jamesworrad.blogspot.com

Wednesday 8 April 2015

Sad Puppies Panel. Eastercon 2015

On the Sunday of Eastercon, 2015, a panel was hastily convened to discuss the results of the Hugo Awards nominations. The nominations had been swept by The Sad Puppies/ Rabid Puppies slates. 



The Sad Puppies are, dependent on viewpoint, an attempt to shine light on overlooked authors and negate a perceived left wing 'preachy' bias within the Hugos, or a right wing assault on an honoured institution (US culture war toxicity, if you will, overspilling into the global conversation). The Rabid Puppies--and it pays to perceive at least some difference here--make few bones about being extreme right wing.

The panel consisted of Charlie Stross, Kari Sperring, Gaie Sebold and Vince Docherty. All members (indeed, the entirety of the large audience it transpired) were puppy-cynical at best. An attempt to find a pro-puppy panelist at such short notice and within a British convention would, in truth, be like looking for a woman on a PUA forum.

Spool Pidgin was on the second row (let's face it we're a second row kinda SF blog. We've come to terms with that long ago) taking names and firing tweets. And here they be. Sadly, due to incompetence, I haven't figured out how to swap tweet results the right way around so, dearest reader, I ask you to read from the bottom up. 





'Sross disagrees' refers to him disagreeing with calls for slates etc to be banned. People might acusse others of secretly doing so in order to get them disqualified. 




Personally, what I took from the room (aside from a program pamphlet some one had left on the chair next to me) was an atmosphere of bemused annoyance at the whole thing. Bear in mind this was no Wiscon-esque affair:  the majority were fairly moderate in outlook, I suspect. Their animus seemed rooted in a venerable institution (and a great way of discovering great SF books) being overtaken by internet demagogues for their own preening self-interest and the right wing side of a culture war mainly being raged somewhere over the Atlantic.

Vox Day, Rabid Puppies leader, outshone everything. Simply everything. And when you have a man who believes marital rape doesn't exist and that many of our friends should be 'repatriated' overseas on account of their genetic inheritance it's not difficult to see why.

What IS difficult to see is why Larry Correia and Brad Torgesson, leaders of the Sad Puppies slate, ever hoped, and still hope, to get SF's middle on board with them. I'm left wing, but I can see how an awareness campaign for right wing authors in SFF might in theory be healthy (Few, if any, righty novels/stories have procured themselves a rocket in the last few decades). But in the wake of a spoilt, intolerant, attention-fixated moral weakling such a prospect seems impossible now. May as well have called the whole thing the 'Vox Day Show'.

The panellists were perceptive, calm and witty. A rare thing in all this fiasco. If you can find video footage of the event, or a better write-up than mine, check it out.




8 comments:

  1. I don't think the SPs hope to get the middle on board. I don't think they really hope anything. People who say they're like gamergate are right, but not in the way they think. Both SP and gamergate are flash-mobs of people who are angry about many things, and in some cases have every right to be angry. There's not so much organization or strategy. That's one reason why they quickly wind up in hot water.

    Mr Day's Rabid Puppies, I suspect, is more more strategic, he always seems to know exactly what he's doing, but then I'm still convinced that the reason you couldn't make a couple out of *those two*, is that they're related and it would be incest.

    # But in the wake of a spoilt, intolerant,
    # attention-fixated moral weakling such a
    # prospect seems impossible now.

    But this situation comes in the wake of *two* spoilt, ignorant, attention-fixated trolls, doesn't it? (And actually, attention-fixated, well if you're a writer, that's just the game, isn't it?)

    Thing is, we can point the finger at the SPs for their relations with Mr Day, but we have to admit that much of left-leaning SF, and particularly British left-leaning SF did the same with Ms Hate. (Not all, but a surprising number). So isn't it a bit hypocritical of us all to judge the SPs and gamergate by their worst members? Yep, gamergate has people dumb and evil enough to make death/rape threats, and so has 'progressive' SF. I suppose we can claim that ours was more creative, some of RH's suggestions were really out there.

    It illustrates the SPs lack of political nounce though, that they say "well, we have VD, but you had RH, so we're equal". They miss the point that, if the left had RH, and they had eshewed Mr Day, *they would be ahead*.

