SRD's politics!!!!

[Creator]

Of course, in all walks of life there are people whose need to immerse themselves in SOMEthing, whatever it may be, is so great that verifiable reality no longer has any relevance to their interests and emotions. ..... Why else do we keep electing GW Bush?

I'm sure many have seen this in SRD's most recent GI answer (where he gave it to a questioner disrespecting us!!)

Even as a Republican who voted for Bush I found it VERY funny!!

[Loredoctor]

Where is it? I couldn't find it.

[Creator]

Where is it? I couldn't find it.

www.stephenrdonaldson.com/questions_thi ... any=&none=

Last (17th) post!!

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Yeah, that was a sweet post. Like how he went to bat for us? That was excellent.

[Fist and Faith]

More on his politics...

Years ago, I found SRD's email address, and he was kind enough to respond to me a few times. (I wrote any stupid thing that came into my head, just for the chance to write him. I put our correspondence up at www.geocities.com/faithandfist/srd.html if anyone's interested.) When I asked about the names of the Ravers (samadhi, moksha, turiya), he said this:

I was trying to make what may have been an obscure point about the nature of evil. It's my belief that real evil doesn't perceive itself as evil: it perceives itself as enlightment. Sheol, Herem, and Jehannum (loosely translated: hell, genocide, and hell) are the "public" names of the Ravers; they represent the way the Ravers are perceived by the people of the Land. Moksha, turiya, and samadhi are the "private" names of the Ravers, their names for themselves. Like Hitler, Nixon, and Limbaugh, the Ravers do NOT go around saying, "I'm evil, and I'm proud." They say, "I'm better, smarter, wiser, and more important than you are, and so whatever happens to you while I get what I want is justified."

[zenslinger]

Anyone know what SRD's deal with Orson Scott Card is? He reacted against him in a question I asked in the GI. Then someone more recently asked if SRD liked him and he said that OSC has been involved in censorship. Does anyone know exactly what he's referring to? OSC is a Mormon and has conservative (pro-Bush, anti-gay) politics, but I wonder if there's a specific incident that he's talking about. Have searched around a bit for it.

[CovenantJr]

Of course, in all walks of life there are people whose need to immerse themselves in SOMEthing, whatever it may be, is so great that verifiable reality no longer has any relevance to their interests and emotions. ..... Why else do we keep electing GW Bush?

I'm sure many have seen this in SRD's most recent GI answer (where he gave it to a questioner disrespecting us!!)

Even as a Republican who voted for Bush I found it VERY funny!!

I never noticed this before I feel proud and humbled that SRD defended us so staunchly

[W.B.]

Re: SRD and Orson Scott Card, I typed in "Orson Scott Card"+censorship into google, and found him talking about it in an interview on this page

www.writerswrite.com/journal/sep99/card.htm

Card also seems to support the moral equivalent of "censoring," as it were, gays (www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html and www.rhinotimes.com/greensboro/archives/021904/osc2.html).

I didn't find any specific incident, though I just did a quickie web search, so it may be that SRD's reacting to a general attitude of Card's (it's hard to be "against censorship" and yet want to censor certain things that you find offensive, if you take as your premise that not censoring them is not the same as making everyone look at them/read them, regardless of whether they want to or not) rather than a specific incident.

[zenslinger]

In the first link, here's a longish but relevant part. Intelligently reasoned, but could still be seen as an apology for censorship. This interview was about 1996.

In 1995 in a talk he gave to a Mormon audience about Mormon aesthetics, he claimed that he was censored (i.e. his publisher wanted to drop him) for stating in his writings the "truth" about God saying homosexuality was a sin.

***
So the problem isn't that we have these new media which give us stories we've never had before. The problem is that the new media give them to us with a level of realism that we've never had before, and the filmwrights and gamewrights are so lacking in taste, proportion, and social conscience that they treat both violence and sexuality with a prurient fascination that has long since passed the boundaries of wackoland. Is there anyone in the audience who needs yet another graphic depiction of sex or violence? Is there anyone who ever needed it? You can have the threat of violence and the promise of sex without ever showing them -- and they're almost always far more effective presented that way than they ever are when graphically displayed. It's bad art, and it has a bad effect on those who are most vulnerable to it. But unfortunately, most of these arts are practiced by people who have not grown out of the adolescent stage of wanting to shock people in order to seem cool -- even though, like adolescents, they can't think of a single new way to shock anybody, so nobody is actually shocked at all, they're just embarrassed or bored ... or, if they're marginal personalities, excited in a sick way. There is a myth that "expressing" or "fulfilling" an emotion makes it go away, as if humans were balloons that need to vent these gases or explode. But the opposite is true, and we've known it all along, despite the bogus "experts" who told us repression was bad for us. If you act out your anger, you get angrier. If you act on your lusts, it takes even more to stimulate them next time. The more violence and sex we get from our entertainment, the angrier and more violent and more perverse and more sex-obsessed we become. Repression caused us no discernable harm beyond temporary frustration -- and as any good lover knows, temporary frustration is the essence of the art of satisfaction. But massive "expression" of the "truth" of violence and sex has caused us great harm. Of course, the boundaries of taste are drawn in different places for different people. Things that offend me might not offend you, or vice versa. That's why the idea of government meddling in censorship is so bad -- from the first moment, the censors always go straight for things whose "evil" is visible only to them, while ignoring the things that are truly awful. The trouble is that when there is no self-restraint, governments eventually get involved. If smokers, for instance, had merely been courteous and kind to others, there would be no anti-smoking laws. It was the shameless rudeness of smokers that led to them being fenced around with law, and I have no pity for them. Likewise, if we get government censorship it will be wholly because of the irresponsibility of storytellers who cared not a whit for the effect their work might have on the community they live in. They have fouled the nest; if they don't clean it up themselves, they probably aren't going to like it when somebody else cleans it up for them. I hate censorship; but I hate having to raise my children in the culture these irresponsible people have created and are creating for us. When the balance tips, it will tip hard and far, and I personally resent the all-or-nothing crew who, by adamantly rejecting all self-restraint and celebrating the most vile stuff as "edgy" and admirable, will someday provoke the puritan backlash that will clean my slate along with theirs. They'll whine about the censors, but I'll know that it was their own excesses that led society to prefer the censors to them. The only consolation is that the public can only stand censorship for a little while. Within a generation, the theaters reopened in England; the people of Iran are already wishing for more freedom. But wouldn't it be better to use good taste and a sense of decency and public responsibility to keep the censorship from ever seeming necessary?
***

