Bakker and Women 3 (merged topic)

[Pierce Inverarity]

[quote]It doesn't help the pompous quotient refering to yourself in the third person when trying to hold a conversation with others, I will admit.[/quote]

Technically, it was the second person genitive. But if I'm stooping to the level of pompous windbag, Kalbear, then you're starting to sound like an angry crank. Using emotionally loaded language to lampoon is an age old and quite effective rhetorical strategy. But it doesn't carry any logical force.

In fact, it's almost as bad as making ad hominem aspersions.

These are the tactics of people who either run out of arguments or of patience.

Me, all I can do is keep writing the way I talk, and when I debate these things verbally it never results in hard feelings.

I'm not really blaming you. I've been called pompous on enough threads on enough MBs to know that something in the signal I send tweaks people the wrong way. I truly wish I could get on top of it, but I really have no clue what the trigger is. I bite bullets. I ask questions. I qualify to high heaven, but still I seem provoke this response - while in some cases saying precisely the same things I do around bar tables.

Maybe it's the absence of beer. Is it possible to have an e-smell?

scott/

[Arthmail]

Its easy to read into the tone, when its stated so bluntly. As for not sounding pompous on the internets, i have seen any number of authors come onto this board and talk to detractors without coming off as arrogant. Except for Joe Abercrombie, but thats part of his shtick. I was once a total ass to Brian Ruckley on this board and he came back as a complete gentleman. It gave me food for thought, and i approached his book again with a more open mind....i still had problems, but not as many.

As for being just a guy defending his point of view, i can certainly respect that. Listen, i have nothing but respect for you, and for your attempts to come here and help explain your works to those of us that don't see it the same way you do. If i have come across as disrespcetful, then i appologize, but i do have to say that there are any number of things about your books that i did not like. Milage varies. For me, its all about the tone.

In one breath you go from trying not to sound pompous, to sounding pompous, and coming from a guy that is accused all the time of being arrogant, thats impressive. I am completely in an equal position to judge your work, the fact that you recieve many letters expressing gratitude means nothing. There is a great story told in a book that i am reading called the Black Swan, which is about, essentially, random events. There is a man that owns a library filled with books, ten thousand or more. And he categorizes the people who come into his library into two groups. Those that ask him if he has read all those books, and those that ask him how many he has not read. Though that example was given in the book for a different reason (namely that the random outliers of any given problem are usually the ones that kick our asses because we spend far too long trying to study what is safe, easy, and what has come before), but it still holds true in this situation. You might have recieved a pile of letters from people that say you have changed their lives. That is great. But how many have you not recieved? And before some come on here saying, well, you can't live your life by the things that don't happen, i'll just say that in the context of this argument those letters that he has not recieved are as equally important as those he has.

And please don't assume anything about me, or my responses. I don't think your a pompous ass, not entirely, at least...

As for having used the word need, and rat, its the second time through the course of this long thread that you have given the impression that you think there are people that don't like your book because of some ingrained desire to find fault with it, rather than an objective dislike of what they have found within it. That they were for some reason going to judge your book before they had given it a proper chance. This moves the blame from you, as the author, to them, as the readers. Now, i think you cleared that up with a statement later mentioning that it is both a problem with the book and the reader, which is probably true. But the impression you give is to move the onus elsewhere.

And again, here comes a little bit of the condescending attitude. I personally don't care what you are like as a person, i'll probably never meet you, and i am in no position to judge you. But you do have a tendancy to make fairly condescending remarks, intentionally or not. As someone who struggles with the arrogance filter from time to time, i understand.

Ramble aside, yes, i have read your posts. As for arbitrarily dismissed - you just pretty much arbitrairily dismissed my post based on the idea that you are somehow more in the know because you have recieved a number of positive letters. There are other examples, but i'm not going to go back and find them all.

Listen, like i said, i respect you for coming on here and putting up with a bunch of faceless internet people to make your point, to discuss your book. At the very least you have convinced me to give the books a second chance, which as i already own all three, is probably a good thing. Have you written something unique, to some extent. You've taken the crusades wholesale and mixed in heavy elements of Dune, blending them into what i think is some of the core elements of your world. That's not to say that it fails, by any means. But it does give shades of other works, reducing your uniqueness, at least in my opinion. What value can be found within books that take their cue from scriptural text remains to be seen, and will probably entirely depend on peoples perspective on the matter.

Of course, if you take how much fucking time i have devoted to this thread and discussing your work, then at the very least you have caused debate. Which is always a great thing.

