No such thing as *just* fiction
Mar. 15th, 2010 10:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
megwritesDid I miss something? Has the month of March been declared International Show Your Privilege Month?
I ask because I just now saw this: "In Defense of Victorientalism". This guy just gave Norman Spinrad a run for his pantlessness.
If you want a really, really wonderful response to this,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deepad has one (link takes you to dreamwidth) here, with her post One Bad Tune Deserves Another". Included is probably the best, most beautifully snarky, most petard hoisting poem ever in the history of mankind, "Pity the Orientalist".
And there's also this great post, "Countering Orientalism" which is so totally completely right. This right here, especially:
As for the article that sparked all this, I'm not sure which parts to quote because all of it is really bad. These two stand out most for me:
I just don't even know. *head shakes*. There is so much wrong that I'm not sure how to pick it apart and analyze it. It's like trying to pull apart a big cluster of writhing snakes here.
I don't know if the author understands that what this entire thing amounts to is: "Is it so wrong to fantasize about a time when the privileged didn't have to care about the effects of their actions on the millions of people they oppressed, enslaved, marginalized, and otherwise harmed?"
Which amounts to: "I'd really like to stop having to think about Asia and Asian people as being worthy of respect. I'd like to go back to treating them like objects meant solely for my entertainment, thanks."
Reclaiming Orientalism is the reclaiming of privilege, and thus the reclaiming of the ability to unthinkingly oppress other people.
But this, too, puts the cherry on the privilege cake:
My immediate reactions are this:
1) Since when did the "misery of the poor and desolation of the oppressed" stop? The OP writes as though the effects of colonialism and Western oppression are not still being felt in very real, very costly ways to those who are their inheritors.
2) Without making assumptions about the authors' race, origins, or nationality, one might get the impression that one writing such a statement can do so because the negative, ongoing effects of Orientalism are largely invisible or non-existent for this person. Or to say: I'm sure it's really easy to handwave slavery and colonialism when one doesn't live with anything but the benefits of that legacy. I'm sure it's quite easy for one to set all those dirty details aside when the people and events being erased do not erase and ignore the people who are just like you.
3) It is the height of privilege waving to believe that you get to decide what is and is not offensive. And this is one of the primary mechanisms of dominance. Those belonging to dominant groups are able to decide what people do and do not have the right or reason to be upset by. Saying categorically that something is not offensive is another way of trying to shut down any dissenting discussion that might explore what's wrong with Victorientalism (and indeed the larger SF/F genre and maybe even the larger culture at work) and find ways to write and create things that are less or even not problematic. It is a way of keeping those who are offended out of the discussion and away from any productive conversation.
Let us be clear. No one person gets to decide what is or isn't offense. One can decide what is and isn't offensive for them, individually. If this author had said, "I don't find this offensive" - it would still be problematic and privilege waving, but less so. Because at least then the possibility that other people could find it offensive is left open. Of course declaring that you don't find it offensive, therefore it isn't is still one big outpouring of privilege.
There are a lot of things, even under the guise of anti-oppression conversations, that people are not going to agree on. Some people will be offended by something, some people won't. For instance, I know that there were a lot of divided opinions amongst people that I consider to be anti-racists on such movies as District 9 and Precious, concerning whether they were racially problematic, how much so, and why.
But in that conversation, what I did not hear was those people saying, "Well, I didn't have a problem with Precious, so there was no problem."
What I did hear was: "I personally did not have a problem, but I can see how other people might be bothered by or have issues with X, Y, Z - my reasons for such are A, B, and C. But other people might have different reasons that are completely valid" - or some form there of.
4) There is no goddamn thing as "just fiction". As a writer of fiction, the very phrase "just fiction" sets my teeth on edge and makes me want to go around doing property damage (and maybe grievous bodily harm to anyone silly enough to utter such a phrase in my hearing).
