wisb-Guardian-Express

I'm obviously not going to link to the story here.  Instead, I'll point you to "Diversity is not Narcissism:  A Response to Felicity Savage" at The Other Side of the Rain, "Mirror, Mirror:  Quien Soy?" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and "False Equivalence:  Selfies and Diversity in SFF" at Radish Reviews.  They've covered much of what I'm going to babble about here, though I'll try to add to that existing discussion.[1]

So here goes.

Savage begins her diatribe by discussing the validity of "selfies," an understandably amusing practice which has become the subject of much parodying.  Of course, Savage doesn't note that selfies have also been used for arts projects, such as the numerous videos on YouTube in which
the user takes a single picture of themselves everyday for a set period of time -- the purpose of these videos is not unlike a self-portrait, which Savage raises to "art" status, albeit in the form of a time capture.

You might wonder what selfies have to do with diversity in SF/F. You'd be right to wonder just that, as the analogy Savage wishes us to buy into is already fallacious from the outset, as the purpose of a selfie, as she  defines it, bears little resemblance to the purpose of diversity projects like Expanded Horizons or the various other magazines which have posted diversity policies.  In Savage's own words, a selfie is as follows:

The principle here is a familiar one. The harder you try to look good the worse you will actually look. The pictures on the left and right illustrate of the difference between a self-portrait and a selfie. Hint: the self-portrait is the one where the subject isn’t trying to look good. 

Selfies remove objectivity from the subject-artist loop of creation. Add in a professional photographer or portrait artist and beauty happens. Conversely, grotesquerie is inherent in the selfie creation process, this having been reduced to a mirror-gazing session.

What does this have to do with diversity in SF/F?  Well, Savage doesn't exactly say.  She throws out a random line about the community seeming like a hall of mirrors, and then conveniently changes topic, leaving the weak analogy in place, but without even the attempt at explication.  The only other line that references the several-paragraph description of selfies is a throwaway I'll come back to later.

The implication of these first paragraphs, however, is quite clear.  If we're to take the analogy as it is presented, then Savage believes seeking out diversity in SF/F is grotesque in the same way as a selfie:  it is without objectivity; it is without art; it is simply staring into a mirror.  We're off to a good start, no?

The central premise of Savage's argument is simply this:  attempting to create diversity by deliberately seeking out non-white and/or non-male writers is narcissism of the highest order:

But the call for diversity is usually interpreted with deadly literal-mindedness as a call for more characters who are female / black / Asian / what have you. Why are we all so keen to see ourselves on the page?

Never mind that people of all colors and genders (let alone orientations) are calling for diversity, and leave it to Savage to conveniently forget that these variations of self are merely variations of the human, let alone that the default subject has historically been white and male.  That we are seeing exceptions to that rule makes those variations no less valid or important than the stock standard white dude.  Savage, of course, seems remarkably oblivious to the impact of fiction or imagery on a population's view of different peoples.  There's a reason by the Romani people are still viewed so unfavorably, and it's not because there's something inherently wrong with them.  The public image of Romani people, as fed to us through the arts and other mediums, is rarely positive; culture undeniably functions via transmittal, and the most effective way to do so is through various forms of media.  The narratives of colonization were transmitted through written travelogues, art, advertising, and so on; these held, in many cases, for centuries.  In the U.S., the image of the "lazy negro" persisted well into the 20th Century, supported by plantation propaganda in the form of comical advertisements (look up "negro with watermelon" for an example) and so on.  The dominant class, whoever that may be, will always seek transmittal of their cultural values.[2]

The production of such diversity in admittedly artificial.  Savage, however, seems to believe diversification in such artificial terms destroys SF/F's image by reducing it to the literary equivalent of a drug-addicted celebrity:  "Just don’t stare into the mirror too long or your reflection may start to look like a trout-pouted minor celebrity with a cocaine hangover."  She likewise criticizes Expanded Horizons as a space for mixing and matching "your preferred ethnic / sexual identifiers to create your very own comfort zone."  The point, however, is quite clear:  diversity is actually a bad thing.  Either it is a form of tokenism -- a legitimate problem -- or it destroys the face of genre.

The latter of these two problems is an attack on diversification as a process, as it seems to suggest that a challenge against the status quo -- inserting people of color or women into roles which had previously been dominated by white men -- violates the sanctity of a pure space of difference.  This becomes more clear when Savage writes the following:

What speculative fiction does well is diversity on the species level. Our aliens, dragons, orcs, and even or especially our far-future selves ask us, in as many ways as there are books, what it means to be human.