[Finn]

[quote name='Azor Ahai' post='1689900' date='Feb 17 2009, 14.14']Both are ultimately about flawed people. In the subjective, we're flawed because we're human. In the objective, we're flawed because we've been designed that way. Because we're human. Am I really going out on a limb by saying that premodern societies [s]couldn't[/s] didn't make that distinction?[/quote]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't see what the big deal is about women being portrayed as objectively spiritually inferior. I've been hesitant to bring this up, because I don't want to promote myself on the board, but be on the lookout for my sci-fi debut: [i]Women Suck in this Fictional World I’ve Created: Discuss[/i]. In my novel – which is inspired by Bakker's series, although very different from it – women of the future have lower IQs than men. This is a scientific fact in this fictional world. Also, women are, you know, easy (sluts); and they're a little bit dirty (or "germy" as they say in my quasi-futuristic 'topia). Again, scientific facts.

I've encountered some resistance to this idea, but let's face it: a great portion of the world we live in is made up of misogynists. To be honest, I'm annoyed by authors of speculative fiction who don't acknowledge this fact by making misogyny an objective reality in the worlds they create. For Joe Schmo, the misogynist plumber, for instance, women *really are* inferior to men. This is the *reality he lives every day*; he simply doesn’t make a distinction between his beliefs about how the world works and how it really works. And so, for obvious reasons, this is the reality I've created.

And before I sign off . . . I want to emphasize that the women aren't too blame here – [i]I'm not blaming the women, people![/i] – they're just the dumb, dirty, slutty victims of this oppressive world that makes them what they are.

/joke :P [no, really, joke] :leaving:


Edited to add: Oh crap, the thread got all serious while I was writing this. Oh well, timing was never one of my strong suits.

[JGP]

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1689994' date='Feb 17 2009, 16.00']Not according to most studies on psychopaths, serial rapists and sociopaths, no. It's not violence because you're angry at a specific action; it's violence against women because they're women. Bakker mentioned this earlier as a goal for his books and why the Consult is what they are.[/quote]

And that's an even narrower group! :lol:

Dude, c'mon...


[quote name='Kalbear' post='1689994' date='Feb 17 2009, 16.00']I do agree that feminism is not about hate - not sure where I said that - or that sexism is specifically about hate. But I think that people making racist actions can be about a person hating because of race, and I think the same is true about sex - that was the point I was trying to make.[/quote]

In retrospect I don't think you did. I might have jumped to that conclusion because of your thoughts regarding the relation between racism and sexism, and my pre-conceived [and possibly incorrect] notion that racism is about hatred.


[quote name='Kalbear' post='1689994' date='Feb 17 2009, 16.00']It's easy to leave your shit at the door when it's not a big deal in your life. That's a privilege that a lot of people don't have, I think.[/quote]

Perhaps. I guess I'm an asshole then, cause I don't think that's a valid excuse.

Anyway, it's hometime and I got tickets for the hockey game. I'm sure I'll be thinking about feminism a lot tonight, which will be a strange juxtaposition. The oddest of course is that I'll thinking more about feminism because of you, and not say, someone like Min Donner. ;)

Peace out.

[Relic]

[quote name='Finn' post='1690015' date='Feb 17 2009, 18.12']I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't see what the big deal is about women being portrayed as objectively spiritually inferior. I've been hesitant to bring this up, because I don't want to promote myself on the board, but be on the lookout for my sci-fi debut: [i]Women Suck in this Fictional World I’ve Created: Discuss[/i]. In my novel – which is inspired by Bakker's series, although very different from it – women of the future have lower IQs than men. This is a scientific fact in this fictional world. Also, women are, you know, easy (sluts); and they're a little bit dirty (or "germy" as they say in my quasi-futuristic 'topia). Again, scientific facts.

I've encountered some resistance to this idea, but let's face it: a great portion of the world we live in is made up of misogynists. To be honest, I'm annoyed by authors of speculative fiction who don't acknowledge this fact by making misogyny an objective reality in the worlds they create. For Joe Schmo, the misogynist plumber, for instance, women *really are* inferior to men. This is the *reality he lives every day*; he simply doesn’t make a distinction between his beliefs about how the world works and how it really works. And so, for obvious reasons, this is the reality I've created.

And before I sign off . . . I want to emphasize that the women aren't too blame here – [i]I'm not blaming the women, people![/i] – they're just the dumb, dirty, slutty victims of this oppressive world that makes them what they are.

/joke :P [no, really, joke] :leaving:


Edited to add: Oh crap, the thread got all serious while I was writing this. Oh well, timing was never one of my strong suits.[/quote]

Haha, you people are too much. Or have too much. time.

