While humans can be anything (and are) from treacherous to honest, from traders to warriors, all other races come with assigned professions and psychological traits.
Knowing the blogger, I thought it was one of the most “serious-funny” things I’d ever read, and at the time, possibly because I was still coming up from being feverish, I wanted to write a post about how this could be cured by assigning certain writers of these imaginary races to write sf. However, I’d pinky sworn not to poke fun at a certain writers organization, or at least, in my mind, I’d pinky sworn not to do it unless I had something serious to say and that post I WANTED to do fell under the heading of pointing and making duck noises.
So I sent the link to Kate, queen of the take down, with the idea she’d do something like that. I forgot two things: 1) the tongue-in-cheekness and the subtle subversion of the article might not be obvious unless you knew the blogger from other posts. (Not that the post wasn’t over the top, but we’ve been getting such over the top “real” opinions that it’s impossible to tell. I mean, in times when you have to check whether the article you’re halfway through reading is in the Onion or the NYT, it’s important to give your friends context.) 2) I didn’t forget this, because I didn’t know it. With my being sick, I’d missed the fact that Kate was on half her medicine. See, Kate is narcoleptic and takes meds to counter that, then meds to counter the meds, then other meds to counter the meds that counter the meds. Now, for the first time in many years, Kate’s doctor ordered her medicine wrong and she is not functioning as she normally does. (Kate is generous and says this has nothing to do with the great revolutionary remake of our health care system; it’s just a doctor’s mistake. She might be right. OTOH seeing the madness that has engulfed my own health care network – for instance my doctor of 17 years can no longer afford private practice, so he has joined a group which has upended long standing care arrangements and made this last illness interesting – I suspect it is one of the ripples.) So her post on Mad Genius Club went on the assumption that this article was on the same level as the ones calling for the end of binary gender in science fiction. IOW, it was a misfire.
Which all things considered at least in terms of my writing on it might have been better. This is because over the last week I’ve been unfolding the blog post in my head and getting several important lessons out of it, that apply both to fiction writing and out of it. Not that I disagree with the original blog post.
What the blogger – Tam – commenting on Kate’s post said is that all her post was trying to point out is that humans are inherently and instinctively racist.
We’ll unpack that first.
She’s right, of course. Part of what every linguist finds out when poking around on the background of every language is that whatever the word for “people” is it applied at one time only to that tribe.
We’ll put that on the shelf there, and return to it later.
What she didn’t point out is that it’s not so much “racist” as “tribal.” That is a further unpacking, and further undeniable.
No?
Well, most of those primitive tribes were, to outside eyes, completely undistinguishable from each other. In fact (through swapping or kidnapping or acts that come in the wake of frequent wars) most such tribes are closely related over a wide area. So, calling yourself “the people” while your cousins over there are “Those brute animals” is not so much racist in our sense, as tribal.
Race is a nineteenth century concept, and in many ways an erroneous one. The excesses of race division/distinction have been somewhat curbed since then. Nineteenth century books are likely to consider every different country in Europe a “race” and to refer to The English Race, The French Race, etc, in all absolute seriousness.
These days we know that most of Europe (again, wife exchange, kidnapping and the fortunes of war, and immigration) is related to each other. So we limit the idea of races to more obvious physical characteristics, which are harder to ignore or subsume. (I’ll just note that those are often also fairly arbitrary. For instance, Reverend Wright not only would pass as Portuguese, but in Portugal would be considered “White” with not a blink. Also, recently, while doing covers for a Naked Reader romance novel, I got told I couldn’t use a certain couple, because it signaled “person of color” as the female in the romance. Guys, she looked exactly like one of my oldest friends and distant cousin. But apparently to American eyes, she read “Black” or at least close enough.)
So, humans are naturally tribal and left to their own devices draw distinctions between “our tribe” and “not our tribe” even if none exist. This comes, of course, from our being social animals with a tendency to form packs or bands. It’s very important to bond with your pack or band, and to do so you must have something to compare yourself against “those people over there, who are not us.” (In fact, the warring comments to Kate’s post, even after she said “oh, I completely missed it, didn’t I” were a perfect example of dual tribalism. People attacked Tam because they thought she belonged to “the other tribe.”)
We’ll put that on the shelf next to the “natural racism” thing – people are actually naturally, instinctively tribal, and they use group-identification systems that can be arbitrary or come entirely from external behavior, to distinguish “We who are people” from “those animals over there.”
