I’m e-stinky.
I know it. I’ve been told it too many times for it not to be true.
Isn’t it funny the way no one will tell you if your real stinky, but if you’re e-stinky they just can’t stop going on and on? It must be liberating, telling people how e-stinky they are, saying: “I hate to break it to you, bud, but your ‘E’ – peeeyew, does it stink. You smell like fish giblets wrapped in a shit taco, like a corpse’s asshole–Do you know that? Man o’ man does your E stink! Jesus is going to have to come up with a whole new brand salvation to get your stinky E ass into heaven!”
That’s the great thing about the internet, the way it liberates us from all those things, like civility, compassion, reasoned debate. Adulthood.
Because it’s kinda like a schoolyard, isn’t it? Name-calling. Mocking and jeering and sneering. Fook-you! No fook-you, motherfooker!
And if you happen to be e-stinky – lookout!
As far as I can tell I’ve been e-stinky my whole life. I’m a veteran of a thousand flame wars. I’ve slain trolls (who are attracted to e-stink the way a rutting bull moose is attracted to female urine), scaled bastions of unbridled, wanton stubborn stupidity. I have seen grown men go Full Retard over the definition of ‘illness.’
And I’ve been beaten down, hurt, mystified. I’ve turned to friends and asked, “Why does my E stink?”
“You come off as a pompous ass.”
“What if I made my ass more humble… Would it stink less then?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I don’t know what to say. It’s that whole philosophy thing, maybe. All that shit about facts and reasons and fallacies and cognitive shortcomings…”
“That’s what makes me stinky?”
“Well… There’s your personality.”
“Fook-you!”
“No fook-you, motherfooker!”
So that was that. I was e-stinky. I doomed to smell the smell that dare not waft its name. It was part of who I am. Part of my essence…
What was I to do? Withdraw from the e-world entirely, live in self-imposed e-exile, e-embittered?
Or should I e-embrace my e-brand. Stand e-tall, e-proud, and e-declare, “I e-stink, Goddammit… How do ya like me so far!”
“Fook-you!”
“No, fook-you, motherfooker!”
Sometimes I would become self-conscious, I admit. It’s a hard thing, forcing yourself to be proud. I would do things like shove breath-mints and air-fresheners up my e-ass, just to see if that would work. I once even shaved my armpits. But to no avail. Take my advice: Never, ever, try soaking your balls in Old Spice. Those guys who write those commercials are a bunch of lying motherfookers!
Other times I exulted in my e-stink. I would breath deep, and cry out with savage abandon. The heavens would resound, and the beasts would slink, eyes watering, into their lairs. Olfactory bulbs shrivelled for the mere rumour of my approach. My smell was my roar!
But it got to be too much, the schoolyard, the name-calling, the mocking, the jeering and the sneering. Even my heart seemed to e-stink after awhile.
So I retired from the e-world, travelled the lonely ways of the e-stinky man, pensive, reflective, searching for someone wise who could tell me what to do. And so I found myself in Tibet, searching for a famed Tibetan Llama renowned for his wisdom regarding all things stinky and E.
I climbed mountain scarps. The wind whipped tails of white from the surrounding peaks. When I arrived at the monastery, I knocked on the great, bronze-gilded, door. It opened of it’s own volition. I would have been awed, had I not been convinced it simply retreated from my odour.
I stepped into the gloom following a little dust-devil of snow. I blinked, my eyes adjusting. The heavens howled beyond the timbered dark. Even the Gods, it seemed, were, like, totally grossed out.
And there she sat, regaled in woolen vestments chased in gold.
I said, “You’re a chick!”
She shrugged. “Yeah, well…”
I swallowed. “Do you know why I’ve come?”
“Oh, my dear child,” she said. “You are such a darling foo–oof!” Her face crumpled into waxen origami. “Fuck me! Is that you?”
“Please! Guru-chick! You must help me!”
She held her breath as if bottling a toke. “You smell like shit, but, hey…”
“Thank you!” I cried, falling to my knees.
She regarded me, her look stern, as ruthless as a Republican Primary. “I like the lay of your sausage, kid, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to be cruel.”
“Yes! Yes! Please be cruuuel!”
“Well,” she said, “there’s two things. First, you gotta remember it’s just the fucking internet. Christ! I mean, puh-leeease! People say all kinds of crap they wouldn’t dare say in real life. They, like, even got names for it and shit. Syndromes and what-not.”
I knew this already. I caught my breath in sudden worry. “And? And?”
She paused and crouched forward, made like a gagging cat. She leaned back gasping, caught a thread of spittle on her thumb. I heard her mutter something wise and arcane, but all I could make out was “demon dick” and “like anal sex with decomposing chimpanzees…”
Words that would haunt the subconscious galleries of my soul for, like, forever-ever-ever-ver…
“So you reek. It’s all relative, kid. Stick to arguing with those even e-stinkier than you.”
With regal grace, I slowly lowered my forehead to the floor, thinking, What kind of loser would just leave a tack laying on the floor like that? Fucking owww…
“Thank you, oh most wise Guru-chick–thank you!”
She nodded. “Oh, yeah… Have you ever tried washing your nads in Old Spice? Cause that’s what you smell like–” She paused to simultaneously burp and cough.
“Balls?”
“Horseshit, kid. Horse. Shit.”
Horsefucker.
That would be, ‘horsefooker‘…
At the risk of sounding pendantic!
What I like about TPB is I can’t actually tell if this was a joke or insult.
And you look at it and think, how can a couple of words be able to mean two very different things?
How do you figure which is which?
Hell, is the depiction an endorsement, even…
Ta… daaa! *waves fingers in air*
Hadn’t heard of you before all this latest shouting by and about that hate woman who reviewed one of your books with out reading it and then reviewed you as an individual with out meeting you. The worlds a crazy place but there you go.
I am going to go buy one of your books though because to be honest I think they sound pretty good.
M
Thank you, M! Be sure to come back with your reading. I’m curious to see what reading them is like after passing through the lense of this debate.
I think the important thing is to keep perspective. Your most vocal (though at times incoherent/absurd haha) critics do enjoy if not love your books and think highly of you.
You can be rough around the edges (don’t use retarded as an insult, not helping) but the ultimate message of compassion resonates with those who absorb your work.
I think sometimes it’s, ha, resonated *too much* with me in that I feel overly compelled/qualified to keep you from (as I see it) tripping over yourself.
PoN offered an understanding of how conditioning pushes people down certain cycles, how we reinforce the bad in ourselves as if it were a permanent stain…when once it can be comprehended we can make significant change.
I think everyone feels like shit sometimes, that maggots are squirming even in the best parts of their soul. The bullies are always reincarnating in new faces, new words. Someone hits a sore spot and suddenly you’re a little kid standing before the beloved judge.
How do we always end up feeling ashamed? But I think if you can understand yourself, see the machinery of external forces, you can forgive/change yourself.
Explaining it to people like that and I can see something ease in them, as I’ve said I know it even saved someone’s life and convinced them to get the help they needed.
My impetus for trying to understand things in this more compassionate manner was definitely PoN. Might be your only fan who thought it was all so liberating.
All that said, I don’t want to get too sappy, so let me remind you want a fucking condescending, arrogant prick you can be sometimes.
keep your head up Scott,
Sci
=-=-=
p.s. fuck me, these “quick replies” always end up being so long. Ah well, I’m like Sarcellus – I say many things. I have a beautiful voice.
Thanks, Sci. No worries on my part, and never any hard feelings. Even when I think you’re wrong pressing me on this or that issue, I know you’re anything but alone thinking what you do, and that you’re saying something important as a result.
