Good Writers with Bad Beliefs
Joel Rosenberg
>I'm always amazed when a writer I've been introduced to in school or
>elsewhere turns out to be a hateful anti-Semite, racist or sexist in
>his or her personal life. I'm toying with the idea of putting online a
>web page devoted to "outing" the classic authors of the past whose
>beliefs were less than classic, figuring that other readers would like
>to know things of this kind.
>Who should top the list?
Ezra Pound.
Joel Rosenberg | jo...@winternet.com | http://www.winternet.com/~joelr
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the
hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the
appalling silence of the good people.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Bruce Baugh
>his or her personal life. I'm toying with the idea of putting online a
>web page devoted to "outing" the classic authors of the past whose
>beliefs were less than classic, figuring that other readers would like
>to know things of this kind.
I personally would have no use for such a collection of malicious
gossip. Getting the good _and_ bad facts about authors I enjoy is one
thing. Getting someone's compilation of subjectively determined dirt is
another.
--
Bruce Baugh <*> br...@aracnet.com <*> http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce
See my Web pages for
New science fiction by Steve Stirling and George Alec Effing er
Christlib, the mailing list for Christian and libertarian concerns
Daedalus Games, makers of Shadowfist and Feng Shui
Elizabeth Willey
I'm always amazed when a writer I've been introduced to in school or
elsewhere turns out to be a hateful anti-Semite, racist or sexist in
his or her personal life. I'm toying with the idea of putting online a
web page devoted to "outing" the classic authors of the past whose
beliefs were less than classic, figuring that other readers would like
to know things of this kind.
Their beliefs were quite classic. Broad-mindedness is a recent
innovation.
Who should top the list?
What is the point of this activity? Whom will it benefit?
One usually finds racial, classist, ethnic, and sexist slurs in
writers who were sadly disadvantaged by being born into societies
where such beliefs were normal, accepted, and socially
uncontroviersial. (For a fine example, see Anthony Trollope's
treatments of Jews. Or try Walter Scott. Or Dorothy Sayers. Or E.
Nesbit. Et cetera.) One finds them in works by modern, living
writers as well.
The intelligent reader knows and understands this and is capable of
reading a work which expresses social standards which differ from his
or her own, allowing for differences in mores and ethics, without too
much outrage to the sensibilities. The reader who is incapable of
doing so had better stick to a carefully-screened selection of
inoffensive works from the post-WWII era.
Elizabeth Willey
Rick Cook
>I'm always amazed when a writer I've been introduced to in school or
>elsewhere turns out to be a hateful anti-Semite, racist or sexist in
>his or her personal life. I'm toying with the idea of putting online a
>web page devoted to "outing" the classic authors of the past whose
>beliefs were less than classic, figuring that other readers would like
>to know things of this kind.
>
Well, how about those who are obsessively politically correct? That's the
current disease de jour.
Look, the truth is that every writer -- like every human being -- is to a
greater or less extent a shit. This becomes doubly true when you go back in
history and apply 'modern' standards to people who lived in different times
and places. This includes the people who have done the most for others.
(Okay, I'm sensitive to this because I just got caught out on Pound's
anti-Semtism. This doesn't mean I thought Pound was an admirable character
before. I just didn't realize he was anti-Semitic.)
If you want a harder challenge, try finding writers who _didn't_ fail
standards of some kind.
Your proposal strikes me as just plain juvenile.
--RC
Mike Gannis
:I'm always amazed when a writer I've been introduced to in school or
:elsewhere turns out to be a hateful anti-Semite, racist or sexist in
:his or her personal life. I'm toying with the idea of putting online a
:web page devoted to "outing" the classic authors of the past whose
:beliefs were less than classic, figuring that other readers would like
:to know things of this kind.
If you decide to do this, I'd advise you to be very, very sure about
the accuracy of your assertions and to be prepared to back up the
allegations with direct quotes from the authors themselves rather than
from characters in their stories. If you're wrong, you'll look quite
foolish (and may be in worse trouble than that if the author is living).
Even if you're right, you'll still get people pissed off at you.
Unless you *enjoy* being the target in a flame war ... Some people do.
Michael P Collins
> I'm always amazed when a writer I've been introduced to in school or
> elsewhere turns out to be a hateful anti-Semite, racist or sexist in
> his or her personal life. I'm toying with the idea of putting online a
> web page devoted to "outing" the classic authors of the past whose
> beliefs were less than classic, figuring that other readers would like
> to know things of this kind.
>
>
>
Michael Collins, mc...@andrew.cmu.edu
Overworked, Overstressed, Underslept, Underfed - Undergrad
Daniel J. Starr
Rogers Cadenhead <rc...@mail.concentric.net> wrote:
>el...@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) wrote:
>>One usually finds racial, classist, ethnic, and sexist slurs in
>>writers who were sadly disadvantaged by being born into societies
>>where such beliefs were normal, accepted, and socially
>>uncontroviersial. (For a fine example, see Anthony Trollope's
>>treatments of Jews. Or try Walter Scott. Or Dorothy Sayers. Or E.
>>Nesbit. Et cetera.) One finds them in works by modern, living
>>writers as well.
>
>raised among anti-Semites does not mean that anti-Semitism is
>acceptable. We all have the ability to rise above our environment.That
>was as true in Trollope's day as it is today.
You proposed a list of Authors With Bad Beliefs, not a list of societies.
You proposed marking down Trollope and Shakespeare and so on as Bad People
because of their crime of not questioning something that was not questioned
or even discussed by anyone they ever met.
This is a far cry from Ezra Pound, who held his beliefs even though there
were many around him who could have - and some who no doubt did - point out
the errors and hatefulness of them.
Your proposal is the equivalent of marking down all scientists before
Einstein as Dumb People for believing in absolute motion.
No doubt some 22nd-century reincarnation of yourself will condemn Elizabeth
Willey for her outdated fin-de-siecle 20th-century morals when he reads
_A Sorcerer and a Gentleman_. I just hope her reincarnation is around to
rebut him.
ObSF: so what will rec.arts.sf.written have become in two centuries...?
--
Daniel Starr | "You'd get confused too, if you had to climb down
dst...@math.mit.edu | a 100-dimensional hill..." - W. S.
Daniel S Goodman
Rogers Cadenhead <rc...@mail.concentric.net> wrote:
>el...@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) wrote:
>
>
>>writers who were sadly disadvantaged by being born into societies
>>where such beliefs were normal, accepted, and socially
>>uncontroviersial. (For a fine example, see Anthony Trollope's
>>treatments of Jews. Or try Walter Scott. Or Dorothy Sayers. Or E.
>>Nesbit. Et cetera.) One finds them in works by modern, living
>>writers as well.
>
>I don't think society excuses the individual. Just because a person is
>raised among anti-Semites does not mean that anti-Semitism is
>acceptable. We all have the ability to rise above our environment.That
>was as true in Trollope's day as it is today.
>
which required him to be an anti-Semite -- which he seems to have become,
at least openly, only after adopting a new culture.
On the other hand -- Mark Twain and others have been more tolerant than
was normal for their societies.
Dan Goodman
Rick Cook
> As for it being "subjectively determined dirt", what
>isn't subjective? Aside from the occasional instance where supreme
>deities carve lists into stone, all writing is subjective.
>
No, the subjectivity is in what you consider dirt.
What the heck. Go ahead and try it. It will make for an interesting flame-fest.
--RC
Scott Northrop
: I'm toying with the idea of putting online a
: web page devoted to "outing" the classic authors of the past whose
: beliefs were less than classic, figuring that other readers would like
: to know things of this kind.
That's a great idea! Plato, of course, for anti-democracy
sentiments, not to mention his appalling attitude towards
women. Rousseau ditto on that last, especially for dissing
intelligent women.
--
Rebecca Allen standard disclaimers apply reb...@amazon.com
->> More than a million titles! <<-
->> Drop by http://www.amazon.com and browse Earth's Biggest Bookstore. <<-
Bruce Baugh
>gossip -- especially not on living authors. I'm looking for things I
>can document, like the biographies of Ezra Pound that elaborate upon
>his beliefs.
Okay, this helps immediately. :-) Still a tricky project at best, I
think, and I'd still be more interested in "Interesting things to know"
than in "Look at the intellectually/morally naughty bits".
A. Chilton Lannen
>I'm always amazed when a writer I've been introduced to in school or
>elsewhere turns out to be a hateful anti-Semite, racist or sexist in
>his or her personal life. I'm toying with the idea of putting online a
>web page devoted to "outing" the classic authors of the past whose
>beliefs were less than classic, figuring that other readers would like
>to know things of this kind.
>
>Who should top the list?
>
>
>-----
>Rogers Cadenhead
>rc...@mail.concentric.net
>-----
>Give to the Marc Andreesen Foot Grooming Fund at
>http://www.concentric.net/~rcade/2wheeze.html
I have some qualms about imposing modern values on people who
lived in other times (and basically other cultures). It was very
common and acceptable for people to be racist or sexist as recently as
50 or so years ago. Someone raised from birth to racist or sexist in
such a time will likely be so, regardless of their intelligence. If
we start branding particular authors for beliefs that merely reflected
the overwhelming consensus of people when they lived, is that judging
them fairly? Now, if that person has been writing in say, the post
WWII period, there really is a shift in the consensus and such beliefs
were no longer acceptable to the majority. *That* is where there
might be a need for such a list.
--Andrew
-------
and...@ix.netcom.com
-------
http://www.stroud.com/ --to find reviews of the latest apps
http://www.ix.netcom.com/faq/pc/ --to configure them for NetCruiser
http://tucows.niia.net/ -- another great library of net apps
Joel Rosenberg
>d...@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Daniel S Goodman) wrote:
>>Perhaps more to the point: There was nothing in T. S. Eliot's society
>>which required him to be an anti-Semite -- which he seems to have become,
>>at least openly, only after adopting a new culture.
>>On the other hand -- Mark Twain and others have been more tolerant than
>>was normal for their societies.
To be fair, Sam Clemens' tolerance extended, as far as I can see, to every
racial, religious, and ethnic group save for American Indians.
Wendy Shaffer
>dst...@math.mit.edu (Daniel J. Starr) wrote:
>
>>You proposed marking down Trollope and Shakespeare and so on as Bad People
>>because of their crime of not questioning something that was not questioned
>>or even discussed by anyone they ever met.
>
>in their society as to completely excuse them for sharing it.
Well, anti-Semitism, which I believe is what Daniel was referring to
in his post, was indeed a very deeply ingrained belief for a very long
time. It was more of less taken for granted that the Jews were
"different" from everyone else, and "different" was usually interpreted
as inferior.
For that matter, the inferiority of women was an ingrained belief
in some places for quite some time.
I'll agree with you that in many cases, things are not so clear
cut - certainly there was much debate over slavery in the 18th and 19th,
and after a certain point much debate about the status of women. But I
think that it is probably safe to say that for Shakespeare, his
anti-Semitism was a deeply ingrained cultural assumption, probably never
questioned by him.
> >Example: It's 1800. Is an American slaver somehow absolved
of the
>crime of owning another human being because so many of his neighbors
>did so as well? Did it really take the passage of time to cultivate
>the notion that slavery was wrong?
>Example: The My Lai massacre. Soldiers work in an
environment
where >it's dangerous to disregard an order and dangerous to question
>authority. Are they absolved of responsibility for their conduct? I
>hope not.
I'm not quite sure what to say to these. I think we need to
strike a balance here between the recognition that there are some
actions/ideas that it is very difficult not to condemn, and the
recognition that it is difficult for people to rise above the prevailing
social standards of their time.
I think what Daniel is trying to say, is that while we cannot
blithely absolve Trollope and Shakespeare of any blame, we also cannot
put them in quite the same category as Pound, who in some sense "ought to
have known better."
Similarly, in the case of the slaver, I think it is a mitigating
circumstance that he was part of a society which condoned his actions,
which even promoted (often with "scientific" evidence) the idea that
there were races which were inherently inferior, and fit only to be
slaves. There were even people who claimed that their slaves were
better off than they would have been otherwise. This doesn't excuse
their slaveowning, but I think it is important to point out that some
slave owners were otherwise good, well-intentioned people. (And some of
them were also the most vicious, cruel, and frightening people I have
ever heard of.)
