Waylander just pointed out these two pieces by L.E. Modesitt on the Hugo catfight and the underlying (non-political) issues:
Trust to L.E. Modesitt to shed some thoughtful clarity on the whole mess.
http://www.lemodesittjr.com/2015/09/...nt-understand/
http://www.lemodesittjr.com/2015/09/...the-unobvious/
The first points out the insider/outsider clique dynamic of the catfight. As I said before it is about entrenched orthodoxy creating its own opposition through overeach.
The second is directly applicable to the "SJW" issue with the trigger post.
Most especially this pasage:
Quote:
That doesn’t mean that every good or excellent F&SF story needs to be about diversity, or gender, or multi-culturalism, although not including a diverse cast of characters, given the makeup of our world today, strikes me a highly unrealistic. Nor should a novel be elevated unduly or praised merely because it features diversity, but a novel that has a good plot, and good characters, with diversity as well, should rate higher, in terms of literary value, than one that is simply a rip-roaring adventure story.
All of which underscores what I’ve been trying to point out for months – it should be the totality of the story or book, not the current flavor du jour [or decade] of what’s on readers’ social agendas, that determines the value of a book.
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Good finds, Waylander, wherever you are.
