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"Misogyny" by Rusty. Great song.

Not that I endorse the hatred of women or anything. Well, Lepton will think so. But i stand by the old adage,
"If you love her, buy her a gun."

Lepton, I think you are confusing tolerance with approval. My Christian faith defines and informs all aspects of my life. Often in books I encounter things which I don't like- blasphemy, profanity, sexual immorality, wanton violence, etc. Living in a pluralistic society, it's necessary to be tolerant of things I object to. This doesn't mean I approve of those things, merely that I tolerate them. My enjoyment of a story will definitely be affected by objectionable material in it. However, if I make it a rule to throw the babies out with the bathwater, I'll end up discarding a lot of good stories I can derive some good things from.

Sean wrote: "I've seen plenty of people offer counterarguments to your claims, which you've either ignored or handwaved away."
Exactly. I'm done since this isn't really much of a two-way discussion.

I decided to not post on this thread really because it comes across as a huge trolling attempt. But I will say one thing.

It seems this troll is about two things: 1. Intense dislike for Gene Wolfe for whatever reason and 2. The thought that "literature" should only be Lepton-approved topics. Anything else is wrong, horrible and if you like it you suck.

Noel wrote: "Did you just say that Lepton is on drugs?"

Nope, nor am I implying that. It occurs to me that someone with a very concrete imagination would be hurt by exactly the sf that Lepton dislikes. By analogy, some of the music I love is the Pharaoh Saunders/John Coltrane's flat-out continuous howl stuff. To most folks it sounds like an aural assault. I have to take that seriously.

(But to quote Schoenberg "You won't get a heroic ride to heaven on pretty little sounds".)

Here's what I _am_ saying.

1. Lepton believes that Wolfe's content is not present until he starts creating it or 'letting it in.' (Lepton wrote: "In every manner other than committing of the acts, the author creates and endorses those acts by bring them into being in the world in a narrative context.")

2. I believe that they're inherently 'in here' to start with. My reading of history, contemporary culture, primatology, and human evolution tells me that rape, torture, and genocide are inextricable embedded in who we are.

3. I do not mean that in the abstract. I mean that you, I, and Lepton have a genetic propensity to treating con-specifics as something other and subjecting them to atrocity. History (from which we seek to awake) and current events support that view pretty strongly. I don't think these propensities and their emotions are all that far below the surface of everyday life. Think road rage.

4. Finally, and this is probably the most arguable point, I believe, thereby, that not acknowledging and working with this horror creatively via our art, culture, institutions, and religion make the horrors more likely. What we refuse does not go away. It becomes more likely to get exteriorized as actual events.

5. Cue the Spanish Inquisition. One common way that happens is that the evil stuff is attributed to some other group and we set out to kill them. We're the good guys up against a world of heretics, witches, and secret Jews.

6. From my perspective this makes Lepton's view not only incorrect but dangerously wrong. It is not wrong to "bring this into existence" via literature but necessary. It is wrong not to.

7. Does this mean that anything goes? No. But I have a much harder time drawing the line than Lepton.

8. Aside 1: there was recently a very interesting discussion and vote at the APA on the role of professional psychologists in interrogation. It is not very hard to imagine a group of 'interrogation specialists' with a code of ethics, specific disciplines, pride in their profession, and even some concern for their 'clients', ie precisely Wolfe's starting point. (I imagine the book being written with him creating such a character and sending him out in the world to see what happens. It's unlikely he had the whole thing worked out in advance of starting book 1 of 4.) Here's the top Google result from my search on 'psychologists abu ghraib' [ooops - sub Guantanamo for abu ghraib]: All seemed to have a political slant.

9. Aside 2: it is worth noting that Wolfe was en route to converting to a religion that believes humans are inherently sinful and salvageable only by divine intervention. Perhaps where Severain ended up was part of this process.

Al wrote: "6. From my perspective this makes Lepton's view not only incorrect but dangerously wrong. It is not wrong to "bring this into existence" via literature but necessary. It is wrong not to."

I would be curious to hear more of your views on this one.

Al wrote: Aside 2: it is worth noting that Wolfe was en route to converting to a religion that believes humans are inherently sinful and salvageable only by divine intervention. Perhaps where Severain ended up was part of this process.

Wolfe has stated the sees Severain as a christian figure, a bad man trying to be and do good. He's also stated the only character in any of his Solar Cycle books that reflects him in any sense is from later books - Father Silk.

