What on EARTH are Baen playing at?

[leebase]

I am quite entertained to see folks so bothered by "right wing" media content. I'll gladly trade all the right wing content for all the left. Sure I'd lose talk radio and a lot of great sci-fi -- but I'd gain almost everything else including the great comedians, movies, music, news broadcasts, college professors, etc.

Lee

[cearbhallain]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

(I sometimes wonder how I came out on the far-freak side of liberal, given how many conservative authors had an influence on me.)

My dad worships at the altar of Rand and Heinlein. It took me a long time to really understand what that meant in terms of who my father was, and the nature of the bill of goods required to maintain his world view. Coming out on the far-freak side of liberal is a rational response to certain untenable philosophies.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Huh? Wha...?

Exactly.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Ooookay. I am backing away from you slowly.

And I'm keeping you between me and him.

[Moejoe]

And I am still no clearer what you're talking about. Unless it's some allusion to a fanboy backlash over calling Card a homophobic Mormon nutjob (which he is and will ever remain.) Or was it the Heinlein is fascist thing? Or maybe that fantasy is a useless genre? Was that the one?

[Worldwalker]

Mostly, it's the fact that you're trashing an entire field of literature, which is at least as wide-ranging as any other, while admitting that you don't actually read it.

Also, there's the fact that you're criticizing my taste in literature, implying that I'm immature, and impugning my political beliefs, which you actually know nothing about except that they're not hard-right. If I want to be gratuitously insulted, I'll dig up my old VN login.

Regarding you not reading Starship Troopers: I have, currently loaded on my 505, a book whose premise I find repugnant, by an author I detest. I am slowly plowing my way through it. Why? Because if I'm going to condemn a book, I should at least have read it -- not only out of fairness, but so I can aim my criticism accurately. "I've never read it but I know it's evil" is the cry of the book-burner.

[DawnFalcon]

Yes, to be clear I don't read books not because of the author*, but because of overly-strong ideological bias in the book. And that only applies to fiction, I've read Mein Kamph..

(*Okay, if they've been an ass directly to me. But that's just because I'm not nice)

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Mostly, it's the fact that you're trashing an entire field of literature, which is at least as wide-ranging as any other, while admitting that you don't actually read it.

Also, there's the fact that you're criticizing my taste in literature, implying that I'm immature, and impugning my political beliefs, which you actually know nothing about except that they're not hard-right.

Regarding you not reading Starship Troopers: I have, currently loaded on my 505, a book whose premise I find repugnant, by an author I detest. I am slowly plowing my way through it. Why? Because if I'm going to condemn a book, I should at least have read it -- not only out of fairness, but so I can aim my criticism accurately. "Ive never read it but I know it's evil" is the cry of the book-burner.

Whoah, whoah, whoah, hold your horses there mister. I have read science-fiction, plenty of it over time, and I quite clearly stated that I gave up on it early (that does not mean I haven't delved into the genre over time and enjoyed some of the delving along the way). And I'm not just trashing Science Fiction, but ALL genres (and the ghettos they have become), which are predominantly simplistic and thoroughly predictable and have to be to appeal to a mass market level (exceptions always welcome). Now, I'll admit that my attitude is a by-product of an academic education studying literature at the Masters level. At that level genre is not the same; genre is classified as novel, short story, novella, poem etc....there's no Horror, Science Fiction, Mystery etc. Once you know the ins and outs of the publishing world and the reason why we're stuck with these literary ghettos of genre, then it all becomes rather unappetizing. Plus, I've been writing and studying the craft of writing for nearly twenty years, and that kind of knowledge makes a lot....the vast majority of fiction become unappealing and predictable (it's the chef seeing even the greatest of foods as bland because he knows the ingredients).