>>This is a far cry from Ezra Pound, who held his beliefs even though there
>>were many around him who could have - and some who no doubt did - point out
>>the errors and hatefulness of them.
>
>I do not think that enlightened people are a modern invention.
No, but people tend to judge things according to the values their
culture gives them. I don't think that we can simply condemn them
without at least recognizing that fact.
>>No doubt some 22nd-century reincarnation of yourself will condemn Elizabeth
>>Willey for her outdated fin-de-siecle 20th-century morals when he reads
>>_A Sorcerer and a Gentleman_. I just hope her reincarnation is around to
>>rebut him.
>
>To my descendant I say, "Good luck." I hope those in your era are more
>interested in an open discussion of intolerant beliefs than in
>protecting the reputations of writers.
>
>Why is it acceptable to present biographical information about Ezra
>Pound without discussing his intolerant beliefs? Isn't that omission
>an effort to spread a falsehood? If it's relevant to discuss where he
>was born, where he went to school, what publications he wrote for, and
>so on, is it not relevant that he publicly espoused some hateful
>beliefs?
>
Note that Daniel is actually condemning Pound above, not defending him.
In any case, I happen to think that a writer's intolerant beliefs
_should_ be discussed. But we do have to do it with a certain sense of
historical context. I'm not trying to "defend the reputation" of Pound
or Trollope or Shakespeare. But I do think that it is important to note
that if we say "Shakespeare was an anti-Semite," that so was virtually
everyone else in England at the time.
-----wendy
> >-----
>Rogers Cadenhead
>rc...@mail.concentric.net
>-----
>Give to the Marc Andreesen Foot Grooming Fund at
>http://www.concentric.net/~rcade/2wheeze.html
>
>
--
Wendy Shaffer | Reality is that which, when you stop
(sha...@minerva.cis.yale.edu) | believing in it, it doesn't go away.
http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~shaffer| -Philip K. Dick, _VALIS_
Marcus Ogden
>el...@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) wrote:
>
>>One usually finds racial, classist, ethnic, and sexist slurs in
>>writers who were sadly disadvantaged by being born into societies
>>where such beliefs were normal, accepted, and socially
>>uncontroviersial. (For a fine example, see Anthony Trollope's
>>treatments of Jews. Or try Walter Scott. Or Dorothy Sayers. Or E.
>>Nesbit. Et cetera.) One finds them in works by modern, living
>>writers as well.
>
>I don't think society excuses the individual. Just because a person is
>raised among anti-Semites does not mean that anti-Semitism is
>acceptable. We all have the ability to rise above our environment.That
>was as true in Trollope's day as it is today.
OK, but be aware that "X was an active anti-Semite in a tolerant society"
and "X was raised among anti-Semites and passively parroted popular
anti-Semitic views" are statements that have different moral shades of
grey to different people. If you're going to propagate slurs on certain
authors, the least you can do is be objective and give the full
perspective.
>>The intelligent reader knows and understands this and is capable of
>>reading a work which expresses social standards which differ from his
>>or her own, allowing for differences in mores and ethics, without too
>>much outrage to the sensibilities. The reader who is incapable of
>>doing so had better stick to a carefully-screened selection of
>>inoffensive works from the post-WWII era.
>
>Why is telling someone about Ezra Pound's personal beliefs tantamount
>to telling them not to read Pound? Is it better not to publicize the
>information because it might discourage people from reading an
>author's work?
Well no, but I'm sure you're aware that it will have such an effect.
Anyway, I've spent one post being an apologist for sexists and now
another one being an apologist for racists. I'm going to go away and take
my liberal pills now, OK...
Marcus Ogden <mw...@cam.ac.uk>
Rick Cook
>Unless you *enjoy* being the target in a flame war ... Some people do.
>
--RC
Marcus Ogden
>dst...@math.mit.edu (Daniel J. Starr) wrote:
>
>>You proposed marking down Trollope and Shakespeare and so on as Bad People
>>because of their crime of not questioning something that was not questioned
>>or even discussed by anyone they ever met.
>
>Such as? Name an offensive belief in their time that was so ingrained
>in their society as to completely excuse them for sharing it.
"Excuse" is not the verb in question; try "make understandable" or even
dare to venture "mitigate". And who brought "completely" into it?
>Example: It's 1800. Is an American slaver somehow absolved of the
>crime of owning another human being because so many of his neighbors
>did so as well? Did it really take the passage of time to cultivate
>the notion that slavery was wrong?
Yes.
We're talking about times here when whites didn't even know blacks were
descended from the same common ancestor, or had the same DNA.
And even when people did feel bad about oppressing thinking, feeling beings,
imagine the social repercussions of doing anything about it. It would take a
political zealot, not to mention a civil war. The same thing happens today:
think about the rationalisation going on every time anyone with an ounce of
morality votes Republican in that country of yours.
Surely this is what reading authors of the past is all about; to get a taste
of an alien mindset.
>Example: The My Lai massacre. Soldiers work in an environment where
>it's dangerous to disregard an order and dangerous to question
>authority. Are they absolved of responsibility for their conduct? I
>hope not.
How many pages of literature have been devoted to this age-old dilemma that
you've just solved in one paragraph, I wonder?
>>This is a far cry from Ezra Pound, who held his beliefs even though there
>>were many around him who could have - and some who no doubt did - point out
>>the errors and hatefulness of them.
>
>I do not think that enlightened people are a modern invention.
I *know* "enlightened people" are a modern invention. In the past there were
only eccentric softies and dangerous radicals.
>>No doubt some 22nd-century reincarnation of yourself will condemn Elizabeth
>>Willey for her outdated fin-de-siecle 20th-century morals when he reads
>>_A Sorcerer and a Gentleman_. I just hope her reincarnation is around to
>>rebut him.
>
>To my descendant I say, "Good luck." I hope those in your era are more
>interested in an open discussion of intolerant beliefs than in
>protecting the reputations of writers.
>
>Why is it acceptable to present biographical information about Ezra
>Pound without discussing his intolerant beliefs? Isn't that omission
>an effort to spread a falsehood? If it's relevant to discuss where he
>was born, where he went to school, what publications he wrote for, and
>so on, is it not relevant that he publicly espoused some hateful
>beliefs?
Is anybody saying that this kind of bio is desirable? What you seem to be
proposing is just as biased.
(That's 3 PC zealots I've felt the need to attack in one net session - on
rec.arts.sf.written for Chrissakes. Give me some Nazis to bait to ease my
conscience, please...)
Marcus Ogden <mw...@cam.ac.uk>
Crawford Kilian
how we respond to the work. I certainly write novels that reflect my own
political views, but the issue for the reader is whether those novels succeed
as stories, not as political manifestoes. We can enjoy a character, a setting
or a story which may be in the service of an ideology we find abhorrent. If
in fact the politics has so intervened that we can't enjoy the story, that's
a failure by the author; as Orwell observed, "All art is propaganda, but not
all propsganda is art."
The same is true of authors we may find morally reprehensible: a life
dedicated to art is no guarantee of even simple human decency. If some writer
or musician is also a wife-beater or child molester, we may choose to boycott
the artist's work; but we can still judge that work by purely artistic
standards.
We might just as well ask whether the work of a plumber or carpenter or
electrician is politically or morally acceptable depending on the way the
plumber, carpenter or electrician votes or behaves towards minorities.
The novelist and garlic farmer Stanley Crawford tells a helpful tale: Selling
garlic off the back of his pickup at some New Mexico farmers' market, he
meets customer who asks: "Was this garlic organically grown?" He wants to
answer: "Was the money you're going to pay me for it organically earned?"
Crawford Kilian
cki...@hubcap.mlnet.com
P Nielsen Hayden
: A writer's or artist's political or religious views should have no bearing on
: how we respond to the work. I certainly write novels that reflect my own
: political views, but the issue for the reader is whether those novels succeed
: as stories, not as political manifestoes. We can enjoy a character, a setting
: or a story which may be in the service of an ideology we find abhorrent. If
: in fact the politics has so intervened that we can't enjoy the story, that's
: a failure by the author; as Orwell observed, "All art is propaganda, but not
: all propsganda is art."
Oh, stuff and nonsense. I love the poetry of Ezra Pound, for instance (see
my post in a different thread here for more on that), but it certainly
informs my reading of the magnificent "With Usura" canto -- canto 45 -- to
know that Pound's passionate opposition to usury was all tied up with
his equally passionate anti-semitism.
In essence, Pound felt that the urban commercial classes, Jews in
particular, had destroyed Europe's chance of achieving a truly high
civilization in the Middle Ages.
Beliefs of this sort were, in fact, fairly common currency among Pound and
his Modernist friends. They're worth noting. I still love Canto 45, and I
think it's a terribly effective indictment of the way the money economy
drives out all other measures of value. "With usura the line grows
thick;/with usura there is no clear demarcation." With usury, all that
matters is money, not the quality of your craft. In that, Pound was right.
But I'm glad I know about his antisemitism; I appreciate the chance to not
drink the baby along with the bathwater.
"A writer's or artist's political or religious views should have no bearing
on how we respond to the work"? Get real! _Everything_ has bearing on how
we respond to the work. That's why every work creates an infinity of
responses. And it's why art isn't science.
I think you believe you're arguing for a generous, open-minded attitude in
which we don't simply prejudge art on the basis of externalities. And I
share that. But of _course_ these externalities affect "how we respond to
the work," even if we bring a generous spirit to the experience. We're
human beings, not mass spectrometers.
-----
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@tor.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
Daniel S Goodman
>We're talking about times here when whites didn't even know blacks were
>descended from the same common ancestor, or had the same DNA.
>
and Western European whites believed in the Biblical account of human
history -- and it's made fairly clear that all humans were descended
from Adam and Eve, and all those in post-Flood times were descended from
Noah's family.
Dan Goodman
Joel Rosenberg
>A writer's or artist's political or religious views should have no bearing on
>how we respond to the work.
And it likely won't, on those at least theoretically possible occasions where
those views don't inform the work.
But most of the time, of course they do, although most often less ham-handedly
than, say, Spinrad's Adolf Hitler does in The Iron Dream.
Crawford Kilian
"A writer's or artist's political or religious views should have no bearing
we respond to the work. That's why every work creates an infinity of
responses. And it's why art isn't science.
I think you believe you're arguing for a generous, open-minded attitude in
which we don't simply prejudge art on the basis of externalities. And I
share that. But of _course_ these externalities affect "how we respond to
the work," even if we bring a generous spirit to the experience. We're
human beings, not mass spectrometers.
Patrick, I believe I've caught you on a bad night...but thanks for posting
the Pound in the other thread. Great stuff.
Perhaps we're just coming at literature from different points of view. It may
indeed help us to know biographical details about the author if we want to
understand the work better. But when "externalities" affect our response, we
are having a political experience rather than an artistic/esthetic one. We
are projecting our political views on the work and judging it by political
standards, not literary ones. We want it to assuage our social anxieties--or,
if it aggravates those anxieties, we want to be able to discredit the artist.
This may be OK in a Stalinist or Hitlerite regime, but it shouldn't be the
case in a relatively free society. And we should be aware, when we love or
detest an artist on political grounds, that we have left art behind. You
don't have to be a mass spectrometer to understand that.
Crawford Kilian
cki...@hubcap.mlnet.com
Rick Cook
> Is it political correctness on my part to tell you that
>Depardieu raped a woman? Would you rather not know?
No, but it's usually a sign of a rather juvenile outlook to be so shocked
by the less than admirable parts of peoples' lives that you feel you have
to shout them from the rooftops -- and to feel slightly cheated that you
were not exposed to this truth at school.
I can understand. I went through the same thing myself at about fourteen.
(Which, not so coincidentally, is the "Golden Age of SF")
--RC
Rick Cook
>I *know* "enlightened people" are a modern invention. In the past there
>were only eccentric softies and dangerous radicals.
>
just that what constitutes 'enlightened' keeps changing.
What we consider morally pure is likely to be either incomprehensible or
the object of satire a couple of centuries before or after our time.
--RC
Wendy Shaffer
Well, strictly speaking, Adam and Eve do constitute a common ancestor.
But it was quite common to posit split in human racial ancestry somewhere
slightly later in the biblical story, so you do get theories about such
and such a race being inferior because they were descended from Ishmael,
or from the wrong son of Noah, or some other such split.