Listen all! This is the truth of it. Fighting leads to killing, and killing gets to warring. And that was damn near the death of us all. Look at us now! Busted up, and everyone talking about hard rain! But we've learned, by the dust of them all... now, when men get to fighting, it happens here! And it finishes here! Two men enter; one man leaves.

Thunderdome, the only logical way to end this thread!

Lepton wrote: "Questions:

Do you find pornography offensive? Do you find pornography degrading to women? Do you think purveyors of pornography to be generally moral or immoral people?

So depictions of sexual ..."

Weather or not pornography is morally offensive is up to the viewer to watch or not watch. I've heard the argument that pornography is degrading to women and I think that it's sexist. If two consenting adults decide to record themselves participating in erotic exercises; how is it possibly more degrading to the women than the man? I would think it would be equally degrading if it offends your moral sensibility.

Let me state from the first that I am not attempting to employ a straw man argument with reference to pornography and racism in my arguments. I am attempting to identify within those reading these remarks their own cringe point. What is acceptable in fiction? What is immoral to use in service of mere entertainment? Do I need to resort to the sexual abuse of children to make my point? To me, the use of rape, murder, torture, violence, racism, misogyny in the service of mere entertainment is morally problematic, if not completely immoral. It is offensive to me. What is offensive to you? Are there limits? To me, there are. Wolfe and many, many, many other authors cross that line, especially where violence toward women is concerned.

Let me make an obvious point. Rape, murder, torture, violence, misogyny, racism, etc are indeed offensive to our senses. The author deploys these immoral acts as specific narrative devices to arouse readers physiologically and psychologically. The authors deploys these devices specifically because he or she knows the effect of using these devices on readers, because he or she knows that immoral acts like these offend and arouse.

The author intends to offend.

In every sense, he or she intends to offend; otherwise, these devices would not feel like salient and meaningful experiences to the reader.

I doubt any of us cheered when the woman was branded and publicly executed. I doubt that anyone found it particularly funny, except in a very gallows humor way. Scenes like this are intended to offend, to arouse, to shock, to demoralize.

The author intends to offend, therefore it is offensive.

My arguments stem from assessing the author's intent. When from all the possibilities of human experience and imagination an author of fiction chooses to create a world of violence, degradation and suffering, that indicates a specific intent to me and a specific mindset. He or she intends to offend. He or she intends to trap the reader in a miasma of shock, revulsion, and impotence in the face of violence, degradation, and injustice. In service of that intent, the author creates suffering within a narrative context, subjects the reader to it, and profits from it.

The author might have chosen to elucidate, educate, explain, or inspire, but he or she chooses to offend when these acts are deployed in narratives.


Also, I would like to state that despite the fact that people seem to infer that I am judging them in some way for liking Wolfe or certain types of fiction, I am not. I think your views are wrong, but I don't think that makes you inherently a bad person.

I happen to a vegan, but I don't judge people for eating animals, although I think it empirically true that the food system and the treatment of animals in this and many other countries are inherently immoral.

I am not judging anyone or saying that anyone here is a bad person, but if you expect me to surrender the truth to my mind merely because you happen to disagree with me and my arguments, you are deeply mistaken.

Lepton wrote: "Let me state from the first that I am not attempting to employ a straw man argument with reference to pornography and racism in my arguments. I am attempting to identify within those reading these remarks their own cringe point. What is acceptable in fiction? What is immoral to use in service of mere entertainment? Do I need to resort to the sexual abuse of children to make my point?"

Do you mean child pornography which involves the actual abuse of actual children? Then yes, that is highly offensive, and entirely besides the point since Gene Wolfe didn't abuse any actual people while writing Shadow of the Torturer.

If you mean fiction that depicts the abuse of children without any actual children being abused -- I have no problem with that if it's done well, such as in Lolita or Seul contre tous. The fact is, such things happen in the real world and to say that fiction cannot address it is to privilege one experience of the world over another -- to say that the experience of abuse victims is not worth writing about because it offends your sensibilities.

Let me make an obvious point. Rape, murder, torture, violence, misogyny, racism, etc are indeed offensive to our senses. The author deploys these immoral acts as specific narrative devices to arouse readers physiologically and psychologically. The authors deploys these devices specifically because he or she knows the effect of using these devices on readers, because he or she knows that immoral acts like these offend and arouse.

The author intends to offend.

Or the author intends an accurate representation of the human experience instead of limiting himself the the privileged existence of a lucky few Americans who do not experience anything horrific first hand. Arguing that such things are offensive and should not be seen in fiction is to delegitimize those sets of experiences, to say that they are not as worthy of contemplation as your privileged lifestyle.

The author intends to offend, therefore it is offensive.

You say that as though offending you is a high crime. It's not. You need to get out of your cloistered little existence and accept that not all the world is so lucky as you, and that those other parts of the world are worth writing about, even if you don't find it comfortable.

Lepton wrote: "1. This is a work of fiction, therefore nothing is required...."

      Okay.

Lepton wrote: "2. The author consciously chooses what he or she will include in that work of fiction...."

      Eh. I frequently hear writers talk about how they were surprised by something they wrote, the actions one of their characters made. I have more of an issue with the conscious part than the chooses part.

Lepton wrote: "3. If a work of fiction includes rape, murder, torture, misogyny, etc, despite all the varied and multitudinous acts and experiences that exist in our own world, let alone all the possible imagined ones that could pertain in a science fiction context, the author is consciously choosing to showcase these morally abhorrent acts over all other possibilities...."

      Again, I have issues with the consciously part. But otherwise, yeah, okay.

Lepton wrote: "4. When an author deploys these immoral acts in the narrative, he or she is to be held accountable for subjecting his or her readers to depictions and descriptions of deeply immoral acts...."

      Whoa! Subjecting the reader? Piff, I say. Unless the author is somehow forcing you to read their words, then there is no excuse for a reader to read something that they do not WANT to read. The moral obligation falls on the reader to choose to consume content with immoral actions or to not consume them.

Lepton wrote: "5. When an author creates characters, situations, relations, power structures, societies, etc that implement morally abhorrent acts and systems, he or she creates suffering in this narrative world. He or she gives voice to it. He or she creates an experience of suffering for his or her characters and by extension for the reader. He or she creates the experience of suffering for the reader...."

      Yes, okay. You do know that it is pretend, right? And that the reader don't have to experience the suffering, because they have the choice of closing the book.

Lepton wrote: "6. As a passive consumer of such objectionable and immoral acts, the reader is drawn as a mute and impotent observer into this morally turpitude, debasing the reader's sense of agency and personal responsibility in the face of immoral acts...."

      I really don't agree with your view of the reader as some incapacitated subject. I personally get very little out of a book that I read passively. It is when I immerse myself and fully engage my imagination that the story comes to life for me. If I'm just turning the pages, I might as well grab my Merck Veterinary Manual and read that. And even if the reader is unfortunate enough to be unable to disingage their imagination, they can always take action and close the book. Stop turning the pages. If it is actually immoral to read about immoral things than the reader is just as culpable.

Lepton wrote: "7. Finally, when these deeply immoral acts are brought forth in an entertainment, for-profit context to excite and disturb the reader, the author literally profits from creating a world of violence and suffering in his or her own mind, visiting that violence and suffering on characters of his or her own creation, and subjecting the vicarious experience of violence and suffering on the reader...."

      Profiting from your actions, yes. Subjecting the reader, no.

Lepton wrote: "8. The author can be said to support, endorse, and condone such immoral acts in that he or she creates these deplorable acts and situations with full conscious choice, then seeks to distribute and profit from the creation of the experience of violence and suffering. Immoral acts are created by the author. They are described and articulated by the author. They are situated as a device in a narrative context by the author. He or she creates characters meant to suffer the indignity of these acts and subjects the reader to that suffering. The author distributes and profits from these depictions of suffering and violence...."

      I disagree with conscious choice. I disagree that communicating about a subject supports, endorses, or condones it. I utterly disagree that imagining things creates them, because if it did, I'd have imagined my fortune long ago. I agree that an author should profit from their work. I agree that the author depicted suffering and violence.

Lepton wrote: "8.1 In every manner other than committing of the acts, the author creates and endorses those acts by bring them into being in the world in a narrative context...."

      What? I don't think this sentence actually makes any sense unless you are arguing that by creating a world... the author is literally creating a world. If you assertion all along is based on the belief that imagining things makes them real, somewhere, somehow, then... you'd have to be right. It would be horrible if that were the case. And if you believe that to be so, then I understand your dispair at the suffering and cruelty being depicted in creative works every day.
      But I don't believe that to be the case. It's all pretend and in pretend, the author and the reader get to work out what they feel about these bad things, rather than in reality where it would actually be bad if either party decided it was important to find out how they felt while watching the life drain out of a person.
      We all pretend bad things. When I was a kid, I pretended to be a bank robber. That does not mean I have ever robbed a bank or that I ever will. It does not make me a bad person, either. When I was a kid, I would get mad and imagine myself hurting other people. But I didn't. So it was okay. And maybe it was good. Maybe if I hadn't pretended to hurt them, I would have actually done it. Maybe reading this stories with immoral actions in them are actually making the world a better place.

