Hugo Drama III: Will "the ilk" come to Spokane?

[Horselover Fat]

I also hate that word.

I am highly influential. You should probably read my recommendations. (Link is a download, but will not give your viruses.)

And then you should probably take heed that if your post gets hidden/deleted by the mods for being kind of trolly, you probably shouldn't just repost the exact same thing in the thread.

Is that the sad kitties slate?

ETA: just downloaded, it seems like a well reasoned and culturally balanced list. Definitely merits thoughtful consideration.

[Cubarey]

No, that's literally equally as stupid.

You don't seem to understand what the actual dumb part of the statement "Unholy Cross Between Communists and Puritans".

Ok, sorry, there's like at least 3 or 4 dumb parts of that sentence, so rather you don't seem to understand what the actual dumb part of the use of the word "communist" is. I'll give you a hint, and it starts with the letter "the people you are talking about aren't communists in party identification or ideology".

Again, when you use "communist" as a generic catchall for "bad", you just expose your own stupidity.

You do not seem to understand that by definition Fellow Travelers excludes Communists. It's a term like Hard Left. It implies that those that are included share certain ideological similarities but neither do they share identical beliefs within the group nor are they to be considered Communists. It's a definition made famous by Trotsky's book Literature and Revolution and describes Russian artists that were neither bourgeois (conventional, middle class, dominated or characterized by materialistic pursuits or concerns) nor truly Revolutionary in outlook nor members of the Communist Party. Further you are the one that is stating that it's a pejorative, certainly Trotsky was not when he used the term in his book nor was it considered such by French Intellectuals who Self-identified as such in the 1930's and 40's. The term has been used as a pejorative but that is not its intrinsic meaning. I myself use it as a descriptive term and use it in a neutral manner.

[peterbound]

Are we seriously arguing semantics? What the fuck is going on here?

[Shryke]

You do not seem to understand that by definition Fellow Travelers excludes Communists. It's a term like Hard Left. It implies that those that are included share certain ideological similarities but neither do they share identical beliefs within the group nor are they to be considered Communists. It's a definition made famous by Trotsky's book Literature and Revolution and describes Russian artists that were neither bourgeois (conventional, middle class, dominated or characterized by materialistic pursuits or concerns) nor truly Revolutionary in outlook nor members of the Communist Party. Further you are the one that is stating that it's a pejorative, certainly Trotsky was not when he used the term in his book nor was it considered such by French Intellectuals who Self-identified as such in the 1930's and 40's. The term has been used as a pejorative but that is not its intrinsic meaning. I myself use it as a descriptive term and use it in a neutral manner.

Then your argument is still stupid because nothing about this is communist.

Which is also, fyi, an ideology completely separate from any sort of party structure in any specific state and so your leaning on Fellow Traveller is not besides the point. And, let's be clear still stupid in exactly the same way calling someone communist in this context is.

Literally the only reason to include "communist" in that idiotic list you posted (that Solo so helpfully tore apart for us all already) is to try and use it within the standard cold-war-era framing that continues today in right-wing circles of using "communist" as a generic and non-descriptive pejorative. (Well, it can also be used equally stupidly by the same people with the same framing as a completely erroneous pegorative against anything that is in any way left of their position, but since we've already established that nothing you are talking about even qualifies as socialist, this use makes no sense in context)

So, again, the use of the term is either just based on the idea that communist is a generic insult or on the idea that what you are arguing against is actually communist. Both are stupid. The first always, the second because literally nothing about this conversation relates to communism.

[Horselover Fat]

Then your argument is still stupid because nothing about this is communist.

Which is also, fyi, an ideology completely separate from any sort of party structure in any specific state and so your leaning on Fellow Traveller is not besides the point. And, let's be clear still stupid in exactly the same way calling someone communist in this context is.

Literally the only reason to include "communist" in that idiotic list you posted (that Solo so helpfully tore apart for us all already) is to try and use it within the standard cold-war-era framing that continues today in right-wing circles of using "communist" as a generic and non-descriptive pejorative. (Well, it can also be used equally stupidly by the same people with the same framing as a completely erroneous pegorative against anything that is in any way left of their position, but since we've already established that nothing you are talking about even qualifies as socialist, this use makes no sense in context)

So, again, the use of the term is either just based on the idea that communist is a generic insult or on the idea that what you are arguing against is actually communist. Both are stupid. The first always, the second because literally nothing about this conversation relates to communism.

Whatever, Comrade

[Xray the Enforcer]

[mod] Please take the discussion of communism to another thread. Thank you. [/mod]

[Lily Valley]

I finished "Totaled". It's a pretty good story. After reading "Turncoat", I think "Totaled" is a brilliant story.