The pure space of difference -- a largely white and male space -- is challenged by diversity only in situations when the purity can be preserved.  So long as difference is actualized through the inhuman other -- robots, dragons, aliens, etc. -- diversity is OK, but the moment you inject human questions that actualize difference within the species, suddenly you have violated what is the natural inflection of the very question.  The human question, in other words, is a question of the status quo; it is a question of whiteness and maleness, as the dominant representation -- the very representation diversity projects attempt to challenge by way of the pollination of human selves -- is and has been white and male[3].  That Savage thinks this means "we're all in this together" is merely a delusion of presence.  To imagine that human experience can be mediated only through the white male in opposition to inhuman beings is to suggest that diversity is an unnecessary project.  Why worry about diversity when we can all just imagine humanity through one representation of its myriad forms?  That we implicitly know this is a falsehood in relation to any other sort of physically differentiated species of animal seems forgotten.  Mind you, this is not explicitly Savage's argument, but it is the one that is implied throughout; she might disagree that the status quo is white and male, but that doesn't change the fact that it is and that its preservation is merely apologetics of the worst sort.

Savage's other points are no less valid in context.  Her contention that we should "spare a wee drop of compassion for the straight, white, able-bodied, cis-gendered male" because "he’s lectured on his lack of diversity, told to read more stories about and by people with diverse perspectives–and yet when he tries to approach them in real life, it all too often … doesn’t end well" is little more than a sort of crude anti-diversity apologetics.  And the paragraph in which it appears is essentially a giant hasty generalization of the problems diversity produces, as if attempts to create safe spaces for PoCs or the occasional flack white males might experience when walking themselves into a wall when they should have known better is representative of the entire experience of diversity.  Savage, out of necessity, must leave out any discussion of PoCs and women and QUILTBAG people who are quite happy to see people like themselves engaged in the adventures of SF/F.  Ignore the value this might produce for a culture or a group because it is inconvenient to one's argument.

True, one of SF/F's strengths is its ability to represent the other, but it is also strongest when it best represents humanity as it is.  When we account for the actual, we create new environments of engagement which offer a real challenge to the dominant paradigms of the human.  Diversity of this type is good for us.  It makes us better people.  It allows us to see how others experience the world or the fantastic.  It exposes the paradigms and questions that plague humanity in all its forms.  Savage is completely wrong when she suggests that "nothing is gained by mapping our fragmented ethnic and sexual identities onto our fiction with the fidelity of a cellphone camera photo."  Perhaps if she'd asked some people of color or gay people or women, she might have understood the value diversity brings with it.  Instead, she wrote an illogical, anti-diversity screed.  Color me immensely disappointed.


[1]:  My assertions will be based off of what is written in Savage's post.  It is entirely possible the content of the post is not a reflection of the author's actual views, or at least not an accurate reflection of those views.  As such, I won't argue that Savage is racist or sexist, as these are charges for which I do not have enough information.

[2]:  Not all forms of cultural transmission are bad, mind you.  Right now, we are witnessing a positive form of that transmission in the gay rights movement; increasingly, young people are reaching voting age without the prejudices of their parents in tact, in no small part because their isolated teen/youth culture has discarded that older ideology in droves.

[3]:  In the West most of all.

Most of you know the story.  In 2009, the merchant vessel Maersk Alabama was hijacked by four Somali pirates off the coast of Somalia.  Her captain, Richard Phillips, was taken hostage and was not freed until several days later when a Navy SEALs team shot and killed the pirates.  It became a national story almost immediately:  the first American vessel hijacked by Somali pirates, a miraculous and brave rescue by the U.S. military (always a hit with the news), and a new-found hero in the figure of Captain Phillips, who, we're told, risked his own life to keep his crew safe.

A Captain's Duty:  Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea is Captain Phillip's personal account of the events.  Beginning days before the hijacking, Phillips lays out a populist account of the politics of coastal Somalia, life on merchant vessels, the history of the merchant
mariners, and the personal struggles he and his wife endured during and, to a lesser extent, after the hijacking.  As a work meant to educate and entertain, it is at times quite dull, and at other times quite fascinating, though not necessarily for the reasons you'd expect.