A friend of mine decided to become an EMT years ago, and I remember watching with wonder as his sensitivities to the emotional rigours of the job slowly boiled away, as he went from nightmares to a gallow’s humour wise-ass. It’s the same with this: you actually wonder if something’s wrong with you because it takes so much to make you genuinely pissed. The frustration is there, but as any parent will tell you, there’s a world of difference between that and genuine grab-you-by-the-balls anger. It becomes a strength and a liability at the same time, I think. I worry I’ve been down this particular critical road too many times to care as much as I should. I’m locked in.
I wrote this piece a few days back – it just dropped in my head – and I thought it would make for a lighthearted Coda, because I’ve already wrote the next post as well, which sums up what’s really been occupying my thoughts all this time: The question of whether there’s any such thing as an Unconscious!
That’s how much a nerd I am. Feminist trolls across the world wide web screaming for my head, and all I can think about is eulogizing the Unconscious. If they’re going to raise my head on a spike, then it had better be the right one, Goddammit.
I’m waiting for the unconscious thing.
Tonight, or tomorrow morning… I could send you the article I’m working up, if you’re interested Abe.
of course I’m interested.
” I knocked on the great, bronze-gilded, door. It opened of it’s own volition.”
Couple obvious mistakes there. I highlight this because I giggle whenever you hem and haw about humility and how shit your work is (like when you said TDtCB is a 6/10). FFS, I always think, does RSB ever put down the primary docs and read any of the rags the industry pumps out? Not the cheap pulps but the hyped horseshit, the head editor wankjobs? Of course he doesn’t, I decide, or else he’s just fumbling to cover the accusations of pomposity from the myrmidons of the meagerminded memeplex.
In any case, funny stuff.
I’ve always thought I was overrated. That’s what makes me so great!
Seriously though, I do think I’ve improved over the years, at many things, and I think it’s primarily because I’m so inclined to squint at my own work. I imagine there’s patterns for this among writers: I definitely belong to the hyper-self-critical tribe. It’s the reason I spent over ten years writing and rewriting TDTCB before actually entertaining publication.
I think the persistent smell of self pity (and a whiff of self-piety as well) which lurks around your recent posts is more noisome than any perceived pomposity. But that’s a ‘stench’ likely harder to swallow, for you, if not for everyone else.
Because we’d rather think we’re seen as pompous – it at least suggests we’re the brilliant if misunderstood geniuses we know we are. Self piety suggests a sort of interior failing, a narcissistic loser who can’t understand why people are picking on them, not recognizing their brilliance. It opens cracks, creates doubts, terrible ones: like perhaps this animosity is because they’re not misunderstood but have been understood correctly and found wanting.
If there is a common thread, or this is at least one among many, it is that you seem to feel you’ve been done hard by. Your books haven’t sold as well as you feel they ‘should,’ your status is that of a “mid-list author” which is perhaps even a bit generous, that your brilliance, is being overlooked. Your agent browbeats you to be ‘nice.’ Publishers haven’t given you the same chance as other less ‘deserving’ works of epic fantasy.
I’ve read one book which you’ve written. I can’t say it was a great book by my standards. Certainly I wouldn’t rank it high among its genre. As a writer, I think you’ve a long way to go. There is promise there, but misspent. I didn’t find in it anything overly subtle or even terribly philosophical – other than the sort which has the word cod affixed to the front. True, it’s just one book, but great writers can show great writing in a few lines, a short story, a fragment. It needn’t take nine novels to prove a point. Even Proust only needed seven. Kafka could be brilliant in a couple of sentences.
This doesn’t make you a bad person, or even a bad author. But it doesn’t give you a lot of room to make accusations of being overlooked and bemoan your hard luck to others, not if you want people to take this sort of thing seriously. Your work should stand or fall on its own merits. We the readers don’t owe you any benefit of the doubt. If you can’t do what you set out to do, better to accept that it hasn’t worked, and try to figure out what went wrong, privately, and find a new approach. Write man. Don’t spend hundreds of comments banging on about how people are hurting your feelings/sales because you’ve been misunderstood.
Food from the mouths of your children, I recall was the phrase, but I hope that was firmly tongue-in-cheek. Otherwise, it is a fine example of what I’m talking about.
Just like if you do something publicly dickish on the interwebs, say lash out at a reviewer or blogger who has cut your book down to its ankles, in the course of which you denigrate them, call them names, encourage or at least support your like-minded fans to dump on them, especially when race, sex, nationality, and mental health are all brought up in an unequal situation of power – you don’t whine, you don’t explain how you’re right and feminism and “leftism” is wrong and you’re the true victim here, and goddamn it, would someone answer the oh-so-clever Criteria Question you’ve sprung to show how oh-so-clever you are, and cite your wife and friends as proof you’re not a misogynist, and after all people like you! – you apologize. Or just keep your mouth shut and write better books.
To do otherwise, and spend hours and hours of at it, reeks of unjustified and misplaced self-pity. And let’s face it, people, writers among them, have bigger problems to deal with in life than some relatively unknown blogger finding your works disturbingly misogynistic. And publicly saying so.
I suppose you’re doing yourself commercially at least, a favour. Nothing is worse for a “mid-list author” than to be ignored. Even to be hated or ridiculed is better than to suffer a sort of non-status, to fade to near invisibility because people really aren’t into your writing like you’d hoped they’d be. But as an artist, it seems a huge waste of time and effort that could be better used creating fiction. Improving your craft, finding new narratives.
I’ve looked over the posts on your site and haven’t been very impressed with your efforts, nor your choice or inability to answer some of the more persistent criticisms of your work and as importantly, your response to this criticism. It tends to be very circular. And the people, fans, friends, who have come to your defense have been even worse. If it is any consolation, they haven’t exactly covered you in glory but by comparison, they seem even shriller, less self aware, and reeking of privilege and misplaced aggression to a greater degree than you are.
You’re likely a nice enough person, for a person. I’m not a big fan of the species, but that’s not the point here. No one is saying you aren’t OK when you hang out with your friends, or go shopping. Or in the privacy of your own home. They’re saying they have found some of the choices you’ve made in your books and in your writing to be problematic. Deeply and persistently so. Address this if you wish, or ignore, but trying to bury the problems beneath of ton of self-pitying rhetoric is never going to turn out well.
I wish you better luck and a rich life, and all the best within reason, considering you’re a member of the same species as am I. My advise is freely given and thus worth nothing, but I’d let it go. Step back. Take a breath, and get back to writing and less wringing of the hands.
Go forward, not in circles: you may gain more insight at a distance than crouched in the thick of it, sniffing at your own haunches.
Noxious. Talk about e-stink!
Well, since we have the scorecard out, let’s take a look. Self-pity? Sure. Insecurity? Sure. Self-piety? Only when the other two aren’t fucking with me. Manque? No. Condescending prick? Only when I have to be, like when I bump into other condescending pricks. Tell me, buddy, do you really think this comment says more about me than you? Really, now. Who does this kind of thing? I mean you even researched it (though not well) – and spell-checked it too, I imagine! Tell me honestly, did you type it out on Word as well? E-mail to friends for an ‘honest appraisal.’ Even titter, perhaps. I’m a lot of things, but clown is not one of them. You do understand the distinction between a joker and a clown? I have this image of you reading and rereading this, rolling the delicious brilliance of your psychic and aesthetic dismantling over your mental tongue, your lips retracting into the smile the other 99% of us are hardwired to hate, and saying, “Masterful, E. M! Simply. Masterful!” Then off to read some more Milton.
But the worst thing, the most unbelieveably unforgivable thing, what your-Mom-should-slap-you-on-the-side-of-the-head-for-thing, is that you used the word ‘noisome’ on a blog comment board.
Since I got too many circles, let me offer you one, ’cause it’s plain your particular brand of narcissism is lacking a dimension. The only truly unforgivable artistic sin, my friend, is taking yourself seriously. Otherwise, the only person your irony cuts is you. Lighten up. Or sink with the rest of them.