Edit:

I can understand why "Totaled" was nominated. The female main character LITERALLY spends the entire story thinking about cooking, her children or cleaning up cat barf.

I can't get the available versions of On a Spiritual Plain to open, so I guess I'll table the last two stories for later and move on to the novelettes.

My favorite line from "Turncoat":

"He blinks once, twice, three times. “You say you offer your allegiance. Prove it.”"

Sigh.

The Blog Death is Bad has compiled the Hugo nominees that are available online for free. Link Here. They couldn't find "A Single Samurai" either.

Edit: They've listed just the short stories and novelettes.

Edit 2: Finished "Parliament". Here's the winning passage:

"And there were pleasure houses where harlots plied their trade, and houses of healing where physicians explained which venereal disease had no cures and arranged for painless suicides, and houses of morticians where disease-raddled bodies were burnt in private, without any ceremony that might attract attention and be bad for business."

[Zordrath]

And I just recently read a comment by Wright on Correia's blog that he prided himself in taking pains to write books that made it impossible to discern the political views of the author :P

[Darth Richard II]

And I just recently read a comment by Wright on Correia's blog that he prided himself in taking pains to write books that made it impossible to discern the political views of the author :P

Man is delusional.

[MinDonner]

So this is like Privilege In Action performance art?

[AncalagonTheBlack]

R. Scott Bakker on Three Pound Brain

“Hugos Weaving” – April 27

Let’s suppose, just for instance, that so-called literary works no longer reach dissenting audiences, and so only serve to

reinforce

the values of readers…

That precious few of us are being challenged anymore—at least not by writing.

The communicative habitat of the human being is changing

more radically than at any time in history

, period. The old modes of literary dissemination are dead or dying, and with them all the simplistic assumptions of our literary past. If writing that matters is writing that challenges, the writing that matters most has to be writing that avoids the ‘preference funnel,’ writing that falls into the hands of

those who can be outraged

. The only writing that matters, in other words, is writing that manages to span significant ingroup boundaries.

If this is the case, then Beale has merely shown us

that science fiction and fantasy

actually matter

, that as a writer, your voice can still reach people who can (and likely will) be offended… as well as swayed, unsettled, or any of the things Humanities clowns claim writing should do.

Think about it. Why bother writing stories with progressive values

for progressives only

, that is, unless

moral

entertainment

is largely what you’re interested in? You gotta admit, this is pretty much the sum of what passes for ‘literary’ nowadays.

Everyone’s crooked is someone else’s straight—that’s the dilemma. Since all moral interpretations are fundamentally underdetermined, there is no rational or evidential means to compel moral consensus. Pretty much

anything

can be argued when it comes to questions or value. There will always be Beales and Sriduangkaews, individuals adept at rationalizing our bigotries—always. And guess what? the internet has made them as accessible as fucking Wal-Mart. This is what makes engaging them so important. Of course Beale needs to be

exposed

—but not for the benefit of people who

already

despise his values. Such ‘exposure’ amounts to nothing more than clapping one another on the back. He needs to be exposed in the eyes of his own constituents, actual or potential. The fact that the paths leading to bigotry run downhill makes the project of building stairs all the more crucial.

‘Legitimacy,’ Sandifer says. Legitimacy for whom? For the

likeminded

—who else? But that, my well-educated friend, is the sound-proofed legitimacy of the Booker, or the National Book Awards—which is to say, the legitimacy of the irrelevant, the socially inert. The last thing this accelerating world needs is more ingroup ejaculate. The fact that Beale managed to pull this little coup is

proof positive

that science fiction and fantasy

matter

, that we dwell in a rare corner of culture where the battle of ideas is for… fucking… real.

And you feel ashamed.

[Larry of the Lawn]

I wish Bakker would post here.

And I knew he was going to use 'ejaculate' as a noun somewhere in there.

[MinDonner]

Bakker probably is already posting here under one of his secret identities. ChillyPolly perhaps?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Min,

I doubt Bakker is as strongly Roman Catholic as Chillypoly appears to be.

[Darth Richard II]

He did at one point. We drove him away.

[Lily Valley]

The ballots are up, but no voter packet that I can find. Does anyone know if they're planning on an electronic packet? If not I have some shopping to do. Thanks all who have been posting links.