What I found most compelling about this book were its sections on life in pirate-heavy seas.  Many of the chapters are preceded by quotes highlighting previously successful hijackings, and the chapters themselves provide a fair amount of detail about the procedures for dealing with piracy and the knowledge sea captains like Phillips must acquire before and after they traverse the seas.  These sections were the most interesting in the book, as they highlighted the real problem piracy poses and provided Phillips' personal perspective on the issue.  If anything, these sections do far more to describe who Phillips is than any of the chapters about the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama.  They likewise provide a somewhat populist view of the issues in the Somali region, which do certainly add sympathy to an already sympathetic figure.

However, these chapters are sometimes overloaded by excessive description.  The book was clearly written for a general audience, yet some sections of the book obsess over the minute details of ship life, most of which have no direct bearing on the events yet to unfold.  One section on the captain's duty to inspect the ship could easily have been left as a short paragraph explaining what the inspection is for.  I'm sure someone who finds ship life idyllic -- or, perhaps, romantic -- will find value in these sections, but I personally felt they drew away from the more pressing concern:  piracy.  Truthfully, I was far more interested in how an actual ship captain views life in dangerous waters than in everyday ship life, as it is difficult to form an objective opinion on such matters from the safety of my computer chair.  Regardless, though there are some rather dull sections in the book, the overall thrust of the first few chapters is worth reading, if only for the reasons I have already stated.

Unfortunately, Phillips' account of the actual hijacking strains credulity.  While one can forgive him for making assumptions about his attackers, mis-remembering details, or even conjuring some up in an apparent dream-like daze, his assessment of his own behavior from the beginning of the hijacking makes one wonder why the U.S. Navy was all that concerned about Somali pirates in the first place.  For example, Phillips reminds us more than once that the Somalis have been enormously successful at hijacking ships and earning ransom as a result.  At no point are we to believe these pirates are completely inept at what they do, even if they are poorly armed, trained, and supplied.  Phillips spends considerable time, as I've noted above, describing how Somalis perform hijackings, their success rate, the politics, and so on, painting a fairly clear picture of just who we're about to deal with; that picture offers credence to the threat of hijacking.

But once the hijacking occurs, the Somalis are presented as dimwitted to the extreme, completely inept at just about everything; they are described like children who only just figured out how to turn on the boat.  They seem utterly perplexed by the boat's machinery, despite clearly having at least a basic understanding of radar equipment.  Worse, throughout the ordeal, Phillips claims to have been in continuous contact with hidden members of the crew via a handheld radio he "snuck away."  Only he repeatedly uses this radio right in front of the Somalis, or at least within sight, such that it's really quite impossible to believe that they haven't noticed.  This is made more unbelievable when we're reminded that the Somalis are rather annoyed that Phillips doesn't know where the rest of his crew is.  One problem:  clearly he does, and even if he didn't, he's clearly in contact with them.

This particular issue doesn't get better over time.  Frequently, Phillips is shown giving away tactical information to the crew -- numbers, weapons, positions, etc. -- while looking straight in the eye of the hijackers.  It's as if we're supposed to believe these Somalis are not only really bad at what they do, but completely disinterested in the fact that their captive is sharing sensitive information with the very people they wish to find (or, in some cases, with the military itself, as Phillips communicates with the U.S.S. Bainbridge while trapped in the cramped lifeboat).  All of this is dropped from the film adaptation -- probably for the exact reason that bothered me:  it just doesn't make sense.

The book's other flaws are in its contradictions.  For example, Phillips tells us that the Somalis let him swim in the ocean to cool off after kidnapping him and fleeing in the lifeboat.  But several chapters later, Phillips tells us the Somalis never let him out.  One of these two statements is true; they both can't be.  These details draw into question other aspects of the narrative, such as Phillips' claim that a Somali boat came to talk with the leader of the hijackers; the Navy, apparently, denies anything of the sort happened, which Phillips rejects for no reason other than because "he says so."  If he were to at least admit that his account is perhaps colored by his experience, some of these details could be forgiven.

Basically, the deeper Phillips takes us into his experiences as a kidnap victim, the less credible his account becomes.  Detached from the experience, he is able to paint a thorough picture of conditions at sea, but in trying to apply the same rigor to the moment of trauma, he invariably paints himself into a corner from which he cannot escape.  This is, quite frankly, an unbelievable book which would fail even as a work of fiction.