Mankind, all across the wide, wide world, has dedicated countless hours and words (both spoken and written) to the creation, telling, and sharing of fiction. Dollars to donuts, if one could travel back in time and hear that first tale told by the long, ago distant ancestors of humanity, it would be fiction. Non-factual tales of some sort have been the mainstay of human creativity since, well, since there was human creativity.
So saying now that it's "just fiction" when minimalizing it allows you to tell stories that please you but hurt others is disingenuous and enraging.
Fiction has very, very real consequences for readers, writers, and cultures. They are cultural transactions, either within a culture or sometimes between cultures. To say that it's "just fiction" when discussing what does and doesn't matter culturally and literarily is like saying it's "just trade" when talking about the economy.
The statement is absurd on it's face. I can't think of any other way to articulate how utterly, stupendously, profoundly wrong such a phrase is.
Just as trade can make, break, and shake an economy - so too does fiction with culture. So much of the information and ideas that we carry around with us come from the stories we're told. The attitudes that so many white folks have about people of color doesn't simply come from things we're taught in class or things we're told. It comes from fiction. From the books and movies we're handed as kids.
I can give example after example of how people have responded to movies, books, TV shows. People name their kids after favorite characters, or try something they read in a book. People take attitudes away from what they read.
The things we read, even and especially the fictional things, affect us. It leaves a mark on us. Even bad books, boring books, poorly written books, racist books. Many times, especially if we're making no effort to be aware, we aren't conscious of the impression being left on us.
Nobody gets away from a book unchanged. Nobody. You are always a slightly different person after every little bit you read. Whether you loved it, hated it, didn't care - it shifted you, rearranged some of your molecules, shifted the little pathways in your brain.
Fiction shapes the reader, the writer, and the culture. When we commit fiction, we shape and are shaped.
And when we commit fiction that is unexamined, full of the monstrous ideas that have been shaping us, and don't even know they're there, we're shaping the world for the worse. When we read fiction and do not look for the monsters even a little, we are being shaped for the worst and letting it happen.
I don't presume to say that when someone writes fiction they are writing the world they'd like to see. Most writers would probably not want to inhabit the worlds they come up with. It's not about that. Though I have my questions about someone who finds the handwaving of slavery to be an enjoyable past time. I'm sure the author of the post in question would probably be horrified to return to the world the way it was in Victorian times.
But to handwave and ignore the evil that went along with that world is to give it a door back into the world through fiction. The more doors we open, the more of it we're going to see in our reality.
Cultures do not rid themselves of their evil features by sticking their fingers in their ears and waiting until it goes away. You don't defeat racism, sexism, ablism, homophobia, bigotry and all the other societal ills by ignoring it. You do it by talking, pressing, speaking, writing, having conversations, marching, protesting, speaking up.
Whether or not we write about the world we want, what we write about is the world we make.
It is never just fiction. It's a metaphor, a cause, an idea, a language-based viral infection, a cultural transaction, a personal manifesto, a plan, a vision, a possibility - but never is it just anything. Never.
I ask because I just now saw this: "In Defense of Victorientalism". This guy just gave Norman Spinrad a run for his pantlessness.
If you want a really, really wonderful response to this,
deepad has one (link takes you to dreamwidth) here, with her post One Bad Tune Deserves Another". Included is probably the best, most beautifully snarky, most petard hoisting poem ever in the history of mankind, "Pity the Orientalist".And there's also this great post, "Countering Orientalism" which is so totally completely right. This right here, especially:
Due to the power invested in Westerners today, borne from the history of colonization, there is no way to safely recreate the Orient, without yet creating more assumptions of stereotypes, without imposition of these stereotypes on actual people.
As for the article that sparked all this, I'm not sure which parts to quote because all of it is really bad. These two stand out most for me:
This is precisely so and it is from this perspective that part of Issue #11 of the Gatehouse Gazette was written: to redeem, if only for a moment, if only in the space between our computer screens and our imagination, the inaccurate, the imperfect and the improper but the oh so romantic and beguiling fantasy that was Asia before we actually knew it.
