery, actually. IMO, it's far more honest about slavery, and the dog-eat-dog mentality that it encouraged among the slaves, than any of the solemn hagiographies that Hollywood has churned out before. Tarantino correctly showed that the slaves felt no racial solidarity with each other, for example. No more than Bakker's female characters show a feminist solidarity.)
-
Very, very nice post, Madness. It gave me joy to see such a word. That's dangerous.
Dangerous to write such words or dangerous to give you joy ;)? You, after all, facilitated me, and everyone else, with an engaging opportunity in creating the thread :D.
Second Apocalyspes noosphere warrents such dangerous words, I figure. If not here...
It was pretty interesting, though, and says a lot about how humans can adapt to such conditions and even feel secure in them - although, obviously, the fact that a few ex-slaves preferred the slave life doesn't excuse the savagery of institutionalized slavery.
Thanks, Auriga. Despite your lack of avatar, I find myself confusing your perspective with Ajokli's constantly. The similarity in the capital As foiling me. Weak.
I hope I wasn't perceived as advocating institutionalized slavery. I only hoped to highlight that the ideals of unequivocal freedom and equality aren't easy to implement and embody, instantaneously and pervasively, by societies built on narrative of dominance hierarchies.
The same goes for women's status in Bakker-world. Even though some of them (like Xerius' mother) have power behind the scenes, the vast majority of women in Eärwa are still powerless and basically the property of their male relatives.
Istriya is a strange example because, for my money, she is never a she, or even human, in the narrative as we encounter "her," aside from Ikurei memories.
Again, I can only suggest that Bakker is playing a game beyond the series and its depictions thus far.
I really need to see Django...
-
My entire point is that I noticed a couple of Bakkerites making the claim (on various blog comment sections) that Bakker's depiction of women is historically accurate and so defensible on those grounds. (And here I would like to note that some of the feminists made your very argument here, namely that even if this were the case why should historicity here be maintained when...yeah yeah yeah, you get it? Your very stance! We need more emoticons...) A significant feminist counter to this, which I accept and seems to ring true, is that women were not in fact historically pigeon-holed into sexual or childcare roles.
I agree. I'd also say that the subtext of The Holy War is that the other realms of men were depleted of manpower, the necessary and only logical response is that women would take on many of the activities men might otherwise were they not absent at the holy war--and that this does not exclude that they had done so prior. We don't see any women roles because the selection is deliberately skewed by the author and the narrative takes place on battlefield. I assume women in Conriya were doing a shit ton of farming and other occupations whilst their men were at play.
And when most of this went down, when there were only the three texts of Prince of Nothing everyone ADDED 'childrearing' to the roles that bakker portrayed. Despite there not being any actual children or childrearing going on in the text. It's interesting the ease with which childrearing was added to the discussion, but not mentioned were any of the other implied activities and occupations women would have to engage in during the depletion of the male population.
-
My entire point is that I noticed a couple of Bakkerites making the claim (on various blog comment sections) that Bakker's depiction of women is historically accurate and so defensible on those grounds. (And here I would like to note that some of the feminists made your very argument here, namely that even if this were the case why should historicity here be maintained when...yeah yeah yeah, you get it? Your very stance! We need more emoticons...) A significant feminist counter to this, which I accept and seems to ring true, is that women were not in fact historically pigeon-holed into sexual or childcare roles.
The thing is this is not my argument - I've actually stacked a third argument onto two prior ones.
1. The people who argue it's defensible because of historical accuracy
2. The people who argue this is fantasy, why does anything have to be historically accurate?
3. My argument is that fiction tends to be a ratio between being historically accurate and having fantasy elements (dragons, fairies, magic) - and that the #2 people are essentially treating their prefered ratio as the way fantasy HAS to be. In their ratio, womens roles must fall into the fantastic (or the mundane, but they don't want to read about the mundane) - but they wont admit that, they'll instead sling the sexism claim and start ignoring their own preference for edge case characters and refer to histories average womens roles (as if any of them read about average women from history! Shepherdess goes out in the morning, herds sheep, comes home, sleeps - is anyone reading that sort of story?)
A significant feminist counter to this, which I accept and seems to ring true, is that women were not in fact historically pigeon-holed into sexual or childcare roles.
I am indeed taking it further than you meant (or more precisely, I'm taking it before what you meant), in as much as I am proposing the background biases of what seems to rings true for you. I propose you are enacting a bias.
The first step in outlining the bias proposal is: in fiction you read, do you read fiction that is generally about edge case characters (like the farmer who becomes king)? Is this true?
The second step: But then you appeal to the idea of books being about averages, rather than edge cases. Is this not incongruant with your own habit of reading from the first step?
Please resist the urge to rationalise a quick answer - were in forum format, which gives plenty of time to ruminate rather than having to snap out an answer instantly to maintain social status. Speaking of which, never mind that here (in a perverse reverse of usual human custom), on a forum like this engaging the idea as if hypothetically true, gains peer respect.
And none of the above makes the idea an applicable one. I might be entirely wrong and I am curious as to how.
Anyway, does the hypothesis seem possible, even if not applicable to you? That a person can be interested in reading about edge case characters, but then inconsistant with that argue for books about average characters, when it comes to certain roles?
-
I am indeed taking it further than you meant (or more precisely, I'm taking it before what you meant), in as much as I am proposing the background biases of what seems to rings true for you. I propose you are enacting a bias.
The first step in outlining the bias proposal is: in fiction you read, do you read fiction that is generally about edge case characters (like the farmer who becomes king)? Is this true?
The second step: But then you appeal to the idea of books being about averages, rather than edge cases. Is this not incongruant with your own habit of reading from the first step?
Please resist the urge to rationalise a quick answer - were in forum format, which gives plenty of time to ruminate rather than having to snap out an answer instantly to maintain social status. Speaking of which, never mind that here (in a perverse reverse of usual human custom), on a forum like this engaging the idea as if hypothetically true, gains peer respect.
And none of the above makes the idea an applicable one. I might be entirely wrong and I am curious as to how.
Anyway, does the hypothesis seem possible, even if not applicable to you? That a person can be interested in reading about edge case characters, but then inconsistant with that argue for books about average characters, when it comes to certain roles?
I didn't directly respond to this line-of-thought previously because it did not seem strictly relevant to me or my position.
First step: At least 2/3, I suppose.
Second step: I would not make this claim; I would not "appeal to the idea of books being averages". Going to the initial stimulus that brought about this post-chain, it would actually be the position of the Bakkerites I described - that the historical average-case for women was one of sex-slavery and so on. I hope that this explains my confusion and reticence to engage on this front.