In all fairness, I can understand why the book fails as much as it does.  Trauma has a way of fragmenting memory, which might explain why Don Delillo's mostly disliked post-9/11 novel, Falling Man, is largely told in fragments.  Phillips tries to account for these fragmented memories by injecting an illusory voice of authenticity, but instead fictionalizes his own account.  On that front alone, there might be some value, as those interested in studying trauma may find something of value in a book which, in my mind, falls apart precisely because it is an attempt to remove the personal account from the effects of the event.  For me, however, I found myself unwilling to cede narrative ground for a book which exceeds the boundary of its genre simply by failing to adhere to the genre's basic necessities.  At the very least, non-fiction demands the illusion of truth.

Two quick things for readers of this blog thing:

1. I've not been active on the blog throughout much of November for one very simple reason:  this is the busiest month of the year for me, and more so because I've been working almost non-stop on exam materials throughout the month and the three months preceding it.  I'm getting a PhD, after all.
   
   I also have a lot of other stuff to deal with:  I'm grading a lot of papers (teaching three classes), I have three exams to write up and administer, and I'm teaching a bunch (four days a week).  Add all that in with holidays and so on and you've got a not-very-active Shaun person.  Granted, I've also been playing a bit of Starcraft 2 as a stress reliever, so...
   
   But there's one interesting thing going on, and that's this:
   
2. Larry Nolen of OF Blog of the Fallen just posted a 5,500-word interview with me!  I think it will be of interest to readers of this blog, as Larry asked me questions about blogging, podcasting, comics, postermodernism, fandom, and much more.  I think it's a pretty darn good interview.  Feel free to read it and leave a comment over there.

I am currently sitting in Houston's magnificent airport after leg two of my four-leg flight to Sacramento.  The things I do for family...

Anyway.  A few hours before, I was in Tampa, FL, whose airport not only has a pretty impressive view of the skyscrapers in a gorgeous dawning sun (I have a picture that I can't share right now for reasons that will become apparently shortly), but they also had wireless.  Gorgeous wireless.  It was relatively swift, allowed all of my normal functions (blogging, Twitter, Facebook, general searches, etc.), and was all around just good.  Before that, I was in Gainesville, FL, whose airport barely deserves the title, but also includes at least usable wireless -- it's not all that quick, but compared to the public wireless at the community college where I am employed, it is like night and day.

Houston, however, has none of these things.  Right now, I'm snatching wireless off one of the airline desks nearby; they apparently have never heard of passwords.  This service only allows me to access Blogger and general search, but Twitter and all of my apps (even the ones that have nothing to do with social media, but require Internet to function) are blocked.  I can't even search for ebooks on this thing...

The only other public option around here is one run by one of the hotspot companies.  It costs $4.95 for an hour, which is the only time I can use anyway (your only other option is $7.95 a month, but since I don't fly all that much, let alone to or from or around Houston, it's really not worth it).  I think this price is basically extortion.  In other words, there is no viable Internet option here.

This is not the first time I've been trapped in an airport without free wireless.  You'll forgive me for demonstrating my privilege, but I think all airports should have free wireless by default.  There are a lot of good reasons for this, from simple convenience and customer satisfaction to the fact that social networks allow information to move quickly within airport terminals (just in case something has happened inside and you don't know what's going on -- Tweeting, after all, is quiet; then again, maybe this is a stretch).  Ultimately, I think customer satisfaction is the one that will matter most, as giving us access helps us pass the time doing something we apparently enjoy, whether it's chatting with friends online, reading online newspaper articles, searching for an ebook to read, or something else.

So this is my plea for universal wireless in airports.  I'd love it if Internet access were universal in general, but I think this is a good place to start.

Go wireless, go wireless, go, go, go wireless!

A few weeks ago, the Huffington Post released an interview with Wil Wheaton and Michael Dorn, who played Wesley Crusher and Worf (respectively) on Star Trek:  the Next Generation.  I recommend reading the whole thing, but for now, I'm only concerned with one quote from Dorn:

Business things got in the way in terms of the JJ Abrams movie coming out and CBS/Paramount and their relationship with JJ Abrams. I don't think they wanted to step on his toes by putting a new series on, but it's not dead yet. I've finished the script and hopefully someone will take a look at this and say "we can do this."