    It's an interesting point that some of the SPs make, that although I too think that this 'culture war' is an american thing, British SF is so left-wing that it provided fertile soil for Ms Hate, and I, who am for gay marriage, equal pay for all, and just about everything short of a centrally planned economy, no longer want to be a part of it, because I'm *not left wing enough*. That is... interesting, isn't it? I mean it implies there's a lot of people who aren't coming to UK cons. I wonder why?

    Everyone in this game, on both sides, has acted like a complete idiot (well, okay, not everyone, but a lot of people, you must admit). Talking to the Sad Puppy crowd, I see some of them have got lists of all the things that left-leaning SF people have said about whites and men, and when you're trying to convince them that they're not facing a broad, racist conspiracy, you really wish that a lot of people in left-leaning SF hadn't consistently said stuff that makes it all look like a broad, racist conspiracy. And a lot of them have been trolledces.cilessly, they've been called names, and any attempt to build any bridges is just going to run into the accumulated grievances.

    This is much more about people feeling that they're standing up for themselves, than it is about the Hugos, I think.

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  2. As for the panel, I'm afraid I wouldn't trust that panel to speak on anything political. To be fair, these days there's very few people in SF whom I'd trust at all. I believe those people are all well meaning, and I've met them and they seem nice enough, but I wouldn't ask their insight on an issue like this. Mr Stross is a repeated gaffe-master, he helped kick off Rossgate, and he's made comments about how "it's time to clean the dinosaurs out of the genre" that have helped make people feel they're under attack. My opinion of Ms Sperring isn't what it once was, sadly, and... well I just don't think there's anyone there who I would have expected to even try to speak to the puppies to get a feel for where they were coming from. Did any of them say they had? And if people haven't even done that much to get a feel of where the 'other side' is coming from, why do we trust them to speak on the matter? I know the panel's been put together in a hurry, but maybe you shouldn't put a panel on a topic this heated together in a hurry.

    For me, someone should have said "why don't we find out why these people are so angry, and feel so excluded, and see what we can do to fix that? But the problem there is that a culture that looked the other way for requires_hate isn't going to be able to give up it's entitlement to denounce people in the strongest terms and call them names online.

    My big worry now is that this kind of constant brouhaha isn't just an SF thing, it's going to spread to the rest of society over time. Let's hope not, or we're all doomed.

    DOOMED I tell ye

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    1. Actually Colum, I've been meaning to contact you about something related. No emergency and possibly something you've already cottoned on to. My email: jamesworrad@gmail.com. Cheers.

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  3. VD and RH are often mentioned in the same breath and its easy to see why. But the contrast in how they're both reacted to by their own side, I'd argue, actually reveals all the left's strong qualities and all the right's weak. Despite the bickering and all else, RH was finally identified, called out and rendered powerless (certainly, I don't really cover her here anymore because she's neither a threat or particularly interesting). The mechanism for same doesn't exist on the right: they're locked into a hyper-masculine power-worship where challenging the 'alpha male' is perceived as a domination bid. God knows, there must be a few emails flying around between the sad puppies about their rabid mates but we'll never hear about it. They're condemned to waltz off whatever cliff he chooses. When push came to shove, the left were capable of staking their monsters and now better voices with greater heart are coming to the fore and the blowhards dont get listened to with the credulity as before (I know you wont believe me on that one and I can toyally understand but if you read a lit of blogs these days and read vetween the lines a pattern emerges). The right simply don't know how to do anything like that.

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  4. Darn, I lost my big post in reply to this. It always seems to need 2 posts to get through to this blogging engine.


    # Now better voices with greater heart are coming to the fore and the # blowhards don't get listened to with the credulity as before (I
    # know you wont believe me on that one
    # and I can totally understand but if you read a lit of blogs
    # these days and read vetween the lines a pattern emerges).

    I see that, it's fragile but it's happening. G RR Martin is making a difference there.

    # I don't really cover her here anymore because she's neither a threat or particularly interesting

    James, you are mistaken. She continues to be both. She surprises me by continuing to fight for her existing persona. I thought she'd shut down that persona, create a new one, and pick up where she left off. 'Course, she could do both at once. Give it a year, and who knows that we won't see a new, exciting, 'contraversial' writer appear on the scene? RH is not the wicked queen in a one-off movie, she's more like the Daleks: you know they'll be back.