And when most of this went down, when there were only the three texts of Prince of Nothing everyone ADDED 'childrearing' to the roles that bakker portrayed. Despite there not being any actual children or childrearing going on in the text. It's interesting the ease with which childrearing was added to the discussion, but not mentioned were any of the other implied activities and occupations women would have to engage in during the depletion of the male population.
To be fair, there is some elaboration on Esmenet's role and experience in child-rearing, and technically most-every interaction of her with Kel and Sam is "child-rearing".
And there was indeed a mention of light manufacture and all sorts of agricultural work.
-
First step: At least 2/3, I suppose.
Second step: I would not make this claim; I would not "appeal to the idea of books being averages".
So you agree the books don't need to be about average female roles, then.
And the counter attributed by you to the feminist movement...
A significant feminist counter to this, which I accept and seems to ring true, is that women were not in fact historically pigeon-holed into sexual or childcare roles.
Doesn't apply, as books don't need to be about average female roles.
Okay, the confusion is cleared up!
-
I only just scanned the previous posts so please forgive me if I repeat something already stated:
---I have personally read more than few (probably a lot more than the layman) historical monologues and primary documents concerning slavery within the context of multiple socioeconomic structures, and when you talk about slavery you really HAVE to define what kind of slavery you are talking about.
Earwa might seem extreme to us in its depiction of slavery, but it strongly mirrors the same institution we find in Antiquity and specifically the kind of slavery culture found around the Mediterranean from the Hellenistic city-states and the Roman Republic and Empire. Within these social contexts (and especially Rome) the slavery of our world and the slavery depicted in Earwa have a great many similarities, and I strongly suspected from the beginning that Bakker was using the Mediterranean world of Antiquity as his model.
That said, I'm not sure if the books have revealed whether the cultures of the Three Seas utilize latifundia-esque agricultural methods, but this seems likely given the rest of the evidence. Ironically, if the societies of the Three Seas do not use latifundia/encomiendia methods you could probably make the argument that slaves in Earwa actually have it better off than their real world counterparts did in the ancient world (note: I'm only saying that you could make a strong argument---I'm not suggesting that you would be right to make it...a debate for another time and place).
---I always feel like the odd man out when questions of historical accuracy and questions of modern attitudes are brought up in relation to works of fantasy. It's possible that I'm just not being sensitive to other people, but its not like I want to offend anyone. Historically, there was very little social mobility for men OR women, and this general truth stands strong for a large part of recorded history. Certainly, there are exceptions to the rule, but even these real world figures tend to be highly controversial.
For example, Temujin went from being a minor noble in a remote backwater to being the emperor of the largest land empire in human history, and most of us probably think of Ghengis Khan as a monster regardless of his sharp intellect and various other advancements and contributions.
Malintzin serves as another example of this, but as she was also a woman I think she might apply more appropriately to the discussion. To summarize: Malintzin was a slave, a concubine, and then she was given by the Native Americans to the Spanish as a gift. She used what resources she had, sex, beauty, intelligence, and literacy in native languages to find a place by the side of Hernando Cortez and to open up a new world of opportunities for her children (her son would go on to join a knightly religious order in Europe). In modern times she is vilified by many for being a so-called "traitor" who sold out the New World (as if there was any more of a homogenous and unified concept of "Native American" than there was an idea of a single "European" of the same period...sigh). Anyway, does Malintzin sound a little bit like a main character in PoN and AE (her name rhymes with "net")?
My point, and I think this may have already been stated, is that fantasy is fantasy. I really appreciate when authors work hard to present us with a richly detailed and beautiful world, and this often works best when they base cultural structures in their fantasy settings off of real world equivalents. It helps to add credibility to the story, but this is still fantasy. In the real medieval world blacksmiths did not generally become princes, and princesses did not usually run off with scullery boys. People who were successful in becoming upwardly mobile tended to be vicious and ruthless or at least highly intelligent and politically astute (ex. Leonardo da Vinci), and none of those traits with the exception of intelligence usually figure into what we might consider a traditional "hero."
---I'll stop here before I really start to ramble.
-
Anyway, does Malintzin sound a little bit like a main character in PoN and AE (her name rhymes with "net")?
Interesting stuff! Thanks for the infot, Centurion! :)
-
+1 Centurion. I've been exposed to both stories previously but I don't necessarily have the same historical hangups many contemporaries in these arguments seem to.
Again, I think a major theme here is that the anachronisms cause social friction. Why is that? After all, history is replete with examples of far "worse and better" than Bakker portrays in PON and anyone who claims otherwise isn't a student.
-
perhaps social mobility is the myth we cannot stand to have challenged.
-
That's a very American myth, I think, lockesnow, as much as it has been Westernized, maybe?
Circumstances constraint. That's where our discussion on Feminism & Slavery is going, neh? Agency is socially defined, until death?
-
Woops, I missed replying to a post!
Did you read Auriga (Quick Edit) Ajokli's link, Callan? Aside that, in some cases, as good as people were as masters, they simply didn't want to pay former slaves. Or the rights of an emancipated individual were too much for former slaves to contend with - their agency in the world changed so drastically and instantaneously some couldn't adapt and deal with their new social skins (no pun intended).
I read it. But it's like reading someones account of survival after a tornado - it doesn't really give any clue as to whether the storm was man made or natural. So I'm not sure - okay, there can be a 'able to but don't want to' range. But 'don't want to' is often short for 'don't have the enviromental resources to pay for it'. To me it seems to make their emancipation bad in as much as womens equality and entering the work force and lowering wages by doing so is bad. It seems like begruding the actions of health for how they don't conform to the cancer they struggle in.
Also, Callan... common. You don't get to just play the ambiguity... Look it up. Google Scholar, Donnerstein 1980, and this is the first experiment that comes up. Of course, my study notes don't have the full explanation.
Oh, I do in as much as I get to ask 'why' or that people who make claims are the ones to prove them. If it seems I'm trying to imply some conclusion about it and imply that conclusion is correct, I don't know what I it seems to anyone that I'm apparently implying. But I will try to question it apart in as much as someone submits it. It depends - if I make a claim about god, then are you to go look up the bible? Depends if that sort of arrangement of claim and research doesn't seem all that great a set up? For myself, not so much.