Basically, we're not that far off from seeing a Captain Worf TV show.  Let me say that again:  a Captain Worf TV show.  By "not far off," of course, I don't mean "next year."  This is Hollywood, after all, and even getting into talks with the studios still means you're about as far from production as we are from going to Mars.  Still, in production terms, that's a lot closer than "I've got the rights" or "I wrote something" or "someone answered my phone call."  In other words, yeah, we're really not that far off from a possible show.

The big questions are these:

How exactly are they going to fit this show into the universe everyone now knows (Abrams')?  And if they're not going to integrate Worf into this new universe, how can they justify the character to a new viewing public?

First, there are big problems with sticking Worf into the Abrams universe.  Even taking into account the ridiculous time travel changes that have occurred, the character of Worf doesn't appear until well after the events of the first two ST films.  He's from an entirely different era, and his character is so defined by that era that to try to artificially shove him 100 years forward would entail an entirely different set of political conditions, most notably the fact that the Federation and the Klingons haven't even begun their war in the Abrams universe.  Star Trek Into Darkness takes place in 2259 -- eight years before the Federation-Klingon war took place in the original universe.  And the film makes clear that war is pretty much inevitable, as it was in the original universe.  Since Worf's character is partly defined by the post-war period, after which the Klingons eventually sue for piece (as in The Undiscovered Country), it doesn't make much sense to shove him into the immediate universe of the Abrams film.  That said, I wouldn't be surprised if they did just that, since this film series seems incapable of inventing new characters; instead, they borrow liberally from everything that came before.

One of the other problems has to do with which ST TV shows people are most likely to remember.  The Abrams ST films are probably more popular with casual or non-Trek viewers than with the traditional Trekkie crowd.  As such, its primary audience likely knows about TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, but their most recent ST experience would have been with Enterprise.  The good news:  STE doesn't violate Abrams' new canon, since its events, more or less, take place before Kirk's birth (in fairness, I haven't finished STE yet, so there may be stuff in there that contradicts this).  You could easily suck STE into Abrams' canon without much problems, which is not something you can easily do with a Worf TV show which springs off of TNG and DS9 (as the title, Captain Worf, suggests).
A show set in the Next Gen universe will also have a hard time competing with the film universe precisely because its characters aren't the dominant representation of ST anymore.  They may be some of the most recognizable non-TOS characters in the ST canon, but the universe we're playing in now would, by its very nature, have to diverge significantly from the world we learned about in TNG.  After all, the Vulcans aren't really there to help out anymore.  They're a decimated species who might, in 100 years, get some semblance of interstellar control back, but they're basically out for the count right now.  And that means Abrams has to take into account that the Klingons will likely have more of an influence on the Federation than they would have had before -- they're minus one formidable opponent.

Right.  Wandering.  This is the problem.  The Abrams universe has become, in my mind, *the* ST universe.  It's the one we're all really talking about as a culture.  As much as I want a Captain Worf show set in the TNG universe, I worry that it will only confuse new fans of ST.  After all, part of the reason the new ST movies are so action oriented is to snatch up younger viewers.  It's not designed for Trekkies, as much as they might hate the idea.  And the worst thing you can do to a newer, younger (and, hey, possibly older-but-never-been-into-ST-before) crowd is confuse them with ST stuff that doesn't fit.  Well, maybe not the worst thing, but it's a legitimate concern.
But who am I to say it won't work?  I'll watch the show regardless, as will most Trek fans.  Worf is a beloved character, and watching him grow as a formidable captain would be pretty awesome.

Bogh tlhInganpu', SuvwI'pu' moj, Hegh!

Here you go:

10.  Crowfunding Links of the Week:  Kaleidoscope (a Diverse YA Antho) & War Stories (a MilSF Antho)
9.  Draft Post Bingo:  What should I finish?  You Decide!
8.  Top 10 Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies Since 2010 (Thus Far)
7.  Ideological Rigidity (With a Side of Genre)(Adventures in Teaching)
6.  Top 10 Cats in Science Fiction and Fantasy
5.  Top 10 Blog Posts for September 2013 (ha!)
4.  Pixar Feature Films (from the worst to the best) -- A List That Will Get Me Killed
3.  Top 10 Overused Fantasy Cliches
2.  Movie Review:  Riddick (2013) (or, I'm Going to Mega Rant Now)
1.  Link of the Week:  Judith Butler Explained with Cats!