I don’t know about going to so much effort. Maybe a bit, but some tube people can sound like that all the time.
Could be it comes natural.
You’re worth two, if you’re worth one. A debatable premise perhaps, but I’ll continue with it for now. I’m afraid I’m going to have to draw the line well shy of three.
First, I’m not your buddy. And I’m bemused that you’d think that something I wrote about my opinion of a situation which I’m observing and commenting on, isn’t about me – that I’m not involved in it. Your ego is wider than the doors into heaven if you think all comments are made like burnt offerings to waft under your nose. Of course it’s about me and what I think about you.
I’m not sure what the research jibe says – I said I read through some, though there is no way I’m rolling through the filth of hundreds of comments that are multiplied by your persistent replies like mice in the wainscoting. And some of your faithful are unpleasant even to glance at. And I don’t use Word, this isn’t 1997 anymore – your comment space works fine. Next you’ll be asking if I use an amber screen.
Thank you for being kind and not bringing up the several obvious typos and mistakes that my unproofed post displayed, or perhaps you read through it with too gimlet-eyed determination to notice. Perhaps you were too busy looking for the place where I call you a clown. Or burning bright with indignation. This man doesn’t like my rape-y orcs! Boo-hiss! There’s a fine line between not thinking out what you’re saying and being overly precious about it. But I’d rather err towards a basic lucidity and rudimentary spelling even in a post such as this one.
I don’t care for clowns, personally, nor fools. And I don’t keep the joker in the deck typically. Not for anything serious. Humour’s well and good but not useful in a debate if it’s all you’ve got to fall back on. I don’t mind if you joke around, but frankly, you’re not very funny. But like I said, the act has gotten a bit tiresome now over four or five postings without much of a change in your routine. And as I said, the self-pity in particular is getting rather worn. It’s not very becoming. That’s an honest assessment, and if you care to shrug it off rather than think about it, so be it.
If you can’t stand up to the attention, if you want to make a big stink about it, go ahead. No one makes you have blog, let alone say foolish things on it. I wouldn’t have bothered even commenting but you keep shaking your cup, crying out why won’t people just like me? Why won’t they pu-lease answer my Criteria Question? Buddy can you spare a bit of cheap philosophy? Why won’t you take me seriously? Is it me or the CQ? You seem like you really wanted some considered feedback on these things. How was I to know it was only an echo of your own voice that you were seeking?
So here I go, gently trying to nudge you towards an answer, a sort of e personal hygiene solution if you like, handing you a wet-wipe for your streaming bum from the next door stall, all with a serious gleam in my eye and you tut tut me for not cracking I don’t know, a dirty joke or something. You are it would seem for everyone else, a hard man to please.
And if you don’t want to listen to me, fair shakes, you should at least listen to a Larry. He might even like you and have your best interests at heart. Me, I couldn’t care less if you make it or not, “buddy.” I’m not fond of people, and oh boy, are you ever people.
A noisome business, it is. But I wish you’d decide whether it is your ego, or your ability to think that you want to stroke. This *is* light stuff for a real thinker to tote. I’ve read your book, and I know you can read large words, so I can only guess you’re trying out a mass-appealing little jig of stupid here, so we don’t see the big old elephant of you not answering anything, still standing in the room. Do we feel sorry for you, or write you off and move on?
And I was feeling sorry for you. I still do. I do believe that despite all appearances to the contrary, you’re a nice enough fellow when it’s at home. These were commiserate words. It just seems impossible for anyone to really be this much of a clueless first class asshole as you come off as here on blog. But then you likely feel the same. I am also starting to feel something for your poor agent. You can materialize all the components for both shovel and hole out of thin air like a magician. In this at least, I have rarely seen a match for such prowess.
So I hope you can dig deep, and not not lose sight of where you’re going.
I almost feel like putting a frame around this one, now that the colours are starting to bleed through. Note the way he fails to see the doublebind: how he’s either sincere and therefore comically egocentric, or he’s deceptive and therefore willfully malicious. Sad or ugly. I think I’ll call it, “My Pants (His Ankles)”
See? Effortless.
And I’m bemused that you’d think that something I wrote about my opinion of a situation which I’m observing and commenting on, isn’t about me – that I’m not involved in it.
We just don’t want you to accidentally give the impression you think you’re incapable of making an incorrect claim. When you write “Why won’t they pu-lease answer my Criteria Question?” for example, it’s a bit hard to know what people will say to each other about it.
I have been advised by those much wiser than myself, that I have gone about this all wrong.
Entirely so. That whatever I say, you’ll just go and “misunderstand neurobiology all over me.”
The correct response to your level of engagement is: “lol poop.”
Lol poop indeed.
Oh, and I don’t think you understand Nietzsche. Not philosophically…
You know TPB is Serious Business when even the detractors can’t help but immediately belittle their own snark in the very next line.
Oh Frank, didn’t you hear Your Master’s Voice?
Lighten up!
indeedindubitably.Thank you for gracing us with your wisdom.
I can’t decide if E.M. is doing a bad impression of Raymond Chandler or if that “style” crawled out of his own brain.
Yeah, ok Bakker gets on my nerves sometimes on this blog (and I admit I am puzzled as to why he is still dwelling on this same issue in particular) but I lost it at the “cheap philosophy” line.
Heh. The intent there is so obviously to troll that I don’t think it takes much effort to see it.
Just a “friendly word of advice” E.M.? Was that your premise? Well, it’s as artificial as your prose style. Do you smoke a pipe too? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler
Anyway, Bakker, listen buddy… Your blog is starting to draw the wrong crowd. I’ll be damned if I come here to argue with trolls and be called a sycophant or a fan-boy. One stink is enough for me. It doesn’t have to turn into a skunk-off.
Like I said, above. This was the coda. Things are about to take a hard turn to the unconscious…
Trolls hate the unconscious, the way any slave hates their master.
“You’re likely a nice enough person, for a person. I’m not a big fan of the species, but that’s not the point here.
On a sugar high, lots of Indian sweets, total diet failure haha, explains the sappiness that follows:
Edward: People aren’t so bad, it’s just IMO everyone’s more fragile than they want to be and it freaks us out. Me, you, Scott, we wrap ourselves in armor, ’cause there’s always that voice telling you not be scrawny/dumb/weak.
Like the whole world was a raised fist, you know? As a friend once said, “We’re all so broken.”
Or, as McCammon says in The Five:
“Ever hear this: Be kind to everybody you meet, because everybody’s fighting some kind of battle?”
I don’t know, I just have fondness for the species.
-Sci
@saajanpatel
I’ll stand by my misanthropy, but don’t let it bruise your more tender outlook on the matter.
To be honest, and despite whatever crap our host here wants to dump on my expression of it, an honesty which hasn’t wavered from my first post – unpleasant warts, noisome vocabulary et al – I do feel for Bakker because he seems caught in a cognitive trap of his own making. Worse, he seems obdurately unaware that it has sprung around him.
He makes aware noises, sure, but remains ultimately, deeply unaware of a lot of his interior is leaking out all over the place, forming puddles which seems all too noticeable to those looking in, and trying not to step in them.
And yes, I know this is a common fault in people. One fault among many, a legion of annoying habits and tics. I’ll not deny my own fair share of them: verbose and apparently stylistically stilted, Chandleresque? – which could be, having never read him – and humourless.
But Bakker has astounded me with what I perceive as willful cluelessness. To point, talking over some serious point which have been raised on the topics of his work and the perceived problematic elements therein. Worse, he gives the appearance that he harbours some real rage along with a strong and recurring element of “pity me” tacked on to the back end, like a sadly wagging tail on a dog that bites when you try to pat its head.