Abstract: Examined the effects of aggressive-erotic stimuli on male aggression toward females when 120 male undergraduates were angered or treated in a neutral manner by a male or female confederate. Ss were then shown either a neutral, erotic, or aggressive-erotic film and given an opportunity to aggress against the male or female via the delivery of electric shock. Results indicate that the aggressive-erotic film was effective in increasing aggression overall and that it produced the highest increase in aggression against the female. Even nonangered Ss showed an increase in aggression toward the female after viewing the aggressive-erotic film.
So, the person is given some button and the person who shunned them is on the other end, the scientist giving some BS reason as to how this qualifies as an experiment?
It reminds me of an example mentioned in 'A mind of it's own', where people would turn up the voltage on a test subject, apparently to lethal levels, because the scientist basically okayed it and said they were to.
-
To me it seems to make their emancipation bad in as much as womens equality and entering the work force and lowering wages by doing so is bad.
+1, it seems to highlight it that way.
... Callan, in both cases people weren't being electrocuted...
People want to talk about how Feminism & Race are demonized in SFF. Talk about fucking science...
-
... Callan, in both cases people weren't being electrocuted...
I know. I'm implying a potential permissiveness from authority in both cases. Definately in the latter case (particularly as it was a part of the deliberate study) of apparent (but not actual, I know!) lethal voltages, where the scientist gave the dossage the okay.
Though if you want to say after watching violent porn men are more likely to be aggressive if given permission by authority, okay, I'll lean toward that.
-
Well, that's exactly what they were testing for; seems to highlight that it intuitively holds some validity, as well.
Why should people on average succumb to such a bias? Why, when calmly prompted by an authority figure, would an average scoring participant turn the knob to lethal voltages, especially when correlated by a gradient of terror, ultimately leading to no sound, in a closed room beside them?
I'm not really going to bend on a case study, Callan. I'm also never sure you aren't being contrarian - not a fault but you tend to prominently engage, even when communication seems clear.
-
Well, why do we follow the as yet mostly implicit lines of authority in this forum? Our world is shot through wil iron rods of authority. All of which have complex repurcussions for failing to meet them - so much so they warrant consideration of breaking as much as one might casually consider leaping over the edge of a building, just by standing near it. So - we do so because big sticks line our path on either side?
even when communication seems clear.
On other forums I'd expect this - but hasn't that overly tall Canadian made clear it's precisely when you think things are clear that you can be fooling yourself? You know the lesson, yet here you are at it's scenario?
Yes, contrarians exist. Yes, you don't want to be ruffled by their essentially nihilistic screw over. I get that. And yes, I accept I'll look like one. I only ask that people treat it as a guess that I am being one, not that they KNOW I am. Except I guess people have trouble sanctioning others on a guess - they like to know the other persons a bad guy, cause otherwise they feel they become the bad guy on a failed guess. Depends how bad the sanction is though - on some of the lesser ones (usually the more emperical ones), I wouldn't think the persons a bad guy, even though their guess was wrong and sanction was missplaced. Were all working from guesses so some room for forgiving a guess has to be given, otherwise how the heck can anyone deal with things even a little without eventually by chance becoming a bad guy? Never mind if I do happen to just rave and cause a ruckus, with no practical benefit for anyone from it at all, which is entirely possible and a problem (though the exact defintion of rave and ruckus are pretty much in the eye of the beholder).
Anyway, science/case studies have been proven incorrect before. That Schwitzgebel (http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.ca/2013/01/oh-that-darn-rationality-there-it-goes.html) guy certainly questions the moral conclusions of some of them as well.
-
Heya Madness,
Thanks for that link, Ajokli. I'd hazard this strays into Bakker's argument, regardless. Immediate emancipation of the slaves marginalized those freed even more than slavery, in some instances.
I'd like to go into more detail - why didn't the freed slaves simply continue to work on the farms they were previously on (never mind how clear that makes wage slavery appear, for now)?
They couldn't afford them?
But that's an environmental/resource issue (well, I'll assume money at that point is somewhat a reflection of natural food resources to spare)? Seems unfair to blame the emancipation?
Depending on the situation, some slaves actually would elect to stay on their former masters' estate as freedmen if the could afford it. I'm remembering that nearly all of (Confederacy's VP) Alexander Stephens' former slaves decided to stay on.
Options weren't exactly numerous for them, either in the North or the South. If they were brutal assholes, freedmen would try their luck elsewhere say, for instance, at a kinder plantation owner nearby that was known to them as decent.
While I wouldn't completely place blame on forceful emancipation for the blacks' ensuing marginalization, I would say it certainly didn't help matters that it came by a war that killed a quarter of the white male population of the South and left much of it in ruins.
By switching to emancipation as well as Unification as the reason for the war, it isn't hard to imagine blacks would be the whites' scapegoat for the defeat. Not unlike Jews had been in Germany after WW1.
That is why I believe that emancipation by force actually eroded the best chance to achieve political and social (which is still off) equality for an ungodly amount of time.
-
Oh man...Reconstruction was a brutal crap-storm of epic proportions, and it would be impossible to do it justice with a quick summary. They teach entire college courses on this nightmare. In short, freed slaves faced a meat-grinder of problems following the Civil War, and many of them were still basically slaves in everything but name. You can't legislate tolerance, and pretty much all white Americans were some flavor of racist at this time. That, and people wanted revenge, all kinds of revenge, any kind of revenge, and there was plenty of blame and retribution to go around (and plenty of political opportunity too).
Ultimately, these freed slaves were people, often uneducated and with few marketable skills beyond basic farming, and they had to do whatever was necessary to survive in an extremely hostile world. There were slaves who stayed with their old masters for a variety of reasons (they thought it was their duty, they didn't know anything else, the world was a frightening place where you could get lynched, etc.). They had to deal with poor whites who they were now directly competing with for a basic livelihood, a white elite in the South with strong connections to government and a powerful interest in keeping blacks oppressed, a white population in the North with no real love for blacks where the jobs they could get were often wage-slave positions, and a political system which initially supported them (quite successfully at first) before abandoning them to the metaphorical wolves.
Many slaves chose to continue working the same land (or land in the same area) because they didn't know how to do anything else and the prospect of going North was too daunting and/or expensive. This became share-cropping, and it was a whole new world of suffering. It was certainly not slavery, there were plenty of white share-croppers, but it was often only a little bit better.
For me, the study of Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction South is a study in corruption, pain, failure, and ambition driven by a new breed of aristocracy in the South and fueled by a new kind of slave, the kind you have to pretend to pay. It's fascinating in the same way we slow down to watch a particularly bad traffic collision on the side of the road.
