Violence! Rape! Agency! The rapiness that comes before

[mormont]

I think it could legitimately be regarded as a call for censorship. Whoever issued it did indeed want that book to not be written or read, by anyone, ever, and wanted this enforced by legal mechanism. (Nevermind talked about or critiqued.)

Undoubtedly. But my point is that even calls for a book to be censored can't, in my view, be regarded as actual censorship. Because often, they don't have any actual effect - or if they do, the negative effect on sales is often outweighed by a 'push-back'.

There's an argument to be had about organised boycotts, calls for censorship, and other attempts to reduce the sales of a book, and I think it's possible on occasion for such things to be likened to censorship as a rhetorical tool, but that doesn't make them 'censorship'. There's a danger in taking that word out of the 'legal and institutional' sphere, and you identified it already: it becomes easy to use it as a way to shout down dissent. We need a definition that draws a clear and consistent line between 'critique' and 'censorship', and if anyone can provide one that betters solo's 'legal and institutional' I'm open to that - but so far, all we seem to get by widening the definition to include private actions is a hopelessly blurry line that lets 'censorship' mean anything you want it to mean.

[SkynJay]

Dunno if they actually shag (prolly not), but Hancock has a relationship of this kind, no? And I rarely, if EVER watch Hollywood movies unless it's under duress, so sorry if I am hazy on the details.

Neat article on that in a humor site of all places.

[Contrarius]

Contrarius' attempt at constructing one here is fatally flawed because he himself points out that there is such an obstacle in this case: Anything he writes after this point is sadly irrelevant to the 'slippery slope' argument, whatever its other merits. Rhetorically speaking, he just killed it himself. It's hard for me to see how 'censorship' can possibly be defined to include anything short of the power to make an author change his work - or how that power can be defined in any way other than 'legal or institutional'.

I'm a her, actually. ;)

But to the point -- I was thinking about this issue last night, and it strikes me that the "censorship-slippery-slope" crowd (like me) actually has concerns that are similar in structure, if not in focus, to the "sexism/lesbianism-slippery-slope" crowd (like Kalbear and others that have taken part in the long debate).

Specifically, the "sexism/lesbianism-slippery-slope" (we'll call em SLSS) crowd says something like this: if an author writes a scene that looks sexist or anti-lesbian, lots of people will read that scene. Some folks will be offended by it (these will be anti-sexism folks). Some folks will be titillated by it (these will be pro-sexism folks). In either case, that sexist scene will encourage a culture of sexism. Anti-sexism folks will be more reluctant to speak out, and pro-sexism folks will be less reluctant to speak out. And, over the long haul, encouraging a culture of sexism will lead to more pro-sexist laws.

Similarly, the "censorship-slippery-slope" (we'll call em CSS) crowd says something like this: if readers say "this author should change this passage" enough times, then saying so will encourage a culture that interferes with authors. Authors who want to speak out will be less likely to do so, and the more times readers say "this author should change", the more repressive the atmosphere will become. And repressive atmospheres lead to more repressive laws -- and even without explicit laws, self-censorship always becomes more prevalent in a repressive society.

That's my current thought on this early morning.

And don't kid yourself about authors being forced to change things after publication. Even Mark Twain's books have been re-edited in some cases, to remove the "offensive" word "nigger" from them -- and when I read Flowers for Algernon in school, our school (and apparently others, from the reviews I've seen on goodreads) used an edition of the book that had all mentions of sex removed. Censorship is alive and well in this country the USA.

And then, of course, there's always the good old book burnings and bannings -- which aren't censorship, but are certainly repressive and chilling to a culture of creativity.

(edited to add my location!)

[Verboten]

....Are you seriously comparing complaining about a book on the internet to book burning? I'm tempted to ask what's wrong with you. And what is this 'This Country^TM' bullshit? America is not the last bastion of civilization.

Also Richard a thicker skin would serve you well.

[Contrarius]

The fatwa against The Satanic Verses was indeed deplorable and awful, but did it in fact succeed in 'censoring' the work? Factually, I'd say the answer is 'no'.

I haven't seen any sales numbers, but I think it's fairly obvious that a fatwa would be repressive against people who might want to write something similar -- whether you want to call it "censorship" or not.

Similarly, if a fatwa was issued against lesbians, we could logically assume that it would be repressive against lesbians.

Easy to say, but where exactly are you drawing the dividing line between these two things? If I say that I didn't like the treatment of women in 'The Darkness That Comes Before', am I telling you what to write or just critiquing you?