There were certainly plenty of theories which concieved of blacks and
other races as being radically different in ancestry and biology from
white Europeans.
B.R. MARTIN
Goodman) wrote:
> In article <4lbo7r$k...@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>,
> >We're talking about times here when whites didn't even know blacks were
> >descended from the same common ancestor, or had the same DNA.
> >
> No. We're talking about times when the overwhelming majority of American
> and Western European whites believed in the Biblical account of human
> history -- and it's made fairly clear that all humans were descended
> from Adam and Eve, and all those in post-Flood times were descended from
> Noah's family.
>
> Dan Goodman
In fact that is exactly it. _Everyone_ knew, that the different races
descended from different sons of Noah. The races were totally different,
and white Europeans were clearly etc. etc. In fact when the Americas were
discovered there was a big controversy about where these other, reddish
people came from. Many people theorized that they were descended from the
'Lost Tribes of Israel'. But I digress. I think you're ignoring the
evidence if you deny there were widespread although obviously now
mistakenly held beliefs on the biological basis for the 'obvious
inequality' of the races. And the sexes for that matter. Don't you know
women have smaller brains? That's why we're not as smart as men.
-Beth Martin
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/\ ~ Beth Martin br...@cornell.edu ~
_/\| |/\_ ~~~~~ http://deianira.resnet.cornell.edu ~~~~~~~~~
\ brm / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>______< ~ Agoraphobes of the world unite! - but not all ~
/ ~ in one place. --- C. Saulino ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andrew Hackard
>>You proposed marking down Trollope and Shakespeare and so on as Bad People
>>because of their crime of not questioning something that was not questioned
>>or even discussed by anyone they ever met.
>
>Such as? Name an offensive belief in their time that was so ingrained
>in their society as to completely excuse them for sharing it.
Why do I get the idea that it doesn't matter *what* belief someone
picks--you'll say it's inexcusable to think that?
>Example: It's 1800. Is an American slaver somehow absolved of the
>crime of owning another human being because so many of his neighbors
>did so as well? Did it really take the passage of time to cultivate
>the notion that slavery was wrong?
Surprisingly, yes.
Here's a counterexample: Julius Caesar owned slaves. It was a poor
Roman family indeed that did not. Was Caesar an evil man because of
his slave ownership?
Please bear in mind that in late republican Rome, slavery was not
questioned as an institution. There were those men who felt it was
wrong...but *as a society*, Rome condoned slavery. I'm not as up to
speed on the late empire as I should be, but it wouldn't surprise me
if Odoacer and the Goths had to fight against slave-owning Romans.
The obvious answer is that the society as a whole is wrong...and you
won't catch me disagreeing with you. But can you condemn a man who
lived in that society as evil when his friends, family, ancestors,
his whole *life* was permeated with the belief that slavery was
acceptable? If you can, then I won't argue further: It's pointless.
We will not agree.
If not, then what makes Caesar different from (say) Jefferson? Both
owned slaves; both were raised in a culture where slavery was tolerated
(or encouraged, even). I'd really like to know why these two men
should be treated differently.
>>This is a far cry from Ezra Pound, who held his beliefs even though there
>>were many around him who could have - and some who no doubt did - point out
>>the errors and hatefulness of them.
>
>I do not think that enlightened people are a modern invention.
Of course they aren't.
I just think that it's asking too much--indeed, is a sign of cultural
blindness and ignorance--for every historical figure to conform to
your ideals of morality and ethics. It's possible to judge people as
people but also in the context of their times. I'd argue, actually,
that it is impossible to do otherwise. You can't understand Seneca
without explaining Nero. You can't appreciate Augustine until you know
about Constantine. And you can't dissect McCarthy and ignore Khrushchev
(and I've mangled the spelling, but am away from my dictionaries).
What you are doing is asking all of us to take a writer and talk about
her views without any sense at all of the context in which she held them.
To borrow a line from "Masada": This, then is stupidity in truth.
But then, Flavius Silva was evil, I'm sure. It has nothing to do with
Rome's history in Judaea.
>To my descendant I say, "Good luck." I hope those in your era are more
>interested in an open discussion of intolerant beliefs than in
>protecting the reputations of writers.
No one is trying to "protect the reputations of writers". They are
just saying that it is possible to appreciate a person's art aside
from the person himself; in fact, the best writers remove themselves
completely from their work. (I'll qualify that: Many of the best
writers do so; some use their writing to spread their ideas. I'm
obviously not talking about the latter here.)
>Why is it acceptable to present biographical information about Ezra
>Pound without discussing his intolerant beliefs? Isn't that omission
>an effort to spread a falsehood? If it's relevant to discuss where he
>was born, where he went to school, what publications he wrote for, and
>so on, is it not relevant that he publicly espoused some hateful
>beliefs?
In fact, it is. But it is NOT relevant to bring them up in a context
where they have no relation to the work being discussed. I've read
some Pound (and would like to read more, when I have a couple of years;
he's *deep*), and I fail to see where his political views have any
correspondence in his writing.
I suppose this is the natural result of being immersed in a country
where the private doings of a public figure are front-page news in
every TV entertainment show. (I mixed my metaphor, but I think you
take my meaning.) Frankly, Rogers--I don't care. I'd rather read the
work on its own merits than be distracted by what you think I should
know about the author.
--
"Commander Ivanova, what do *you* think <*> Anyone reading this .sig who is in
of the Communications Decency Act?" <*> favor of the CDA is invited to
"Well, we're screwed." <*> lick my penis until I ejaculate.
James Nicoll
Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> wrote:
>
>To be fair, Sam Clemens' tolerance extended, as far as I can see, to every
>racial, religious, and ethnic group save for American Indians.
And the German language and French duelists. Honor Harrington
would be a happier female if her culture practiced the style of pistol
dueling used in (um) _An American Abroad_ where the main danger to
the combatants is exposure and the crowds stand behind the duelists
to avoid getting shot.
If memory serves, when Captain (mumble) goes to Heaven, he finds
that the majority of folks in the North American heaven are not European
desended but Native American. Now, Twain gives the NAs an absurdly long
residency time in North America (billions of years, I think) but note
that they qualified to get in.
I thought the moral of _Puddin' Head Wilson_ was a bit muddled:
The 'white' boy is labeled a 'black' slave is crippled by his upbringing
and ends up an offensive stereotype but the 'black' boy who is raised as
'white' turns out to be a vicious murderer. There's either a certain lack
of symmetry there, or Twain had a much dimmer view of 1800s American white
folk than I though he did.
James Nicoll
--
" The moral, if you're a scholar don't pick up beautiful babes on deserted
lanes at night. Real Moral, Chinese ghost stories have mostly been written
by scholars who have some pretty strange fantasies about women."
Brian David Phillips
John David Chao
>
>This may be OK in a Stalinist or Hitlerite regime, but it shouldn't be the
>case in a relatively free society. And we should be aware, when we love or
>detest an artist on political grounds, that we have left art behind. You
>don't have to be a mass spectrometer to understand that.
[entering extreme devils-advocate mode]:
Suppose some individual gets a lot of little kids of some particular
sex and race, murders them, and uses their blood as coloration in
some painting or other visual work. Should we as people in an (allegedly)
free society judge this "art" independently of the crimes? After the
criminal has been dealt with by the justice system, would it be ok to
compile the artwork in a book and send it off to libraries?
In a less theoretical mode, is it ok to use the results of Nazi
medical experimentation on captive humans for valid modern medical
research and development? Is it ok to use the results of modern
free-society medical experimentation on captive non-humans?
John Chao
ch...@udel.edu
Lawrence Watt-Evans
>
>No. We're talking about times when the overwhelming majority of American
>and Western European whites believed in the Biblical account of human
>history -- and it's made fairly clear that all humans were descended
>from Adam and Eve, and all those in post-Flood times were descended from
>Noah's family.
Right -- whites from Japeth, Jews and Asians from Shem, and blacks from the
accursed Ham who looked upon his father's nakedness and was therefore
condemned for the rest of eternity to be servant to his brothers...
You think the slavery advocates hadn't found Biblical justification?
And this is before you add in the 19th-century theory that the "Hamitic
peoples" had suffered such degeneration from the curse as to no longer be
entirely human at all.
(Note: My great-great grandfather was an Abolitionist politician. My
family's got a two-hundred-year history of fighting this sort of crap.)
--
For information on Lawrence Watt-Evans, finger -l lawr...@clark.net
or see The Misenchanted Page at http://www.greyware.com/authors/LWE/
The Horror Writers Association Page is at http://www.horror.org/HWA/
P Nielsen Hayden
: Perhaps we're just coming at literature from different points of view. It may
: indeed help us to know biographical details about the author if we want to
: understand the work better. But when "externalities" affect our response, we
: are having a political experience rather than an artistic/esthetic one. We
: are projecting our political views on the work and judging it by political
: standards, not literary ones. We want it to assuage our social anxieties--or,
: if it aggravates those anxieties, we want to be able to discredit the artist.
: This may be OK in a Stalinist or Hitlerite regime, but it shouldn't be the
: case in a relatively free society. And we should be aware, when we love or
: detest an artist on political grounds, that we have left art behind. You
: don't have to be a mass spectrometer to understand that.
I think we are definitely coming to literature from different points of
view. Growing up in science fiction, it has always seemed to me me clear
that literature and "politics" are inextricably mixed; that it is impossible
to imagine a future world without having assumptions and beliefs about
questions which are inherently "political."
As I've grown older it has become clear to me that it isn't possible to tell
stories set in the present or past, either, without having -- and revealing
-- such beliefs. You either have these beliefes as the result of conscious
thought, or you don't think about these issues and thus operate with your
culture's defaults. But you have them nonetheless.
I don't, I confess, know where "discrediting the artist" or "Stalinist or
Hitlerite regimes" came in. I have no interest in discrediting good art
because it proceeds from political beliefs I disagree with. Quite the
contrary, often that's the most interesting -- and the most affecting --
art.
As Chip Delany points out, Balzac, the consummate bourgeois, was Marx's
favorite novelist. And, Chip says, Heinlein is one of his. And I like
Pound and Tolkien and Poul Anderson and Frank Miller.
I think you're worried about inquisitions and political purity tests, and as
a result you're setting an impossibly high bar, one that relies on the
highly questionable notion that there exists something pure called "art"
separable from the messy human business of arrangements for living together
("politics"). I happen to believe that this belief is _in itself_ a
political one, but never mind. More to the point, instead of asserting
mystical privileges for a Parnassus some of us don't even believe in, how
about we simply agree to be against inquisitions and political purity tests?
Sheesh.
P Nielsen Hayden
: A lot of the heat generated by this topic has been the notion that I'm
: trying to condemn these folks for their intolerant beliefs. That's not
: the point -- I just think it's a subject that deserves more "air time"
: than it has been given in traditional sources of information about
: classic authors and poets.
I think this is pretty unexceptionable.
: If Shakespeare (mentioned several times
: here for reasons I know not) was an anti-Semite, and there's
: documentation to that effect, it's an interesting subject.
I think that if it isn't obvious to you that Shakespeare shared his
culture's pervasive anti-Semitism, you should get out of the newsgroup and
read some Shakespeare. Which would, in general, be a good idea for any of
us. (Sheesh.)
Here's another hot tip: Dante was Catholic. (Yes!)
Daniel S Goodman
Lawrence Watt-Evans <lawr...@clark.net> wrote:
>In article <4lc7me$c...@maroon.tc.umn.edu>, d...@maroon.tc.umn.edu says...
>>
>>No. We're talking about times when the overwhelming majority of American
>>and Western European whites believed in the Biblical account of human
>>history -- and it's made fairly clear that all humans were descended
>>from Adam and Eve, and all those in post-Flood times were descended from
>>Noah's family.
>
>Right -- whites from Japeth, Jews and Asians from Shem, and blacks from the
>accursed Ham who looked upon his father's nakedness and was therefore
>condemned for the rest of eternity to be servant to his brothers...
>
>You think the slavery advocates hadn't found Biblical justification?
today -- you may have heard of a book called "The Bell Curve". But the
idea that all humans are related was probably as widely known back then
as it is now.