-
Ajokli, What is the other way to have emancipation? Condone slavery for however many years until you achieve emancipation by...some other means?
-
I'm not trying to speak for anyone, but some people are of the opinion that slavery was already on the way out in the American South. The theory is that if we had managed to hold off on the Civil War for another couple of decades the slaves would have been freed by the states and blacks would have been more easily accepted by white society. Of course, this ignores the fact that the Cotton gin, patented near the turn of the century, opened up a vast new world of financial opportunity for Southern planters. This aristocracy of the cotton industry was made up of some of the wealthiest people on the planet, and I personally find it hard to believes that they would have simply given up the means to their fortunes.
Furthermore, you could make an argument that forceful emancipation initially had some success. Obviously, the new laws were not going to change how people felt about the newly freed blacks, but when the federal government finally did get seriously involved under the Radical Republicans and especially Grant it was able to stamp out the original Ku Klux Klan while the Freedmen's Bureau seems to have done significant good for blacks in the South.
Then we got Birth of a Nation endorsed by the fabulous Woodrow Wilson.
-
Ajokli, What is the other way to have emancipation? Condone slavery for however many years until you achieve emancipation by...some other means?
Gradual emancipation much like Brazil. Children of slaves freed, followed by those reaching the age of 60. Most importantly, compensation paid for by all participant parties to their former owners.
It was a huge rubbing point that slave owners in the South were to pay to end a system that also made the Northeast extremely rich, both in the Slave Trade and in industries such as textile manufacturing. Couple that with the Tariff of 1828 and, from their point of view, it was a lose-lose situation.
Unlike their Northern colleagues, Southern slave owners did not have the option to 'emancipate' their slaves by selling them off.
-
I'm not trying to speak for anyone, but some people are of the opinion that slavery was already on the way out in the American South. The theory is that if we had managed to hold off on the Civil War for another couple of decades the slaves would have been freed by the states and blacks would have been more easily accepted by white society. Of course, this ignores the fact that the Cotton gin, patented near the turn of the century, opened up a vast new world of financial opportunity for Southern planters. This aristocracy of the cotton industry was made up of some of the wealthiest people on the planet, and I personally find it hard to believes that they would have simply given up the means to their fortunes.
Furthermore, you could make an argument that forceful emancipation initially had some success. Obviously, the new laws were not going to change how people felt about the newly freed blacks, but when the federal government finally did get seriously involved under the Radical Republicans and especially Grant it was able to stamp out the original Ku Klux Klan while the Freedmen's Bureau seems to have done significant good for blacks in the South.
Then we got Birth of a Nation endorsed by the fabulous Woodrow Wilson.
I'd contend that Grant had given up that it was ever going to work. I mean, he was looking into annexing the Dominican Republican in order to deport 4 million blacks to Santo Domingo.
And the Radical Republicans, don't get me started. ;)
It may not have ended until the 1890's, but we can see in hindsight that slavery was definitely on its way out. And the Southern aristocrat's financial power vs that of his Northern competitor was laughably large by 1860.
One of the largest manufacturers of the cotton gin during the antebellum was William Ellison, a freedman in South Carolina owning around 60 slaves. Ironic? Maybe.
/BTW, I'm not a southerner, just am obsessed with 19th century America
-
Snip
Well said. There's an documentary that blew the roof on the sugar industry about 50 years ago where a overseer was asked about the daily life of his workers. And he replied something like "The only difference between back then and now is that we have to pay them."
-
Speaking of slave loyalty to masters or masters' political institutions (though this is partially subverted in PoN), it is well-known that several thousand blacks fought on the Confederate side, sometimes even as part of entire all-black militias.
See, Javreh.
Just look up "negro sharpshooter" on a search engine.
Among the captured prisoners, amounting in all to 63, are 5 black men; two were fully armed and equipped, as REBEL SHARPSHOOTERS. They had the very best pattern of rifle, "neutral" make, and are represented by the "trash" as unerring shots. The other three were at work in the trenches. One of these sable rebels is represented to be a reb at heart; he is a large owner of chattels himself, and does not seem to exhibit any of that humble or cowering mien, to indicate that he thinks himself inferior to the "Great Jeff" himself. He holds himself aloof from the other "misguided brethren,'' the same as my Lord of the olden time did from his vassals. There may be many more such men as that in the South;
By switching to emancipation as well as Unification as the reason for the war, it isn't hard to imagine blacks would be the whites' scapegoat for the defeat. Not unlike Jews had been in Germany after WW1.
Turtledove. :P
-
Turtledove. :P
Oh God I do sound like him!...I tried reading that series but gave up. That writing....
-
Obviously, Grant and his successors eventually did give up once resolve in the North to continue the occupation began to flag, but they still enjoyed some limited success in establishing a more peaceful and stable environment in the South before they left. The Force Act of 1871 pretty much wiped out the original Ku Klux Klan, and while the White League and Red Shirts took their place I would contend that they enjoyed their rise in power and influence largely due to the absence of a federal presence. It's ironic to me that the Confederacy spent the entire Civil War trying to break Union resolve and failed, but after a decade or so of Reconstruction the North just wanted to be done with it.
I think Eric Foner says it best: "What remains certain is that Reconstruction failed, and that for blacks its failure was a disaster whose magnitude cannot be obscured by the genuine accomplishments that did endure."
As an aside, I don't agree with some of Foner's political positions, but Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction is, in my humble opinion, one of the best books on the market today. If anyone here has not already read it and would like to learn more about Reconstruction I would highly recommend it. End weird and unsolicited plug in 5,4,3,2,1...
However, I do not see the same pattern of gradual emancipation many see when they look at the institution of slavery in the American South. Slavery was certainly on its way out in a global sense, but the sheer economic influence of an incredibly small minority, the Southern plantation owners, cannot be overstated. In terms of the broad economic and industrial power of the North the planters paled in comparison, but that would be like comparing the entire economic output of the West Coast of the United States to a handful of guys from Fortune 500. The fact that pro-slavery Southerners were fighting so hard in Western Territories like Kansas suggests that they still believed they had something to gain, and the surviving records seem to suggest that birth rates among the native slave population were on the rise even as the price of slaves had been steadily increasing even in relation to their population since the British outlawed the slave trade.
Anyway, this is just my opinion.^ Take it for what it is.
In my experience Americans tend to put a LOT of ourselves into the history of the pre-war era, the Civil War itself, and the years of Reconstruction. I don't think most of us do it on purpose, but its like the entire interpretation of events has turned into an exercise in the psychological. And in the spirit of full disclosure: my great-great-grandfather fought for most of the war as a Union soldier which may or may not skew my judgment on the matter.
A small attempt to tie all of this back to the original post: I don't think that American chattel slavery is a good example to use when discussing the institution in the Three Seas. Slavery in the American South was almost unique in its time in that it was totally informed by skin color and blood, but unlike the sugar plantations of South American and the Caribbean slaves were not traditionally worked to death and had opportunities to increase their numbers. Slaves could run away, but there was no way for them to hide the color of their skin. The society that developed around this was a true paradox of gentility and shocking brutality. It's amazing how these planters were able to compartmentalize their religion, their families, their high station in life, and then see nothing wrong with raping one or more of their female slaves on a regular basis.
In comparison, the slavery of Earwa seems to be more...egalitarian(?)...in nature. Certainly, the brutality is there, but I don't think Bakker has ever introduced the racial component which was so critical to chattel slavery in the American South.
-
Well, why do we follow the as yet mostly implicit lines of authority in this forum? Our world is shot through wil iron rods of authority. All of which have complex repurcussions for failing to meet them - so much so they warrant consideration of breaking as much as one might casually consider leaping over the edge of a building, just by standing near it. So - we do so because big sticks line our path on either side?
I don't believe I've tried to impose any implied conduct on members here, Callan? Do you?
On other forums I'd expect this - but hasn't that overly tall Canadian made clear it's precisely when you think things are clear that you can be fooling yourself? You know the lesson, yet here you are at it's scenario?
Yes, contrarians exist. Yes, you don't want to be ruffled by their essentially nihilistic screw over. I get that. And yes, I accept I'll look like one. I only ask that people treat it as a guess that I am being one, not that they KNOW I am. Except I guess people have trouble sanctioning others on a guess - they like to know the other persons a bad guy, cause otherwise they feel they become the bad guy on a failed guess. Depends how bad the sanction is though - on some of the lesser ones (usually the more emperical ones), I wouldn't think the persons a bad guy, even though their guess was wrong and sanction was missplaced. Were all working from guesses so some room for forgiving a guess has to be given, otherwise how the heck can anyone deal with things even a little without eventually by chance becoming a bad guy?
I'm not asking you to change your behavior. Perhaps, I was implying that you could probably help clarify your connotations to people you are communicating with. Not a demand.
We all have our own connotations and the less informative and more abstract we are in our communication with others, the more we end up talking to our selves. I don't have the Callan - Madness Tourist Dictionary and I feel its a mark of respect to the process if I work rigourously to be as clear as possible when I'm trying to communicate Madness to Callan.
Never mind if I do happen to just rave and cause a ruckus, with no practical benefit for anyone from it at all, which is entirely possible and a problem (though the exact defintion of rave and ruckus are pretty much in the eye of the beholder).
I've no issue. I had asked a question and, rather than answer, you seem to have chosen to read into implicit assumptions I may or may not have.
You are more than welcome to embody Joker's philosophies, if you like.
As far as I was interested, if together we entertain a thought experiment where these case studies have truth to offer,
Why should people on average succumb to such a bias? Why, when calmly prompted by an authority figure, would an average scoring participant turn the knob to lethal voltages, especially when correlated by a gradient of terror, ultimately leading to no sound, in a closed room beside them?
Would that be a reflection of fallacies perpetuated in social discourse - appeals to authority are the norm, especially in institutions of education or corporate hierarchies?
Ultimately, these freed slaves were people, often uneducated and with few marketable skills beyond basic farming, and they had to do whatever was necessary to survive in an extremely hostile world. There were slaves who stayed with their old masters for a variety of reasons (they thought it was their duty, they didn't know anything else, the world was a frightening place where you could get lynched, etc.). They had to deal with poor whites who they were now directly competing with for a basic livelihood, a white elite in the South with strong connections to government and a powerful interest in keeping blacks oppressed, a white population in the North with no real love for blacks where the jobs they could get were often wage-slave positions, and a political system which initially supported them (quite successfully at first) before abandoning them to the metaphorical wolves.
+1 - emancipation left freedmen without a social niche, which slavery offered them before. Society didn't account for the displacement?
Gradual emancipation much like Brazil. Children of slaves freed, followed by those reaching the age of 60. Most importantly, compensation paid for by all participant parties to their former owners.
It was a huge rubbing point that slave owners in the South were to pay to end a system that also made the Northeast extremely rich, both in the Slave Trade and in industries such as textile manufacturing. Couple that with the Tariff of 1828 and, from their point of view, it was a lose-lose situation.
Unlike their Northern colleagues, Southern slave owners did not have the option to 'emancipate' their slaves by selling them off.
...
/BTW, I'm not a southerner, just am obsessed with 19th century America
+1 for Perspective. Just some of this forums delicious allure :).
In my experience Americans tend to put a LOT of ourselves into the history of the pre-war era, the Civil War itself, and the years of Reconstruction. I don't think most of us do it on purpose, but its like the entire interpretation of events has turned into an exercise in the psychological. And in the spirit of full disclosure: my great-great-grandfather fought for most of the war as a Union soldier which may or may not skew my judgment on the matter.
+1 for Fallacy of Anachronistic Projection when analyzing historical narratives.
Certainly, the brutality is there, but I don't think Bakker has ever introduced the racial component which was so critical to chattel slavery in the American South.
Does the Nonmen enslaving the Emwama of Earwa count?
-
Does the Nonmen enslaving the Emwama of Earwa count?
There is absolutely a strong racist/speciest(?) element in the interactions between the Nonmen and the Emwama, but there would be no real world equivalent to compare it to. The Nonmen are a different species which just happens to share enough genetic similarities to make breeding with humans a possibility.
Question: do we know if the half-breeds are genetically viable. I seem to recall reading something that suggested that they are, but I can't remember what it was or where I saw it. Maybe half-breeds are like mules or ligers?
-
Yeah, the entire Anasurimbor line is allegedly viable half-breeds.
-
Yeah, the entire Anasurimbor line is allegedly viable half-breeds.
And since that first half-nonman child conceived with a house slave (assuming that wasnt the official line for heirs), it would seem likely that there are other people in the world with a tad of the blood as well.
I think Esmi has some, and Moe Sr's concubine as well.
-
Ajokli, What is the other way to have emancipation? Condone slavery for however many years until you achieve emancipation by...some other means?
