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Notes -
To counterbalance my frothy rant earlier this week about wokeism in the novel Ancillary Justice, I thought I would do a quick write up on another SF/F novel - namely The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. This is another novel in the speculative fiction genre that has won accolades, is pretty 'woke' in its plot and worldbuilding, and is written by a pretty left leaning woman as far as I can tell.
However, I found it exquisite! To explain a bit without spoiling the plot entirely, it revolves around a half-goblin half-elf man who has been abused and out of favor his whole life, but suddenly becomes emperor of the refined, wealthy, and judgmental empire of elves who his late father ruled. It is a classic tale of the oppressed being thrust into a position of power, and having to navigate racism, prejudice, etc. That's the main theme of the book. For instance in this scene the new emperor, Maia, confronts his abusive guardian, Setheris:
On top of this, there are all sorts of messages about women being useful for more than marriages, masters taking care of their servants, etc etc. All standard far-left, liberal talking points.
I'm wondering if the main difference between my frustration with Ancillary Justice and The Goblin Emperor is just the use of pronouns? I didn't think I had that much of an issue with pronouns/trans ideology separated from the rest of the woke memeplex, but the more I think about it the more it seems that people switching the pronouns they use and forcing others to use their preferred pronouns even if obviously incorrect is the main issue in my mind. Which doesn't seem to make much logical sense - but maybe it's just a disgust reaction.
Anyway, as someone who has identified as a liberal for most of my life, actually hardcore leftist, anti-authoritarian socialist, etc, I'm curious how many other folks are in the same boat. Essentially on board with the project of the left, until the last 5-10 years when trans ideology and pronouns took over the movement. Perhaps there are others who have realized that this is one specific issue they just can't accept for the greater good of the leftist cause.
Lots. Hlynka loves pointing it out, most SSC/TheMotte surveys show a left wing bent. People love to sneer at "leaving the left" nowadays, but it's an actual phenomenon.
I always had my disagreements with the left, mostly on economic issues, but I was always on board the social agenda. Now I flipped. I'm happy to hand over the economy to Stalin if it means bringing back the culture to something sane.
For me it's not about a specific cause, it's about the whole privilege+power framework.
Do you think the motte still has a left wing bent? It seems like it’s shifted more rightward after the site move. May just be me.
If I may chip in, I'd say it has shifted rightward at least a little. Maybe it's just bottled-up witchiness bubbling to the surface? Overall it hasn't changed much though, except for a loss of volume and, I fear, some quality. Though that may not be the move's fault; maybe the Motte is just past its prime, or at least in a bit of a creative dry spell.
FWIW, I'm firmly in the camp of "liberalism is the second-best for everyone, while the best would be the world obeying my every whim." So, eh, right-wing by today's standards.
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If it is right wing it is a very weird blue tribe version of it.
Most of the people here feel significantly isolated over their politics rather than having a tribe.
Yeah that’s fair. I don’t truly feel part of the left, though I do feel more left than most folks here. I’m transhuman, socially liberal, don’t care much about gender roles, I’m pro union, pro big govt in some places. Seems like most folks here aren’t.
Your only difference as described is going to be the Union thing, unless socially liberal requires active approval of alternative relationships like polyamory.
Even then, I doubt you'll see more than 50% opposition.
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Depends on what axis you draw your "left-right" line on.
If it's on pronouns and killing all white people, this is Naziland.
If it's on gay marriage and the US as a "christian nation", this is San Fransisco.
Yeah we’re all just a bunch of witches wanting to cast our spells without getting censored. You make a fair point.
Also I love how great the site move went. So many people were doomsaying but we’re alive and strong.
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It's very hard to tell because of the woke factor. If you had the Motte vote between an actively anti-woke leftwinger and an actively anti-woke rightwinger, would the rightwinger win? Maybe, I can feel the well-known conservative drift that comes with age even in myself, but I think the results would be pretty close.