Dan Goodman
Elizabeth Willey
fantasy, perhaps the participants would be so kind as to set their
followups to rec.arts.books.
The issue is fascinating and worthy of discussion but it is not
on-topic here.
Elizabeth Willey
Elizabeth Willey
Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!gatech!swrinde!sgigate.sgi.com!news1.best.com!news.texas.net!cdc2.cdc.net!newsfeed.concentric.net!news
From: rc...@mail.concentric.net (Rogers Cadenhead)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1996 04:20:40 GMT
Organization: SpiderByte Interactive
X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82
rc...@BIX.com (Rick Cook) wrote:
>>Unless you *enjoy* being the target in a flame war ... Some people do.
>>
>I think that's pretty obviously the case here.
Actually, no. I was hoping to get suggestions for the worst offenders
rather than having to debate the issue of whether its relevant to know
that an 18th century novelist was an anti-Semite. I think it is. Even
if it isn't relevant, it's interesting information.
If I was trolling, I would've suggested a web site listing authors who
have had abortions.
-----
Rogers Cadenhead
rc...@mail.concentric.net
-----
Give to the Marc Andreesen Foot Grooming Fund at
http://www.concentric.net/~rcade/2wheeze.html
Please take it to rec.arts.books.
P Nielsen Hayden
: Since this thread is not immediately pertinent to science fiction and
With all due respect, Elizabeth, I disagree.
This thread does appear to be winding itself down. But I have to register a
protest at the idea that a discussion of this sort suddenly becomes
inappropriate for rec.arts.sf.written if some of the posts happen to discuss
supposedly "mainstream" writers rather than canonical SF and fantasy types.
The issue itself -- the relationship of storytelling to individual beliefs,
to politics, religion, or ideology -- is central to SF and fantasy.
Personally, I'm not interested in discussing it with the denizens of
rec.arts.books. I don't know them and don't much care what they think. I
am interested, however, in what (for instance) Crawford Kilian thinks. And
in what you think.
If our conversation should happen to range beyond the boundaries of the
commercial genre for a post or two (although I was mentioning genre writers
as well, as I recall), well, since when were those boundaries set for us by
God On High?
We have been touching on, for instance, Ezra Pound, an artist whose greatest
work begins with a fantastic narrative about sailing into a Mediterranean
dominated by the Attic gods and goddesses -- and which proceeds from there
to range throughout history, the Middle Ages in particular, touching on
magic, hermeticism, economics, science, and a tragic vision of what might
have been. When we ask ourselves whether this is a fit subject for
discussion in rec.arts.sf.written, how much should it matter to us that the
work wasn't published by Spectra, Tor, or Del Rey?
Crawford Kilian
[entering extreme devils-advocate mode]:
Suppose some individual gets a lot of little kids of some particular
sex and race, murders them, and uses their blood as coloration in
some painting or other visual work. Should we as people in an (allegedly)
free society judge this "art" independently of the crimes? After the
criminal has been dealt with by the justice system, would it be ok to
compile the artwork in a book and send it off to libraries?
CK: Much depends on what we know. Perhaps the cave paintings of Lascaux were
mere decoration for what we would consider crimes--just as Mayan and Aztec
art often depicts human sacrifice. But we don't know what went on among the
Lascaux artists, so we can regard their work on its merits as art, and
appreciate it albeit naively and incompletetely.
We tend to associate art with "higher" social values, and to feel shocked
when it's associated instead with brutality and violence...as in the passage
in Schindler's List where the Nazi pauses in the destruction of the ghetto to
play a classical work on a Jewish-owned piano. But the more we learn about
art, the more we understand that it does very little to improve behavior.
John again:
In a less theoretical mode, is it ok to use the results of Nazi
medical experimentation on captive humans for valid modern medical
research and development? Is it ok to use the results of modern
free-society medical experimentation on captive non-humans?
CK: A key ethical issue is finding the line between "us" and the exploitable
environment-- ultimately, the line between civilization and cannibalism. In
extreme cases, cannibalism is acceptable...but those are rare. If the Nazis'
findings were reliable, and could be applied to saving other lives, then its
use would be justified.
From the point of view of most domesticated animals, we are highly successful
Nazis, tyrant apes: we experiment on them, we deprive them of freedom, we
kill them for our convenience. Some of us have begun to reject that attitude,
adopting vegetarianism and animal-rights beliefs which the rest of us find
absurd.
Crawford Kilian
cki...@hubcap.mlnet.com
Marie Loughin
>rc...@mail.concentric.net (Rogers Cadenhead) writes:
>> I'm always amazed when a writer I've been introduced to in school or
>> elsewhere turns out to be a hateful anti-Semite, racist or sexist in
>> his or her personal life. I'm toying with the idea of putting online a
>> web page devoted to "outing" the classic authors of the past whose
>> beliefs were less than classic, figuring that other readers would like
>> to know things of this kind.
>>
>> Who should top the list?
>>
>>
>Every writer in the bloody history of the planet.
Yes, anyone has warts if you want to look for them, and I'd rather
not know about the ones on my favorite authors' noses.
Karen Lofstrom
: I think you believe you're arguing for a generous, open-minded attitude in
: which we don't simply prejudge art on the basis of externalities. And I
: share that. But of _course_ these externalities affect "how we respond to
: the work," even if we bring a generous spirit to the experience. We're
: human beings, not mass spectrometers.
A case in point: I enjoy Gilbert and Sullivan. I don't like the way
Gilbert's libretti poke fun at older women (Katisha and Ruth, to name
just a couple). However, I'm prepared to set that aside in order to
enjoy the music and the wit.
All other things being equal, I prefer authors whose moral standards
are closer to mine. When I read Trollope, there are always passages
that make me wince; when I read George Eliot, I can enjoy the
language, characters AND the pervading moral seriousness. However,
I'd rather read Trollope than morally unexceptionable hackwork.
I'm trying to think of some way of bringing this back to SF. Is there
an SF or fantasy author whose books I read despite discomfort with
their moral underpinnings? The only thing that comes to mind is
_Lucifer's Hammer_, which I enjoy as an end-of-the-world novel despite
its sexist/militarist overtones.
--
Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't think it's reasonable to expect anyone to realize you're joking
just because you're posting something that is patently deranged.
-- Craig Dickson
P Nielsen Hayden
: Yes, anyone has warts if you want to look for them, and I'd rather
: not know about the ones on my favorite authors' noses.
And I would. As you say, everyone has flaws. Our particular flaws as well
as our particular strengths make us human, make us interesting, make us (for
pity's sake) individuals.
Often the flaws and the strengths are two sides of the same thing.
It's very odd to see SF fans, of all people, putting forth the idea that it
is better not to know things than to know things. Don't you think?
Robert G. Buice, Jr
(Rogers Cadenhead) wrote:
> To my dismay, I am beginning to believe that I won't be able to make
> the people on rec.arts.sf.written love me (or my idea). In fact, I
> would not be surprised if someone here tries to document my offensive
> beliefs on a web page. (If not today, someone in the future will
> probably do so based on their warped cyber-sense of right and wrong).
>
> I'll try to put the start for the web page online this coming week so
> that you can see what I'm talking about. In the meantime, by all means
> let us continue arguing the point! If nothing else, it makes for
> interesting reading. Are all the discussions here this good?
The only way to include "bad author beleifs" information in an intelligent
manner is to make a page that includes biographies of all aspects of all
authors. Then you may include posible controversial information fairly,
otherwise you are painting an unfair picture of the people you wouold
single out, and your page would be reduced to the caliber of useless
scandal sheet or tabloid.
--
Robert G. Buice,Jr supe...@pop.uky.edu
Analytical Spectroscopy Group Phone:(606) 257-5175
College of Pharmacy
University of Kentucky
PGP Key: http://kerouac.pharm.uky.edu/buice/rgbuice.html
William George Ferguson
>I'm trying to think of some way of bringing this back to SF. Is there
>an SF or fantasy author whose books I read despite discomfort with
>their moral underpinnings? The only thing that comes to mind is
>_Lucifer's Hammer_, which I enjoy as an end-of-the-world novel despite
>its sexist/militarist overtones.
OK, I've read Heinlein the late 50s. I've read and enjoyed Starship
Troopers more than once, although the arguments presented at certain
points (primarily the school scenes at the beginning and the officer
training later on) had talking back to the book out loud.
William George Ferguson
>A lot of the heat generated by this topic has been the notion that I'm
>trying to condemn these folks for their intolerant beliefs. That's not
>the point -- I just think it's a subject that deserves more "air time"
>than it has been given in traditional sources of information about
>classic authors and poets. If Shakespeare (mentioned several times
>here for reasons I know not) was an anti-Semite, and there's
>documentation to that effect, it's an interesting subject.
Once upon a time, Shakespeare wrote a play, The Merchant Of Venice,
which featured a Jewish villain, Shylock. The play is generally not
considered pro-Jewish.
William George Ferguson
> I thought the moral of _Puddin' Head Wilson_ was a bit muddled:
>The 'white' boy is labeled a 'black' slave is crippled by his upbringing
>and ends up an offensive stereotype but the 'black' boy who is raised as
>'white' turns out to be a vicious murderer. There's either a certain lack
>of symmetry there, or Twain had a much dimmer view of 1800s American white
>folk than I though he did.
It would be very difficult for Twain to have had a dimmer view of
1800s American white folk (as a subset of his view on All folk) than I
think he did. Clemens admired individuals, but had an extremely
cynical view of people as a group.
Robert Sneddon
cki...@hubcap.mlnet.com "Crawford Kilian" writes:
{Clip]
>
> From the point of view of most domesticated animals, we are highly successful
> Nazis, tyrant apes: we experiment on them, we deprive them of freedom, we
> kill them for our convenience. Some of us have begun to reject that attitude,
> adopting vegetarianism and animal-rights beliefs which the rest of us find
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> absurd.
>
> Crawford Kilian
> cki...@hubcap.mlnet.com
>
What have you got against vegetables? Some of my best friends
are vegetables....
("And they take so long to die." - Leslie Fish - Thresher Shark)
Analog ran a story a while back, entitled (IIRC) "Equal Rights
for Germs!" about activists challenging manufacturers of
antibiotics, antiseptics and inoculants in court.
"Free the Smallpox Nine Billion!"
--
"This self-destruct button doesn't work! I want my money back!"
Robert (nojay) Sneddon
Rick Cook
> I just think the bad should be offered alongside the good when discussing
the author's life.
>
Very true. But that's not what you're proposing.
--RC
Rick Cook
>Actually, no. I was hoping to get suggestions for the worst offenders
'worst offenders' by whose standards? What is considered offensive changes
with time and place -- not to mention the individual. To take a very real
example, would you consider listing the writers who eat meat as offensive?
How about someone who was an excruciating example of political correctness?
>rather than having to debate the issue of whether its relevant to know
>that an 18th century novelist was an anti-Semite. I think it is. Even
>if it isn't relevant, it's interesting information.
For you perhaps. For me what is interesting is the whole person and why he
or she believed the things he or she did and how actions were affected. You
don't get that from reverse hagiography any more than hagiography.
But it's your web page. If you want to, go ahead.
>If I was trolling, I would've suggested a web site listing authors who
>have had abortions.
Well, that would be another way to do it. Actually you're going to get
flame wars on this anyway. If you want to set it up, fine.
__RC
Rick Cook
>A lot of the heat generated by this topic has been the notion that I'm
>trying to condemn these folks for their intolerant beliefs. That's not
>the point -- I just think it's a subject that deserves more "air time"
>than it has been given in traditional sources of information about
>classic authors and poets.
Rogers, do you have the least little idea how much 'air time' this subject
actually gets? It is one of the favorite topics of writers about writers
and the literature is absolutely enormous.
> If Shakespeare (mentioned several times here for reasons I know not)
Ye ghods and little fishes! You know I think this project might do you some
good -- but only if you're the one who has to dig the informartion out of
the biographies. It would broaden your education considerably. For starters
on Shakespeare you could read "The Merchant of Venice."
> was an >anti-Semite, and there's documentation to that effect, it's an
interesting >subject.
There's documentation all right, but what does it mean? Like other evidence
it has to be interpreted in context. The problem with your proposed method
is that it utterly strips away the context.
Sometimes that leaves it about as relevant as the statement that a 1990s
urban SF author has never mistreated a horse or a slave in his life.