This is where my earlier post on the subject comes into play. If you say "I didn't like work A because of reasons B and C", then you are simply critiquing the work. But if you say "this author should change A", then you are, however weakly, calling for action to be taken. And that starts you down the road to censorship.

(edited because apparently I can't type correctly before 10AM.)

[Contrarius]

....Are you seriously comparing complaining about a book on the internet to book burning?

I'm exploring a theme. I'm not implying that anybody posting here wants to burn a book.

I'm tempted to ask what's wrong with you. And what is this 'This Country^TM' bullshit? America is not the last bastion of civilization.

Sorry, I forget that most people here won't know where I live. Let's edit that to say "Censorship is alive and well in the USA".

[Horza]

i like mr. blackstone's statement on this, which lays it out nicely enough in terms that we've been discussing:

Blackstone, Commentaries IV.11.13

Itf quite amazing that a man with fuch a fignificant fpeech impediment waf able to overcome it to contribute fo much to Englifh common law.

[Axiomatic]

Yeah, it's all fun and games until the police arrest you for Affault.

[Datepalm]

Undoubtedly. But my point is that even calls for a book to be censored can't, in my view, be regarded as actual censorship. Because often, they don't have any actual effect - or if they do, the negative effect on sales is often outweighed by a 'push-back'.

But not in Iran. There that was actual censorship, which is why I think the fatwa issuers can be regarded as something other than random internet complainers. Western responses to that, positive or negative, happened by free choice, and couldn't be regarded as 'censorship' no matter if the entire literate population of the english speaking world had decided that, hey, that fatwa sounds spot on, lets no one read Salman Rushdie. Its the same if we hear that, hey, some reviewer said the new Goodkind book is sexist objectivist propaganda, let's not read it. Is this reviewer censoring Goodkind?

There's an argument to be had about organised boycotts, calls for censorship, and other attempts to reduce the sales of a book, and I think it's possible on occasion for such things to be likened to censorship as a rhetorical tool, but that doesn't make them 'censorship'. There's a danger in taking that word out of the 'legal and institutional' sphere, and you identified it already: it becomes easy to use it as a way to shout down dissent. We need a definition that draws a clear and consistent line between 'critique' and 'censorship', and if anyone can provide one that betters solo's 'legal and institutional' I'm open to that - but so far, all we seem to get by widening the definition to include private actions is a hopelessly blurry line that lets 'censorship' mean anything you want it to mean.

I think its within the context of the debate, really. Thats why I find Richard bringing fatwas and movies into this counter productive. Thats not our bailiwick. We're discussing calls to actively change the output of creators by consumers, for the consumers own ends against the creators artistic instincts.

There have been a handful of borderline calls for that in the thread - IIRC someone suggested the First Law could be edited and Terez written differently in future editions. I don't think thats real censorship of the Iranian fatwa type on the one hand, (if nothing else for lack of enforcability. It's a suggestion) but it does in my opinion venture slightly beyond fair criticism and into a demand for what I think is...undue influence on a writers output. I suppose we could call that 'censorship' within the context of the debate for dramatic effect's sake, but I think i'll go with 'undue influence on a writers output' for clarity.

Maybe I have a romanticized view of the creative process, to be honest, but I don't theoretically want authors changing their writing in response to demands. (or time, even. I remember being rather bothered when I came across a copy of Clarke's Childhood End that was published in the 90s and had the Cold War proIogue changed for something more contemporary.) If an author reads criticism of their work and a lightbulb goes off about something and she then feels a need to write something differently in her next book, awesome. If an author feels they don't have enough knowledge of something they want in their book and so turn to researching it or talking about people affected by it and so on and that changes how they might have written it, also awesome.

But...it's also awesome, potentially, if she doesn't change the way she writes. I don't think a book, say, about lesbians getting raped is only legitimate, somehow, if it's approved by a committee of lesbian social workers. If an author changes something merely out of a sense of duty, (or viability? "stick a vampire in, they sell". Or is somehow coerced into it, of course - "Make this gay character straight or we won't publish this book" happened a while ago someplace, no? but thats outside the scope again) I guess i'd rather they didn't. I'd rather read - and criticize - the flawed and offensive but honest book.

So, to reiterate, writing what they like is the authors job. My - our - job in the great march for better literature, if thats the task we're taking on ourselves, is to not be satisfied with crap and complain about it to our hearts content, and vote with our feet.

[Kalbear]

I think that it would be really, really cool if Abercrombie put his response to this thread as an afterword in future editions of Last Argument. It would make me promote the book to my friends and buy a couple as gifts.

