site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33048 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The decline of the Literary Bloke: "In featuring just four men, Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists confirms what we already knew: the literary male has become terminally uncool."

Just some scattered thoughts.

The Great Literary Man is no longer the role model he once was. The seemingly eternal trajectory outlined by Woolf has been broken. The statistics are drearily familiar. Fewer men read literary novels and fewer men write them. Men are increasingly absent from prize shortlists and publishers’ fiction catalogues. Today’s release of Granta’s 20 best young British novelists – a once-a-decade snapshot of literary talent – bottles the trend. Four of the 20 on the list are men. That’s the lowest in the list’s 40-year history. In its first year, 1983, the Granta list featured only six women.

It has to be pointed out that any such "great upcoming young novelists" list must be comprised of mostly women, out of necessity. Otherwise the organizers of the list would be painted as sexist and privileged and out of touch and it would probably jeopardize their careers. You don't even need to reach for the more subtle types of criticisms that revisionists make of the traditional canon: "yeah, I know like you feel you were just judging works solely on literary merit, and you just so happened to collect a list of 100 deserving authors where 99 of them are men, but actually you were being driven by subconscious patriarchal bias and you need to escape from your historically ossified perspective and so on and so forth". What's going on now in the publishing industry is far more overt: "it's time to hand the reins over to women, period". In such a cultural context, how could a list of the "20 best young British novelists" be taken as unbiased evidence of anything?

The irrelevance of male literary fiction has something to do with “cool”. A few years ago Megan Nolan noted – with as much accuracy as Woolf on these men in Mrs Dalloway – that it might be “inherently less cool” to be a male novelist these days. Male writers, she continued, were missing a “cool, sexy, gunslinger” movement to look up to. All correct.

It's true that literary fiction is not as cool as it once was, although this in itself is not a great moral catastrophe. It's part of the natural cycle of things. The "cool" things now are happening in TV, film, video games, and comic books. When was the last time a literary fiction author of either gender captured the imaginations of millions of people the way Hajime Isayama did? The literary novel is not eternal (many will argue that historically speaking, it's a relatively recent invention) and it is not inherently superior to other narrative art forms.

The decline of male literary fiction is not down to a feminist conspiracy in publishing houses

Correct, it's not a conspiracy, but only because there is nothing conspiratorial about it. If you were to ask any big (or small!) publishing house if they gave priority to voices from traditionally marginalized groups, they would say yes. If you were to then ask them if women are a traditionally marginalized group, they would say yes.

...

It's not a conspiracy if they just tell you what they're doing!

The most understanding account of male literary ambition was written by a woman.

There's been a meme for some time that goes something like, "men don't understand women, but women understand men - maybe even better than men do themselves", which I find to be quite obnoxious. If there is any "misunderstanding", then it surely goes both ways. There are plenty of things in the male experience that have no natural analogue in the female experience, same as the reverse.

It has to be pointed out that any such "great upcoming young novelists" list must be comprised of mostly women, out of necessity. Otherwise the organizers of the list would be painted as sexist and privileged and out of touch and it would probably jeopardize their careers.

So who is one of these young novelists who is a man that isn't being recognized?

An accusation of "We genuinely just searched for that which is great and good that fit the market and it happened to be comprised mostly of X" cuts both ways, y'know?

It's true that literary fiction is not as cool as it once was, although this in itself is not a great moral catastrophe. It's part of the natural cycle of things. The "cool" things now are happening in TV, film, video games, and comic books.

So you acknowledge that the whole medium is not as cool to men, but then you insist that if upcoming authors' lists are dominated by women, it can't be because they're the ones who comprise most of the market?

The only way to make your argument is to say that, in general, the great men authors of the past were recognized independent of the markets they were a part of. Which you can certainly argue, but I want to see evidence of that claim if you're going to make it.

Correct, it's not a conspiracy, but only because there is nothing conspiratorial about it. If you were to ask any big (or small!) publishing house if they gave priority to voices from traditionally marginalized groups, they would say yes. If you were to then ask them if women are a traditionally marginalized group, they would say yes.

How do you square this with your own admission that literary fiction isn't superior to other, newer forms of media?

If a man today enjoys reading manga, watching YouTube and Netflix, plays video games, etc. but doesn't read a book, why is this a consequence of publishing houses promoting women and minorities instead of just a conclusion of where his interests naturally lay? The engagement from playing Ace Combat is probably higher to many than reading a Hemmingway novel.

An accusation of "We genuinely just searched for that which is great and good that fit the market and it happened to be comprised mostly of X" cuts both ways, y'know?

Is this something decision makers are actually claiming, though? I'm not all that familiar with the literature publishing industry, but if it's at all like other fictional media industries like movies, TV shows, and video games, almost everyone would be openly and intentionally discriminating their hires based on various identity markers, including sex and gender, rather than genuinely just searching for that which is great and good that fits the market.