Gradual emancipation much like Brazil. Children of slaves freed, followed by those reaching the age of 60. Most importantly, compensation paid for by all participant parties to their former owners.
It was a huge rubbing point that slave owners in the South were to pay to end a system that also made the Northeast extremely rich, both in the Slave Trade and in industries such as textile manufacturing. Couple that with the Tariff of 1828 and, from their point of view, it was a lose-lose situation.
Unlike their Northern colleagues, Southern slave owners did not have the option to 'emancipate' their slaves by selling them off.
But as much as one could wag the finger at leaving tons of slaves to their own devices to survive, here couldn't one wag ones finger at condoning slavery for decades longer?
I think either way one takes moral damage.
-
Well, why do we follow the as yet mostly implicit lines of authority in this forum? Our world is shot through wil iron rods of authority. All of which have complex repurcussions for failing to meet them - so much so they warrant consideration of breaking as much as one might casually consider leaping over the edge of a building, just by standing near it. So - we do so because big sticks line our path on either side?
I don't believe I've tried to impose any implied conduct on members here, Callan? Do you?
Yes and yes. Even that were both using english is an implied conduct. Even more implied conducts, more subtle ones, are shod through our use of language.
I was using it as an example, it wasn't to jab in some here and now point. I wouldn't even be on topic to do so. I'm refering to a web of authority lines and just giving an indicator of local lines and how they extend off into the distance as intermeshing with larger lines. I genuinely think it's a hypothetical answer to your "Why should people on average succumb to such a bias?" question - I point at this web. And the spiders that come if you don't adhere to it.
-
So following authority safeguards social structure, in your opinion?
By the way, I would be THRILLED[/b] if people began threads in their native tongues. Even if its just for two people who share another, more comfortable language of expression!
-
Ajokli, What is the other way to have emancipation? Condone slavery for however many years until you achieve emancipation by...some other means?
Gradual emancipation much like Brazil. Children of slaves freed, followed by those reaching the age of 60. Most importantly, compensation paid for by all participant parties to their former owners.
It was a huge rubbing point that slave owners in the South were to pay to end a system that also made the Northeast extremely rich, both in the Slave Trade and in industries such as textile manufacturing. Couple that with the Tariff of 1828 and, from their point of view, it was a lose-lose situation.
Unlike their Northern colleagues, Southern slave owners did not have the option to 'emancipate' their slaves by selling them off.
But as much as one could wag the finger at leaving tons of slaves to their own devices to survive, here couldn't one wag ones finger at condoning slavery for decades longer?
I think either way one takes moral damage.
Indeed, and there is a chance that the choice that results in the long-term benefit (gradual emancipation) will never materialize. There is also the matter of appeasing a populace who is demanding change "right this very second".
However, even supposing one could look at two different universes, one where emancipation was forced and caused a painful process of reconstruction, and one where gradual emancipation prevented the painful aftermath but necessitated a few more decades of clear moral degradation, it would be a matter of opinion to say which option is better. Still, the consequences of each option (like the consequences of any set of temporal forks in the road) will resonate until the end of our species and everything we ever henceforth affect.
-
regarding the Americas. They were pretty damned technologically advanced at the time. Some societies in the Americas were unable to progress linearly because they were subject to carrying capacity boom-bust cycles of their immediate environs.
It's a question of technological utility. In South America, in the Andes, roads were built at extreme grades, often built as steps, in such environs, wheeled carts are a competitive disadvantage. This also protected them from european invasions because it was damned difficult for europeans to utilize their technology when the environment is ill suited to it. Horses and carts don't do so well on a road of stairs that is 10 miles long with a 60 degree grade. Armor is another good example of their high technology, they used a woven armor (which is what kevlar is) which effectively stopped the low range, low power, rounded musket balls used by the invading Europeans, because the rounds would just bounce off the inch thick densely woven fiber armor of the natives. The armor was designed to protect from arrows, which rely on a cutting force and it was pretty good at stopping those as well. Their use of woven technology was phenomenal, unbelievable works of engineering in bridges etc. However westerners have a tendency to downplay all these achievements because it's a non western approach to tech, so it doesn't count.
1491 is a really great book and should be read by everyone.
But it turned out that even though the Europeans were especially terrible at fighting native americans in south america and ill equiped to beat them, they didn't need to fight because disease managed to wipe out 90% plus of the civilization. So reduced, they were unable to compete and were eventually assimiliated/conquered--often the europeans were most successful because of political machinations of other natives trying to gain advantage over a long time rival.
-
I think either way one takes moral damage.
Indeed, and there is a chance that the choice that results in the long-term benefit (gradual emancipation) will never materialize. There is also the matter of appeasing a populace who is demanding change "right this very second".
However, even supposing one could look at two different universes, one where emancipation was forced and caused a painful process of reconstruction, and one where gradual emancipation prevented the painful aftermath but necessitated a few more decades of clear moral degradation, it would be a matter of opinion to say which option is better. Still, the consequences of each option (like the consequences of any set of temporal forks in the road) will resonate until the end of our species and everything we ever henceforth affect.
And that's why it's such an interesting car crash! Really, the whole affair was like the aforementioned car crash with the passengers fighting on whose right it is to steer the wheel.
Nice discussion guys. I'm reminded of why I like this forum so much.
-
it's interesting that the whole Feminism/rape question re Bakker has now "Primed" genre audiences to the issue, thus, they are tuned into a frequency that he probably never intended. For a dude obsessed with cognitive failures, it is ironic that cognitive error in the human makeup could blindside him so (or be triggered/escalated by his blindnesses).
I do wonder how much he sells, the number one seller in SciFi in 2012 was Ender's Game which moved 100,000 units, almost all the rest of the top ten moved around 40,000 units. Fantasy sells more than scifi, but if he's only moving a few units a week, versus a few tens of units a week, I can see why he's struggling, and just how much impact a seemingly small corner of the market could have on his sales.
But for someone who harps on community so much and wants to communicate with genre readers, how come he's not trying to participate in the community in the way the genre readers are attuned to? Why hold yourself aloof like a reader of the New Yorker, bakker?
-
Why hold yourself aloof
I bet its as simple as, he doesn't like it and never will. Just a personal dislike of whatever it is that he dislikes that keeps him from the interaction.
-
+1 Ajokli :).
In terms of publicity, lockesnow, I'd hazard that Bakker did himself wrong by engaging before there was a positive example.
Though, obviously, rabble-rousing never helped that conversation?
Out of curiousity, have I been doing wrong over at Westeros? I'm always interested in learning as much as possible from social engagements.