[sologdin]

how can one be a "anarcho-marxist" as two essential elements of Marxist Doctrine as formulated in Das Kapital are the need for central planning and the need of a coercive state at least in the early stages of the revolution. Am I mistaken or are your beliefs not more rightly connected to Syndico-Anarchist thought then to doctrinal Marxism? In either case I would consider you firmly in the Fellow Traveler camp ( ala French intellectuals of the 1930s) as you hold many similar beliefs to Communists although there are important differences in your beliefs and I assume you hold important differences with the Communists (especially the Stalinist variety) in the methods you are willing to utilize to reach your goals.

cubs--

disagreed regarding this interpretation of kapital. my memory of the argument is that capitalism itself will centralize the economy of its own movements. i don't recall much belaboring a need for central economic planning (i.e., by the public) in marx (who really has very little to say about communism itself). kapital is more a description of the capitalist economic process, and has little to say about post-capitalism. there's plenty of implication, perhaps.

that said, am doubting that central economic planning by the public is inconsistent with anarchism if it is democratically achieved. the coercive state stuff is standard for all adult leftists; only the worst utopianism assumes that an infant socialist state will be able to survive without an army, considering the inevitability of rightwing invasions, as seen in the history of left governments. to the extent a pure anarchist disagrees with the necessity of a red army, that's probably one reason that i'm 'reformed.' (and the last thing we need is private armies.) the bizarre thing is that the 'withering away of the state' doctrine ends up at the point where left anarchism begins, which is that the cappies need the state to protect them from the rest of humanity--so one should abolish the state and then abolish the cappies. (the bolshevik position is by contrast seize the state and turn the army against the rightwing.) the classical marxist position, though, is mostly evolutionary--parliamentarian through legitimate activism, whereby statutes are duly enacted that become despotic in the eyes of property owners (this is the famous 'decalogue' in chapter 2 of the manifesto), which statutes become eventually a trigger for civil war, initiated by the rightwing to protect itself. the 'revolution' need not involve the initiation of violence, though of course protests and organization of unions and voters will be construed as 'riot' by power.

very doubtful that i'm an anarcho-syndicalist, though am liking some of their concepts.

fellow traveler, me, only by broadening the term to an untenable point. am disagreed with party politics generally, but also party objectives (stalinism, advocacy for the soviet union in another state, adherent to soviet imperialism, &c.) and party methods (vanguardism, democratic centralism, coup d'état, internal party discipline based on the model of clandestine parties under tsarism, &c.), if we are discussing the CP proper, which remains the cold war significance. (the trotskyist significance is very limited to the arts during the russian revolutionary period--but even applying it now, it's still oriented to the russian CP experience.)

but assuming the term can be applied to persons like me who want nothing to do with the still-stalinist CP of the united states, and thereby enlarged to include anyone who supports the conjunction of internationalism (which must include anti-racism), pacifism, secularism, socialism (irreducible minimum there = public ownership of the means of production), and democratic institutions consistent with ICCPR & ICESCR (not much of an insult at this point, to be honest, though this is a standard set of far left policy preferences and will be more or less respectfully declined by the rightwing (usually less)), it will not work to split out that necessarily conjunctive list of elements and apply the term as a pejorative to a person who meets merely one disjunct, such as:

oh, you are against racism? fellow traveler!

oh, you want a secular state and are therefore an atheist fellow traveler!

oh you are anti-war? are you a commie fellow traveler? (that's a direct quotation from a loser who counter-protested an antiwar demo i was at years ago)

the irreducible minimum will probably be public ownership of the means of production, because that's really the core of socialism/communism as an economics, and without the economics, there's no legitimate reason to bring it up.

on the enlarged definition, it therefore won't work to lump in a bunch of anti-racist liberals or activists for QUILTBAG rights with me as a fellow traveler. though i am agreed with them on their particular identity politics issue--i.e., their respective core competence--they don't necessarily travel very far along with me on what should be considered my core competence, yaknow? I might be considered a fellow traveler with them, say, though by this point we are very far removed from the significance of the term, and what we are really saying is that i agree with activists for anti-racism or for same sex marriage or whatever. why say 'fellow traveler with x' instead of more accurately 'proponent of x'? the only reason is pejorative, through perceived unsavory association (the corollary is when i point out that hitler was an anti-communist, too, so the RP/SP guys are obviously a pack of goose-stepping auschwitz guards).

the conclusion, then, must be that most uses of 'fellow traveler' as against anti-racist and anti-sexist activists (including most of those who are designated somewhat recklessly as 'SJW' by the RP/SP people) and other liberal types will be an instance of non distributio medii deployed for pejorative purpose.

ETA: sorry, xray. missed your decision, supra.

[Lily Valley]

"On a Spiritual Plain" published directly here. It's got some formatting problems, but you don't need e-read software to read it. On to the Novelettes.

[Lyanna Stark]

He did at one point. We drove him away.

Someone should ask him to come back. I for one would find the drama potential invaluable and endlessly entertaining (especially since my RL has now degenerated into being yelled at by proxy for people's technical issue).

[Horselover Fat]

[mod] Please take the discussion of communism to another thread. Thank you. [/mod]

If that was because of me, I was joking