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Perhaps similar, though I would expand the scope of my disagreement to cover the entirely of the American Left's collectivism (I hear people can unironically call each other "race traitors" nowadays, at least if they are not white). I'm not sure if its disagreeable-to-me form is also a development of the last 5-10 years, because 10 years ago is roughly when I first went to live in the US and the whole identity thing was already entrenched there when I arrived.
What does collectivism even mean?
In this context, something like considering (fixed) groups of people as ethical subjects, perhaps ones whose value weight exceeds that of their constituent members? This can take both a symmetrical form ("the moral duty of all humans is to ensure the continued existence and flourishing of {black people, Germans, workers, artists...}") and a variety of asymmetrical ones including those where people are taken to have a moral duty towards their own assigned group before other individuals and especially members of other groups (which gives rise to the "race traitor"/"Uncle Tom" rhetoric) and ones where all people are taken to have the duty to help certain groups over others (as with Soviet communism).
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I think I'm in a similar spot and the way I explain it to myself is that it's a divergence between the ends, with which I am in agreement with the left, and the means, which I find myself disagreeing with more and more.
Particularly, I strongly disagree with a growing authoritarian and collectivist strain of leftist thinking and the popular uptake of it. (This doesn't actually seem like anything new, but it feels like it has been gaining strength during my lifetime. ) To go with your example of pronouns, I have really have nothing against a person asking me to refer to them using a non-default pronoun, but I despise that pronouns are being forced on me from above (eg. DEI training, Chief Diversity Officer, etc.) with an implicit threat of violence (conform or be fired), all of it broaching absolutely no discussion, all of it couched in insultingly primitive corp-speak produced by the bottom of the barrel of "generic bachelor degree holders."
That said, compared to you, my reaction isn't limited to trans ideology and pronouns; rather I see it as a small part of a growing respect for authoritarian means.
Why should we expect otherwise? The left made promises to a wide variety of consituencies, and those promises have, in the main, not born fruit. If you tell people you can solve their problems, and then you don't solve their problems, why should they not turn to other methods for solving problems than the ones you prefer?
Which promises were not held, economic equality? I guess the left has over promised for a while now…..
Equality between the sexes, between the races, lower crime, better education, improved outcomes for a variety of groups, the conquering of prejudice, all the myriad fruits of prosperity, available freely to all, etc, etc. The war on poverty, on crime, on drugs. For specifics, refer to any democratic presidential stump speech in living memory.
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This is an excellent point! This idea of ends vs. means hits on a big theme I’ve been missing. Ironic since I just finished a trilogy that was all about that concept.
With trans for instance, I am perfectly fine with the ends. I do think we should have freedom to be gender fluid. (Especially with powerful tech) But the means are frustrating me to no end. Thanks for helping shed some light on the dark corners of my brain.
If your apparently-acceptable ends can only be accomplished by unacceptable means, it's probably worth taking another look at those ends.
I don’t necessarily think that’s true. I just think it takes time, and that technology/material wealth changes the picture.
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a.k.a. nobody cares about the politics if it is good.
The contrast between the discourse around Rings of Power and House of the Dragon is illustrative. The latter has attracted far less criticism despite similar casting practices and the story itself being significantly more 'woke' (caveat: I have seen neither of these shows and am relying on the accounts of people I regard). While there are fair points that there are other relevant differences between the shows, the core difference seems to be that HotD is generally regarded as being pretty good and RoP is regarded as mediocre at best, completely apart from any culture war issues.
I think this is boils down to: you talk up politics when you've got nothing else to talk about, and you fall back on politics when you have no better defense (or, really, if you're any good you don't need to mount a defense). The Goblin Emperor was never pitched to me on the basis of politics. It was sold on the quality of writing and novelty of the concept. Almost everything I can think of that put political relevancy forward as its most attractive feature turned out to be mediocre-to-dogshit.
As someone who is pretty centrist overall but also socially liberal, I find this baffling. I find the conservative and trans-exclusionary feminist positions coherent and understandable, even if I disagree with them. I understand and sympathize with people who are skeptical of maximalist views on treatment of gender nonconforming children. I do not understand your position - both the assessment that it has taken over the movement and it being a personal line in the sand, given your other professed politics.
