Any World (That I'm Welcome To)

Okay, I lie: the first link, Reasons to care about RaceFail, is about RaceFail. Niall Harrison of Torque Control and Strange Horizons, on why the conversation is not "a bunch of Americans hyperventilating on the internet;" it's about a real elephant in the room - everyone's room, including the UK's.

Lesboprof Dick-i-tude, as dubbed by Dr. Crazy. Essentially, it's when a male academic (in this case) expects that his ideas/work are obviously more important than whatever anyone else is doing, regardless of whether he knows what anyone else is doing, and monopolizes everyone's time. And when he puts down a conversation or process other people are having, despite not having read or listened to it and having no idea what it's about. And getting to ignore or shut down those conversations without having your own position criticized, because yours is natural and common sense and sane, unlike those people's.

Sound familiar?

Then over at Greta Christina's, there's a post about Curiosity and the "Shut Up, That's Why" argument. She relates the story of a woman who uncovered the truth behind a family legend - her grandfather wasn't kidnapped and rescued, he was kidnapped period and never went home - and her family hated her for it. Her analysis is that some people would rather find out the truth, even if it's uncomfortable, and some would rather ignore it even if they know their version is just a comforting lie. She says,

And I think this explains the "blame the messenger" quality that defines so many theist/ atheist debates. If you think that the goal of a conversation is to pursue the truth as far as you possibly can, then blaming the messenger makes no sense. But if you think that the goal of a conversation is to resolve conflict and return society to the status quo, then relentlessly curious messengers are to blame.

She's talking about atheism and theism, but it's the same pattern: if I do not like what you are saying, then I am angry that you said it, regardless of the reason. I will not consider this information. I will yell at you and ignore it, because the most important thing is to keep the status quo, not to have to face hard questions, and make everything stay familiar and comforting to me.

Finally, that last sentence - the most important thing is my comfort and my concerns - lead me back to Lesboprof's Fears of a red state lesbian, in which she notes a trend to suggest cuttting university courses on (and professors who specialize in) topics involving gender, sexuality and sexual orientation, etc., using the budget crisis as an excuse. Why these? "As conservative columnist Martha Zoller notes, they see queer courses, women's studies courses, and other sexuality-related courses as 'fringes,' designed to titillate and not educate." That's it: these courses are "fringes," not really important or relevant to "real life"

...except that, you know, they are. Just not to those with Dick-i-tude. How much do you want to bet that race-focused courses are also on the hit list?

In short, It's-not-relevant-to-me/It-shakes-my-worldview/It-makes-me-uncomfortable > It's-not-important-at-all/You're-just-trying-to-score-points/It's-fake-identity-politics/You're-just-mean > It's defamation!/Just-Shut-Up-You-Orcing-Hordes, That's Why.

Note: I'm not saying that all men/whites/straights/straight white men are like this. Like Lesboprof, I've just seen this pattern more with them - and I don't think it's because they're inherently inclined toward it, but because they can get away with it more easily, and that's some unfortunate reinforcement. I know I'm more likely to fall into bad habits when there's nothing or no one to call me on it or bring some consequences I don't like, and I don't think most humans are that different.

I'm starting to think authors blogging is a bad idea. Besides EB failing publicly (comparison of her earlier statements and most recent here), I hear KC has now started threatening legal action (not bothering to link to her blog, because she changes the page locations and redirects to spam sites and such). On one hand, I would love to see her laughed out of court. On the other hand, that would cause undue stress and financial burden for anyone she dragged in with her, and scare many others into silence, and I don't want that.

This made me thing about names. Generally, I consider any name which someone uses over a long period of time, and which that person's community also uses, to be a "real" name, even if it isn't registered with the government as a legal name. This most recent development finally made it click for me what the big deal is with the widely-known-and-used-for-one-person type of name vs. a legal name: if you know the legal name, it's easier to use the legal system to harass someone. And if your legal name has more prestige and power than someone else's, you have an advantage. (ETA: thingswithwings said it more eloquently, plus linking it to the burden of proof.

Link for the day:

Birchbark Books, Louise Erdrich's Native-oriented bookstore.

I am so very pissed at how badly certain professional SF/F people are behaving lately - why does the list keep GROWING? (Explanation at coffeeandink's journal here, and also at spiralsheep's journal here.) Connecting someone's legal name to their LJ pseud is not trivial, and having a pseud does not automatically mean the person is "hiding" to conduct nefarious activities. Which anyone who knows anything about the internet ought to know. I mean, if you have the same username for years, and people connect everything you say under that name to a single identity, you're obviously not escaping consequences. (And while I can see outing someone who is actually harassing and threatening in a seriously harmful way (ie not just a momentary irritation kind of way), that is not what happened here. Far from it.)

And as for why have a pseud, then... well, everyone else has already reeled off the "A Lady George Eliot Currier Acton and Ellis Bell Andre Norton James Tiptree Jr." list and pointed out that duh, most of them had good reason for using pseuds, like, oh, BEING WOMEN AUTHORS. (Mark Twain and Lewis Carroll may have had good reasons as well, or maybe it was just the thing to do, I don't know.) Publius was writing scary controversial political stuff and they (since it was they, not he) probably had good reason for remaining pseudonymous - not the same as anonymous - which involved, you know, safety. Because that was an issue before the internet too. So duh, being PoC authors, and female PoC authors, and female sf/f fans, and PoC sf/f fans, and... well, many issues overlap, duh. Plus there's extras.

And safety. HELLO, THIS IS THE INTERNET. And to combine all those concerns, two words: Kathy Sierra. And more at yeloson's journal here. And oh, millions of more reasons.

As usual, rydra_wong has links to all sorts of excellent posts.

To avoid ending on a downer note, though, some FoC have gotten together to form verb_noireVerb Noire, a small press focusing on genre fiction with characters of color. I can't wait to see it grow! It looks like Chromatic Realities Press won't be happening anytime soon, except maybe as a community over at Dreamwidth when that opens up, but I still love the description.