I just don't even know. *head shakes*. There is so much wrong that I'm not sure how to pick it apart and analyze it. It's like trying to pull apart a big cluster of writhing snakes here.
I don't know if the author understands that what this entire thing amounts to is: "Is it so wrong to fantasize about a time when the privileged didn't have to care about the effects of their actions on the millions of people they oppressed, enslaved, marginalized, and otherwise harmed?"
Which amounts to: "I'd really like to stop having to think about Asia and Asian people as being worthy of respect. I'd like to go back to treating them like objects meant solely for my entertainment, thanks."
Reclaiming Orientalism is the reclaiming of privilege, and thus the reclaiming of the ability to unthinkingly oppress other people.
But this, too, puts the cherry on the privilege cake:
We blissfully reminiscence about imperial grandeur, shuffling aside the slavery, the segregation, the tyranny and the bloodshed that were also part of it. We are only too willing to recreate, in our writings and in our costuming, the tastes and sensibilities of the Victorian upper class, ignoring, very often, the misery of the poor and the desolation of the oppressed. Is it obnoxious? Probably. Is it offensive? No. Because steampunk is fiction, not research.
My immediate reactions are this:
1) Since when did the "misery of the poor and desolation of the oppressed" stop? The OP writes as though the effects of colonialism and Western oppression are not still being felt in very real, very costly ways to those who are their inheritors.
2) Without making assumptions about the authors' race, origins, or nationality, one might get the impression that one writing such a statement can do so because the negative, ongoing effects of Orientalism are largely invisible or non-existent for this person. Or to say: I'm sure it's really easy to handwave slavery and colonialism when one doesn't live with anything but the benefits of that legacy. I'm sure it's quite easy for one to set all those dirty details aside when the people and events being erased do not erase and ignore the people who are just like you.
3) It is the height of privilege waving to believe that you get to decide what is and is not offensive. And this is one of the primary mechanisms of dominance. Those belonging to dominant groups are able to decide what people do and do not have the right or reason to be upset by. Saying categorically that something is not offensive is another way of trying to shut down any dissenting discussion that might explore what's wrong with Victorientalism (and indeed the larger SF/F genre and maybe even the larger culture at work) and find ways to write and create things that are less or even not problematic. It is a way of keeping those who are offended out of the discussion and away from any productive conversation.
Let us be clear. No one person gets to decide what is or isn't offense. One can decide what is and isn't offensive for them, individually. If this author had said, "I don't find this offensive" - it would still be problematic and privilege waving, but less so. Because at least then the possibility that other people could find it offensive is left open. Of course declaring that you don't find it offensive, therefore it isn't is still one big outpouring of privilege.
There are a lot of things, even under the guise of anti-oppression conversations, that people are not going to agree on. Some people will be offended by something, some people won't. For instance, I know that there were a lot of divided opinions amongst people that I consider to be anti-racists on such movies as District 9 and Precious, concerning whether they were racially problematic, how much so, and why.
But in that conversation, what I did not hear was those people saying, "Well, I didn't have a problem with Precious, so there was no problem."
What I did hear was: "I personally did not have a problem, but I can see how other people might be bothered by or have issues with X, Y, Z - my reasons for such are A, B, and C. But other people might have different reasons that are completely valid" - or some form there of.
4) There is no goddamn thing as "just fiction". As a writer of fiction, the very phrase "just fiction" sets my teeth on edge and makes me want to go around doing property damage (and maybe grievous bodily harm to anyone silly enough to utter such a phrase in my hearing).
Mankind, all across the wide, wide world, has dedicated countless hours and words (both spoken and written) to the creation, telling, and sharing of fiction. Dollars to donuts, if one could travel back in time and hear that first tale told by the long, ago distant ancestors of humanity, it would be fiction. Non-factual tales of some sort have been the mainstay of human creativity since, well, since there was human creativity.
So saying now that it's "just fiction" when minimalizing it allows you to tell stories that please you but hurt others is disingenuous and enraging.