I haven't seen any of "House of the Dragon" but the important differences seem to be:
George R.R. Martin is still alive, so they can consult him on "is it okay to have a whole House of black Valyrians?" and get the nod as against very heavily implied in interviews "Well we have to update Tolkien's (racist, sexist, white supremacist) writing for today's world"
An entire House of black Valyrians, with some attempt to justify their presence or what they are doing there or where they come from, as against dropping in one black Elf and one black Dwarf and just shrugging your shoulders with "you're a racist" when asked "where the heck did they come from, and where are the rest of the black Elves and black Dwarves if these exist?"
Just generally better actors, better writing, and better directing. Nobody takes a pyroclastic flow to the face and walks away without even a scratch
Better use of whatever budget they had on costuming, sets, special effects. Epic battle scenes are properly epic, not "one village of humans versus about fifty Orcs saved by thirty Númenoreans in their mighty fleet of three ships"
Added irony for those of us who are grimly enjoying the entire mess: Ryan Condal, co-creator and showrunner on "House of the Dragon", was going to do a "Conan the Barbarian" series for Amazon until it was cancelled by Jennifer Salke (allegedly on the basis of toxic masculinity )and he was fired, eventually ending up over on "House of the Dragon" which is eating "Rings of Power"'s lunch.
Additional interest: the black Elf may not be returning in the second season; rumours are going round that Ismael Cruz Córdova (who is actually Afro-Latino as he's Puerto Rican) hasn't been given a new contract yet. To which all I can say is "Yippee!" since the character didn't actually do anything and Cruz Córdova was like a plank of wood in the part.
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As someone who hasn't read either, but has had both Ancillary Justice and The Goblin Emperor pitched to me, this was not my experience.
Ancillary Justice was pitched to me as a good book in the sense of being well written and interesting. Now I don't really like transhumanism fiction, so I didn't read it, but the whole "It's too woke to get through" thing was something I had never heard of except on the motte. I had heard that there was explorations of values dissonance, but they did not to me seem to be particularly progressive in attitude.
The Goblin Emperor wasn't explicitly pitched as woke, but come on now, duh.
So it's interesting to me that the (from an outsider perspective)more conventionally political book is actually less notably political when read. I mean of course I'm very much not on the left, but it seems like a flip flop in practice from naive expectations.
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Neither do I! Hence why I’m writing these posts trying to tease out some understanding. Perhaps it’s just a visceral reaction I should work to logic myself out of.
As for taking over the movement, that is meant more in a social, anecdotal sense. I’ve always run with a left leaning crowd, and anti-trans discussion now makes you a persona non grata. I’ve found this out the hard way.
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The point I've made at times is that I don't remember any major discussion on shows like Bojack Horseman, The Expanse or Arcane being "woke", even though they generally had all the surface attributes usually assigned to wokeness (ie. ethnically diverse casting, sex/gender minorities on display, openly politicized in a generally left-wing direction and so on), since they were generally considered to be good. The "woke media product" label, in turn, implicitly seems to include the idea that it's not only those things but it's also bad, which makes "get woke go broke" a bit of a tautology.
I think a major issue is if one takes a setting and then forcibly tries to make it comply with ones very different political sensibilities, turning it to shit.
When a setting is designed in a way that doesn't conflict with woke sensibilities then there is no issue. Having a diverse cast in a story about colonisation of the solar system is very different from forcing it into a story about medieval Bohemia or Sengoku Japan.
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Also, Bojack Horseman could sometimes be politically thoughtful, e.g. the gun control or abortion episodes weren't conservative, but they weren't comfortably liberal either - the gun control episode noted how concealed-carry guns could make women safer by making physical strength less important, while the abortion episode put pressure on the idea that abortion is no different from clipping your nails.
It was only in one of the last episodes, where a character says something like, "You're white, so even if you're lazy and stupid your life will turn out just fine," that the show had a braindead woke moment. And I suspect that, true to your comment, I might have only noticed that because it was a relatively weak episode.