Now, let me say that my perception of science-fiction's juvenile nature (along with most other genres) is in part because of my age. I'm in my mid-thirties and it would be a very dull life indeed if I still could muster enthusiasm for the same levels of literature I did at the age of fifteen. My reading has progressed, along with the cinema and music that I favour. As a kid I could easily sit through an episode of the A-Team and even enjoy it, but there's no way to remain at that level forever. Now, you'd have to staple me to a seat and peg my eyes open for me to watch a trailer for the new film. I really do find it hard to understand how anybody beyond the age of thirty can entertain the vast majority of 'genre' as anything but throwaway and dull, especially if they've been exposed to a wide variety of reading material.

There is no way in hell I'd ever force myself to read anything, not even for academic reasons. That seems about the most pointless action anybody could take. And let me just state that I never called out or condemned Heinlein as a fascist, but pointed toward the Verhoeven interview concerning Starship Troopers (which I find much more interesting than the film). Also lets be clear here, I never called anybody far-right or even right-wing, what I did say is that the genre of science-fiction, and especially Baen, has what I consider a right-wing bent. If you think I'm 'impunging' your beliefs, then you've read far more into what I was saying than was actually said. I can only guess at your political affiliations, as I have no idea what they are and I don't have enough evidence to offer a guess.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Yes, to be clear I don't read books not because of the author*, but because of overly-strong ideological bias in the book. And that only applies to fiction, I've read Mein Kamph..

(*Okay, if they've been an ass directly to me. But that's just because I'm not nice)

Mein Kampf is a historical text now, it was once a political tract, never a work of fiction. As historical artefact it is interesting, as political rant it has worth in study. I find no dissonance in saying that I would read Mein Kampf and not read the fictional works of a man I know to be a 'campaigning' homophobe.

[DawnFalcon]

"studying literature at the Masters level"

And that explains *that*.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

"studying literature at the Masters level"

And that explains *that*.

Hey, I spent a lot of money and time gaining that and my teaching qualifications. (Still repaying some of it, damnit!) Am I an elitist now because I wanted an education? Is *that* it?

[Worldwalker]

I'm done with this discussion. Anyone who feels it necessary to insult me in an attempt to make some point has nothing to say that I want to spend my time reading.

P.S. No, you're elitist because you act like a snob.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I'm done with this discussion. Anyone who feels it necessary to insult me in an attempt to make some point has nothing to say that I want to spend my time reading.

I never once insulted you. Point me to where I insulted you, right now. Because that is a blatant lie.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Hey, I spent a lot of money and time gaining that and my teaching qualifications. (Still repaying some of it, damnit!) Am I an elitist now because I wanted an education? Is *that* it?

I am yet to know someone with Masters Lit. who is not a snob about what he/she reads.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

I am yet to know someone with Masters Lit. who is not a snob about what he/she reads.

But is that not just a refinement of taste, an expansion of reading materials offered beyond that which the 'market' deems worthy or makes available? If I'd been to chef school, would I not want more than chips and egg for tea? If I'd become a mechanic, would I not look upon the Ford Fiesta as a piece of shit (works, gets you from a-b but still a piece of shit). What you are calling snobbery, I just see it as advancing from one form to the next. I used to really admire realistic painting, but now I'm older I prefer Picasso and surrealism, it doesn't make realistic painting objectively better or worse, but in my opinon it is worse because it has become too simplistic to me. My tastes have changed over time, become more adult. I'll admit I'd probably never would have read Kobe Abe or a lot of Japanese writers if I hadn't studied for my Masters. Although I was reading Steinbeck and Kafka alongside King and Barker as a teenager, so maybe I would have found them eventually.

EDIT: And I'd love to carry this discussion further, because I think it's really interesting (beyond any imagined slurs, and they are imagined), but I'm away on holiday in about thirty minutes, so if you have any witty retorts or you know, want to burn me at the stake, I won't be around to reply or beg for water.

I'll leave you with this quote from JG Ballard talking about his novel 'Crash' and I think it sits well with my own reasoning:

"By calling a novel like Crash science fiction, you isolate the book and you don't think about what it is."