I do think I was unintentionally rude to him in my fist post specific to his skills as a writer, which was actually semi-accidental. I have no doubt I’m being rude to him indirectly here, even if I am not trying to be. If I had looked back over that first post, as he had suggested, before posting I would have toned that part down a bit. Just a little. Reading over it, it does come across as rather dismissive of his writing.
Though honestly, I wasn’t impressed with his novel. I didn’t find it to be anything remarkable – and I started reading it long, long before any of this internet blather had occurred. He can string words together with some skill, but his philosophical underpinnings felt weak. His story veered often towards melodrama while teetering on the edge of unintended bathos with all its flowering of descriptives making it in the end, simply wearisome. I didn’t like his rape-y orcs, or his treatment of his female characters. And I don’t buy Bakker’s explanations that he is accomplishing what he set out to do in his overarching plan for the series – but then as he has explained them, I wouldn’t really expect them to work out. I think his premise is inherently flawed. He seems, how do I put this? A little bit of a kook. And far too fond of his own theories.
In short, I didn’t think it was a special snowflake of a book. Despite him killing a great number of pixels explaining how his readership just doesn’t get him, or his brilliance, I still don’t. But that wasn’t the point of my post and I shouldn’t have let with it. Muddied the waters of what I am really irritated by. And I’m still not being very nice, looking back up above. I’m trying to be honest though, which is never going to win friends and influence in an unholy brouhaha as this.
But it is his seething anger, or what comes across as such, that people aren’t being *fair* to him, that finally stuck in my throat. That they’re not letting his explanations override their own experiences with both his work and his comments. I think he can’t be wrong, inside, on these issues. I think he’ll not ever admit that there are some real problems in this debate, that aren’t just a made up campaign to smear his good name. And again, I think he’s protesting too loudly as this sort of thing will only help him in terms of sales. Far worse to sink out of sight with some novels that are so-so and the fading reputation as an internet crank, than to stir up a hornets nest like he has. I’m not saying it’s calculated, because I’ve not seen evidence yet that he is that honest with himself, but I can’t feel too sorry for him either because his cries for sympathy feel misplaced. And a bit false because he doesn’t seem to feel much for other people whom he regularly ignores, insults, or more subtly denigrates.
He projects an aura of hard done by and poor me without having shown to me at least, any sense that he deserves more than a slap on the cheek for being a self-destructive arsehole.
But we’re all like that, wanting to be smart and complicated when few of us are. And even if we are clever, and I’m not questioning that Bakker is decently bright, we still pull dumb moves, let our flawed ability to self-assess get in the way of things. I agree with you there. And I keep saying I’m sure he’s a fine fellow to his mates and loved ones, within reason. Within in the normal bounds of our nasty, unpleasant species.
But I don’t feel the love from where I’m sitting right now. I’m not impressed. I’m feeling less and less charitable as more and more words drop from his lips. I think he wants to argue the corner round, and won’t stop to consider anything else until he’s done. It feels childish.
So he’s like most of us then, and if he was more of a brilliant writer and I loved his books I’d likely just want him to shut up, and get to the business of writing the rest of them, but I don’t. So I don’t, I suppose, in navel gazing further, I really care at all.
It all just seems wearisome. I am unsure how you manage to linger here, especially with some of the fan club like Callan S. who just gives me the creeps.
But best of luck, and I do wish Bakker nothing but what he deserves, and with no particular enmity.
Note how he retreats to the actual issues, ‘reaches out,’ attempts to secure the moral high ground by feigning a sincerity that was entirely absent when he first came to the board. He came to punish, by God. To show an inferior talent and intellect the true scope of his inferiority, and to induce shame, fear, and doubt. But he’s beginning to see just how fiercely this reflects on him. So he calls it a ‘gift’ – revealing even more of what seems to be a scheming, superficial character. I’m going to call this one: “Depth, and Other Illusions We Can Paint.”
@e.m.edwards
“I’ll stand by my misanthropy, but don’t let it bruise your more tender outlook on the matter.”
Hold on, I’ve got to back up, so I’ll have room to perform my proskynesis…nothing quite so impressive as someone who’s so advanced that he simply has to give up on the whole thing…and then be sure to mention that fact in a way that makes him look cool…
“I didn’t like his rape-y orcs, or his treatment of his female characters.”
You’re the misanthrope dude — what do you care about a little misogyny? Don’t be such a pussy!
“He seems, how do I put this? A little bit of a kook. And far too fond of his own theories.”
Oh my, how SHALL we put this? Such an awkward subject — just how shall we condescend here? Just so! And yeah, Scott’s a little bit of a kook..you just noticing that? Some of the most interesting people are — I like to think I am. You however, are just a dick.
“You’re likely a nice enough person, for a person. I’m not a big fan of the species, but that’s not the point here. No one is saying you aren’t OK when you hang out with your friends, or go shopping. Or in the privacy of your own home. ”
That’s some of the most pompous, snide, self-congratulatory shit I’ve ever read. But that’s not the point here, of course…except that it is…
And he seems to have given up. I’m guessing he didn’t like my answer to his question – more evidence for the troll column, or did he have a change of heart?
“With regal grace, I slowly lowered my forehead to the floor, thinking, What kind of loser would just leave a tack laying on the floor like that? Fucking owww…”
Fooking hilarious.
I’ve been meaning to email you all week, but it’s on the other computer, which I haven’t had a chance to crack, what with answering all the comments here.
Anyway, I wanted to ask you if maybe you would like to post your chapter here to solicit feedback on the detail/info level. It certainly deserves to be seen my many, many eyes. I would understand if you would want to wait.
Delavagus, for those of you who are curious, will make me look like a footnote before he’s through…
Wow! First off, you’re too generous with the praise. As for posting here, I would love to. Let’s talk…
+1
“Proyas, lower your face into the flames”
Proya surprised himself at how quickly followed the command.
“Now, Proyas, I have lain a tack upon the floor, lower your forehead to the…”
“Fook off!”
I LOLed.
Frankly, it strikes me that you take things too seriously despite (my) the perception that you are open to all sorts of critiques and arguments, etc etc.
Fuck ‘em – i learned years ago to basically abolish all comment threads from my reading. This site and football outsiders are my only caveats to that.
You realize of course that ppl who comment on sites are an incredibly self selecting group and can be in no way representative of a larger demographic.
Almost regardless of topic nowadays an articles comments can basically descend into calls for secession (if you are in the states) w/in a handful of ppl. Why bother dealing with those idiots?
Trying to walk the talk, more than anything. I’m actually a communications revolution pessimist, insofar as I think it’s allowing all the shortcomings I blather about to find cultural expression. Geographic and technical constraints on communication once forced people with dissenting views to congregate, to carve out some middle ground: not so much anymore. Fox News is probably the most notorious example. What Murdoch realized was that people actually wanted to be confirmed more than informed – he took a cynical (and ultimately accurate) appraisal of human nature and exploited it. Thus the anti-ingroup mantra here, and my periodic attempts to engage outgroups in debates. ‘Compartmentalization’ I call it. Human psychology writ large throughout society.
For the longest time I was just playing a hunch, but some recent research seems to be bearing me out.
It may be stupid, as you say – and as it often feels! But at least it’s methodical stupidity!
I admire your willingness to engage. Through a circuitous and winding road ive ended up a progressive/liberal who happens to work with ppl who literally went and bought anywhere from a few thousand to an extra 10k rounds of ammo when Obama was elected as well as bought land in east bumble-fook and are/have built ammo/fuel/supply depots on their land.
Once i asked a co-worker what unit of the militia he was in as he was railing on about how Obama and the feds were going to take all of his guns and freedom and he told me that militia was simply a synonym for citizen and that is how the founders meant it. How do i respond to something like that?
