Moments of Permanence - Derailment Redux: Lois McMaster Bujold Hypocrisy Special Edition

From: (Anonymous) Date: May 11th, 2009 03:00 pm (UTC) (Link)

See, that's the sort of dismissive tone I was hearing in your first bit, about how if I'm asking a question I must not be listening to someone. Forbid I could still be asking because I don't find those answers to be satisfactory. Although in all fairness, I didn't see the bits about whether or not you or naraht had read the book, so that bit could be me overlooking something.

Mainly, I want you to keep making your criticism. I disagree, but I'm still interested in hearing it. I am saying what I'm saying because I'm not sure the book deserves to be...words fail me at this point, but bashed maybe? The sort of attributes you're giving it may greatly influence whether or not people will even consider reading it, and I think that's the bit I don't like.

But more than that, I think that your statement about subtle, implicit racism is an important one. Although poorly worded, I was indeed trying to get to the point that no one is comparing the book to something like...a book that promotes overt racism, because we know those books are racist and usually attack them as such.

That means the situation gets all that much harder when the question is one of subtlety. Is a work racist or just myopic? I think the reason I disagree is based on two basic ideas.

First, however you want to paint it, writing an alternate view of history is not in and of itself racist. Such stories will always exclude some parties, and in that essence if I want to write a story about an un-peopled Europe being settled by Egyptians, then X is Y in both books and I'm creating something that's racist. And I don't buy that. We're discussing racism at the very razor's edge of the definition, and while the discussion is important, I don't think anyone can clearly state which way the argument should fall. There is a point where you're going to call something racist, and I'm going to say something else isn't racist, and we're both going to be wrong by virtue of that subtlety.

Second, your tone makes it sound like you're interpreting the book, comments about it, and responses to those comments, through a filter that makes them all come out racist. Like, if the author is white, and white people tried to commit genocide on Native American peoples, then any exploration that said white author did of a world without Native Americans must be rooted in racism. It might reinforce the 'empty plains' myth, but the cornerstone of your arguments seem to be intent, without which the subtlety of this racism doesn't seem at all clear. I can see where you're getting your interpretations, I just don't see that they're necessarily correct.

In short, fantasy doesn't need to model reality, and I don't think the situation is anywhere near as clear as you're making it out to be.

- Kurosau

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