I don't think there's a plus amount I can give for the contrast between the two discussions. Thanks for being, everyone.
-
I don't think there's a way to do it right. To people properly primed every new direction of an argument comes across along the lines of, "I have gay friends, but..."
But I haven't been able to keep up with that thread because there's a 30,000 word post by Lyanna that I don't want to skip and reading something that huge would probably be frowned on at work.
-
For sure, don't skip it. She's one of the better commentators in the thread.
-
http://io9.com/5985959/mississippi-officially-bans-slavery-at-last
;)
-
Here's a bit of Bakkerian feminism for you:
"Cursed be the false -- the deceivers of men! Cursed be the Aspect-Emperor!"
There are pitches of passion that are holy simply for the intensity of their expression. There is worship beyond the caged world of words. Psatma Nannaferi's hatred had long burned away the impurities, the pathetic pageant of rancour and resentment that so often make fools of the great. Hers was the grinding hatred, the homicidal outrage of the betrayed, the unwavering fury of the degraded and the dispossessed. The hatred that draws tendons sharp, that cleanses only the way murder and fire can cleanse.
...
And as youth washed through her, drawing a thousand thousand wrinkles into smooth swales of skin, the mad faces encircling her surged forward, clutching at the sodden floor beneath their feet...
Beaten and battered she had been tipped in libation. And now the dread Goddess raised her, a bowl cast of gold.
A vessel. A grail. A cup filled with the Waters-Most-Holy. The Blood and the Seed.
"Cursed!" she shrieked in a singer's heart-cutting voice, high and pure, yet warmed by the memory of her authoritarian rasp. She watched as the Blood of her Fertility was passed among the throngs, a never-diminishing pool that was passed from palm to palm. She watched the Ur-Mother's children mark their cheeks with the red line of hatred...
"Cursed be he who misleads the blind man on the road!" (TJE, p226-229)
I don't want to type up that whole section, but Nannaferi definitely was speaking for slaves as well.
Just imagine this. Darkness. Flickering torchlight. Sex. Blood. Dread miracle. Roaring hate. Curse after shrieking curse... It's as fine a piece of writing, in terms of intensity and drama, as anything else in all five novels.
Those who cringed at the portrayal of Serwe, here's the answer, in a howl.
p.s.: I perfectly understand why these books will never be turned into movies (I think I read somewhere that Bakker said Hollywood took one look at the Srancs and just ran the other way), but there are moments I really regret this. Like here. What an extraordinary scene this would be!
-
she's also exactly right in her assessment of Kellhus. He thinks of himself as a man possessing sight where others are blind and he certainly misleads people lacking in his sight along the road the world travels.
Another bit I found interesting in light of how Psatma calls the seed and blood holy, that's not the view of the whores of sumna:
She remembered Pirasha, the old harlot she had befriended and lost years ago. Between the tyranny of many and the tyranny of one, Pirasha used to say, harlots chose the many. “That’s why we’re more,” she would spit. “More than concubines, more than priestesses, more than wives, more even than some queens. We may be oppressed, Esmi, but remember, always remember, sweet girl, we’re never owned.” Her bleary eyes would grow sharp with a savagery that seemed too violent for her ancient frame. “We spit their seed back at them! We never, never bear its weight!”
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (pp. 560-561). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
One interesting thing is that Esmenet exists as an independent entity. she is not beholden to a brothel nor to a pimp. Intriguing.
-
Another bit I found interesting in light of how Psatma calls the seed and blood holy, that's not the view of the whores of sumna:
Heh. I'll let Psatma answer that one:
"Cursed be whore!"... "Cursed be she who lies with men for gold over seed, for power over obedience, for lust over love!"
None of that "sex worker" stuff, please! She's kind of old-fashioned.
-
so is Psatma owned by the gods, or owned by men. because the implication is that only whores are free...
Bakker certainly seems to look upon the burden of childbearing as an unconscionable weight in the Esmenet quote, an infliction men curse women with.
-
Lol. Psatma's an old soul, after all, Truth Shines ;).
I think childbirth is definitely a, if not the, crux motif here, lockesnow.
Interesting correspondence of cause between the biblical and the evolutionary - both seek to propagate "the children."
-
"Cursed be whore!"... "Cursed be she who lies with men for gold over seed, for power over obedience, for lust over love!"
The power part of that directly references Pirasha's explanation of power, it seems.
p.s.: I perfectly understand why these books will never be turned into movies (I think I read somewhere that Bakker said Hollywood took one look at the Srancs and just ran the other way), but there are moments I really regret this. Like here. What an extraordinary scene this would be!
As far as I understand 'blood of her fertility', were talking a gushing amount of menstral blood from her loins! I'm not sure hollywood would rush to take that up either!
Though it makes a sort of ground breaking contrast to male blood rituals we see in alot of media. Because it's more like the true source. While mens blood rituals mearly paddle in the outlying pools.
-
It seems like the narrative is highlighting childbearing/childbirth.
After having now dabbled in one Westeros' Bakker and Woman threads, albeit, a neutered episode, and the limited research I did for that - great quotes in that file, if I still have it - I would suggest that Bakker's onto problematizing motherhood, sex and its evolutionary purpose for progeny, and its debased value in society.
It's a complicated world and I would never force a child on a woman in any age - that's a decision for her and her partner to make together - but I definitely appreciate my existence and continuing as a species and that, should I have a child, my engagement with life and the changes it makes upon my brain might possibly be passed onto my progeny by means of RNA/DNA replication and women are the holy gatekeepers responsible for that - at this point in our evolutionary history, anyhow; however that is evolutionarily derived or humanly augmented in the future... Ex Nihilo...
-
We think in terms of love. Dunyain think in terms of eugenics.
-
I'm not so sure what you mean, Callan, but I'd hazard it can't be explained as concisely.
I'd be ecstatic if Bakker turned Motherhood into an aspect of this story - as it very much is already. It's not exactly a worn trope in fantasy, is it?
-
Ported these from Westeros for the Almanac but they have a place here too:
One of the reasons I was dissapointed with the PW review with it's concluding comment regarding the 'conspicuous lack' of secondary and nonsexualized female characters, was that it smelled of someone with an agenda.
SPOILER: Minor spoiler for The Judging Eye
In The Judging Eye, Esmenet has become Theodora. Her daughter Theliopa has an important role, and her other daughter, Serwa, is introduced. Mimara is as much a principle character as Achamian - albeit one scarred by childhood prostitution.