I have found that fact and logic based reasoning to be utterly useless in discussing anything other than football with these ppl and now with the Lord and Savior Tim Tebow on the scene i can barely even do that. Anywho, you are a more resilient man than I am and i am glad someone is still willing to put in the effort to try and create dialogue.
It’s not even about winning these arguments, so much as it is showing their mere existence. Like I say, things are just going to keep getting crazier as the social changes leveraged by tech become more and more profound.
People have to be radical about moderation, doubt, reason, science. Germany was the economic, cultural, and scientific leader of the world, and within a span of years was shovelling human beings into ovens. Anyone who thinks those kinds of horrors can never happen again (not in ‘America’ etc.) simply doesn’t understand human nature, let alone history.
Just keep asking your buddies questions. Never get angry. Always point out the ways in which the market works against them. It works, over time.
Just so you know, this entire thread is the type thing people are complaining about. Try stepping back from it all for a change. Oh, and nothing written about you changed my mind from buying your books, it’s the stuff you wrote. Same reason grrm won’t get any more of my money.
I’ve debated for over a week whether or not to mention this book to you, as some of it could be interpreted to confirm certain opinions of yours and parts of it would do the opposite, but I think that if you have the time to read it, read Dubravka Ugresic’s Karaoke Culture, which contains a multitude of essays on her observations about politics, reality TV, group identities, etc. that is provocative without being sensationalistic in tenor. It’s also shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism (which is how I became aware of it; the majority of the five finalists there have some very good things to say about our cultures and languages), but don’t let that stop you from looking into it. Last week, I posted three essays on my blog that were reactions to just small portions of her essays, so there is the potential for it fueling more than just more e-stink
All you need now is an e-Josephine to rub an e-apple and send it to you, by the way
I’ve never even heard of it, but I will most definitely take a looksee. As I said, these are kind of exciting times for me. If compartmentalization turns out to be true, then my diagnosis of contemporary literature becomes that much more difficult to dispute, and my claims regarding the cultural significance of genre (and it’s critics) become that much more viable.
Of course, when some establishment asshole swoops in and takes credit for seeing the whole thing ‘first,’ I’ll have that much reason to become an embittered curmudgeon!
Just keep in mind that she’s an essayist that uses observations to make points about contemporary culture/literature, so there won’t be that sort of evidence to support/test your arguments on compartmentalization. But she certainly has things to say about group politics (she was pretty much driven into exile from Croatia in the early 1990s due to her opposition to the quasi-Fascist government that forced the secession issue) and that I think you’ll find most intriguing. She certainly isn’t a fan of institutionalized literary fiction, as she was much more of a victim of it being used as an arm of the state than anything Anglophones can begin to conceive happening in our own governments.
I’m also getting a lot out of David Bellos’ Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything, but that may not be as appealing to you unless you have a semi-professional interest in translation issues like I do. But it too has things to say about how people conceive of things and try to understand them through vastly different vehicles of communication that languages and dialects can be.
The one thing I find particularly sad about the Anglo literary scene, is the way they seem to think they’re in the same business as dissident writers, let alone doing the same good. For people who cluck so often about context, they seem peculiarly blind to it when it suits their flattering self-identifications.
http://encyclopediadramatica.ch/Internet_Fuckwad_Theory
^ +1
Part of the problem is that the medium is textual as well. It actually gives people time to fall in love with the sound of their own interior voice. I sometimes read my posts using Will Lyman’s voice – man do I sound interesting.
welcome back, sometimes you lose me…
Bear with me, Borock. I only go on expedition intermittently.
I remember my first e-argument. It was with Theo, over his response to a response you gave to someone who said something you didn’t like. The details are fuzzy. But I remember it making me anxious, sick almost. My stomach would roil every time I opened his blog to find a new comment attacking something I posted. I don’t know how you can stand it, the near sisyphean feat of arguing with someone like Theo, but I do believe that magic of it, and what drew me to involve myself in the argument, was that Theo was even more of a pedantic, narcissistic, delusional ape then you are – and how it shows itself in those arguments! It was very much a learning experience.
So no doubt there are those with worse e-stink then you. In fact, comparatively speaking you are sort of minor-league. Most of your contentions are too universal for many to take personally (the cognitive and philosophical stuff anyway) without completely misunderstanding you.
I’ve recently taken to focusing my criticism on myself as I now know that I am the only thing I can change, and so the only thing that really merits criticism. That’s something I took away from your dialogue with Theo, and it actually has been really helpful. I think the problem you’re having is that it’s difficult to be humble and speak up at the same time, if not downright impossible. For many of the trolls out there the pretension is merely the fact that you feel you have something to say that is worth listening to. That is what seems to really get them going, the idea that you have something to say and they don’t. It gets personal real fast after that.
Blogging is an ego ramp, there’s no denying that. A place where you’re either saying ‘I’ all the time or even worse, implying it. Another part of the dilemma I find is that it really is revealing, as our friend E.M. has pointed out, especially over the course of weeks and months. One answer is to take a step back and to really craft the thing, say a lot less a lot more carefully, and you find quite a few people do that- especially those really focussed on their commercial goals. The other is to just try to be honest, which is a fucking hard thing to do when you need to keep the details of your personal life out of the picture. TPB, for me, has become a kind of intellectual confessional, something doomed to be ugly and uncomfortable in certain respects, I’m sure.
I’m not kidding about being a veteran of flame-wars. I know exactly the feeling you’re talking about. Now I only really feel the memory of it. It’s like Dosteyevsky says, you can make yourself comfortable with almost any discomfort, given enough time in its company.
That said, it can’t be healthy talking about oneself so much. It’s like with professors, the way judgement becomes thoughtless habit, to the point where they’re scarcely conscious of that. I worry about all this shit. Fuck… There’s the One Letter Word again.
You’re far safer hiding behind fiction, that’s for sure, simply because you have so much more control. But I am a genuine crackpot, for too conflicted and far too disorganized and unfocussed to ever publish much more than novels – so this place is a kind of godsend, a way to challenge and engage, and most importantly, make my ideas real.
You’re going to make a pretty top notch curmudgeon someday, Scott.
Thank you, Mr. S. My wife concurs!
Be sure to cultivate your lawn nicely for those kids to walk onto
Not to dissuade you… but you are going up against hundreds of thousands of years of mental programming inclined to think of itself a certain way. No small feat.
Have you ever seen a child walk out of Disneyland without kicking and screaming?
I know you know all about Disneyland.
But yea – keep it up, you’re going to get lots of shit. Shit ain’t always so bad – psychedelic mushrooms grow out of horse and cow shit – if it wasn’t for people like you getting their hands dirty in cowpile, we might not have a consciousness to debate. But someone has to do it right? And I sure as fuck don’t want to get hung up on the Thought Circumfix – but if someone has to… ya know, who better than you, am I right?
And as far as your breath goes, its nothing but Royal Canadian Mint to these nostrils. Mmm.
No one ever really leaves Disney World.
You can map it, maybe, but there are no exits.
Also… Scott you might wanna get your publishers to issue a takedown.
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/1003353/Bakker_Scott_R_-_Neuropath.html
It’s the whole fucking thing, and I didn’t even have to torrent it.
Wow. Who designed that cover?
Yeesh. And it’s a Russian one as well, which means they likely don’t give a fuck. If you don’t mind, Jorge, I would like to edit the link from your post. These parts are pretty well travelled.
Jorge already said cool further down. Disorganised author needs to edit out link!
You need get about as far from Canada as you can get to be a ‘courageous writer.’ There’s nothing easier, or more cowardly than words. Especially when you don’t have to put your face behind them! The only thing that makes this hard is the fact you spend so much time alone sitting in front of screens (something which also runs counter to evolution), and for that reason, I appreciate the sentiment. Thank you, Cisco.