[MsMary]

The question I have is why would SRD dismiss OSC out of hand as a writer just because he disagrees with his politics?

I happen to disagree with OSC's politics also, but that doesn't prevent me from enjoying his stories.

I would be interested in hearing what people have to say on this subject.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Boycott is boycott, it's his choice... he was definately honest with his answer.

[Edge]

Come to that... I might not agree 100% with SRD's politics. Can't say for sure, as he's pretty cagey about his political views, as he has every right to be. The point is - even if I found myself diametrically opposed to him politically, wild Ranyhyn couldn't stop me from reading and re-reading his books.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

One of the best parts about SRD is he tells the story for the story, not for some message.
If he was into putting messages or morals directly into his story, and writing the story around it, I might not be able to continue to read and reread his stuff... especially if I disagreed with the views.
However, because he writes the story for the story, I don't need to worry about that.

[MsMary]

But the real question is, do you have to agree with someone's politics in order to enjoy his books? I certainly don't agree with the politics of every author whose writing I have enjoyed. And why does SRD think that he has to boycott Card?

These were SRD's exact words:

I don't read Card because I don't approve of his stand on censorship (he's all in favor--as long as the Mormons get to do the censoring).

Do you see Card, in the article cited above, as arguing for Mormons getting to do the censorship? Cause I don't really see that. He doesn't like the more "openness" about sexual and violent topics that we currently have, and worries that it will lead to censorship when it goes to far and someone in power has decided they have had "enough." Mormons are not the only ones who have that view. Many religious groups object to the same things that Card objects to.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

I would assume that SRD's experience with OSC goes beyond reading that article...
and anyway, if someone feels strongly enough about something, it might colour their ability to enjoy a work written by someone who supports something.

For example, it might be difficult for a jewish person to really get into a story written by a militant neo-nazi.

[Edge]

Why would you assume that?

And... accepted internet forum convention says, that by using the word 'nazi' you automatically forfeit any argument.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Well, SRD has seemed (at least to me) to be a reasonable person, in regards to his opinions that I've read through the gradual interview. He does not to be the type of person who would boycott an auther entirely based on reading a single article, with no other information.

I could be wrong, granted, but I would also assume that as SRD is in the same field as OSC, and they share some fan base, it would be really odd if the first SRD has ever heard of OSC and his opinions were in this single article...

Eek! I did the nazi thing!
Sorry...

[duchess of malfi]

Some people just feel very strongly about artists' political views. You hear about that more often with musicians and actors than writers, but I guess the same principles apply...think about how many people called for a boycott on the Dixie Chicks, for example, when they came out as being against Bush and the Iraq War... Or how many people hated Jane Fonda because of her Vietnaam War activities.

Apparently SRD must have this sort of problem with Card and his supposed views on censorship. And since SRD didn't specify what or where Card said or did to give him that opinion, we can only speculate about it.

Personally I don't have a problem with this sort of thing, except if it gets in the way of the music/story. For example, I am no longer willing to read anything by Terry Goodkind. IMHO, his stories became mere excuses for pounding his readers over the head with his political philosophy. Yuck. But while I get vibes of a Mormon undercurrent running in some of Card's books, I have not seen it where it gets in the way of the story...

[ChoChiyo]

I have read a few of O.S. Card's books--I stopped reading him after The Lost Boys.

I can't really put my finger on why he rubs me the wrong way, he just does. I never stopped to analyse it before--and after reading this thread, I think I may have to force myself to go back, read some stuff and see if I can figure it out.

[Edge]

I thoroughly enjoy most of OSC's writing. Sure, his Mormon sensibilities come through loud and clear - but when reading SRD, his pacifist philosophy is just as obvious. I don't particularly agree with either viewpoint, but it in no way diminishes my enjoyment of their writing.