      Basically, all of this jibber-jabber can boil down to this: If the reader doesn't like something, they should shut the book and not buy the next one. After I read a particularly imaginitive rape scene in one of James Patterson's books, I decided I never wanted to read anything from him again. And I've exercised that power. But I don't think he is a bad person, and I'm sure that his childrens books are just fine.

Lepton wrote: "Let me state from the first that I am not attempting to employ a straw man argument with reference to pornography and racism in my arguments. I am attempting to identify within those reading these..."

Thank you, Lepton. This moved the discussion forward for me and I think I understand better what you're saying with those points of clarification. I agree that the author's intent is, in fact, pretty important. I suspect we disagree on Wolfe's intent but perhaps our positions are not that far apart.

A couple of questions --

Can't writing also be to understand, to work through, to provide catharsis, to seek to make sense of something that seems to defy that attempt, etc, etc? I'm thinking specifically of the various writings of holocaust survivors but, also, something like Thelma an Louise. Samuel Delaney claims in the Tower's Trilogy that a poets task is something like "with icy fingers to probe the wound and chronicle the damage."

(I clearly feel it can so that's sort of a leading question, I guess, but I am interested?)

Besides folks writing therapeutically, as it were, can someone write of rape, murder, torture, violence, misogyny, racism, etc, in order to elucidate, educate, explain, or inspire. I'm thinking you would say, 'yes, they can' in which case our argument might be over the author's intent and whether they are succeeding. That's a lot less black and white than the way this has been spinning.

One clear indicator that Wolfe may be using instances of violence as a demonstration and not to condone it, from chapter XXX Night:

(Spoken by Dorcas to Severian)
"If we could have our way, no man would have to go roving or draw blood. But women did not make the world. All of you are torturers, one way or another."

Great quote Jenny! That one stuck in my mind as well.

In my opinion this is the flaw in your argument, Lepton:

6. As a passive consumer of such objectionable and immoral acts, the reader is drawn as a mute and impotent observer into this morally turpitude, debasing the reader's sense of agency and personal responsibility in the face of immoral acts.

So by reading a National Geographic article about child brides in Yemen, I am losing my ability to see that it is immoral to marry off eight year old girls? Of course that is ridiculous! (Just to be very clear, I do not hold the author of the National Geographic article responsible for corrupting me in any way).

One thing that Wolfe does over and over again is ask you to think while reading his novels. By giving his main character a dark side that we find almost unbearably dark at times and seemingly admirable at others, he is doing just that- asking you to think.

On another note, if you find the books so meaningless and uninteresting, why do you post comments here so often? There are dozens of comments from you on this board..... I think you might be your own unreliable narrator. Admit it- you are a die hard fan and just can't get enough.

Lepton wrote: "I think it is funny that people seem to think that I am emotionally involved in some manner with Gene Wolfe or that "I hate him".

He created content and situations that I think are morally repel..."

Not all of us read for "entertainment". That's what video games and TV is for. Certainly if you made all women in BOTNS black men and Severian a white man, I would think that a homosexual man with a penchant for interracial love affairs is being depicted, and nothing more.

Oh, yes, and do avoid fairy tales. Many women lose either their heads or their feet in those. Not to mention how deeply misogynistic the Cinderella tale is, a tale which is told (by Disney, among others, no less!) to our daughters since they are little impressionable children. I do think you should rather start your campaign with Cinderella.

Boots wrote: "Weather or not pornography is morally offensive is up to the viewer to watch or not watch. I've heard the argument that pornography is degrading to women and I think that it's sexist. If two consenting adults decide to record themselves participating in erotic exercises; how is it possibly more degrading to the women than the man? I would think it would be equally degrading if it offends your moral sensibility.
.."

Not to mention all the male homoerotic porn out there. ...so that is not degrading towards men then?

I do agree that there is a lot of porn out there that is pretty degrading towards women. But one has to define a bit more closely which aspect of that porn is degrading towards them--it's the kind of porn where a woman is depicted as merely an object.