Now, is that censorship?

Similarly, the comments by Richard Morgan have made me fairly unlikely to buy more of his books, and I'll recommend to other friends of mine that he writes things that are not very LGBT friendly (or are outright hostile) and tend to be pretty sexist in tone, and the money should be spent elsewhere.

Is that censorship?

The notion that I can't say either of those things is fundamentally stupid. It implies that simply sharing an opinion of a book is wrong because it might make other people do something, which is also wrong. And that's really stupid. Yes, you can get hollywood risk aversion by not having any black guys have sex with white women, but that's only the mainstream blockbusters; there are plenty of interracial sex scenes out there in movies if you want to go looking. No one is stopping them from being made. You're comparing popular culture as a driving force to book burning, and that's inane.

When I say 'should', please read it, Contrarius, as this: if the author/publisher/distributor wants to keep getting my money, they should be aware of these things in their works and make honest efforts to mitigate them. If they don't care about my money that's totally fine; I'll still occasionally read those stories and criticize. You can view that as a threat or you can view it as understanding market demographics; I don't really care either way.

[Sci-2]

Exhibit A - the fatwa against The Satanic Verses had no legal standing whatsoever anywhere outside Iran; even within the Islamic world, it was widely deplored by legal and religious authorities. Forty eight out of forty nine Islamic nations refused to endorse it. Nonetheless, it was a massively powerful piece of cultural censorship, to which, to its eternal shame, the British left kowtowed. It ushered in the obnoxious doctrine that writers should not offend, a stench that still hangs around the literary world today.

I think the challenge here is that the book carried with the potential for violence. Now, I'm not saying a society should ever kowtow to fear mongering, but and I do agree utilizing physical threats to create a culture of censorship is a vile thing.

As to the notion that writers should not offend, I think that exists on some level and the question is about degree. I'm sure there are Hollywood execs who would love to have more graphic torture porn in their movies, maybe some gonzo type shots of Jack the Ripper shit, but a sense of public decency keeps them in check.

I also think the statement "should not offend" can be parsed into degrees. There is the offense of someone at a solely personal (edit: and artistic) level ("these characters are shallow, and no justification is presented for why even his female enemies want to fuck him") versus societal ("there is an implication here that a man has power over a woman's body, that once she has committed a crime that men around her deem terrible she can be subject to whatever horror they deem appropriate").

Personally I have no problem telling an author what I think they should or should not do, because I think that every review or opinion implicitly does this. What varies is the moral weight my argument carries, whether it is objecting to the "ghetto-bots" in Transformers 2 or the White Savior narrative in Temple of Doom, Last Samurai, etc.

Now, with regards to asking an author to change a text in subsequent editions - this will vary from book to book, person to person, but I think it was clear that Moorcock was not interested in perpetuating rape culture and his friend, upon discussion with him, managed to convince him the book should be changed. At no point was he physically forced. This isn't something I think I would go for save for extreme cases as I consider the Moorcock case to be.

If boycotts (whether in stated demonstration or "I am not buying works of Paolo B henceforth due to his article on China") lead to the end of an author's career - Hey, it's hard out here for a pimp. Them's the shakes of the free market and my right to speech and assembly.

As for the literary world, I refuse to purchase any Naipul. I have one of his works as a gift, and I may in time check out his works in a library.

Exhibit B - it is almost impossible to find a mainstream Hollywood movie in which a black man has (consensual) sex with a white woman. There is no legal or institutional force behind this - simply the understanding that portraying such an act would be "box office poison", which leads in turn to super-effective self-censorship.

(It's funny, because I think Veronica Mars actually had an interracial dating plot cut out and replaced with White-to-White, Black-to-Black.)

I think, here, there is juxtaposition of two issues - what is not produced, along with what is produced. Films with black characters with minor roles, or even that of black males as props for white male manpain, are in abundance. We've probably gone through several tropes dealing with the degradation of women, (edit: gay) men, etc.

What I'm trying to get at is there is huge amount of profit, and thus a huge amount of media, generated by a flood of false narratives that are profitable precisely because they feed confirmation bias. So, to me, and likely maybe others here, there is a huge amount "censorship", if we are talking about the silencing of a narrative. In fact, I think this silencing of reality by the flood of, frankly, garbage confirmation of tropes to be a far greater problem in RL and with art than the threat that novels with rape will be forced to be tactful and not take the Erikson shortcut of having the drunken, self-loathing woman get gang raped but then be healed by magic.