--RC
Rick Cook
>Surprisingly, yes.
>
>Here's a counterexample: Julius Caesar owned slaves. It was a poor
>Roman family indeed that did not. Was Caesar an evil man because of
>his slave ownership?
>
of slavery. Now what, precisely, does that fact lifted out of context tell
us about Socrates and Plato?
--RC
Rick Cook
> There's either a certain lack
>of symmetry there, or Twain had a much dimmer view of 1800s American white
>folk than I though he did.
Probably the latter. Have you ever read the collections of Twain's letters?
Bitingly funny -- with the emphasis on 'bitingly'.
--RC
Doug Tricarico
|> el...@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) wrote:
|>
|> >What is the point of this activity? Whom will it benefit?
|>
|> My goals are far less serious, but who benefits from the actions of
|> KlanWatch or the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith? (Dear lord, I
|> know I've mangled that last spelling!). Information is a good thing.
|>
|> >One usually finds racial, classist, ethnic, and sexist slurs in
|> >writers who were sadly disadvantaged by being born into societies
|> >where such beliefs were normal, accepted, and socially
|> >uncontroviersial. (For a fine example, see Anthony Trollope's
|> >treatments of Jews. Or try Walter Scott. Or Dorothy Sayers. Or E.
|> >Nesbit. Et cetera.) One finds them in works by modern, living
|> >writers as well.
|>
|> I don't think society excuses the individual. Just because a person is
|> raised among anti-Semites does not mean that anti-Semitism is
|> acceptable. We all have the ability to rise above our environment.That
|> was as true in Trollope's day as it is today.
|>
|> >The intelligent reader knows and understands this and is capable of
|> >reading a work which expresses social standards which differ from his
|> >or her own, allowing for differences in mores and ethics, without too
|> >much outrage to the sensibilities. The reader who is incapable of
|> >doing so had better stick to a carefully-screened selection of
|> >inoffensive works from the post-WWII era.
|>
|> Why is telling someone about Ezra Pound's personal beliefs tantamount
|> to telling them not to read Pound? Is it better not to publicize the
|> information because it might discourage people from reading an
|> author's work?
Don't forget to make a list of writers who were alcoholics, drug
abusers, obese, were immigrants, had long hair or didn't like corn
for those of us who are interested in those aspects of an author's
personl life -- because I certainly will not read anyone's work who
doesn't live exactly my way or dress as I do or talk the way like me.
Doug
P Nielsen Hayden
: Andrew Hackard wrote:
: >Surprisingly, yes.
: >
: >Here's a counterexample: Julius Caesar owned slaves. It was a poor
: >Roman family indeed that did not. Was Caesar an evil man because of
: >his slave ownership?
: Here's a better counter-example. Both Socrates and Plato throughly approved
: of slavery. Now what, precisely, does that fact lifted out of context tell
: us about Socrates and Plato?
Well, among other things, it tells us that, although Socrates and Plato are
wellsprings of Western humanism, there's nothing about their thought or
their worldview that precludes something we would today consider barbaric.
Obviously, it doesn't mean we should discard Socrates and Plato, although
I'm sure you can find crackpots willing to advocate just that. If anything,
it should help us understand them even better and appreciate them more.
Doug Tricarico
|> In article <4lc7me$c...@maroon.tc.umn.edu>, d...@maroon.tc.umn.edu says...
|> >
|> >No. We're talking about times when the overwhelming majority of American
|> >and Western European whites believed in the Biblical account of human
|> >history -- and it's made fairly clear that all humans were descended
|> >from Adam and Eve, and all those in post-Flood times were descended from
|> >Noah's family.
|>
|> Right -- whites from Japeth, Jews and Asians from Shem, and blacks from the
|> accursed Ham who looked upon his father's nakedness and was therefore
|> condemned for the rest of eternity to be servant to his brothers...
|>
|> You think the slavery advocates hadn't found Biblical justification?
|>
|> peoples" had suffered such degeneration from the curse as to no longer be
|> entirely human at all.
|>
|> (Note: My great-great grandfather was an Abolitionist politician. My
|> family's got a two-hundred-year history of fighting this sort of crap.)
THIS is a much better thread -- who's families have been standing for
what's noble and right. It's more positive, in any rate, which'll piss
of the hatemongers.
Doug
(I'll have to except myself from the debate, since the blood of both
Julius Caesar and Vercingetorix runs through my veins, so I'll lose no
matter which side of the fence anyone comes down on.)
Stephen Dedman
>In article <4lbe5o$2...@tribune.concentric.net> rc...@mail.concentric.net (Rogers Cadenhead) writes:
>>dst...@math.mit.edu (Daniel J. Starr) wrote:
>>
>>>You proposed marking down Trollope and Shakespeare and so on as Bad People
>>>because of their crime of not questioning something that was not questioned
>>>or even discussed by anyone they ever met.
>>
>>Such as? Name an offensive belief in their time that was so ingrained
>>in their society as to completely excuse them for sharing it.
> Well, anti-Semitism, which I believe is what Daniel was referring to
>in his post, was indeed a very deeply ingrained belief for a very long
>time. It was more of less taken for granted that the Jews were
>"different" from everyone else, and "different" was usually interpreted
>as inferior.
> For that matter, the inferiority of women was an ingrained belief
>in some places for quite some time.
> I'll agree with you that in many cases, things are not so clear
>cut - certainly there was much debate over slavery in the 18th and 19th,
>and after a certain point much debate about the status of women. But I
>think that it is probably safe to say that for Shakespeare, his
>anti-Semitism was a deeply ingrained cultural assumption, probably never
>questioned by him.
It is unlikely that Shakespeare ever met a practising Jew: Jews were
banned from entering England until well after 'The Merchant of Venice' was
written. Shylock is far more complex and sympathetic than most of the
Jewish villains popular in plays by Marlowe, Webster, and other
playwrights of the time (when played by Warren Mitchell, for example, he
seems far more appealling than his persecutors - not that there's much to
choose between a loan shark and lawyer <g>).
>> >Example: It's 1800. Is an American slaver somehow absolved
>of the
>>crime of owning another human being because so many of his neighbors
>>did so as well? Did it really take the passage of time to cultivate
>>the notion that slavery was wrong?
Sadly, yes. While Euripides denounced slavery as 'by its nature evil'
centuries ago, there's no sign that anyone was listening. Slavery is
never condemned in the Bible, which was probably justification enough for
most Christian slaveowners.
>>Example: The My Lai massacre. Soldiers work in an
>environment
>where >it's dangerous to disregard an order and dangerous to question
>>authority. Are they absolved of responsibility for their conduct? I
>>hope not.
> I'm not quite sure what to say to these. I think we need to
>strike a balance here between the recognition that there are some
>actions/ideas that it is very difficult not to condemn, and the
>recognition that it is difficult for people to rise above the prevailing
>social standards of their time.
>
> I think what Daniel is trying to say, is that while we cannot
>blithely absolve Trollope and Shakespeare of any blame, we also cannot
>put them in quite the same category as Pound, who in some sense "ought to
>have known better."
> Similarly, in the case of the slaver, I think it is a mitigating
>circumstance that he was part of a society which condoned his actions,
>which even promoted (often with "scientific" evidence) the idea that
>there were races which were inherently inferior, and fit only to be
>slaves. There were even people who claimed that their slaves were
>better off than they would have been otherwise. This doesn't excuse
>their slaveowning, but I think it is important to point out that some
>slave owners were otherwise good, well-intentioned people. (And some of
>them were also the most vicious, cruel, and frightening people I have
>ever heard of.)
>
>>>This is a far cry from Ezra Pound, who held his beliefs even though there
>>>were many around him who could have - and some who no doubt did - point out
>>>the errors and hatefulness of them.
>>
>>I do not think that enlightened people are a modern invention.
>
> No, but people tend to judge things according to the values their
>culture gives them. I don't think that we can simply condemn them
>without at least recognizing that fact.
>>>No doubt some 22nd-century reincarnation of yourself will condemn Elizabeth
>>>Willey for her outdated fin-de-siecle 20th-century morals when he reads
>>>_A Sorcerer and a Gentleman_. I just hope her reincarnation is around to
>>>rebut him.
>>
>>To my descendant I say, "Good luck." I hope those in your era are more
>>interested in an open discussion of intolerant beliefs than in
>>protecting the reputations of writers.
>>
>>Why is it acceptable to present biographical information about Ezra
>>Pound without discussing his intolerant beliefs? Isn't that omission
>>an effort to spread a falsehood? If it's relevant to discuss where he
>>was born, where he went to school, what publications he wrote for, and
>>so on, is it not relevant that he publicly espoused some hateful
>>beliefs?
>>
>Note that Daniel is actually condemning Pound above, not defending him.
>In any case, I happen to think that a writer's intolerant beliefs
>_should_ be discussed. But we do have to do it with a certain sense of
>historical context. I'm not trying to "defend the reputation" of Pound
>or Trollope or Shakespeare. But I do think that it is important to note
>that if we say "Shakespeare was an anti-Semite," that so was virtually
>everyone else in England at the time.
>-----wendy
>> >-----
>>Rogers Cadenhead
>>rc...@mail.concentric.net
>>-----
>>Give to the Marc Andreesen Foot Grooming Fund at
>>http://www.concentric.net/~rcade/2wheeze.html
>>
>>
>--
>Wendy Shaffer | Reality is that which, when you stop
>(sha...@minerva.cis.yale.edu) | believing in it, it doesn't go away.
>http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~shaffer| -Philip K. Dick, _VALIS_
P Nielsen Hayden
: In article <4l9m0s$j...@tribune.concentric.net>, rc...@mail.concentric.net (Rogers Cadenhead) writes:
[stuff snipped]
: |>
: |> Why is telling someone about Ezra Pound's personal beliefs tantamount
: |> to telling them not to read Pound? Is it better not to publicize the
: |> information because it might discourage people from reading an
: |> author's work?
: |>
: |> -----
: |> Rogers Cadenhead
: |> rc...@mail.concentric.net
: |> -----
: Don't forget to make a list of writers who were alcoholics, drug
: abusers, obese, were immigrants, had long hair or didn't like corn
: for those of us who are interested in those aspects of an author's
: personl life -- because I certainly will not read anyone's work who
: doesn't live exactly my way or dress as I do or talk the way like me.
Did you actually _read_ the post by Rogers Cadenhead that you quoted? In
particular, the part where he says (see above) "Why is telling someone about
Ezra Pound's personal beliefs tantamount to telling them not to read Pound?"
You seem to be leaping to the conclusion that Cadenhead is suggesting that
we should "not read anyone's work who doesn't live exactly my way," etc.,
when in fact Cadenhead has pretty specifically said he's saying nothing of
the sort. It's hard to see how Cadenhead could have been clearer about
this; you quoted him yourself. Perhaps you simply didn't read that far.
I think Cadenhead's original proposal was a bit silly, because it's hardly
breaking news that (say) Pound, or Shakespeare, had anti-Semitic beliefs.
But even sillier is the way some people in this thread are going for the
Usenet Olympics gold medal in the Jumping To Conclusions category.
Colin Rosenthal
>d...@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Daniel S Goodman) wrote:
>
>>Perhaps more to the point: There was nothing in T. S. Eliot's society
>>which required him to be an anti-Semite -- which he seems to have become,
>>at least openly, only after adopting a new culture.
>
>>On the other hand -- Mark Twain and others have been more tolerant than
>>was normal for their societies.
>
>This is why I think information of this kind is valuable. I've been a
>T.S. Eliot fan since being introduced to him in junior high school
>with "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". I read all of his work I
>could find after that, and have enjoyed it immensely.
>
>However, I only discovered recently of some of his distasteful
>personal beliefs. Why were they never considered relevant in the Eliot
>material I was exposed to early in school? I think the information is
>relevant. Does it change my opinion of his work? Not that much. Does
>it change my opinion of the man? Certainly.
>
>Gerard Depardieu is capable of making terrific movies, regardless of
>the rapes he has admitted to participating in as a young street punk
>in the past. (He has said as much in interviews in Film Comment and
>elsewhere). Is it political correctness on my part to tell you that
>Depardieu raped a woman? Would you rather not know?