[Kalbear]

[quote]Technically, it was the second person genitive.[/quote] Saying "[url="http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=663655"]to the point where I thought Bakker was being heavy-handed with 'even the gods get it wrong' theme.[/url]" is second person? Is "[url="http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=1677052"]The real problem could be that he's too clever by a half.[/url]" this as well?

Huh. Learn something new every day. Could've sworn that was 3rd person, not second, but I admit I'm not that familiar with the genitive case in the English language.

[quote]I'm not really blaming you. I've been called pompous on enough threads on enough MBs to know that something in the signal I send tweaks people the wrong way. I truly wish I could get on top of it, but I really have no clue what the trigger is. I bite bullets. I ask questions. I qualify to high heaven, but still I seem provoke this response - while in some cases saying precisely the same things I do around bar tables.[/quote]Well, here's one bit of advice: don't come on a message board and use anonymity to talk about yourself in order to try and prove a point with others. That really struck me as far ruder and pompous than anything you've so far said while writing as Scott Bakker, and that being our first exposure to you? Not a good baseline, at least for me.

[Arthmail]

I haven't seen a thread move this fast since i went onto a tolkien web site and admitted that i have always hated Hobbits...what a shit storm that was.

I am going upstairs to start another reading as of right now...i'm sure by the time i look at this thread again it will be page 13, but whatever.

Don't you people have things to do?......as he goes to find something to do.

[Shryke]

[quote name='Pierce Inverarity' post='1690006' date='Feb 17 2009, 18.06']Technically, it was the second person genitive. But if I'm stooping to the level of pompous windbag, Kalbear, then you're starting to sound like an angry crank. Using emotionally loaded language to lampoon is an age old and quite effective rhetorical strategy. But it doesn't carry any logical force.

In fact, it's almost as bad as making ad hominem aspersions.

These are the tactics of people who either run out of arguments or of patience.

Me, all I can do is keep writing the way I talk, and when I debate these things verbally it never results in hard feelings.

I'm not really blaming you. I've been called pompous on enough threads on enough MBs to know that something in the signal I send tweaks people the wrong way. I truly wish I could get on top of it, but I really have no clue what the trigger is. I bite bullets. I ask questions. I qualify to high heaven, but still I seem provoke this response - while in some cases saying precisely the same things I do around bar tables.

Maybe it's the absence of beer. Is it possible to have an e-smell?

scott/[/quote]

I blame all the philosophy you took in school. The books are all coated with Pompus Resin. Seeps in through the skin when you pick them up.

[Larry.]

Is it bad of me to wonder if debates like this are for mostly-WASP type people, those who don't have to worry about the [i]probability[/i] of graphic violence occurring to them or around them on a daily basis? Because right now, I'm trying to wrap my mind around how, for example, a woman from the Darfur region might interpret the debates on sexism. Would her views be fundamentally the same as expressed by many here, or would it differ in so many subtle and/or obvious ways?

I guess this is my muddle-headed way of asking if there is an universal definition of sexism that applies across time, place, and cultures. Because heaven forbid if this ends up being another argument where the WASPs speak for the "poor, condemned" cultures.

[Shryke]

[quote name='Arthmail' post='1690011' date='Feb 17 2009, 18.11']Its easy to read into the tone, when its stated so bluntly. As for not sounding pompous on the internets, i have seen any number of authors come onto this board and talk to detractors without coming off as arrogant. Except for Joe Abercrombie, but thats part of his shtick. I was once a total ass to Brian Ruckley on this board and he came back as a complete gentleman. It gave me food for thought, and i approached his book again with a more open mind....i still had problems, but not as many.

As for being just a guy defending his point of view, i can certainly respect that. Listen, i have nothing but respect for you, and for your attempts to come here and help explain your works to those of us that don't see it the same way you do. If i have come across as disrespcetful, then i appologize, but i do have to say that there are any number of things about your books that i did not like. Milage varies. For me, its all about the tone.

In one breath you go from trying not to sound pompous, to sounding pompous, and coming from a guy that is accused all the time of being arrogant, thats impressive. I am completely in an equal position to judge your work, the fact that you recieve many letters expressing gratitude means nothing. There is a great story told in a book that i am reading called the Black Swan, which is about, essentially, random events. There is a man that owns a library filled with books, ten thousand or more. And he categorizes the people who come into his library into two groups. Those that ask him if he has read all those books, and those that ask him how many he has not read. Though that example was given in the book for a different reason (namely that the random outliers of any given problem are usually the ones that kick our asses because we spend far too long trying to study what is safe, easy, and what has come before), but it still holds true in this situation. You might have recieved a pile of letters from people that say you have changed their lives. That is great. But how many have you not recieved? And before some come on here saying, well, you can't live your life by the things that don't happen, i'll just say that in the context of this argument those letters that he has not recieved are as equally important as those he has.