(Though (edit: maybe) to be fair I should give Erikson credit for actually dealing with recovery at all.)

So I think there is a league of difference between this example, and the ones linked to in the Cracked article, and the concern about depiction of rape scenes. Just so this doesn't come off as personal, I think the same issue exists with Ringil being not only gay, but also a victim of rape and remaining a strong, powerful warrior. I think a lot of people obviously weren't ready for your Richard's book, but I don't think all requests of "should" are equivalent.

Disliking or critiqueing an author's work is a perfectly normal and healthy function of art and society. Believing that an author can be told what they should or should not write (or have written) is a potentially lethal cultural toxin.

I take exception to this because I think part of the reason we've made headway on depiction is precisely because people spoke out about how they should be depicted. That we've reached the level where we are looking at nuance rather than outright stuff to me is a good thing.

It's also why I object to the idea that things have gotten too "PC". (note this is a larger thing, not an attack-Richard thing).

One because, for fuck's sake we're talking about sexual assault, something I've seen leave people deeply wounded. The anxiety, the self-esteem problems, the eating disorders -> Trust me, you CANNOT be too sensitive to sexual assault.

Second, because most of the time I've seen people object with the "PC" charge it was a case where someone wanted, you know, just the "Correct" part. From an artistic standpoint, it bothers me that it would be down right avante garde in spec-fic, if not elsewhere to examine the actual psychological effects of sexual assault instead of having it happen in between fighting the dark magus in Prince of Thorns and the machinations of Bayaz.

Now, there is also the issue of rape breaking the character, and unfortunately this is real though in my experience part of this has been society's (especially universities and their sick self-protection) handling of the incident in question. Which leads to:

Third, the casual, at times throw away depiction of rape and how it is handled in narrative, barring the lack of a study on hand to reference, seems to contribute to the desensitization of the subject matter of sexual assault. As Larry pointed out in the comments of his blog, there was a rape joke made somewhere in the pages of this thread of all threads.

I think we've all heard how she/he "needs to get over it" while at the same time she/he "shouldn't bring it up in polite conversation".

p.s. Thanks for the comments on the Tyrion/Tysha scene Kalbear, will shoot back in a bit.

ETA: grammar, missing words

[Evamitchelle]

I think some people over on the Outlander thread have argued that she ended up enjoying part of it, so it wasn't rape. To which I yell a loud "BS!". But there ya go.

Most people on that thread argued that it wasn't rape but rough sex that she'd consented to : "I had time only to nod once, in acknowledgment or permission" and "Yes, I'll have you" a few lines before.

[Shryke]

The fatwa against The Satanic Verses was indeed deplorable and awful, but did it in fact succeed in 'censoring' the work? Factually, I'd say the answer is 'no'. You can buy the book freely almost anywhere in the world, including many Muslim countries, and in fact it can be easily argued that it has remained in print for twenty-three years precisely because of the fatwa. There's no way it would still be in print without the interest that generated. (Not that I'm suggesting the fatwa was a good thing.)

Although, to be fair, your claim appears to be that it actually censored hypothetical other works that weren't ever written for fear of causing offence, which is (of course) an unprovable claim- but not, I think, a particularly credible one if one takes a brief look at the actual output of the 'literary world today'. It's really not hard to find books that are, if anything, more radical than The Satanic Verses.

But it's still censorship, or an attempt at that, via intimidation. That it didn't work in all places does not make it not censorship or attempted censorship.

If my town library and book stores refuse to stock "Jesus wasn't Real!" because that there be the devil's work, the fact that I can drive a few towns over and buy it doesn't make my town doing that not censorship. Just because I can buy a book in a brown paper bag off a banned list from a shady guy in an alley in some future orwellian state doesn't mean that said ban list is not censorship.

Suppressing works people don't like can take many forms other then the legal or institutional.

Shit, the MPAA enforces harsh and nasty censorship on all sorts of movies and that whole system is entirely "voluntary".

This is a fair point, but it remains that case that if a studio wanted to release such a film, they could. They would not be censored. Really, what you're talking about here is commercialisation and timidity, rather than censorship. And it can hardly come as news that commercial studios selling lowest-common-denominator movies are excessively timid.

(Plus, in order for this to happen you'd have to have more leading-male black actors, which is IMO a more serious deficiency and probably explains a lot of this particular lack.)

They could, but they won't. And the result, for the consumer, is the same.