My understanding was that the belief that he had participated in a
rape was based on a mistranlslation. He had actually _witnessed_ the
rape. Moreover, since he was nine years old at the time, I would tend
to regard him as an additional victim of the crime rather than an
accomplice.
--Colin Rosenthal | ``Don't smell the flowers -
--rose...@obs.aau.dk | They're an evil drug -
--http://www.obs.aau.dk/~rosentha | To make you lose your mind''-
--Aarhus University, Denmark | Ronnie James Dio, 1983 -
Arthur Hlavaty
: From the point of view of most domesticated animals, we are highly successful
: Nazis, tyrant apes: we experiment on them, we deprive them of freedom, we
: kill them for our convenience. Some of us have begun to reject that attitude,
: adopting vegetarianism and animal-rights beliefs which the rest of us find
: absurd.
If I thought domesticated animals had a "point of view" which included
the complex concepts you are attributing to them, I would change my view
of how to treat them.
--
Arthur D. Hlavaty hla...@panix.com
Church of the SuperGenius In Wile E. We Trust
\\\ E-zine available on request. ///
Doug Tricarico
Um, I was kidding. "Talk the way like me" shoulda been the pointer, if
nothing else. (Pun-like references to "The Way" are probably not as
popular as they used to be -- it *is* kind of an obscure call-back.
Thank God I stopped before "fags and lezzies.")
D.
James Nicoll
William George Ferguson <fr...@primenet.com> wrote:
>rc...@mail.concentric.net (Rogers Cadenhead) wrote:
>
>>A lot of the heat generated by this topic has been the notion that I'm
>>trying to condemn these folks for their intolerant beliefs. That's not
>>the point -- I just think it's a subject that deserves more "air time"
>>than it has been given in traditional sources of information about
>>here for reasons I know not) was an anti-Semite, and there's
>>documentation to that effect, it's an interesting subject.
>
>which featured a Jewish villain, Shylock. The play is generally not
>considered pro-Jewish.
Although Shylock had his faults, I'd much rather deal with him
than the deadbeat merchants in MoV. Were they supposed to be portrayed
in a sympathetic light? They rip him off and then friends fix the
court case for them--*there's* a pair of fine role models.
James Nicoll
--
" The moral, if you're a scholar don't pick up beautiful babes on deserted
lanes at night. Real Moral, Chinese ghost stories have mostly been written
by scholars who have some pretty strange fantasies about women."
Brian David Phillips
James Nicoll
>Crawford Kilian (cki...@hubcap.mlnet.com) wrote:
>
>: From the point of view of most domesticated animals, we are highly successful
>: Nazis, tyrant apes: we experiment on them, we deprive them of freedom, we
>: kill them for our convenience. Some of us have begun to reject that attitude,
>: adopting vegetarianism and animal-rights beliefs which the rest of us find
>: absurd.
>
>If I thought domesticated animals had a "point of view" which included
>the complex concepts you are attributing to them, I would change my view
>of how to treat them.
Well, I grew up on a farm and while I will gladly eat cow meat or
rabbit meat, pigs are just a little too smart for me to eat comfortably.
Luckily, pork makes me sick, so this isn't a huge sacrifice.
Of course, we could breed them for stupidity, like we did turkeys.
LAL
(Rogers Cadenhead) wrote:
> I'm always amazed when a writer I've been introduced to in school or
> elsewhere turns out to be a hateful anti-Semite, racist or sexist in
> his or her personal life. I'm toying with the idea of putting online a
> web page devoted to "outing" the classic authors of the past whose
> beliefs were less than classic, figuring that other readers would like
> to know things of this kind.
>
> Who should top the list?
The proposed list is endless, for it must include every person who ever
put chisel to stone, quill to papyrus, pen to paper, or finger to
keyboard. But in spite of the overwhelming number of candidates, I have a
nominee to lead your proposed list.
I nominate YOU for dual hateful characteristics of :
1) Blind <Political Correctness>.
2) <Trolling Flamebait> past the noses of helpless r.a.sf.w denizens.
--
Standard disclaimers apply. Nobody here ever agrees with me on anything.
Macarthur William
William George Ferguson <fr...@primenet.com> wrote:
>rc...@mail.concentric.net (Rogers Cadenhead) wrote:
>
>>A lot of the heat generated by this topic has been the notion that I'm
>>trying to condemn these folks for their intolerant beliefs. That's not
>>the point -- I just think it's a subject that deserves more "air time"
>>than it has been given in traditional sources of information about
>>classic authors and poets. If Shakespeare (mentioned several times
>>here for reasons I know not) was an anti-Semite, and there's
>>documentation to that effect, it's an interesting subject.
>
>Once upon a time, Shakespeare wrote a play, The Merchant Of Venice,
>which featured a Jewish villain, Shylock. The play is generally not
>considered pro-Jewish.
Britain around this time) the treatment Shylock receives is not extreme.
The play makes the point that Shylock had no choice in life but usuary
because no other doors were open. If Englishmen, Scots, Danes, French,
Moors and Romans can be bad guys in Shakespeare's plays why not Jews?
James Nicoll
>> I thought the moral of _Puddin' Head Wilson_ was a bit muddled:
>>The 'white' boy is labeled a 'black' slave is crippled by his upbringing
>>and ends up an offensive stereotype but the 'black' boy who is raised as
>>of symmetry there, or Twain had a much dimmer view of 1800s American white
>
>It would be very difficult for Twain to have had a dimmer view of
>1800s American white folk (as a subset of his view on All folk) than I
>think he did. Clemens admired individuals, but had an extremely
>cynical view of people as a group.
Yes, but I didn't think he thought of whites as killers. To
me, there's a lack of similarity in degree of badness between servility
and homocide.
I wonder on occasion what happened to the boy raised as a slave
after he was suddenly pronounced to be white?
ObSF: PUddin' Head Wilson used high-tech to determine what was
going on in PHW: the awesome technology of *fingerprinting*. Wasn't Twain
the author who had a character sell his soul to the devil in exchange
for the secret of radium power? That might be the earliest example
of fission power in SF.
James Nicoll,
Who just had a vision of PHW redone as a techno-thriller, by
Tom Clancy, say. Urg.
Dorothy J Heydt
Macarthur William <bil...@uwindsor.ca> wrote:
>...I believe that Jews were banned from
>Britain around [Shakespeare's time.....
Earlier than that. I'm not sure of the date, but 1300-ish. Many
of them went to Scotland.
Dorothy J. Heydt
djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu
University of California
Berkeley
David Silbey
utr...@dsdprod.meaddata.com (Doug Tricarico) wrote:
>In article <4l9m0s$j...@tribune.concentric.net>, rc...@mail.concentric.net
>(Rogers Cadenhead) writes:
>|> Why is telling someone about Ezra Pound's personal beliefs tantamount
>|> to telling them not to read Pound? Is it better not to publicize the
>|> information because it might discourage people from reading an
>|> author's work?
>Don't forget to make a list of writers who were alcoholics, drug
>abusers, obese, were immigrants, had long hair or didn't like corn
>for those of us who are interested in those aspects of an author's
>personl life -- because I certainly will not read anyone's work who
>doesn't live exactly my way or dress as I do or talk the way like me.
I rather thought that that was what Mr. Cadenhead was explicitly saying he
DIDN'T want to do; produce a resource so that people could decide who to
read based on their personal beliefs or behavior.
His proposal fills me with some unease. I don't think that we should
actively shun hearing unpleasant things about great and good writers, but
at the same time, this kind of reference is extremely open to abuse.
On the other hand, avoiding the truth doesn't leave an entirely pleasant
taste in my mouth. Jefferson was a slave owner. That doesn't change that
he was a pivotal leader in American history, but it allows us a more
tempered view of his as a human being who, in this case at least, could not
rise above the teaching of his society.
As for cultural relativism, I think that founders on certain extreme acts.
A society that condones slavery, or female circumcision, or murder is a
deeply flawed society. I don't think that I am imposing modern day
morality on the past to say such a thing, or if I am,I don't believe that
such an imposition is impermissble.
To bring it back to SF, I have heard things about Isaac Asimov that made me
think less of him. They don't stop me from reading his works, or enjoying
them, but they did affect my judgement about him as a person. I am not
going to repeat them, because my sources are hardly reliable, and I have no
way of knowing if they are actually true or not, but in this case I have
been able to separate the works from the author.
David
_____
David J Silbey Duke University sil...@dircon.co.uk
Paula Sanch
>Information on an author's personal beliefs is as relevant as any
>other biographical information that is offered on the author. You can
>argue that it has no relevance at all on how we respond to the work,
>and I'm not trying to dispute that. I just think the bad should be
>offered alongside the good when discussing the author's life.
Then perhaps you should be writing biographies, so that we have their
lives in context (assuming we have the interest).
Paula...@emich.edu
-----------------------------
"We can disagree without being disagreeable."
(Sis. Mickey Eaton, a southern Pentecostal)
Paula Sanch
>rc...@mail.concentric.net (Rogers Cadenhead) wrote:
>>I'm always amazed when a writer I've been introduced to in school or
>>elsewhere turns out to be a hateful anti-Semite, racist or sexist in
>>his or her personal life. I'm toying with the idea of putting online a
>>web page devoted to "outing" the classic authors of the past whose
>>beliefs were less than classic, figuring that other readers would like
>>to know things of this kind.
>>[...]
> I have some qualms about imposing modern values on people who
>lived in other times (and basically other cultures). It was very
>common and acceptable for people to be racist or sexist as recently as
>50 or so years ago. Someone raised from birth to racist or sexist in
>such a time will likely be so, regardless of their intelligence. If
>we start branding particular authors for beliefs that merely reflected
>the overwhelming consensus of people when they lived, is that judging
>them fairly? Now, if that person has been writing in say, the post
>WWII period, there really is a shift in the consensus and such beliefs
>were no longer acceptable to the majority. *That* is where there
>might be a need for such a list.
Sounds like McCarthyism to me.
Why should it matter to me what the personal views of writers I love
or hate might be? What matters to me is whether I enjoy their works.
Other information is extraneous; interesting, *maybe*, but I can't
imagine it making a difference in how I feel about a particular piece
of prose.
Joel Rosenberg
>>
>>Once upon a time, Shakespeare wrote a play, The Merchant Of Venice,
>>which featured a Jewish villain, Shylock. The play is generally not
>>considered pro-Jewish.
>Given the context of the time (I believe that Jews were banned from
>Britain around this time) the treatment Shylock receives is not extreme.
>The play makes the point that Shylock had no choice in life but usuary
>because no other doors were open. If Englishmen, Scots, Danes, French,
>Moors and Romans can be bad guys in Shakespeare's plays why not Jews?
If by "can" you really mean "can without being fairly subject to criticism",
well, perhaps were there some positive Jewish characters in Shakespeare's
work, there might be a case. (I'll certainly listen to the argument that
Shylock is not an utter villain, but I won't give it a whole lot of credence,
on balance.)
Joel Rosenberg | jo...@winternet.com | http://www.winternet.com/~joelr
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the
hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the
appalling silence of the good people.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Joel Rosenberg
It's been some years since I studied any of this stuff, but if I recall correctly, the rabbis
differentiate between Noah, who the Bible refers to as a "good man in [read: for] his time"
with Abraham, referred to as "good man." It's an important distinction, I think, that lets
one accept Shakespeare and Socrates and Jefferson without letting them off the hook.
Pan
[deletion]
> There's documentation all right, but what does it mean? Like other evidence
> it has to be interpreted in context. The problem with your proposed method
> is that it utterly strips away the context.
>
> Sometimes that leaves it about as relevant as the statement that a 1990s
> urban SF author has never mistreated a horse or a slave in his life.
>
> --RC
About this topic - wasn't there a school of "New Criticism" at the U. of
Chicago that viewed a book as an object-to-be-criticized without any
consideration of the writer of that book?
Stories seem to survive the passage of time a lot better than biographical
details about the writers. After 2,000+ years there may be speculation
about Homer; what we have is the story he(they) left for us to read. I wonder
what a graph of duration of story versus breadth of writer's biodata would
look like.
Of course, electronic media will probably preserve biographical detail
far longer now.
Pan
Robin E. Baylor
(William George Ferguson) wrote:
> Once upon a time, Shakespeare wrote a play, The Merchant Of Venice,
> which featured a Jewish villain, Shylock. The play is generally not
> considered pro-Jewish.