Can’t remember if I ever typed “this is my last comment here because I’m tired AND I’m worried you’re just not going to get it” — I don’t think I did because I was being generous, and I thought maybe you were seriously listening. But now I can rest assured that you just don’t WANT to “get it”. So you can crawl back into your pit now, and stop pretending you’re at all interested in feminism presented by women. There’s nothing worse than a liar.
And, Bakker, you’re mistaken. The people who have insulted you online would do it IRL. I would.
I’m sorry you feel that way, Jordan. Can I ask why?
One of the things I was trying to do with this piece is play the very boundary we’ve been discussing all along, and for two reasons: 1) to once again highlight what I see as a double-standard (the same as I was doing with the ‘Dude’ to refer to Moon); and 2) to see if working this boundary actually would provoke the very kind of reaction you’re having.
As for (1) all I can say is that after all the crazy, insulting, even dehumanizing things I’ve seen written about me on the web, I think I have every right to at least argue that a double-standard is being applied. As for (2), if you are inclined to make drastic, negative assumptions about my character, at least consider the possibility that I’m sincere (because I am), and honestly and openly ponder the violence of your reaction. This is a bookend for my previous posts, and the fact – and I assure you it is a fact – that violent reactions such as yours, disgust and so on, are precisely what happens when we sacralize values. We lose the ability to appreciate nuance, we become inclined to think in binary, us-versus-them terms, and it becomes very difficult to critically evaluate our own beliefs. All humans are prone to this, male and female (though I think males are more vulnerable).
This is a narrative ‘performance piece,’ Jordan, which unlike Moon’s version is meant to provoke without shaming or intimidating or attempting to injure any individual’s personal reputation. Why else would I write it, if not to provoke debate? I’m not trying to scam you with this. But if you do decide to write me off, at least keep it in mind. Everywhere around you, all across the world, people use moral disgust as an excuse to harm others, physically and otherwise. It’s on the news every night. And I guarantee you that real opponents of feminism, use it all the time.
Jordan, some women readers don’t find the same issues you do.
If you think Scott isn’t showing enough sympathy for what people have felt in reading, you could be right, although I do think he sympathizes (maybe bad at expressing it?).
I know, he’s not “getting” it and there’s this sudden sick feeling that it’s because he doesn’t care at all because of that.
I get you’ve gotta make a bet on how to approach and deal with something, same here. Just keep in mind that sudden sick feeling isn’t always correct. Whole books, like pride and prejudice, are hinged around certain feelings not always being right.
Your nesting in the comments doesn’t go down very deep. Bad funhouse!
So I’ll reply here.
I only came to offer you rope. Clearly, it was unneeded: you have proven yourself more than capable of manufacturing it thread by thread, to surplus requirement.
Lol poop.
Actually, I would say, rather, that E.M.’s style reminds me of the wheelchair-bound Jeffrey Lebowski more than anything. “Get a job, sir!”
@Edward: I do have to say I think Callan seems like a pretty nice guy and I’m kinda surprised he drew the creepy straw. (There are genuinely creepy comments that have been left here, but none of those people seem like regulars.)
I think there are fundamentally different views at work, and I think the challenge is figuring out how to find a meeting point. Ideally, at some point, there has to be genuine dialogue somewhere if there’s going to be RL change.
What I “think is kinda funny, and I think it’s kinda sad”, without blaming any ‘side’ (interesting how much “they” is tossed around across the nets) is how we never got out of the starting gate:
Conditioning and privilege? Hardwiring and how it affects our perception of gender roles? How are we programmed, by either biology or society, to reinforce roles within ourselves but also our peers? How do we understand when we are “mansplaining” versus disagreeing?
Would have been interesting.
-Sci
Perhaps it’s just the creepy icon.
Or it might be a response elsewhere. But more to the point, I don’t might the rough handling. I wouldn’t have expected anything else. I have a thick skin, it’s fine, and what you have to deal with on a hostile blog.
It likely doesn’t help that I am not interested in many of the other discussions that Bakker finds so fascinating, and obviously has a big history talking about with his regular fans and commentators.
I’m just here because I’ve been watching in some degree of horror from the sidelines, seeing various salvos fired back and forth and red flag posts popping up on Bakker Watch.
But I do have very serious reservations that any approach on this topic will cause Bakker to engage in a civil and open manner. I think he’s too dependent on being right on this particular issue. I’m not sure he has any room now to back peddle without doing damage to heavy investment in both his position and theories. A shame. It’s good to stay flexible.
I really don’t feel any particular personal dislike for Bakker. He won’t believe me, but that doesn’t change the veracity of my statement. I just have to shrug, and say what I want until I feel like moving on. I only wanted to drop by for a couple of rounds, but this sort of thing is addictive.
We all like our own words, and for me, there is a certain fascination with seeing Bakker do more or less exactly what I expect him to, comment after comment. Everyone likes to see their theories turn out proven right. And it’s nice when you don’t even have to do the hard graft yourself.
He may surprise me. Perhaps he’ll really be interested in talking, have a thick enough skin to take a little chaffing without throwing the whole thing down and stalking off. His playground.
And you! I’m talking to someone here, no listening in now.
But if the dust settles enough, I’ll be happy to chat about particulars. Right now we just seem to be sharping our wits on each other’s block-heads. You and Larry are a couple of the only people on these threads who appear sane and thoughtful, at least to an outsider.
Perhaps if I reframe my question, he will actually answer it. Perhaps I’ve already identified myself too strongly in his mind as Them! now to get him to reassess his assessment?
We’ll see.
Of course you can edit that link to get rid of it. I probably just failed at some pretty serious e-etiquette by posting it.
Here, I’ll link to something more useful:
http://tinyurl.com/7bhxvxq
I am either too serious, or insincere. Engaging in sophistry or being disingenuous. Lighten up you say, but I’m not engaging with you properly, you complain in the next breath. I engage, you disengage and get snarky. I join you in the snark and you crow you’re not being treated seriously. I reassess my opening statements, you snipe when I do so, conjure silly theories about it, I accept it as gentle ribbing, the price of doing business here on a hostile and at times paranoid blog, and you say that I’m at last showing my real colours.
That I came here to hide cat turds in your pristine sandbox.
Oh, R, you joker you!
Picking up the goalposts every time I make a new comment and running off in some random direction: that’s what I mean by wearisome. But it’s a typical pattern for keeping the other side in a debate from gaining ground, from making you sit in the corner and actually answer the damn question. No, not *that* one, but the one which has been raised about your work. Whether you can fight misogyny with more misogyny and an unbalanced treatment of gender among your characters.
I don’t think you can. I see no sign that you’re being either that subtle or subversive, that by writing the kind of thing that people who you supposedly are trying to trip up, are going to feel icky about reading exactly the sort of thing they *like* to read. I don’t think basic neuroscience backs you up either, not the way you think it does. I do not doubt your intentions, I’m only vaguely interested in them, but I dispute your claims when it comes to the result. As a reader, it’s the result of your labour that is meaningful, everything else is only either ego or historical trappings.
And as I’ve suggested, if it takes you three, six, let alone nine books to spring your “trap street” you’ve come up with a poor plan. Most of your susceptible readership will have wandered on, grown up, or won’t even notice you’ve pulled the string.
In your famous words, I could be wrong, but you haven’t shown any evidence of being right so I think it is still fair to question your work along these lines. You have a Grand Theory, which explains it a bit. That’s fine. But what grates is that you’re so predictable about shoving any doubts about it to one side. Unless they are your own.