Fiction has very, very real consequences for readers, writers, and cultures. They are cultural transactions, either within a culture or sometimes between cultures. To say that it's "just fiction" when discussing what does and doesn't matter culturally and literarily is like saying it's "just trade" when talking about the economy.
The statement is absurd on it's face. I can't think of any other way to articulate how utterly, stupendously, profoundly wrong such a phrase is.
Just as trade can make, break, and shake an economy - so too does fiction with culture. So much of the information and ideas that we carry around with us come from the stories we're told. The attitudes that so many white folks have about people of color doesn't simply come from things we're taught in class or things we're told. It comes from fiction. From the books and movies we're handed as kids.
I can give example after example of how people have responded to movies, books, TV shows. People name their kids after favorite characters, or try something they read in a book. People take attitudes away from what they read.
The things we read, even and especially the fictional things, affect us. It leaves a mark on us. Even bad books, boring books, poorly written books, racist books. Many times, especially if we're making no effort to be aware, we aren't conscious of the impression being left on us.
Nobody gets away from a book unchanged. Nobody. You are always a slightly different person after every little bit you read. Whether you loved it, hated it, didn't care - it shifted you, rearranged some of your molecules, shifted the little pathways in your brain.
Fiction shapes the reader, the writer, and the culture. When we commit fiction, we shape and are shaped.
And when we commit fiction that is unexamined, full of the monstrous ideas that have been shaping us, and don't even know they're there, we're shaping the world for the worse. When we read fiction and do not look for the monsters even a little, we are being shaped for the worst and letting it happen.
I don't presume to say that when someone writes fiction they are writing the world they'd like to see. Most writers would probably not want to inhabit the worlds they come up with. It's not about that. Though I have my questions about someone who finds the handwaving of slavery to be an enjoyable past time. I'm sure the author of the post in question would probably be horrified to return to the world the way it was in Victorian times.
But to handwave and ignore the evil that went along with that world is to give it a door back into the world through fiction. The more doors we open, the more of it we're going to see in our reality.
Cultures do not rid themselves of their evil features by sticking their fingers in their ears and waiting until it goes away. You don't defeat racism, sexism, ablism, homophobia, bigotry and all the other societal ills by ignoring it. You do it by talking, pressing, speaking, writing, having conversations, marching, protesting, speaking up.
Whether or not we write about the world we want, what we write about is the world we make.
It is never just fiction. It's a metaphor, a cause, an idea, a language-based viral infection, a cultural transaction, a personal manifesto, a plan, a vision, a possibility - but never is it just anything. Never.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 03:23 pm (UTC)Now. I don't think all steampunk *has to be* imperialist or Orientalist in nature. I think there are many possibilities for celebrating the culture without co-opting it in the hands of a careful author. And I agree w/
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 09:12 pm (UTC)It's not like all steampunks are like him, either. We have plenty of socially-conscious steampunks (like Cherie Priest!! And Jake von Slatt!!) who don't think that way. Just that when the stupid hits the fan...
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 09:33 pm (UTC)I don't either, and in fact, I'm quite confused as to why anyone thinks that steampunk should be limited to the Western world or Victorian England or where that notion came from. Frankly, I'm so over Victorian England to tell you the truth. I'm so ready for steampunk set elsewhere and in other times.
But it has to be done carefully and thoughtfully and not just by taking the parts we like and forgetting or ignoring what we don't.
Agreed 100%.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 03:30 pm (UTC)This (and the dismissive attitude toward Said) bothers me the most, because it's practically asking readers and writers to dismiss "all the racism and guilt."
(There was talk in
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 09:24 pm (UTC)Which is, of course, to dismiss the folks who are most hurt by these things. I didn't appreciate him dismissing Said mostly on the grounds of "but I don't want to think about those things, they're harshing my squee!"
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 09:51 pm (UTC)After this, I just might have to kickstart it again...
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 05:30 pm (UTC)Our who? We who?