In other words, I actually have a number of important female characters who have overcome abjection in a fiercely patriarchal world, in what I would argue is a thoroughly believable fashion (within the constraints of generic epic fantasy).
(Since I think bootstrapping is largely an ideological myth, I'm generally disinclined to represent 'triumphs of the human spirit.' I think contemporary culture is already awash in that status quo reinforcing dreck. I am, and likely always will be, a 'complexity of the human condition' writer. Everywhere you turn you're told to 'take charge of your future' as way of training you to own your inevitable failure to fully live up to your aspirations. "It's not because the game is rigged; it's because you just didn't try hard enough.")
I can go on and on about my reasons for choosing the female types I did. So for instance, I wanted to exploit the ironic parallels between 'Men' and their dastardly 'antithesis,' the Sranc. I wanted to explore the nihilistic implications that underwrite social functionalist accounts of our present day gender egalitarianism - the suggestion that the now-sacred values so many have espoused here are actually secondary, ways to rationalize the more efficient utilization of labour given our new technologies of production and reproduction (something which is part and parcel of the way I use Kellhus as a contradictory figure of modernity). What does justice mean when it comes about for all the wrong reasons? I can go on and on, about the ways in which I parallel Serwe and Earwa, and so on.
Regarding (2), I'm saying that, although Three Seas society is thoroughly patriarchal, it is the story that largely determines the relative paucity of female characters. Just because you don't see many powerful female characters, doesn't mean they aren't there. The assumption frankly perplexes me. My general dislike of quota characterization, or the fact that the world was originally born in the mind of a naive 17 year old, may have led me to go overboard, but I'm not really convinced this is the case. Otherwise I think my choices are pretty much as thematically justified as they could be.
The reason my female characters are defined by male desire is simply because critiquing male desire is one of my primary thematic axes - building up, in the case of Esmenet, to Kellhus's use of contemporary egalitarian rationales to 'liberate' her into his unique brand of slavery, and in the case of Serwe (whose naivete and compliance to desire was meant to parallel that of fantasy worlds in general), her death in the course of Kellhus's Circumfixion, which is to say, his rise to absolute power in the Holy War. This was one of the things I buried because it struck me as too allegorical, too obvious and one to one: the figure of the scriptural world (where reality is abject before desire), bound as a corpse to the figure of modernity (where desire is held abject before reality - and so goes instrumental).
(But of course, Serwe comes back...)
Another backfire, I suppose. But still, pretty interesting I think, the suggestion that the reader actually has Serwe's corpse in their hands because they have Kellhus in their heads!
Otherwise (and you're getting me to do something I despise doing, which is giving spoilers) the idea was to have female characters rise to power in believeable ways - this is what I meant when I said I wanted to tell a rags-to-riches story with Esmenet.
As for the 'numbing' repetition of harlot, womanish, and so on, I meant this as a blur on the numbing repetition of 'bitch,' 'pussy,' and so on in contemporary Anglo culture. Even after all this time, men continue to define themselves and their virtues against women - to the point where the greatest male sin - homosexuality - seems to come down to playing woman to another man. This is where the themes surrounding Cnaiur directly link up with those underwriting Esmenet. Sadly, this is another instance where I thought I was being too overtly feminist (really!) and actually ended up provoking the opposite response in probably too many readers.
-
"I don't like spoilers - oh, btw, you know the tusk..."
the suggestion that the now-sacred values so many have espoused here are actually secondary, ways to rationalize the more efficient utilization of labour given our new technologies of production and reproduction (something which is part and parcel of the way I use Kellhus as a contradictory figure of modernity). What does justice mean when it comes about for all the wrong reasons?
I'd think that's more 'what does justice mean when it justifies other acts near it, in some kind of weird osmosis?'. I mean, the equality is being hijacked, while the notion it's good is actually true, but like some sort of paint gun, the paintballs of good splatter all over any amount of labour mongering there.
Oh yeah, used a paintball analogy...I iz hardcore!
But really, it almost seems a justice is for it's own sake sort of argument.
We think in terms of love. Dunyain think in terms of eugenics.
How I'd put it is that there's a kind of hazy overlay to the world, like being inside the petals of a closed and semi transparent rose. No transaction is directly with the world. With Dunyain, there is no rose. However, at the same time, why live, why breed, for a world without roses? The Dunyain are on the knife edge of contradiction. Maybe, anyway.
-
But the Dunyain sort of do have a rose, don't they? I'm assuming by rose you mean a way of viewing the world, a thing that makes life enjoyable or worth having?
For the Dunyain, the mission itself seems to be enough. I mean, they wouldn't view it in such terms, but attaining the absolute, or at least striving for it, seems to occupy the role of giving their lives... purpose, I guess?
-
how can you prove we think in terms of love? What if we all think in terms of eugenics first and then rationalize after the fact that we were thinking in terms of love? Are we blind to our own thoughts about love?
-
Yeah, well that's what, in my reading, sits the Dunyain right on the edge of contradiction - their world is horrifically without anything warm or comforting. Everything may as well be a gravestone, cold as if the sun had gone out. Do you love gravestones? Do they lighten up your life?
It's a hideous perspective.
how can you prove we think in terms of love?
Because we don't, on average, think wide enough. We stay within the soft inner boundries of the rose.
I didn't say we don't act in regard to eugenics. But I didn't say thinking overlaps acting. The circle of acting generally overlaps, by a considerable margin, the circle of our thinking.
Actually I wonder if I'm using rose as an analogy because if you overlap enough circles, they create a sort of rose pattern...?
-
Looking for some quotes for, Sci - though I should probably just look through Curethan's collection from Curated Sayings.
Found this must read thread: The Status of Woman and Some Real World Comparisons[/b] (http://forum.three-seas.com/topics/772)
-
And then: Women In the Three Seas[/b] (http://forum.three-seas.com/topics/242)
-
Bakker's musings on the role of genders in the Three Seas bores me.
He has an outstanding story, and amazing world. Sorcery, real gods, real God, Dunyain, first apocalypse, Mandate, wicked rape aliens, dying race of psychotic and powerful Not People, and evil orky weapon races.
But then he wants to make all males one dimensional who care only for stealing peaches and all women one dimensional as well. Grow the fuck up and stop making constant perv analysis on the entire human race just because you watch porn nonstop. my2cents
-
Video Presentation: http://www.frbsf.org/education/teachers/economics-in-person/economic-mobility-in-the-united-states.html
Study: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2013/el2013-06.pdf