It has to be proven on a case-by-case basis is my point. If someone wants to argue that the industry is signaling its progressive credentials, I'm going to ask why it's not possible that a politically neutral search couldn't replicate the same result for other reasons.

So who is one of these young novelists who is a man that isn't being recognized?

I think there are a lot of men writing power fantasy novels targeted at men, which aren't great literature, but are still very enjoyable entertainment that deserve to be promoted more. Stuff like Dungeon Crawler Carl and Cradle, which are really popular in certain circles on reddit, but which aren't mainstream at all. I think entertainment targeted at men deserves a bit more spreading power. Schools don't need sections for "feminist protagonists targeted at young women" anymore, they need sections for "Awesome protagonists targeted at young men".

For what it’s worth, those works specifically have gotten more mainstream. My dad picked up Cradle completely independently. It’s not like he was trawling progression fantasy subs.

But! Granta is a lit-crit magazine, picking “literary” authors for readers who want “literary” fiction. Lloyd’s article is also specifically talking about “Literary Blokes” pouring their hearts and souls into thinky, sophisticated novels. They have no intention of signal-boosting anything remotely popcorn fantasy. The existence of male-dominated genres doesn’t say much about the particular authors in which Granta is interested.

Entertainment for men is already widespread, you can get into, among others things, manga, anime, video games, and more.

The question at hand is whether there are young men novelists who are not being valued by the industry. To which I say, either the market matters or it doesn't. It's fine to say that selling more books isn't a metric of "upcoming" or whatever, but evidence has to be provided if you go that route. Who are these people that we're not seeing on lists of the people who write physical books (or would have, in another age)?

I chose a wrong word then. Entertainment targeted at men is doing fine, books targeted at men are not. If you want a specific name, Will Wight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Wight He deserves some more awards from some sort of organization that gives awards to people who write entertaining books. I think there are a lot of men out there who'd devour his books, but do not hear about him.

So who is one of these young novelists who is a man that isn't being recognized?

Have you not heard of sad puppies drama?

Switch the genders and tell me your argument would be OK.

Does my account have blue hair on it or something? What's with the assumption that I wouldn't be just as critical of women being given awards they weren't entitled to?

If I were in charge of those lists, I'd probably go along with efforts to widen the pool of authors across race and sex. But I wouldn't fuck with the listings themselves.

Does my account have blue hair on it or something?

I'm sorry if I came off kind of flippant, that wasn't my intention. (now that I've opened myself to emojis, I'm kind of lost without them, lol).

Opening up the field is great! Giving money/books to communities that don't have access is awesome.

Denying someone a spot on a list because they are the incorrect demographic is wrong.

I think the disagreement is over if/how much this line is crossed.

Which puppies do you think deserved an award? And how many of them ended up on the slate thanks to their own author? Vox Day flogging his own works isn’t a badge of quality.

And yes, flipping the argument is fine. I don’t particularly care if this magazine awards 16/20 or 6/20 or 4/20 awards to women.

I don’t particularly care if this magazine awards 16/20 or 6/20 or 4/20 awards to women.

That's great but not the point. If 4/20 of the awards went to women, there would accusations of sexism, articles written, etc.

All I'm saying is apply the same critical lens. If that makes you uncomfortable, maybe it wasn't a great idea to being with.

No, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I’m not going to write (or cheer for) such articles, and neither is @drmanhattan16, as far as I can tell.

The proportion of slots on this list doesn’t match the demographics of Britain. Is this because (1) the proportion of lit-fic authors doesn’t match? Because (2) the distribution of skill doesn’t match? Or because (3) the list-makers are sexist?

Drmanhattan and I think it’s likely 1. Lloyd kind of equivocates between 1 and 3. @Primaprimaprima argues for straight 3, if I’m reading him right.

Flipping the genders doesn’t change the valence because I don’t believe 3 is well-supported.

All I'm saying is apply the same critical lens. If that makes you uncomfortable, maybe it wasn't a great idea to being with.

No, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable

Great, what about the point:

All I'm saying is apply the same critical lens

For over a decade now, this critical theory lens has been applied to a lot of things... Usually resulting is accusations of 'isms. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

The fact that you don't care does not change the point. You caring doesn't matter to anyone but you.

I guess I don’t understand what you’re asking. I thought “applying the lens” meant “flip the genders, and see if you feel different.” I did, and I don’t.

What more do you want me to say?

Post is about sexism. You make the hip sexism argument that wouldn't fly (culturally) the other way.

There isn't much to say if you just ignore this.

So who is one of these young novelists who is a man that isn't being recognized?

I can think of a few, but they wouldn't want to be recognized anyways and are content anonymously shitposting on twitter.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats