hope I don't break my arm falling out of the treehouse

[intertribal]

Fantasy fans frustrate me sometimes.

Alison Flood (who I often disagree with) writes at The Guardian about her experience reading Conan stories and how turned off she is by the way different races are described, and the way women are described, and the way intersectionality brings the two together into a horrible union: The more lily-white a woman's skin, the more prized she is, says Flood.  So she wonders: "Is it ridiculous to criticise Robert E Howard's enjoyably pulpy Conan stories for their 1930s attitudes to women and race?"

The resounding response to this question: of course it is!  (And of course Flood responds to all this hysterical defensiveness of Conan with "but I really did enjoy a lot of it, I swear!  I promise!"  Ugh.)

- so what...take it in context. Do you critique sub-Saharan African or Oriental literature for its focus on particular races?
personally, as soon as you say Oriental you are docked like 1,000 points in my book.
- attempting to over-analyse them is the wrong way to approach them.
- its like dissing Harlequin romance novels for heaving breasts, wimpy heroines saved by manly men, and schmaltz writing.* Conan was always the romance novels for teenage boys.
- Oh, on the matter of political correctness or whatever you want to call it, I don't think it's all that bad. It's reconstructed, perhaps, and there's some stuff sitting between noble savage paternalism and popular xenophobia, but they are by no means Nazi screeds or something. I'm a pretty wishy-washy PC sort of a guy, but I don't see that as a big failing in the Conan stories, particularly if you consider the times and - more so - the men's adventure writing genre.
- No, you couldn't get away with writing like that today but so what? They're still good tales. The racism jarred? Just as well you didn't read the Del Ray editions which are the definitive texts, unlike your edition which was based on texts edited in the 1970's to make them more politically correct.

Man, it is SO AWESOME when "politically correct" is used like this.  Geez, thinking that women who are not porcelain white can be attractive is so PC, geez.  Gosh, if we were just BEING HONEST... /sarcasm

I get "taking things in context."  I really do.  I let a lot of classic lit take a pass because of this, and because there are redeeming values in the book.  Obviously I am a fan of the Mythos (though one of the lovely things about that is that it is constantly reinvented today without Lovecraft's B.S.), but that doesn't mean I just say "so what" to Lovecraft's racism (and hey, what interesting implications for horror as it pertains to changing social values, eh?).  Heart of Darkness is one of my all-time favorite books, although I also think that Achebe's criticisms of the way it depicts Africans are totally valid.  I have never read Conan and I don't want to (because epic barbarianism is not my genre), but I suspect if I did I would probably think it was funny in a pathetic way, remember that it is a product of its time, put it back on the shelf, and point and laugh at people who read it.  This isn't even about Conan.  You can replace Conan with any number of things that now come with the warning, "product of its time."

It's the responses that really get to me, the "who cares if it has that because I had fun reading it when I was an adolescent boy" thing.  Does that mean they'd give it to their sons?  Probably, yeah.  After all, so what?  Why not?  So Conan lives on, Conan with his lily-white women, Conan who ironically cannot be criticized because he is not to be taken seriously.  Whereas classic lit, which is actually, you know, meaningful and interesting and not the equivalent of a Michael Bay movie with half the intelligence, is constantly called out for its outdated bullshit.  Which is good, interesting, and ultimately necessary, because we are people living TODAY, analyzing it TODAY.  Like my Colonial Encounters class, talking about the way Tin Tin and Babar have been changed over the years, to get rid of the horrific racist cartoons in one and the weird-ass imperialist mindset in the other.  Nobody said let's go out and burn all copies of Rin Tin Tin.  It's saying, "hey, let's talk about this, look at how norms change over time, look at how embedded colonial narratives were, even in ads for detergent and coffee, did any of you pick up on this as kids?"  I wrote a paper on how Peter Pan is an iteration of the Noble Savage myth.  I love Peter Pan, but hey, it was an interesting idea.  Like this awesome thing I found on Victorian Chromatic Anxiety in Jane Eyre (i.e. "Jane's all white"). 