[sologdin]

for what I think is...undue influence on a writers output. I suppose we could call that 'censorship' within the context of the debate for dramatic effect's sake, but I think i'll go with 'undue influence on a writers output' for clarity.

as to the latter designation, what if i were to tell a writer that i decline to purchase, read, or otherwise consume any of the writer's writings if future writings do not include x or exclude y, without extending it to a concerted boycott--just a personal lifestyle choice within the confines of market behavior: i don't like your products, so spend my moneys elsewhere?

is that an undue influence? if not, why would mere suggestion, with no declination to purchase, be undue?

[sologdin]

i'm reading the analogy to censorship (or direct accusation of same, as the case may be) in this thread the same way i read the following comments:

"I think it's appalling and a violation of our freedom of the press." –Sarah Palin, speaking about the negative media coverage of Republican congressional candidate Vaughn Ward, Boise, Idaho, May 21, 2010

"I've been through this as every talk show has a zillion times before," she tells Newsmax. "But somehow on Friday, after 32 years on radio, 17 syndicated . . . I sat down at my desk and said 'I'm done trying to help people in a situation where my First Amendment rights don't exist, where special interest groups and activists can make a decision to silence you. It's not American, it's not fair play." --Dr. Laura Schlessinger, regarding criticisms of her racist commentary

the sense of entitlement is stunning: how dare you take away my first amendment rights by criticizing me even while i maintain premium access to the channels of communication?

the real message of these quotations is fuck you, proles. i do what i want.

what is even more astonishing is that unpaid volunteers, presumably financially disinterested, contend on behalf of the possessors of the channels of communication and attempt to construe reasoned criticism of published content as attempts to silence publication.

similarly, the suggestion is that well-published authors are subjected to censorship because persons who own nothing more than one vote and sufficient market power to achieve internet access have complained about certain aspects of the authors' writings, despite buying and continuing to buy the writings aforesaid.

the analogy is nothing but apology for power. its arrogance is undiminished despite battery by sense and decency.

[Datepalm]

is that an undue influence? if not, why would mere suggestion, with no declination to purchase, be undue?

I suppose its becuase I think its none of my business as a reader, in a way, to contribute to the process of writing a book. I feel free to criticize/boycott/love/hate/whatever the finished product, but I guess I feel like authors should go out on the limb of the writing themselves. I'd rather believe writers are writing what they write from some passion or idea. Again, maybe i'm being overly romantic here and a committee really can write a great novel. Any one aware of examples?

Also, on the practical front, I don't want me or my ideologies to be pandered to or accommodated out of kindness or PCness or the kind of self censorship of the movie studios - we simply musn't show that sort of thing. People won't like it. - I think that just breeds resentment, ultimately. I mean, to use Abercrombie as an example again, since he's laid out his own personal process here, he's probably not going to write a character like Terez again. Not becuase he'll go back and fix her because someone pointed her out to him and he doesn't want to offend people/be thought of as sexist/get into long arguments on the internet, but because he wouldn't write her in the first place because his actual sense of good, and non-sexist, writing has changed.

...and one more point, as a question of intellectual/ideological/emotional/whatever challenge and robustness of the debate...Maybe I don't know what I want. I don't know what will blow or change my mind. If books come pre-tailored to my specifications, whatever they are here, (lots of spaceships, say.) but 'nothing that I will think is sexist' is a specification. Why not stretch it to 'nothing that will make me feel uncomfortable'? I'm as confident of my ideals as anybody, but not that confident. I don't want an echo chamber.

[Axiomatic]

I suspect the only way to read a book that's perfectly tailored to all your specifications is to write it yourself.

[Contrarius]

Most people on that thread argued that it wasn't rape but rough sex that she'd consented to : "I had time only to nod once, in acknowledgment or permission" and "Yes, I'll have you" a few lines before.

But then she clearly tells him to stop, and that he's hurting her -- and he doesn't stop. And he also says, clearly and in a few different ways, that he will "take" her no matter what she says.

[Contrarius]

i'm reading the analogy to censorship (or direct accusation of same, as the case may be) in this thread the same way i read the following comments

I think you're once again missing the difference between the simple critique -- "these statements are stupid/misguided/racist/whatever because of B and C" and the willingness to repress -- "she should not be allowed to make these statements".

If Sarah Palin or Laura Schlessinger or whomever is told she/he should not be allowed to make certain statements, however stupid they may be, then I agree with their outrage. But people like them tend to throw fits at *any* criticism, in which case I don't. ;)

[Richard]

Datepalm - nice one! I think you pretty much nailed the whole thing right there.