And yet, this is where the "If you prick me, do I not bleed?"
solliloquy comes from. How much of an anti-semite was Shakespeare,
really?
--
It's you & me against the world; When do we attack?
Robin
Scott Northrop
[ deletia, further pointing out that the proposal was _not_ intended
to discourage reading these authors ]
: I think Cadenhead's original proposal was a bit silly, because it's hardly
: breaking news that (say) Pound, or Shakespeare, had anti-Semitic beliefs.
: But even sillier is the way some people in this thread are going for the
: Usenet Olympics gold medal in the Jumping To Conclusions category.
Silly it may be, but the ensuing discussion turned up people
to whom it _was_ news that Pound and Shakespeare had anti-Semitic
beliefs. I still like the idea of the list, because of the
countless people I've run into who've read a smattering of philosophy
and glommed onto some philosopher who had an idea they liked
and now this is their hero Who Can Do No Wrong. I tend to
assume that _anything_ (well, not anything, but nearly) that
interferes with sacralizing texts and authors is A Real Good Thing.
I certainly would not treat such a list as Authors Whose Texts
I Will Avoid -- although I might treat it as, things to look
for when I read something by this person. In exactly
the same way I am sensitized to use of language when told
that an author's style is particularly good, or dialogue,
when told it is particularly wooden, etc. etc. etc. If
I know a book influenced an author I've read, I'll look for
traces of that.
Finally, I was very surprised that people think it somehow
bad to have a list of authors who betray trait x which
was common when they were alive. In addition to the
fact that the author still displayed trait x, which is
presumably interesting to somebody, I would think by now
that _many_ readers, when noting an "unusual" trait or idea,
consider whether it may seem "unusual" because the time
and place of the author was different from the reader.
Only people fool enough to think that such a list is
intended to be used to avoid reading would be fool
enough to assume that all traits possessed by author
x are possessed by that author independent of their
cultural milieu.
--
Rebecca Allen standard disclaimers apply reb...@amazon.com
Joel Rosenberg
>rose...@aauobs.obs.aau.dk (Colin Rosenthal) wrote:
>>My understanding was that the belief that he had participated in a
>>rape was based on a mistranlslation. He had actually _witnessed_ the
>>rape. Moreover, since he was nine years old at the time, I would tend
>>to regard him as an additional victim of the crime rather than an
>>accomplice.
>The article I read said that he was 14. In any case, though, the
>comments Depardieu made to the interviewer about the event were along
>the same lines as "some women are asking for it". It was a pretty
>reprehensible thing to say, as I recall. Wish I had the source to
>cite.
Okay, but . . . saying a reprehensible thing isn't necessarily the same thing
as doing a reprehensible thing.
("Who will rid me of this turbulent Priest," as Harlan Ellison once said,
aside.)
Daniel S Goodman
enthusiastic about his work if they read -- and absorbed -- the passage in
JUNKIE where he vents his prejudice against marijuana smokers.
Dan Goodman
P Nielsen Hayden
: sil...@dircon.co.uk (David Silbey) wrote:
: >To bring it back to SF, I have heard things about Isaac Asimov that made me
: >think less of him. They don't stop me from reading his works, or enjoying
: >them, but they did affect my judgement about him as a person. I am not
: >going to repeat them, because my sources are hardly reliable, and I have no
: >way of knowing if they are actually true or not, but in this case I have
: >been able to separate the works from the author.
: This is a case where it would be nice to see someone take the effort
: to address the allegations regarding Asimov. If they're groundless,
: that's good to know as well. I've heard nasty aspersions against
: Heinlein's character for years, and never had the chance to find out
: if any of it is true.
Well, this is the kind of public discussion that leaves people with a bad
taste in their mouth. Referring darkly to "allegations" without hinting
what they might be, so of course in people's imaginations they could be
anything.
My best guess is that the "allegations" about Asimov are that he was a
bit of a groper. That he was, but a harmless and genial one by and large.
And Heinlein could be stiffnecked and dogmatic. Well, boy howdy, you'll
never find people like _that_ in the con suite. Quick, get the rope.
In all seriousness, I'd like to ask: how many memoirs of the field have you
read? How many fanzines, how many issues of journals like FOUNDATION? "It
would be nice to see someone take the effort," you say, but it's pretty
obvious _you_ haven't "taken the effort" to familiarize yourself with any of
the enormous amount of writing and commentary that already exists on
personalities in the SF field.
I don't mean to be too hard on you, but you know, your education is not our
responsibility. If you're interested in SF history, well, go to the library
and read some.
Mike Gannis
>It's been some years since I studied any of this stuff, but if I recall correctly, the rabbis
>differentiate between Noah, who the Bible refers to as a "good man in [read: for] his time"
>with Abraham, referred to as "good man." It's an important distinction, I think, that lets
>one accept Shakespeare and Socrates and Jefferson without letting them off the hook.
And which particular "right, and obvious, and true" beliefs do
you and I hold that will be reviled or ridiculed two centuries
from now, I wonder?
Graydon
: Well, I grew up on a farm and while I will gladly eat cow meat or
: rabbit meat, pigs are just a little too smart for me to eat comfortably.
: Luckily, pork makes me sick, so this isn't a huge sacrifice.
Well, so did I, which is why chicken doesn't bother me - chickens are
vegetables as eats bugs - and pig doesn't bother me - because pigs are
smart enough that I'm sure they're coming back as something. Cows bother
me, because they're someone home, but it's *real* dumb, and probably
below the soul-stuff recycle threshold.
: Of course, we could breed them for stupidity, like we did turkeys.
I, personally, feel that it was a case of the early settlers only being
able to *catch* the stupid turkeys.
--
saun...@qlink.queensu.ca | Monete me si non anglice loquobar.
rsf...@uncg.edu
(James Nicoll) writes:
>In article <317a1417....@news.primenet.com>,
>William George Ferguson <fr...@primenet.com> wrote:
>>Once upon a time, Shakespeare wrote a play, The Merchant Of Venice,
>>which featured a Jewish villain, Shylock. The play is generally not
>>considered pro-Jewish.
>
> Although Shylock had his faults, I'd much rather deal with him
>than the deadbeat merchants in MoV. Were they supposed to be portrayed
>in a sympathetic light? They rip him off and then friends fix the
>court case for them--*there's* a pair of fine role models.
They rip him off, fix the court case against him, spit on him, refer to him as
a dog, find out who's borrowing money from him and lend money to those people
at zero interest just to undercut him, force him to change his religion, steal
his daughter (who steals a jewel from her father that his wife had given him
many years ago and uses said jewel to buy a monkey...)
I've always found it amazing that _Merchant_ could be seen as anything except a
strong and almost vicious diatribe against people such as Antonio.
Rob F.
Nancy Lebovitz
Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> wrote:
>In article <Dq9v2...@news.uwindsor.ca> bil...@uwindsor.ca (Macarthur William) writes:
>
>>>
>>>which featured a Jewish villain, Shylock. The play is generally not
>>>considered pro-Jewish.
>>Britain around this time) the treatment Shylock receives is not extreme.
>>The play makes the point that Shylock had no choice in life but usuary
>>because no other doors were open. If Englishmen, Scots, Danes, French,
>>Moors and Romans can be bad guys in Shakespeare's plays why not Jews?
>
>If by "can" you really mean "can without being fairly subject to criticism",
>well, perhaps were there some positive Jewish characters in Shakespeare's
>work, there might be a case. (I'll certainly listen to the argument that
>Shylock is not an utter villain, but I won't give it a whole lot of credence,
>on balance.)
>
about how the part of Shylock has been played through the centuries.
For the first hundred years, Shylock was played as a *comic* character--
this is perhaps something different than an utter villain.
After that, he was played as an ogre, but the ogre then got toned
down and made more sympathetic. Gross mentions a modern production
in which Shylock is a bad guy, but the Christians are worse.
Still, Gross says that the general effect of the play has been
anti-Semitic.
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
12/95 updated calligraphic button catalogue available by email
Nancy Lebovitz
P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>Marie Loughin (esc...@interink.com) wrote:
>
>: Yes, anyone has warts if you want to look for them, and I'd rather
>: not know about the ones on my favorite authors' noses.
>
>And I would. As you say, everyone has flaws. Our particular flaws as well
>as our particular strengths make us human, make us interesting, make us (for
>pity's sake) individuals.
>
>Often the flaws and the strengths are two sides of the same thing.
>
>It's very odd to see SF fans, of all people, putting forth the idea that it
>is better not to know things than to know things. Don't you think?
>
Also, I like seeing discussion of author's ideas (both good and bad)--
it helps me notice what I otherwise might pick up subconsciously.
Mike Gannis
:>... If Shakespeare (mentioned several times
:>here for reasons I know not) was an anti-Semite, and there's
:>documentation to that effect, it's an interesting subject.
fr...@primenet.com (William George Ferguson) wrote:
:Once upon a time, Shakespeare wrote a play, The Merchant Of Venice,
:which featured a Jewish villain, Shylock. The play is generally not
:considered pro-Jewish.
Although not necessarily ... I recall reading an essay in a book called
_Only_in_America_, by Harry <aaugh! can't remember the name!> in which he
made a case that Shakespeare was being far more sympathetic to Shylock
than his audience probably realized - that many of the details (e.g., his
daughter dressing in men's clothing) were there to make specific points
about honor and dishonor. His basic premise was that Shylock's "Do I not
bleed?" speech establishes his humanity, that he was the *only* character
in the play who behaves with honor and keeps his word, and that in the end
when he's been screwed by the "good guys" his punishment is to become ...
a Christian. Just like them.
rsf...@uncg.edu
Rosenberg) writes:
>If by "can" you really mean "can without being fairly subject to criticism",
>well, perhaps were there some positive Jewish characters in Shakespeare's
>work, there might be a case. (I'll certainly listen to the argument that
>Shylock is not an utter villain, but I won't give it a whole lot of credence,
>on balance.)
So, you're saying that Shylock *is* an utter villain?
No, no... Richard III is an utter villain. Richard "And since I cannot
prove myself a lover..." III. Shylock is a man forced by the majority into a
profession that the majority reviles, who is spat upon, insulted, undercut, and
abused at every opportunity, who, even when the people who have abused the hell
out of him for years come and ask a favor of him, is insulted and slandered
because in their world-view, he deserves nothing more.
Shylock is *not* an utter villain. Shylock is a man given an opportunity for
venegance upon a man who thoroughly deserves it. He is no more a *villain*
than, for instance, Macbeth.
Rob F.
Malka Korman
writes:
> dst...@math.mit.edu (Daniel J. Starr) wrote:
> >You proposed marking down Trollope and Shakespeare and so on as Bad People
> >because of their crime of not questioning something that was not questioned
> >or even discussed by anyone they ever met.
> Such as? Name an offensive belief in their time that was so ingrained
> in their society as to completely excuse them for sharing it.
Let's look at this anti-semitic question, at least as far as Shakespeare
goes. It doesn't really hurt to keep in mind that the Jews had all been
kicked out of England before Shakespeare made it onto the scene--he never
actually saw one. Now, as many people have pointed out, Shylock gets a
relatively humane treatment in _The Merchant of Venice_--he's certainly
one of the only Jews in plays of the time who gets speeches like "When
you prick us, do we not bleed?"
But by today's standards the play is horribly unenlightened. So, is
Shakespeare a good guy, or not? (Also, we have no idea about his
personal beliefs about Jews, so the plays are all we have to go on)
> Example: It's 1800. Is an American slaver somehow absolved of the
> crime of owning another human being because so many of his neighbors
> did so as well? Did it really take the passage of time to cultivate
> the notion that slavery was wrong?
Example: A man in the 1700s, say, believs that slavery is wrong on moral
grounds, but believes that non-whites are inferior in any case, and that
we need to bring them to civilization to save their souls. (There were a
LOT of people like that). Where does this sort of person fall on your
so-enlightened moral scale?
Gavin Steyn
gavin...@comverse.com
Malka Korman
> To be fair, Sam Clemens' tolerance extended, as far as I can see, to every
> racial, religious, and ethnic group save for American Indians.
Depends on what period of his life, I think. I'm no Twain scholar, but I
just finished reading the collected essays, stories, speeches, etc, and
the later you go, the more tolerant he is to Indians.