It doesn’t appear to really matter what I say, unless I come in with a lowered head and very much on your side, and even then you’ve got your back up at the first hint of a rebellion. Be they fans or allies, I don’t see you taking on board any of their criticisms or suggestions in this particular case. It’s the R Scott Bakker show, or else you’re a fuckwitt and a (insert randomly generated derogatory term here) one at that. And I thought your post about going to a Tibetan guru was unpleasant and not because of the toilet humour.
That may or may not be your intention, but who cares? It’s the results here that keep shutting down any discussion which might be opened between some of your critics. Why bother if I think that no communication will result from our interaction? I suspect you’ll volunteer an answer or two, perhaps you’ll resist. But whether you do or don’t, the truth is because it is interesting, useful I suppose, training of a sort.
And you can have it both ways, of course, because this is *your* blog, full of sympathetic back-patters. Your “in-group.” And if you can’t see my words for the irritation I’ve caused you, then I doubt you’ll be able to demonstrate anything I may have overlooked. I haven’t seen you try to take this off your own turf, either. Perhaps you have, but you seem to be keeping close to home. Being courageous in a safe manner.
No. Your friends advised you well. You’re getting it. Just remember I’ve spilled a lot of pixels defending my argument against persistent and often ingenious criticism here – tempers thrown out of joint, accusations made, the whole deal – so I would appreciate something novel before going cross-eyed again. I try hard not to hold grudges. But troll, and you will be trolled, plain and simple. Disrespect the people who post here, and you will be disrespected. The only article of faith here – the only – is that we are ALL stupid, that we’re all blowing smoke out of our asses, throwing cartoons at complexities we literally can’t imagine.
All you have to do is deal honestly. So, acknowledging that ad hominem attacks have no logical force whatsoever, what is your counter-argument? The more concise you can be, the easier it will be for us to understand each other and proceed.
Say anything about me not understanding Nietzsche…
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not”
- Andre Gide
And…
As a tangentially related question: do you really think all this attention is a Bad Thing for you?
Setting aside the issue of misogyny and problematic female representation in your books, am I correct or mistaken, that you feel like you have not sold as many novels as you would have liked – or more importantly, deserved, as based on the quality of your prose and the novelty of your ideas – as you see them?
If so or even if the answer is no – in what way do you think that a huge upsurge in people talking about you, your books, your blog, reading and arguing over the interpretation of both, seeking out reviews, talking about you on Twitter, or elsewhere, has harmed your commercial standing?
Do you feel that your artistic standing or reputation has been damaged? Do you feel that the people who have been fans or shown interest in the series are among those put off by recent (and past) negative reviews and discussions of the issues above? Is it a matter of losing sales, or losing face, or both?
N.B. I am trying to pin down some answers to these questions, not provoke, so we are clear about this, going forward.
No author I know has sold as many books as they would have liked. It’s a tough biz. As for the talent question, I don’t think of it in the terms you seem to be assuming. There’s simply no such thing as ‘talent’ as some essential quality, the same as there’s no such thing as a ‘book’ independent of the myriad readings it receives. Meaning and quality, if they exist anywhere, is all in our head.
Otherwise, none of this has done me any commercial good, at least not in the short term. The same goes for my reputation: there’s a reason why politicians invest the bulk of their marketing in negative advertising. It’s more far, far more effective (the internet is filled with info on this). This is one of the things that makes shaming tactics so problematic.
But it has been a smashing success in an evangelical sense. Regardless of what people think of me, the gospel of human stupidity has reached far and wide.
Scott, please don’t get drawn into any more pointless dialogue with E. M. I’m dying to see the post on unconsciousness!
“As a tangentially related question: do you really think all this attention is a Bad Thing for you?”
Add a F.A.Q. to the blog Scott!
E.M. has been interesting to me so far, ill give him that. I’m curious to see how this unfolds.
Also, damn. This one was funny. It was even funnier when I realized I was laughing at you more than with you. There’s just something about self-pity…I think humans can’t help but be repulsed by it on some level.
Scott, curious what your take on game is. I noticed Theo blogged about it and some of your regs mocked him for it.
Definitely need a FAQ.
I’m reading Kahneman’s new book now, and I can’t wonder how people’s reactions to the blog war coloured all this. Priming is a powerful thing. For me, the e-stink issue is over ten years old, and not anything I feel hurt or mystified or anything but periodically frustrated and amused by.
I’m not sure I get your final question, dmr.
Interesting and meaningless coincidence:
A while back I started reading Charles Stross because hey, Cthulhu + James Bond, what’s not to like? Then I’m all like “Hey Scott, and other people, you should read this stuff.” Then I started reading Accelerando, which is about the Singularity and I looked up this guy’s blog. And who’s been writing in his blog the past few weeks? No one other than Catheryn M. Valente (who just happens to be as insightful when writing non-fiction blog posts as she is when she writes crazy-ass stories about demons that bake)!
I sense a conspiracy of major proportions to hijack my meatbrain.
Also, lol poop.
Now in dese here parts we say, ‘wtf sheeyit.’
Stross has been languishing on my to read list for years now.
I wonder if a bias bias has been identified yet? That if someone even seems to stand to profit by talking about subject X, without any examination, what they are about to present is inherantly less true. Ie, to be treated as inherently less true somehow (of course when it just seems as inherently less true, it doesn’t seem like one is treating it that way).
Nice to see a Valente sighting!
lol creepy poop (actually, is that the name of a band…)
I’ve written about this before. I’ve never been stuck in one paradigm for such a long time before – so the worry is that I simply game biases to further prosecute my own biases. But the fact is there’s so few people who argue from this standpoint, so it always seems like I’m waving the big bias stick.
I was actually thinking of E.M Edwards post above in what I wrote, which seemed to be a implication of ‘Well, you get publicity whilst making these claims – so therefore your claims simply cannot be absolutly true, because you’re biased from getting publicity!’. Which is a fallacy.
Am I reading wrong or you instead turned my post upon yourself? Jeez, hungry for punishment! Or atleast I’m not seeing you significantly hinge any argument upon how much publicity any other party will get by claim making. I miss something?
No my worry is quite sincere. Bias bias could very well be real!
I guess, from my estimate, bias bias becomes relevant if it’s used as an excuse to not have to have a way of ones own theory disproved. Atleast if ones own theory can be disproved, even if it’s involves kicking and screaming and being dragged in backwards, you have not closed yourself off to the other theory.
I don’t know if it’s on topic to raise the intent thing, if it’s a concern, but I remember this Dr Who behind the scenes thing where it was pretty clear the co-stars were flirty IRL. Anyway they do a kissing scene but then the crew declare they have to cut it and do it again, because she put her hand on his inner thigh (and this is Dr Who, my good fellow!). The thing is she swears up and down she did not. Except it’s right there on film. Except she swears she didn’t. Sometimes we grope the innner thigh!
Then again I think of an undercover cop, commiting a number of fake crimes so as to ingratiate himself with an organisation so as to destroy it. Except fake crimes can start to border on the real.
Intent is difficult. But I guess one thing is certain, some people think they are immune to such ambiguity in their intent – the Dr Who co-star certainly thought she was. Moon as well, no doubt. And so have no compassion for the potential weakness in others that they themselves clearly don’t have.
If that didn’t touch on anything you were thinking about, oh well, it’s the internet and it’s the job of people like me to blather into it! Really I’d prefer to just in group confirm and just say your right, mate! Your doing good!
i think we can all agree that as a corollary to mister bakker’s theory of social compartmentalization: the internet is a terrible medium for argument.
oh, do let me amend that: the internet is a terrible place for SUCCESSFUL argument. it’s obviously a great place to argue.
I lol-ed!
Hello Mr. Bakker.