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 05:59 pm (UTC)Apparently the OP has a frog in their pocket I don't know about. Because this "we" business certainly does not include (or speak for) me in any way.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 06:00 pm (UTC)Not to join the ranks of the ridiculous, but...
Date: 2010-03-15 09:31 pm (UTC)What I mean is that idea of a central, unified world is an idea that is appealing to all, even those who are generally compassionate towards humanity and would oppose the blatant inhumanity of imperialism. The ideals of imperialism, although ridiculous and, at heart, racist, should not be lampooned to such an extant. It is the execution that deserves condemnation, not as much the ideas behind it.
Reading over this, I realize it sounds like I'm trying to excuse imperialism from its sordid past. I'm truly not. I'm just trying to pick out the fact that imperialism was not so mindlessly wicked as it seems.
Re: Not to join the ranks of the ridiculous, but...
Date: 2010-03-15 10:18 pm (UTC)Now to respond to your comment.
I will say immediately that I feel inadequate to respond correctly to this, because I am still learning just how deeply my own cultural programming in the ways of privilege, dominance, blindness, and outright bigotry go. I'm still learning to rewire myself and my cultural interactions around that programming. Thus, in many ways, this is like asking a kindergarten child who barely knows her ABC's what's wrong with a legal brief. But I will try
I'm not sure how you can say you are not a proponent of imperialism in the same sentence in which you think that "imperialism's ideals should not be dismissed aside as pure racism and degradation...ism" - without one of those two statements being decidedly false.
Also to note: degradation is not an ism. It is the process of depriving human beings of everything from basic material necessities to dignity and freedom. It is not a silly "politically correct" (scare quotes and sarcasm intentional) word. It is a real thing that happens daily around this world. Your language does not indicate to me that you respect that.
What I mean is that idea of a central, unified world is an idea that is appealing to all
Please be careful of generalized, universal statements. A central, unified world is not necessarily a good thing and in many ways, the idea is horrifying for me. For such a thing to happen, many cultural and political entities would have to cease to exist. Such a world would not tolerate dissent or difference. This world would be about conforming to a dominant. This is not a world I want, and I qualify in the subset of "all".
You do realize that imperialism is the practice of one national entity taking control of another national entity - with or without the permission/ consent of the people in that other national entity? It has been, without exception, bloody, destructive, and demeaning for the entity being taken over.
I'm still failing (and will, to save you time, always fail) to see what ideals of imperialism merit any defense. The idea that one country has any business taking over another seem to me to be always based in the idea that one people are superior and thus deserving of power over others, even when it comes at the steep cost of many, many human lives, dignities, and well beings - take over those nations. Imperialism is never a peaceable, unifying process.
Do you understand that the consequences of imperialism, colonialism, and Western oppression are still being felt around the globe? Do you understand that those consequences are not long gone, but ever-present and very real for millions of human beings.
The ideals of imperialism, although ridiculous and, at heart, racist, should not be lampooned to such an extant.
I'm not sure what's not to lampoon. If the ideals are ridiculous and racist at heart, what is to defend. If the heart of a thing is bad, why should it not be dismissed and lampooned?
The responses I link to in my original post say, better than I can, why I believe you are wrong and will continue to believe so. I urge you to read, very carefully what Jha so wonderfully, rightly said about countering Victorientalism. If you need the link, it is in my post.
Re: Not to join the ranks of the ridiculous, but...
Date: 2010-03-16 03:58 am (UTC)Thank you. *blinking over here at "imperialism's ideals" -- which is what, exactly, aside from trying to take over the world whether the rest of the world wants it or not?
Plus, the "central, unified world" thing has, to me, connotations of white people = civilized and brown people = in need of saving. But maybe I'm reading too much into it.
Re: Not to join the ranks of the ridiculous, but...
Date: 2010-03-20 01:16 am (UTC)*blank stare*
Reading over this, I realize it sounds like I'm trying to excuse imperialism from its sordid past.
Well, that too.
Re: Not to join the ranks of the ridiculous, but...