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The more I get expose to the ideas of people who call themselves leftists and rightists the less I think those terms mean anything at all. What does it even mean to be on the left to you? The explanation of it that sticks in my mind was something Freddie deBoer said that I just spent 30 minutes failing to find where he declares his intention to always side with the weak against the the strong no matter the situation. Which sounds good on a protest sign until you think about it for two seconds.
I'm not much of a fan of the right. I'm not religious, I'm open to change and new experiences. My meat space friend group is a rainbow coalition of gays and minorities. I would like a better and more equal world and if the past is a different country you don't have to go far back before I get a little hesitant to allow immigration for fear of incompatible values. But nearly every idea I hear come out of the left is just so pathetically flawed and unconsidered. Is a better of class of proposed changes so much to ask for? Am I really on the right because I don't support the 14th iteration of a failed rent control proposal or special interests looting the public purse? The bulk of my allies in defending free speech, of convenience or not, are now Conservatives?
It's enough to make a man turn to the bottle.
Yes. Noticing what didn't work is the defining characteristic of a conservative.
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What's that thing about the Overton Window shifting? Cthulhu always swims left? You are not the first or only person who never changed their views radically and who started off comfortably on the left but find themselves increasingly being shifted further to the right on the imaginary axis, because the window is moving to the left.
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Don’t turn to the bottle just yet my friend! You’re right, I suppose identifying with these two broad camps is playing along a false binary. We should be more open to people picking and choosing individual positions instead of swallowing a platform whole.
It sounds like you’re against economic liberal positions (at least modern liberal). Have you heard of my old friend Henry George?
Yes, I like how George cleaves reality at the joints in a way most leftists don't when he separates the landlord rent seeking from the importance of rewarding capital investment. But the modern left does not seem to take those ideas very seriously.
Agreed! It’s refreshing to find convincing ideas that work on the object level, instead of just reconfiguring the common political stances of the left or right.
Charter cities seem similar to me, especially those that try to emulate the early American ideal of charter cities.
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Sorry I'm dense. Could you explain?
Compare the relative social power of a loser turned school shooter and Mr. Rogers if they were to get into a dispute for any reason and consider what Freddie's position commits him to. It's just wrong to think you can naively look at a hierarchy and determine those on the bottom should be supported over those at the top. There is an actual truth worth considering beyond pure power games.
Ah, I understand now. Thank you.
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How does it go? Repression causes (selects for) smart ideas. Smart ideas lead to social dominance. Social dominance allows stupid takes. Stupid takes (eventually) invite repression.
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Odd, that excerpt there has me wincing because of the fake-Olde Englishe. Does Addison explain the distinction between use of "Thou/You" in her novel, or is it there just to make it sound "These Elves are Formal (and stuck-up pricks)"?
Besides, it should be "Thou shalt not rule me", not "Thou wilt not". See Arthur Hugh Clough's "The Latest Decalogue" (seemingly there are a couple of versions of it):
Variant version:
And the description makes me think it will be awful: of course our hero is half-caste (to use an outmoded term), of course it's all about "women are more than broodmare fodder", of course, of course, of course it's the George R.R. Martin view of history and of course all the Right-Thinking People have the attitudes of the most progressive 21st century American.
So I'm surprised you say it's good! If it can overcome all those disadvantages of sounding like a Social Justice sermon then there must be something like a really good plot going on!
The writing is extremely well done, same with the politics and intrigue.
She does specifically use the formal second person for the emperor, and makes it a big deal when he switches to first person. It was one of my favorite quirks in the book.
It’s definitely a bit of a coming of age story, but I’m a sucker for those anyway. Would recommend if you’re curious it’s a pretty short read.
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This in my mind is always a pretty funny trope because thou is grammatically the informal pronoun of the two, while you descends from the formal pronoun. That it sounds formal is, to my knowledge, part of that lovely cognitive bias that old is formal.
Which is in part because thou is, to most Americans, mostly found in religious contexts or poetry they had to read in school.
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I hope you enjoy the sequel as well, I thought it was great.
There's a sequel?! Wow, best news I've had all week. Merry Christmas bud.
Edit: And apparently she makes it so the books are published DRM free. I appreciate it.
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