The Stormbunnies and Crybullies
With the weariness of a farmer facing another horde of bunnies seeking to climb his fence and chew his crops, once again I find my task is to fend off the various libels of the puppy-kickers. I have better uses for my time, but one does not counter lies with silence.
Over at File 770, Mike Glyer and all the usual suspects are beginning the process of talking themselves into hysterics in order to justify their hatred of all things Sad Puppy. The emotional level is low as yet, merely sneers and jeers, but the tone of voice is the same as during the dog-days of last August.
In this case, Mr. George R.R. Martin, one of the most respected names in our genre, wrote a column with the expression hoping for peace between our two camps, wherein he expressed a desire for the goal while being coy about the means to reach it. He admitted he thought the goal unreachable.
I, for one, am greatly disturbed to find myself opposed to a man whose work I have read and enjoyed for years, and whom I regard as among the most accomplished authors living.
I wrote a column agreeing with the sentiment, and putting forth my reason why, to my regret, I suspect he is correct that the goal is unreachable.
Whether by coincidence or design, a Mr. Steve Davidson, of whom it has not been my pleasure previously to have heard his name in the science fiction field, offered this column: a scathing insult in the form of well meaning advice as to how peace could be achieved: we Sad Puppies need only stop doing the things of which we were falsely accused of doing, and become real fans as he was.
This pronouncement was the opposite of Mr. Martin’s, merely preening on the part of Mr. Davidson. I took Mr. Martin at his word. I did not take Mr. Davidson at his word. He publically admitting voting NO AWARD above my works without doing me the courtesy of reading my works, on the grounds that I was ‘tainted’, that is, a foe of SocJus.
In other words, he deliberately scammed and cheated the system, and he personally robbed me personally of my due, thanks to his dishonestly cast vote; and he advises that there can be peace between us if I, who have been in the field my whole life, join him as a true fan, and to cease committing the wrongs that he has done me but not me him.
I reject this advice with supercilious umbrage, thank you.
My message to Mr. Davidson, and those like him, is this: Sir, if I wrong you merely because I exist, I am unwilling to cease to exist merely to gain your good favor. On the other hand, if you wrong me by libels and slanders, all I require is your honesty, or, failing that, your silence, for amity to be restored.
And of course, Mr. Glyer refers to my opposite reaction to opposite cases as being evidence of a vagrancy of the mind on my part.
His is a petty insult, but not pointless. The very basics of crybully psychology forbids that any trifle, no matter how small, display any enemy as having any human qualities.
Again, whether by coincidence or design, a Mr. Lynch, yet another person of whom it has not been my pleasure previously to have heard his name in the science fiction field, by his own accounts recovering from some fashion of severe mental distress, decided in this column to libel me in a somewhat intemperate matter, on the grounds that Mr. Patrick Hayden, a chief editor at Tor Books, publicly insulted and browbeat my saintly wife, L. Jagi Lamplighter, at that time a Tor books author, at the Hugo Awards photography party.
Apparently the argument is that I said Mr. Hayden delivered the insult in a very loud voice, whereas others say it was in a medium loud voice.
Mr. Lynch asserts that my account of the event is false, and that besides, I am a bigot of some sort, therefore a bad person, and so the normal rules of civility and professionalism which should hold between an editor and an authoress who is the wife of a bad person do not here apply.
Because powerful big men should insult and berate tiny and meek women who are there to talk about a professional matter, or who seek to reconcile an unfortunate controversy. Or something. His reasoning is not pellucid to me.
He does, however, us a lot of potty mouth language, and he gargles and spits alarmingly.
He also says there has been no coordinated efforts by Mr. Hayden and other insiders to game the nominations and collect awards based on political correctness rather than science fiction merit.
I assume this is one of those things said by the faithful to demonstrate that they place political loyalty above truth and reality. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
The comments appended to the File 770 roundup reporting these events include one from from Mrs. Hayden, whom Mr. Beale of Castalia House Books rather ungallantly refers to as the Toad of Tor.
She condemns me for rebuking Mr. Martin’s overture, when in fact I had done the opposite. The line where I said so was quoted my Mr. Glyer in the post. The eyes of political correctness can look at words in a sentence and read them to mean the opposite of what they say, if your faith is as the faith of a child.
And there was more bad language directed at me, on that grounds that I and the other Sad Puppies have some sort of martyrdom complex, and we falsely believe bad language is being directed at us.
Mrs. Hayden is attacking me on the grounds that it is wrong and reprehensible for me to believe she is attacking me.
Apparently Mrs. Hayden wishes me to believe that the puppy kickers, including her husband, are courteous and professional and would never dream of condemning an author’s works based on an author’s political or religious beliefs, race, sex, sexual orientation, or so on. She would have me believe that the puppykickers do not condemn me for my Catholicism.