Date: 2010-03-22 05:35 pm (UTC)What I meant, at the back of my mind, is that complete insistence on the guilt of another side is never healthy. There are very few areas of black and white, and even imperialism (which I have actually written essays on the terrible and destructive nature of) is no black and white issue. However guilty one side may be, I always try to see it from their point of view, and to find the justification, however skewed. That does not mean I necessarily believe in it. But I do try and understand it.
I suppose what I'm blundering around and trying to say is that balance and moderation are essential to arguments. I was trying to provide the balance, but in a horribly awkward way; which is too bad, because I am now the pariah of this post.
In which that thing you're on is my LAST DAMN NERVE. (LJ ATE MY PREVIOUS POST)
Date: 2010-03-22 06:48 pm (UTC)Therein lies the first problem. What you wrote doesn't sound bad it IS bad. This is not about tone or "sounding bad", okay. This isn't a good idea explained wrong. It's a TERRIBLE IDEA explained exactly right. And why is it that you expect your intentions or "what [you] meant, at the back of [your] mind" to be more important than the results of your words and their effect on the people who read them?
What is so damn important about what you "meant" that I'm supposed to ignore what you ACTUALLY SAID?
I suppose what I'm blundering around and trying to say is that balance and moderation are essential to arguments.
Therein lies your second problem. This is not some academic argument, this is not a discussion held in a vacuum that means nothing and has no repercussions.
Your defense of imperalism, even in the context of steampunk literature, has REAL FUCKING CONSEQUENCES. The history that you're erasing is history that
To defend imperialism is to say to the people who have been damaged by it's affects, "I can see how it was RIGHT for someone to do that to you (plural you). I feel it's importance to examine the reasons that you deserved it and your pain and suffering are positive things."
And why is it that you feel people - speaking from a place of experience with colonialism and imperialism's devastating legacies - are the ones who need "balance"? Why is that those protesting the oppresive nature of such a thing are obligated to justify their right to disagree WITH THEIR OWN OPPRESSION to you?
Why do you feel you are owed this justification, why do you feel that if you see people protesting oppression that you must "balance" their views instead of looking inward and deciding whether it is YOUR views that are so terribly unbalanced and in need of readjusting?
I was trying to provide the balance, but in a horribly awkward way; which is too bad, because I am now the pariah of this post.
*offers you balloons and festive hats for your pity party*
Re: In which that thing you're on is my LAST DAMN NERVE. (LJ ATE MY PREVIOUS POST)
Date: 2010-03-22 11:37 pm (UTC)That being said, I apologize for having offended you to such an extraordinary extent.
Re: In which that thing you're on is my LAST DAMN NERVE. (LJ ATE MY PREVIOUS POST)
Date: 2010-03-23 12:01 am (UTC)Trying to tell me otherwise is what isn't acceptable.
Don't comment here again.
Re: In which that thing you're on is my LAST DAMN NERVE. (LJ ATE MY PREVIOUS POST)
Date: 2010-04-04 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 09:30 pm (UTC)Your post is SO ON. I completely hear what you're saying about fiction. It's so true. It's so right.
*loves all over the post*
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 09:36 pm (UTC)Links sort of just get bounced around the interwebs, I'm not sure how it happens, either. I found you via Deepa D. (http://deepad.dreamwidth.org), if that helps.
I'm glad you liked my post as well. I'm quite flattered. And I don't think it's necessarily bad to give exposure to how wrong that entire article was, especially if it gets more people to read posts like yours.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 09:48 pm (UTC)It's weird how it's exploded and the effects, because I can't find the original article
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 10:23 pm (UTC)But hey, if it gets people to really think about what they're saying, doing, and writing, I say it's a victory. Especially since your article was so awesome.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 10:59 pm (UTC)http://www.ottens.co.uk/gatehouse/steampunk_articles-4.php
Not that it helps matters, of course.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 11:49 pm (UTC)Anyway, this entire comment is a roundabout way of saying that this is a fantastic, clear post. Bravo.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-17 11:33 pm (UTC)