    I feel you're wrong to characterize the 'SF right' the way you do. This is a bigger issue than 'our side/ their side' (though I admit I'm a centerist). Yes, the SF left woke up to Ms Hate, but they might not have. I spoke for a long time to people about her, as you did, and got nowhere. She had incredible mind-warping powers, she understood people's ideology, and used it against them. I don't doubt she could have done that to the right too, if she cared to. In fact, that would be a good way for her to get back 'in': go over there, troll the puppies pretenting to be one of their own, get them to do/say things that derail their movement, and then be welcomed back into left-leaning fandom. You think she can't do that?

    I try to talk to the puppies about this kind of thing, but they don't understand me. They see me only in terms of stereotypes and past grievances. But I put it to you that you are guilty of the same.

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  5. # I'd argue, actually reveals all the left's strong qualities and
    # all the right's weak.

    I don't agree. I think both sides are equally weak. I think politics is... surface detail. Both sides have trolls who can play the credulous masses. The RH takedown was, I feel, as much a matter of luck as anything. Ms Hate overreached: she might not have. Mr Day may not have her mind-warping powers, but I think he's the better strategist. He's never called for anyone's rape or murder, he knows where the lines are that he will not cross. You put these two people on the same team, and they could lead anyone anywhere.

    # they're locked into a hyper-masculine power-worship
    # where challenging the 'alpha male' is perceived as a domination bid.

    I'm sure a lot of them aren't like that at all. Some are, but a lot aren't. I known plenty of right-leaning people in my life, and none of them were like this. I can think of one person I knew on the
    left who was *exactly* like this (although he, like Ms Hate, was arguably only doing left-wing politics as a game to manipulate others).

    Everyone is continuing to see this as a matter of their favorite politics. It's much bigger than that. The fact that Ms Hate was able to lead people I knew, including friends, who I knew were not bad
    people, to support positions that were borderline genocidal, is a terrifying discovery. Talking to people on the left about her, I was constantly shut down by thought-cancelling cliche's like "Why is
    it only a problem when a person-of-color abuses white men? Why aren't you doing anything about the other lot?" The 'other lot' have the same attitude. Both lots should be realizing that their own trol
    ls are a huge threat and issue for them, whereas the other side's trolls are the other side's problem.

    The time as come for people on both sides to stop viewing the other in terms of demonized stereotypes, that is one of the things that gave Ms Hate her power.

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    1. I'd like to be proven wrong about SF's rightwing. In fact I'd like to see their fabled tell-it-like-it-is-and-damn-the-torpedoes attitude actually manifest somewhere in the middle of this whole fiasco. I agree, totally, that on an individual level right wing people vary immensely, but in this particular fandom at this particular time a hideous cocktail of groupthink and the bunker mentality has set in. It's the very opposite of the stereotypical left's predilection for witch hunts and bickering but it's just as damaging. Some of them--perhaps a good deal of 'em--must think Vox Day's a complete prick. If not for his politics then at least for the utterly self-regarding, self-serving way he's put his own arse and his publishing house in just about all the slots. He's a huckster riding on the backs of so many people's noble (or noble enough, I guess) intentions.

      On the comments on Martin's site Brad Torgesson's starting to admit, sort of, the projects becoming a one man show. His and Larry Correia's good intentions (sort of) are clearly getting played by a power-mad narcissist.

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  6. # but in this particular fandom at this particular time a hideous
    # cocktail of groupthink and the bunker mentality has set in.

    I agree, but I think that accurately describes the left too.

    # His and Larry Correia's good intentions (sort of) are clearly getting
    # played by a power-mad narcissist.

    Well, yes, but again, this describes the RH situation very well too. And this points to what's really the issue here, for me. While left-and-right cannot think in terms beyond 'us vs them', it's really all of us against the manipulators. Mr Day knows how to "Sit on a mountaintop and watch two tigers fight." Like I say, I don't think he's satan incarnate, and I don't think he's as bad as RH (at least, he's not descended to her level yet), but he is someone completely ruled by his own self-interest, I think.

    Everything that's happened points to how weak SF's institutions are. I agree that the Puppies shouldn't really have 'gamed' the hugos, because now everyone's going to try and do it. On the other hand, if a door is unlocked, someone will walk through sooner or later. To be honest, though everyone denies it, I think there's always been a bit of 'gaming' going on with awards.

    ReplyDelete