Of course, such a protestation would have been easier to believe before Mr. Moshe Feder accused me of antisemitism, because I said that those who support smuggling antichristian messages into science fiction stories hated Christ. Mr. Feder, with more ire than historical accuracy, said this was the Blood Libel that Catholics used to persecute Jews in Europe. (Actually, the Blood Libel is the accusation that Jews kill Christian children and use their blood in satanic rituals.) Mr. Hayden, inflamed by Mr. Feder’s rhodomontade, expressed his vexation at my wife for my intemperate but accurate description of him as a Christ-Hater by saying that I had thereby invoked a Blood Oath, and that in the Middle Ages a person could be killed for such a thing. He did not quite get his terms correct, but then again neither did Mr. Feder. Apparently the attempt to abolish all Christian influences from modern culture cannot be identified as hatred of things Christian, because to resist that abolition is, according to Mr. Feder’s logic, a Blood Pudding, and therefore antisemitism.
I wonder what my Jewish wife would say if she discovered I was an antisemite.
Meanwhile, a puppykicker has taken it upon himself to canvass bookstores in Toronto, armed with libels written by Mr. Jim C. Hines, to urge the managers there no longer to carry my books, on the grounds that, since I follow the Catholic Church teaching that all homosexuals are to be treated with love and respect, but not violate the rules of chastity that apply to everyone else, I am somehow a homophobic gay-basher.
As proof of my deathless hatred for persons suffering from same sex attraction, the witchhunters link to columns or comments of mine where I express nothing but compassion and goodwill to homosexuals, and express dismay and disgust with their enemies, among whom I include those who continually urge them deeper into their self destructive behaviors, or who seek to spread such behaviors to children.
As if someone who hated drug pushers were the foe, rather than the friend, of the drug addicts on whom they prey.
So banning the books of the space opera writer because he is Catholic and does not apologize for being so is legit, as is accusing him of every thoughtcrime under the sun. And if said writer thinks the SocJus stormbunnies are out to get him, that is his paranoia talking. Got it?
For those of you baffled by this doublethink, the best word to describe it is the recently coined term crybullies.
Crybullying is the process by which the hated ‘other’ is both scorned as weak and insignificant, hardly human, therefore a safe target for the bullying, libel, slander, rage, and contumely that forms the social bond among the Social Justice brigade of Thought Police; and at the same time and in the same sense condemned as being the all powerful and ruthless oppressor, guilty of initiating all hostilities, ferocious, unstoppable, horrific, and panic-inducing, therefore excusing one from any scintilla of civil, proportionate, or honest responses in dealing with him. Lying for the sake of the cause when the stakes are so high and the villains so cruel is not only allowable, according to crybully logic, it is laudable.
At the moment, the snark and sneering is still small, and the little distortions, misrepresentations, and lies are only about trivial things, such as the speculation as to what was in my mind when I wrote a certain column, etc. But the tone is pitched at the proper level of high dudgeon and operatic theatrics. The fat ladies are beginning to sing.
As with someone infatuated with love will look at any trifle of the beloved and find it beautiful and fascinating, so, here, those infatuated with hate will find any trifle of the Emmanuel Goldstein of the Week hateful, and will dwell on the hatefulness with fascination.
Now, of most interest to me in Mr. Lynch’s otherwise forgettable and insignificant screed is that he dismisses my civility as false. I urge him to count the number of times he uses a colorful Anglo-Saxon scatological term to refer to me versus the number of times I have done the same to him.
The fact that a potty mouth with neurological problems see fit to upbraid me, not because I am rude, but because I am polite, on the grounds that I am polite, is one of the several facts that leads me to believe my column answering Mr. Martin was essentially correct:
The Sad Puppies can exist without the Puppy Kickers, because we are content to read and write science fiction without feeling the need to condemn the works for failing a political purity test; the Puppy Kickers cannot exist without someone, Puppies or otherwise, to fit the role of the evil oppressor capitalist racist homophobe Isamophobe transphone cisnormative conservative libertarian bibble-thumbing bigoted flying purple people eater. Someone has to be condemned as a witch, or else the witchhunt ceases.
Just to be clear, that is why I think Mr. Martin’s sentiments, albeit noble, will not materialize into practical action. Our side would have to upbraid and restrict incivil expressions from our side, and your side would have to do the same.
If Mr. Martin sees fit publicly to chide Mr. Hines or Mr. Lynch for their libels or tortious interference in my livelihood, I will be more optimistic about the project of restoring civility and goodwill to the science fiction community.
In the meanwhile, I wish no ill will to Mr. Hayden, Mr. Feder, Mrs. Hayden, Mr. Davidson or Mr. Lynch. (Mr. Glyer is another matter; he should be held to a higher standard.)
I do not, however, accept them as authorities, prophets, priests or moral or mental superiors who have some sort of right to pass judgment and condemn me for violations of their cult dogmas of the Cult of Political Correctness.
That is not an idol at which I worship, and so the screaming, shrieking, nonsensical, blithering, and idiotic condemnations of me echoing forever from the padded halls of the Bedlam of your brains is of no use and no interest to me.
It is also boring, because you do not even bother to invent new slanders. I am accused of the same boilerplate routine of accusations you use to accuse all your other enemies.
But I am a forgiving man, jovial and magnanimous. I make the following peace offer: Go your way. Cease to interfere with me and my livelihood, do your work, cease to libel me and meddle with my affairs, withhold your tongue from venom and your works from wickedness, and we shall all get along famously.
Otherwise, it is against my self interest to seek peace with you. Peace is a two sided affair: both parties must agree. So far only Mr. Martin has even expressed a desire for it.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
