I found the comment of Bujold's, that I linked to, an incredibly rude and ungracious response to SkywardProdigal ... pretty much in so many words, she called SkywardProdigal ignorant and dismissed SkywardProdigal's "I will not read this book because the premise is abhorrent to me" as an invalid critique because SP had not read the book. (I seriously can't even figure out WTF her logic is supposed to be there.)
I am very uncomfortable with having anyone involved in this discussion dismissed as an "extremist", because the difference between an extremist and a legitimately angry person is in the eye of the beholder. So is the difference between a productive conversation and one that simply consists of shouting. I can't figure out what your hypothetical productive discussion would look like if it didn't look like this, not when there are very painful issues at stake, about which people feel very strongly. This is not to say that I stand behind every single thing that has been said in the discussion, but it sounds like you expect people to discuss this sort of thing in completely dispassionate terms when it's a very, very emotional topic due to the history of it, and that's ... I think you're expecting superhuman levels of self-control, frankly. (Or Vulcan!) Especially in a public discussion where there are random people (and trolls) wandering in and out all the time with all their own takes on it, *and* you're dealing with a social milieu in which people who challenge the dominant paradigm are usually dismissed as emotional, overly involved, and/or flat-out wrong...
Also, I'm not sure how authorial freedom enters into it, because no one (that I've seen) is objecting to Wrede's ability to write and publish the book, and no one is taking action to prevent Wrede from publishing more books. Criticizing a book is not the same as stifling the author's right to free expression. You can't defend the author's free speech rights without simultaneously defending her readers' freedom to criticize the book as they will.
The interesting thing is that I agree with pretty much everything you've said up to a point (I agree about questioning what we read; I agree that authors should have the freedom to explore their ideas, and that racially problematic tropes in books should be discussed, and so forth) and then there's a point where we completely diverge, and I can't understand why you're seeing shouting and extremism and Wrede's book "going down as racist trash" where I am seeing none of those things.
no subject
I am very uncomfortable with having anyone involved in this discussion dismissed as an "extremist", because the difference between an extremist and a legitimately angry person is in the eye of the beholder. So is the difference between a productive conversation and one that simply consists of shouting. I can't figure out what your hypothetical productive discussion would look like if it didn't look like this, not when there are very painful issues at stake, about which people feel very strongly. This is not to say that I stand behind every single thing that has been said in the discussion, but it sounds like you expect people to discuss this sort of thing in completely dispassionate terms when it's a very, very emotional topic due to the history of it, and that's ... I think you're expecting superhuman levels of self-control, frankly. (Or Vulcan!) Especially in a public discussion where there are random people (and trolls) wandering in and out all the time with all their own takes on it, *and* you're dealing with a social milieu in which people who challenge the dominant paradigm are usually dismissed as emotional, overly involved, and/or flat-out wrong...
Also, I'm not sure how authorial freedom enters into it, because no one (that I've seen) is objecting to Wrede's ability to write and publish the book, and no one is taking action to prevent Wrede from publishing more books. Criticizing a book is not the same as stifling the author's right to free expression. You can't defend the author's free speech rights without simultaneously defending her readers' freedom to criticize the book as they will.
The interesting thing is that I agree with pretty much everything you've said up to a point (I agree about questioning what we read; I agree that authors should have the freedom to explore their ideas, and that racially problematic tropes in books should be discussed, and so forth) and then there's a point where we completely diverge, and I can't understand why you're seeing shouting and extremism and Wrede's book "going down as racist trash" where I am seeing none of those things.