And some of the comments on that site did engage with what Flood brought up, suggest other works to try, explain things in a more in-depth way, etc, while still liking Conan stories.  There are, of course, Tolkien fights.  Which is fine.  Engagement and discussion, that's what you want!

But when the response to the idea of a discussion of these issues is a defensive "so what"... damn, it makes me want to break stuff.  This is the same thing that people say to defend Enid Blyton, another product of her time - "it doesn't matter, it's just for fun" or "it doesn't matter, it's just for kids". 

What the he-ell does that imply, exactly? 

I'm not saying no one is allowed to read Conan or what the hell have you.  You can even read Enid fucking Blyton for all I care - I don't even want to ban Mein Kampf, so far be it for me to try to disallow literature with psycho ideas and norms.  I'm saying this sort of response to criticisms that a book has racist/sexist imagery is really frustrating.  Nasty little tidbits tucked in books - especially books for adolescents, especially books for entertainment - do not mean nothing. 
 
ETA: As Lindsey says below, media does not in and of itself cause people to be prejudiced - not in the olden days, not now.  If it wasn't a problem in society, it wouldn't be a problem in a book.  Obviously it is a problem in society, however.

* Just to note, I don't let romance novels off this hook either.

Comments

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

"why else you would assume I think insulting women is okay" = because I feel that you're harder on women than you are on men. I feel like you sort of have a boostraps approach to sexism and sex-based discrimination. And yeah, maybe I do think that you would think "well, if a woman is not self-reliant, etc., then insulting her is okay (she doesn't deserve respect)," which then coupled with me thinking that you would also think "most women are not self-reliant" leads to the conclusion that I would assume you think insulting women is okay. Granted what I'm missing in that sentence is a most - "insulting (most) women is okay."

But I was trying not to reduce your argument to some pre-established prejudice against women, because we've talked about this before and I know it's more complicated than that. Hence why I'm not just going to say I dislike it. I may not totally agree with everything you think in this regard, of course.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I try very hard not to be harder on women, to give them the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps even a step up. But I cannot and will not sacrifice my standards of, say, what a good linguistics professor should be in order to serve the cause of more women getting hired. Of course, most ling profs are women or gay men anyway, which is a whole nother issue. I don't have a "bootstraps approach." I think that large-scale social change needs to happen, but what's going to happen in my life, or my friends' lives is going to depend a lot on what actions they take and not on any large-scale changes.

As for your deduction about insulting women, I think it's total bullshit. I think if anyone is not self-reliant, then it is okay to criticize them, depending on the context (and generally, you would want something productive to come of it, but then, sometimes being harsh with people is productive, and it's hard to predict these things, and people will never have ideal interactions). I don't think most people are self-reliant, and I certainly don't go around constantly telling them that. That would be stupid and pointless.

So, the first premise is no good--I don't think that if someone is not self-reliant, then insulting them is okay. I also don't think that not respecting someone means that you think insulting them is okay. And I think criticism is generally more productive than insults, and generally you should aim to have productive interactions. And this is probably where I tend more toward the feminine in my arguing style, because I really don't like treating arguments as competitions of egos, which is not in service of getting at the truth.

As for the second premise, it seems trivially true to me. You might as well say "most Christians are not self-reliant" or "most poor people are not self-reliant" or just about anybody. Anyway, the first part is more than enough to make the conclusion invalid.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Also, with the situation of women, it tends to be more socialization/their own heads that keep those of them who are dependent dependent, at least now that it's possible for women to be economically independent. Whereas in other situations, it would be totally ridiculous to argue or criticize until something is done about the economic situation they have to live with.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Also also, I don't think argument is the right way to approach somebody who doesn't have the first clue about feminism or social constructions or anything. All you will get then is a mass of confusion.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

well, depending on what you mean by 'argument'. A questioning and informative argument could be helpful. ...sleep deprivation is getting the better of me, i think.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, questioning and informative argument is I think ok. I think part of the problem for me, at least, is keeping myself calm enough to have that kind of a discussion. I'm doing better with that, but it requires training.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I'm probably doing worse than you at keeping calm here, but then, misunderstanding always gets me worked up and upset. I'm fine though no worries.

I think I meant argument as in fight, which I should really ban from my vocabulary on account of unnecessary confusion.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm ok, just kind of getting worried about you, lol. I'm glad you're fine.

Which one should you ban from your vocabulary? Fight?

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

that use of argument

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Which makes it trickier.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I think what I've heard from you before has been mostly on the personal scale, i.e., "what's going to happen in my life, or my friends' lives is going to depend a lot on what actions they take and not on any large-scale changes." This was also back when you seemed to think large-scale social change was based off people making differences in their own lives and not top-down institutional changes (or at least, that is what I gathered). Which is why I felt like you had more of a bootstraps approach.

I suspect I was conflating "harsh criticism" with "insult" here, probably because of the whole politeness issue. In my defense, I think that the difference between the two is evident to the person doing the criticism or making the insult, but not necessarily evident to the person receiving it. Of course, I'm notoriously bad with criticism.

In any case, thanks for clarifying re: insults and respect and criticism.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I also wanna be careful about 'top-down institutional change', b/c for me the ideal of that is more "people organizing to create change" (bottum-up sort of thing) rather than governmental change, or whatever, but nonetheless that's not a personal, individual approach. I'm realizing more and more lately that I seem to take a sort of virtue ethics stance on moral issues here. And I think whoever I quoted awhile back had a point that consequentialist ethics is an administrative ethics, and what rubs me wrong is that it will inevitably be unethical by my standards. So I say fuck the administrative part, and then my ethical system will be consistent. :P So if I seem focused on individuals, it's b/c I'm focused on how to do what's right by my standards, whereas I recognize the problems are systemic, and I don't blame individuals for that (which would be silly).

Anyway, I wanted to comment not to say that but to clarify what I meant by a (perceived) 'feminine' arguing style. I think the stereotypical feminine argument is either everybody agrees (or keeps their peace), or there are fights to the death (gossip, manipulation, silent treatment, passive aggression, etc.), and usually that's a personal fight. The stereotypical 'masculine' style is either a physical fight, a debating competition, or...I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

But there are a number of people, I think male and female alike, who think none of these are particularly good for progressing toward the truth. You can't all agree, because if there's no living doubt, you're never really going to discover anything new in conversation. And you can't just fight, obviously. And a competition becomes more about individual egos than the truth--while it might meander toward the truth eventually, its primary concern is who comes out on top, and being able to establish something as right and true is only a means to an end, maybe not even the most useful means, and in fact many other factors determine who gets the authority. And generally speaking, when people are more concerned about their stakes and their image, they don't tend to come up with the brightest stuff to say. They come up with whatever will score points, and cleverness there is not the same as accuracy.

So you need something with tension, where people really feel their views are threatened, or else it will go nowhere; but at the same time you need something that isn't about winning or losing, where everybody can be wrong, where progress toward the truth is valued more than anybody's standing--because self-preservation alone will only serve to keep people from changing their beliefs, keep them trying to score points or sell books with their pre-existing ideas (or shiny new ones that really aren't that worldview-shaking). Not that people will ever be totally un-self-interested (which isn't a bad thing, even), but until they put something above that, they can't have a real discussion.

I think actually not many people, male or female or whatever else, are willing to do that. Women's situation has been perhaps more effective at shutting down the possibility entirely (between socioeconomic realities like lower education and cultural habits like passivity and politeness--that of course themselves stemmed from the socioeconomic situation), but it's hard to find regardless. What I meant by my style of arguing seeming feminine is that I, partly out of habit, do not have a 'healthy sense of competition' and see no need for one. At times this can be too passive and I need to step it up, but that's something that depends more on my conversation partner than me, I think. Um, ok done rambling now.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

lol, *bottom