Although he's probably an interesting writer as far as this discussion
goes for another reason--in a very long essay defending Jews, he
digresses at one point to talk about reasons they may be hated in Europe
so much, and accepts as true all sorts of stereotypes that are considered
pretty offensive today. So, is he enlightened, or not?
Gavin Steyn
gavin...@comverse.com
Nancy Lebovitz
In article <ELIZ.96Ap...@peduncle.ai.mit.edu>,
Elizabeth Willey <el...@ai.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>Their beliefs were quite classic. Broad-mindedness is a recent
>innovation.
>
What I've read of Thomas Browne was quite broad-minded, and I think
he was 1500's. He didn't seem to have had much influence, though.
Rick Cook
>Well, among other things, it tells us that, although Socrates and Plato are
>wellsprings of Western humanism, there's nothing about their thought or
>their worldview that precludes something we would today consider barbaric.
>
--RC
Rick Cook
>
>: Don't forget to make a list of writers who were alcoholics, drug
>: abusers, obese, were immigrants, had long hair or didn't like corn
>: for those of us who are interested in those aspects of an author's
>: personl life -- because I certainly will not read anyone's work who
>: doesn't live exactly my way or dress as I do or talk the way like me.
>
>
>particular, the part where he says (see above) "Why is telling someone
>about Ezra Pound's personal beliefs tantamount to telling them not to read
Pound?"
Forgive me Patrick, but it sounds like he not only read the post, he read
the guy's previous posts as well. His main point is that everyone's
offensive to someone -- which is precisely what Mr. Cadenhead seems utterly
unable to see.
His secondary point is pretty well taken too -- Mr. Cadenhead's declaimer
to the contrary.
--RC
(and yes, I meant 'declaimer' -- it's intended to be humorous/ironic)
StuShank
(David Silbey) writes:
> Jefferson was a slave owner. That doesn't change that
>he was a pivotal leader in American history, but it allows us a more
>tempered view of his as a human being who, in this case at least, could
not
>rise above the teaching of his society.
It isn't the teachings so much as the economics of his society. Jefferson
was a cash-poor, land-rich Southern gentleman. Without slaves to work that
land Jefferson would have had to get a real job, and would have had no
time to be a Founding Father.
IIRC Jefferson believed slavery to be an evil and freed his slaves in his
will, after he had no further use for them. It's always the economics.
BTW this was the only positive thing about American slavery I can think
of; it gave Jefferson the leisure to do his thing.
JFK's famous remarks at a dinner he and Jackie gave for Nobel laurates:
(Roughly quoted) "This is the greatest assemblage of brainpower ever to
have dinner at the White House; with the possible exception of when Thomas
Jefferson dined alone."
Mike Gannis
>[...] I've heard nasty aspersions against
>Heinlein's character for years, and never had the chance to find out
>if any of it is true.
Hooo-EEEE! Are you in for a treat! Call up DejaNews with your favorite
Web browser, and do a search for the phrase "Heinlein anecdote".
Mind you, even after you've finished reading a few months' worth of thread,
you won't know much more than when you started ... but you'll have read
a lot of *opinions*!
Bruce Baugh
You think so? I and a fair number of my fellow Christians find much of
value in Burroughs' work in spite of his writing in THE ADDING MACHINE
and elsewhere about how killing us all would be a matter of public
health.
--
Bruce Baugh <*> br...@aracnet.com <*> http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce
See my Web pages for
New science fiction by Steve Stirling and George Alec Effing er
Christlib, the mailing list for Christian and libertarian concerns
Daedalus Games, makers of Shadowfist and Feng Shui
Michael P Collins
Heinlein springs to mind. The flip side is that I'm not exactly
looking to these people for moral instruction...
Michael Collins, mc...@andrew.cmu.edu
Overworked, Overstressed, Underslept, Underfed - Undergrad
P Nielsen Hayden
: It's been some years since I studied any of this stuff, but if I recall
: correctly, the rabbis differentiate between Noah, who the Bible refers
: to as a "good man in [read: for] his time" with Abraham, referred to as
: "good man." It's an important distinction, I think, that lets one accept
: Shakespeare and Socrates and Jefferson without letting them off the hook.
Good one. It also gives us the space to notice and praise the views of some
individuals who appear to have been decidedly ahead of their time --
Euripides, for instance, who was cited earlier in this thread.
P Nielsen Hayden
: I suspect a high percentage of William Burroughs's reader would be less
: enthusiastic about his work if they read -- and absorbed -- the passage in
: JUNKIE where he vents his prejudice against marijuana smokers.
I suspect a high percentage of William Burroughs' readers are clear on the
idea that they are reading a writer with, um, many forceful and unusual
notions.
P Nielsen Hayden
: P Nielsen Hayden wrote:
: >
: >: Don't forget to make a list of writers who were alcoholics, drug
: >: abusers, obese, were immigrants, had long hair or didn't like corn
: >: for those of us who are interested in those aspects of an author's
: >: personl life -- because I certainly will not read anyone's work who
: >: doesn't live exactly my way or dress as I do or talk the way like me.
: >
: >
: >Did you actually _read_ the post by Rogers Cadenhead that you quoted? In
: >particular, the part where he says (see above) "Why is telling someone
: >about Ezra Pound's personal beliefs tantamount to telling them not to read
: Pound?"
: Forgive me Patrick, but it sounds like he not only read the post, he read
: the guy's previous posts as well. His main point is that everyone's
: offensive to someone -- which is precisely what Mr. Cadenhead seems utterly
: unable to see.
I don't get that impression from Mr. Cadenhead's posts, but perhaps you're
more skillful at reading between the lines than I am.
I do have to say, I'm bemused at the breaking news that "everyone's offensive
to someone." Well, yes; I remember this point being born in on me by GLORY
ROAD, which I read when I was nine. Oddly enough, though, when I try to
make the same point these days, I wind up getting accused of being a typical
woolly-minded liberal, unwilling to face up to the manly task of
distinguishing Right Dammit from Wrong. You aren't a typical woolly-minded
liberal, by any chance, are you, Rick? :)
P Nielsen Hayden
: On 21 Apr 1996 15:11:50 -0400, in rec.arts.sf.written, p...@panix.com
: (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote:
: >If our conversation should happen to range beyond the boundaries of the
: >commercial genre for a post or two (although I was mentioning genre writers
: >as well, as I recall), well, since when were those boundaries set for us by
: >God On High?
: Somebody email a copy of the FAQ to pnh before he goes net- cop on us.
Yo. Earth to rogue. I wasn't "going net-cop"; I was answering a bit of
(well-meaning) net-coppery.
: >We have been touching on, for instance, Ezra Pound, an artist whose greatest
: >work begins with a fantastic narrative about sailing into a Mediterranean
: >dominated by the Attic gods and goddesses -- and which proceeds from there
: >to range throughout history, the Middle Ages in particular, touching on
: >magic, hermeticism, economics, science, and a tragic vision of what might
: >have been. When we ask ourselves whether this is a fit subject for
: >discussion in rec.arts.sf.written, how much should it matter to us that the
: >work wasn't published by Spectra, Tor, or Del Rey?
: None, if it was published by Asimov's, Analog, F&SF, CRANK!, Century,
: Omni, or a semi- pro sf genre magazine. Granted, sf is a sub- set of
: all fantasy (in other words, fiction), but why stop at Pound?
: Dostoevsky's 19th century Russia is just as alien a worldview to this
: late 20th- century US resident as is the one in Jack McDevitt's _The
: Engines of God_ (Ace, BTW) or Walter Jon Williams' _Metropolitan_
: (HarperPrism, BTW).
Sounds to me like you really _are_ asserting that the boundaries of what may
be discussed here are set by externalities such as who published it.
Since you mention it, please do show us that portion of the FAQ which
specifies this.
Mike Totty
> appalling silence of the good people.
> -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
It isn't even close.
Mike Totty
to...@earthlink.net
James Nicoll
Nancy Lebovitz <nan...@universe.digex.net> wrote:
>>
>There's a fascinating book called _Shylock_ (by John Gross, I think)
>about how the part of Shylock has been played through the centuries.
>For the first hundred years, Shylock was played as a *comic* character--
>this is perhaps something different than an utter villain.
>
>After that, he was played as an ogre, but the ogre then got toned
>down and made more sympathetic. Gross mentions a modern production
>in which Shylock is a bad guy, but the Christians are worse.
*A* production? How is it possible to present MoV in such
a way that the scummy Christians and the back-stabbing daughter
don't come off as much worse than Shylock? At least Shylock gives
reasons why he does what he does: behaving like utter bastards
appears to be normal behavior for the Christian characters, not
even worth justifying.
>Still, Gross says that the general effect of the play has been
>anti-Semitic.
Only because apparently Shylock is being held up to a
higher standard of behavior than the people around him. He's
much more forgiving than your stereotypical Orkney man*, for
example.
James Nicoll
*King Lot's kids from various Arthurian tales for example: They were
as close to the Black Death on two legs, wrapped in armour as one would
like to find.
--
" The moral, if you're a scholar don't pick up beautiful babes on deserted
lanes at night. Real Moral, Chinese ghost stories have mostly been written
by scholars who have some pretty strange fantasies about women."
Brian David Phillips
Nancy Lebovitz
P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>I do have to say, I'm bemused at the breaking news that "everyone's offensive
>to someone." Well, yes; I remember this point being born in on me by GLORY
>ROAD, which I read when I was nine. Oddly enough, though, when I try to
>make the same point these days, I wind up getting accused of being a typical
>woolly-minded liberal, unwilling to face up to the manly task of
>distinguishing Right Dammit from Wrong. You aren't a typical woolly-minded
>liberal, by any chance, are you, Rick? :)
>
to someone, then Patrick Nielsen Hayden is offensive to someone.
While it doesn't follow directly, I'll add that if you're only offensive
to one person, you're getting off easy.
Nancy Lebovitz
him to marry a Christian.
I'm inclined to believe that Shylock is a tragic character with the bad
luck to get stuck in a comedy.
Mark Rosenfelder
Rogers Cadenhead <rc...@mail.concentric.net> wrote:
>sha...@morpheus.cis.yale.edu (Wendy Shaffer) wrote:
>>But we do have to do it with a certain sense of
>>historical context. I'm not trying to "defend the reputation" of Pound
>>or Trollope or Shakespeare. But I do think that it is important to note
>>that if we say "Shakespeare was an anti-Semite," that so was virtually
>>everyone else in England at the time.
>
>A lot of the heat generated by this topic has been the notion that I'm
>trying to condemn these folks for their intolerant beliefs. That's not
>the point -- I just think it's a subject that deserves more "air time"
>than it has been given in traditional sources of information about
>classic authors and poets. If Shakespeare (mentioned several times
>here for reasons I know not) was an anti-Semite, and there's
>documentation to that effect, it's an interesting subject.
I think the point that many are making is that it's really not that
interesting a subject, for the same reason that it's not that enlightening
to discover that a particular fish is wet.
Some people seem to worry that if we don't condemn the racism, sexism,
anti-Semitism etc. of earlier centuries we are somehow condoning those
evils. I think this is misdirected righteousness, both because we can't
change the past, and because preaching is incompatible with learning.
It's a sad thing to be trapped in one's own century. The problem with
the PC reading of literature is that it cuts off any chance to learn:
if all we can think of is that Plato or Jefferson was a slaveowner, or
that the _Arabian Nights_ or the _Rubaiyat_ came out of a society that
oppressed women, then we're not likely to learn anything from these works,
including the criticisms that their authors might make of our own times.
As C.S. Lewis pointed out, what would be really edifying would be to read
what future centuries have to say about us.* Failing that, reading
from earlier times or other cultures, or science fiction, can help free
our minds from 20C North American parochialism.
* Anyone want to speculate on this? I'll offer three guesses.
1) They'll be appalled at our eating of meat-- not because they will be
more spiritual, but because they'll be more crowded. As overpopulation
increases, eating lower on the food chain will seem more and more moral.
2) They'll consider our destruction of the environment to be puzzlingly
suicidal.
3) They'll consider one side of the abortion debate to be *self-evidently*
wrong, as we consider slavery self-evidently wrong... but I don't know
which side that'll be.