You most likely don’t know me (probability estimate 99%) and I have only recently become aware of you due to the fact that a certain allegedly-lesbian allegedly-woman of alleged-Thai descent has been rather unkind to you (and later rather displeased by me due to my questioning of numerous baseless claims said person made, ranging from said person’s claims about books to unverifiable allegations of ethnicity, gender and minority status).
While it is not very likely that I will say something original, I feel, nonetheless, a necessity to pass a bit of advice, however trivial it might be.
Don’t feed the trolls, Mr. Bakker. Do not engage, do not explain yourself. There is no reconciliation you could conceivably reach.
If you absolutely have to respond for some reason, be polite, be efficient, have a plan to undermine their core premises, preferably by asking for objective evidence supporting various claims that form either premises or crucial conclusions of the troll’s alleged position.
Trolls are, by nature, fairly well versed in rhetoric, but their evidence is oftentimes weak. Nothing compromises their ability to further their vitriol more than total silence, or, if the need to respond arises, polite and short requests for objective evidence.
Have a nice day, Mr. Bakker
P.S.:
Bought some of your books, dead tree format. Looking forward to reading them.
Thanks, ohone. It’s pretty much the strategy I’ve used here whenever they pass by! But I have no problem locking horns with them: relentless civility is another tactic they despise.
I hope you enjoy the books.
“I’m delighted that you agree he’s pretentious. See, Bakker? Even your fans think you’re a wanker.”
Found this on the post that said you are the spawn of the devil and you deserve to burn in the fiery pits of Mordor.
Found it funny.
Look, in your blog posts, and partly in your books (Especially Neuropath), you come off as the world’s largest douchebag. As long as you continue with that style, you’re going to be seen as a pretentious fuck with a superiority complex. In simpler terms, a douchebag.
Doesn’t change the fact that I think you’re doing something beyond amazing with Second Apocalypse, and I only really check your blog whenever I can to see if The Unholy Consult has a release date.
Also, please check with Amazon.com why they won’t let me get Kindle versions of TJE and WLW. I’ve had to get physical copies, and I prefer digital ones (wear-and-tear as well as the fact that a Kindle weighs less than a bookshelf). And tell them they’re dicks for pricing your books so highly as an e-book. 15$ (at the time, at least) per book is ridiculous once you cut out the shipping, printing, binding, and whatever else there is.
Forgot to mention that the trolls are attacking you for the reason I stated. If you were writing the same books but had the internet presence of Joe Abercrombie or even GRRM, I think people would like you more. But please don’t change it.
Also, could someone respond to the post I spoke of saying that Bakker did tackle the conception of women as not equals even if the world said they were? I mean, Kellhus does have a speech about it (Kellhus’s only rivals in the speeches department are Richard Rahl and John Galt. Too mean?). Even if Kellhus only says it to gain power over Esmenet… THEY DIDN’T READ THE BOOKS THEY DO NOT KNOW!
You have whined about one post for the last half year. You have written about it six times. You have got your friends to whine about it months after it happened. The only reason anyone remembers any of this is because you won’t stop talking about it. Toughen up, man.
I read your debut. There was a lot of rape. Women were portrayed poorly. You know that.
Have you read history, where there is also a lot of rape and woman are portrayed poorly?
And it’s not as if he ever put angel wings on any male characters… except for maybe Inrau. But if you’ve read the story, you’d know those angel wings didn’t even work for him…
Splat.
N, can you describe how you require women to be portrayed?
I don’t think you can hear that when you say ‘women were portrayed poorly’, you’re saying ‘portray women in X way’. Your giving orders in other words. Could you describe the orders in a bit more detail?
The most amusing thing about ACM is that when you confront her with even the mildest question/request for evidence to back up her claims (any of those claims), you either get circling political-speak that avoids the questions/requests, or you get an internet-memed trolling shut down, “buttmad” or the like. This is classic troll behavior. Some whole posts have been written by her sycophants where they get upset with you Bakker, Peter Watts and Richard Morgan for combating her in troll battle.
A recent amusing one was where a sycophant talks about how no one who is combating her has “any real reason” to mention that she is:
A. A feminist
B. A lesbian
and
C. Of Thai descent/location
And here is where this gets tricky into the “Typical Internet Troll” area again. I am sure there is a term to describe this but: The Troll willfully goes out of their way to mention something about themselves over and over and over again, so that when it is mentioned back at them at all in combat, it is then turned on the person who dared to mention it in reference. So instead of simply saying she is female, she says she’s female, thai and lesbian, so that if anyone refers to her as any of those things she uses it to get her back up.
So in this case, ACM talks nearly all the time about how she is A. A feminist B. A lesbian and C. Of Thai descent/location. This is on purpose as a tactic to make sure every last person she rages against is aware of these traits about her, she repeats them ad nauseum, so that when they even mention it she can shout “See! They hate me because I am…” When of course it has nothing to do with that. It’s a trick. And that part of the trick is the part that you don’t want to see, because you’re not really looking. Her righteous indignation is about how you dared call her any of those things when referring to her (all of which are true, or allegedly true) when she herself used them to describe herself. The coup de grace on that front is that she (and her sycophants) wait for a person or usually people in comments (at Pat’s site let’s say) to use one or more of those things in a derogatory way and sling back at her. She (and again her sycophants) then build a shield and a sword from this material and start swinging. It matters not to her or them that these were isolated incidents of poor comments, they become the emblem on the shield to be able to say: “Look, people called me these derogatory things”, so that now when ANYONE comments that she is female, lesbian or thai that immediately means they agree with the derogatory comments. Does it matter that she is allegedly female, thai and lesbian? Of course not. Why do people mention it then? Because she makes damned sure to bring it up herself every chance she gets.
Finally, and this is my favourite bit. ACM gloms onto one thing (in this case it is you, Peter Watts and Richard Morgan) and beats at it over and over and over again. It’s the same twitter feed garbage, it’s the same thing repackaged over and over and over. The problem with it is this. She doesn’t like your books (I don’t care what her reason is), and yet she continues to rail against them. She could choose to not read them. I’m not going to watch the Jersey Shore as I think it’s idiotic and pointless, but I’m not going to make a blog and twitter feed to solely rail against it. What energy must that take to hold up that level of snark?
This is how ACM thinks: Your book should have nothing untoward (no rape, even if the rape is committed by a villain), must be populated by at least a few homosexuals, and cannot have a white person in any leading role. Have I got that right ACM? I hate to tell her what a small selection of books and stories that would make for.
She takes issue with Tolkien for being sexist ect. What is the purpose of this? I simply cannot understand. I’m not defending the author, or saying that there aren’t those connotations in his work (there probably are)…but I fail to see the point of bringing up a dead author’s fictional representations and telling everyone to not allow it to stand. Does she think this is going to prevent future generations from enjoying LOTR? It certainly won’t. Does she think that defaming a dead man who was a product of the society into which he was born is going to accomplish anything? The mind, it boggles.
So here, I give you this for the good fight:
She talks about feminism and then proceeds to gush about anime and manga (so long as they represent a homosexual orientation for some reason…a straight male protagonist is taboo apparently, for whatever reason), a medium which isn’t really conducive to balance when it comes to the sexes. Never has been. Never will be. I personally love anime, but I am under no illusions as to how women can be and are portrayed in it.
…
Why do I mention that?
It’s her tell.
No matter how much she argues for fair play (which she doesn’t provide for others, but never mind that apparently), it is in the things that she supports, the things she gushes about, the things she praises (rare, though seem to be) that is where to find the soft underbelly. That’s where she can be taken down. Every video game boss has a trick that will beat them, some command or action that will take them out forever. In the case of ACM the Ever-Troll, it is located in her “likes” where every last argument she makes about sexism, racism and bigotry is derailed in full…by her no less!
Anime/Manga – That’s her tell.
It just so happens it’s hidden amongst all the rage and snark.