And please don't assume anything about me, or my responses. I don't think your a pompous ass, not entirely, at least...

As for having used the word need, and rat, its the second time through the course of this long thread that you have given the impression that you think there are people that don't like your book because of some ingrained desire to find fault with it, rather than an objective dislike of what they have found within it. That they were for some reason going to judge your book before they had given it a proper chance. This moves the blame from you, as the author, to them, as the readers. Now, i think you cleared that up with a statement later mentioning that it is both a problem with the book and the reader, which is probably true. But the impression you give is to move the onus elsewhere.

And again, here comes a little bit of the condescending attitude. I personally don't care what you are like as a person, i'll probably never meet you, and i am in no position to judge you. But you do have a tendancy to make fairly condescending remarks, intentionally or not. As someone who struggles with the arrogance filter from time to time, i understand.

Ramble aside, yes, i have read your posts. As for arbitrarily dismissed - you just pretty much arbitrairily dismissed my post based on the idea that you are somehow more in the know because you have recieved a number of positive letters. There are other examples, but i'm not going to go back and find them all.

Listen, like i said, i respect you for coming on here and putting up with a bunch of faceless internet people to make your point, to discuss your book. At the very least you have convinced me to give the books a second chance, which as i already own all three, is probably a good thing. Have you written something unique, to some extent. You've taken the crusades wholesale and mixed in heavy elements of Dune, blending them into what i think is some of the core elements of your world. That's not to say that it fails, by any means. But it does give shades of other works, reducing your uniqueness, at least in my opinion. What value can be found within books that take their cue from scriptural text remains to be seen, and will probably entirely depend on peoples perspective on the matter.

Of course, if you take how much fucking time i have devoted to this thread and discussing your work, then at the very least you have caused debate. Which is always a great thing.[/quote]

I think it's more likely your generally rude tone and insistence that "These books fucking SUCK" that turn people off.

[Kalbear]

I'm totally stealing that line for my sig, Finn.

[Sophelia]

I also think it is inappropriate to make personal comments about people and don't feel it is creating the ideal atmosphere for continuing to discuss the [i]content[/i] of people's posts - which I would like to do, once I have worked out what IP/Scott Bakker's answer is to the 'why?' question - it amuses me that I didn't realise the question had been answered, let alone what the answer was.

:leaving:

(Well, I've had a long day at work so I am going to print off some posts to read in bed... instead of picking up my current book - TTT ;) )

I'll be back, though you'll probably be on Bakkerwomen4 by then.

[Larry.]

[quote name='Sophelia' post='1690051' date='Feb 17 2009, 17.30']I also think it is inappropriate to make personal comments about people and don't feel it is creating the ideal atmosphere for continuing to discuss the [i]content[/i] of people's posts - which I would like to do, once I have worked out what IP/Scott Bakker's answer is to the 'why?' question - it amuses me that I didn't realise the question had been answered, let alone what the answer was.

:leaving:

(Well, I've had a long day at work so I am going to print off some posts to read in bed... instead of picking up my current book - TTT ;) )

I'll be back, though you'll probably be on Bakkerwomen4 by then.[/quote]

Just keep in mind that with most sequels, that one is likely to be bloodier and more violent than its predecessors ;)

[Sophelia]

[quote name='Dylanfanatic' post='1690070' date='Feb 17 2009, 23.36']Just keep in mind that with most sequels, that one is likely to be bloodier and more violent than its predecessors ;)[/quote]

Well I just want to know if it has a satisfying ending or will end on a cliffhanger like all the other ones.

[Larry.]

[quote name='Sophelia' post='1690078' date='Feb 17 2009, 17.41']Well I just want to know if it has a satisfying ending or will end on a cliffhanger like all the other ones.[/quote]

Hard to say. Right now, my money is on a huge storm and then sunny skies, with frolicking hobbits.

[john]

[quote name='Finn' post='1690015' date='Feb 17 2009, 23.12']/joke :P [no, really, joke] :leaving:[/quote]

Bah, you should have realised misogyny is a statutory offence. You can't use /joke any more than you can use /subtextual condemnation.


[quote name='Kalbear' post='1690025' date='Feb 17 2009, 23.17']Saying "[url="http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=663655"]to the point where I thought Bakker was being heavy-handed with 'even the gods get it wrong' theme.[/url]" is second person? Is "[url="http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=1677052"]The real problem could be that he's too clever by a half.[/url]" this as well?[/quote]

Oh come on, he was criticising himself! :P

[TerraPrime]

[mod hat]

Everyone needs to chill and take a step back. People need to stop casting aspersions against others without anything to back those claims up. Dissect away at the (alleged) sexism of the books, but leave the personal stuff out please.

