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Originally Posted by tompe
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It’s also as blatant a misreading of Toni Weisskopf’s essay as could be, and probably the source of the Guardian calumnist’s misreading.
The form of argument she’s using goes something like this: “You might believe hypothesis A to be true, but reject it for reasons B and C; instead accept statement D for ‹list of reasons›.” In this case, the hypothesis she’s
explicitly rejecting is “We (SF fans) shouldn’t associate with pseudo-fans who don’t even read Heinlein,” and she rejects it in favor of a broad view of the genre.
Scalzi’s response is an attack on the hypothesis Toni rejected. It’s a straw man argument, made more insidious by the fact that skimming Toni Weisskopf’s essay will turn up sentences which—when taken out of context—sound like she is in fact advocating what he accuses her of. This post of his is vile and dishonest.