[/mod hat]

[kuenjato]

on and on this thread goes.

At least I've TJE and now, at around page 110 or so, can make sense of Kalbear's objections.

Fooking awesome book BTW, Scott. Why argue when you could be working on volume 2? :whip:

[Mackaxx]

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1689787' date='Feb 18 2009, 07.48']Mackaxx, is it more likely that if an author creates a world where women are objectively, scientifically provably worse than men, they are a feminist? Or that they are a sexist? Is it more likely that they'll be trying to prove a point about capitalism empowering women for all the wrong reasons, or because they believe women to be worse than men?[/quote]

The 'more likelys' you list are only more or less likely depending on the historical context they were written in, the beliefs that were kicking around author X Y or Z in decard U,V, W. In the 50's or 60s i'd say one intent is more likely, today I'd say it would be less likely. Given the other clear themes of the book and the time its being written in I'm more than happy to believe that the author didn't have a sexist intent going into it.

Now, moving on from that we take the readers into account. Readers today probably find this book more problematic than readers 30 years ago would have. Thats a good thing but in my opinion in the case of this book people can't see beyond their ironically sexist anti sexism :stunned: .


[quote name='Kalbear' post='1689787' date='Feb 18 2009, 07.48']At the same time, he wrote a book where all the main female characters are sex objects (and if you really don't believe a whore is a sex object, I'm not sure how we can have actual conversation in the English language), where a man empowers a woman because she can make good babies, where the only powerful female character in his own right has to fuck her own son, where there are no women in the world of consequence compared to the history, and where the world itself is defined by (among other things) women are spiritually inferior to men, and this is scientifically provable.[/quote]

Esmi did indeed [i]begin[/i] as a whore, from the outset she was not a sex object to akka, nor to his old apprentice. From the outset she was lauded as much much more. Given how lowly everyone here seems to think whores are it seems like a good choice to emphasize a characters wasted potential. Werebasically beaten over the head with it in fact.

The empress is a nasty and sad piece of work certainly, but I have no problem with it, there are plenty of nastier men getting around in the series. Nice that the women weren't all benevolent.

If all esmi was needed for was breeding there was no need to empower her at all, she just needs to make babies. Given the social climate this would have been perfectly acceptable. But, surprise surprise, she rises to a position of bower.

The spiritually inferior thing is pretty common in religions, and was 'scientifically' provable not too long ago, just like Africans were 'scientifically' provable to be inferior. I think this point is a bit silly.

People seem to be focusing on a couple of trees and not the forest.


[quote name='Kalbear' post='1689787' date='Feb 18 2009, 07.48']I don't have to live with this shit all the time. I don't have to be reminded. And I certainly don't have to accept the fact that when someone spews hateful crap, I have to take it because it's socially acceptable (or at least acceptable enough) to spout some view that women are inferior to men but it's not socially acceptable to do so about racism or some other hot-button topic.[/quote]

Again, one mans hateful crap is another mans insightful commentary, I could list the movies & books which to some are just that again but my previous point still stands. That would be going around in circles though.

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1689787' date='Feb 18 2009, 07.48']Similarly, it would be great if we could write a fantasy book where women (or black people) could be objectively inferior to someone else as a hook and not be horribly offended by it - because that would mean our society had gotten past that point and everyone had that privilege.[/quote]

This is a great example of irony. According to your definitions these books make women objectively inferior (I disagree of course but lets carry on), these books which have women being objectively inferior in fact do not horribly offend a rather large whack of readers out there. has our society already moved on and gotten past it? Can many people now see the forest from the trees?

I like to think so.

[Mackaxx]

[quote]Specifically, I’m interested in what it means to live in a world where value is objective - which is to say, to live in the kind of world our ancestors thought they lived in. Could you imagine, for instance, what it would mean to live in a world where, say, the social and spiritual inferiority of women was a fact like the atomic weight of uranium. Biblical Israel was such as world, as were many others.[/quote]

Regarding this quote of Bakkers, I think something people are missing here is that womens inferiority is not 'fact' [i]per se[/i] it is fact in the eyes of the peoples current understanding of the world. In these world portrayed in these books people think its fact, that doesn't mean that it is though.

The world out ancestors [i]thought[/i] they lived in was bullshit, but they still lived in it and its 'facts' were facts. It changed though.

Earwa is not a world were women actually [i]are[/i] inferior.

There are things men can do, and things women can do, being able to do one or not the other doesn't make you inferior or superior. Just take a look at our world, are men inferior or superior because they can't have babies?