When I went over to Tam’s site, part of what amused me was the commentary, which involved a lot of serious chest beating over world-building and how writers are failing when they make mono-cultures all over a planet or mono-behavior over a culture.
It amused me, because I thought the post was only tangentially about world building. Though it is about world building too, and that is where it connects to the hoo-ha (ah!) about binary gender oppression and having more writers of (genetic but not ideological) variety and all the nonsense going on in our field (which is only tangentially related to these actual ideas which are just being used a cudgel for supremacy – as in, watch out this week for a post called “How like a serpent’s tooth.” 😉 )
Yes, it is true that many writers will imagine a mono culture in every race and a race/culture in ever planet. Yes, this is incredibly lazy and annoying, but there is a reason for it. A craft reason.
I’ve raised two writers. As writers, I’m still raising them. And a couple of years back, I had occasion to bring out something I used to tell the kids when they were little and throwing tantrums, but as a writing criticism. “What do you hope to accomplish by doing this?”
It went something like this – my oldest son was tired of all the “humans in furry suits” and “forehead of the month” aliens and when writing about alien pirates, he made them as authentic as his training in biology and chemistry allowed him to. The pirates are single-celled organisms that speak by secreting chemicals. Worse, he tried to make their psychology fit that.
The result is what I’m sure is a lovely story… with zero audience. The pirate is too alien for anyone – least of all me – to put oneself in the creature’s mind. And even if we did, we’d have no more interest in his dilemmas, suffering and triumph than we do in the dilemmas, suffering and triumphs of a grasshopper. It might be interesting from the point of view of biological study, but as a story? There is no engagement.
This is why “unrealistic aliens” is an obsession (to complain about) of sf fans and writers, and yet even the most “realistic” ones come from the point of view of humans.
Because humans are “racist” and “tribal” and as such are interested, mostly, in the fortunes and affairs of those they consider their race/species/tribe – go too far from that, and it becomes unreadable. We’ll put that concept “Humans want to read about others like them” on the shelf next to the tribalism thing. We’re getting quite a collection of ideas. Don’t worry, I’m going to put them all together at the end. Possibly in a mud pie.
But, you say, what does that have to do with monoculture over a species or planet? Why can’t humans get into stories where there are more than a culture per planet/race?
That, my dears, is because of the exigencies of story telling. I know this is hard to remember, particularly when story telling is really well done, but story worlds aren’t like the real world. They simply lack the complexity and contradictory nature of the real world. Your real self receives a lot of impressions, some of them confusing. Your brain is among other things an instrument to filter story out of reality. Story is how humans make sense of the world, isolating experiences that mean something from those that don’t.
Say you’re sitting at your desk and you smell smoke. Now, if you’re not alone in the house, and you also smell bacon, your story is “Oh, John is in the kitchen, making bacon.” But if you’re alone in the house and smell smoke, particularly if it has that ‘electrical’ smell, your story is “Fire. Must check and get out.”
But the whole time, as you smell the smoke, you might be making the bed, shooing away the cat, you might feel cold, you might be sneezing. Those aren’t important bits of “story” they’re just things happening. They’re not part of what you tell the firefighters/police/insurance when you explain why you’re in the middle of the road, in your pajamas, clutching a cat.
In writing, you isolate the relevant details. You might throw in a couple of the others for verisimilitude, but you can’t put in too many, because then you don’t have a story, you have soup. That is, your reader has no clue where the story starts or whom to follow.
“Young”, often thoroughly professional writers, often start a story with scene setting. City streets, traffic, this car, that person… Often for 10 pages. And by that time they’ve lost the reader. The reader is looking for the thread of the story and the character they’ll follow, duckling-like. All this other stuff is ignored as “not part of the story” at best, and at worst confusing, as he follows each hopeful lead with “is this the thread?”
So, what does that have to do with mono-cultures and mono-acting races. Nothing. Everything. You see, the same discipline applies throughout the novel.
Almost every writer who is now a professional has somewhere in his drawer what I call a “thousand elephants” novel. That is, a novel where he or she tried to mimic the real world by making the novel “real” and ended up with a cast of thousands (and a thousand elephants) and a novel that made no sense. My own was my third – written—novel and to call it soup is charitable.
There’s only so much space and so many threads in a novel, and most subplots, most references, even, should support the main plot.
Say you’re writing a fat fantasy, there might be room to mention that people think all elves are blah, blah, but in fact that’s a cultural overlay and many of them are blah blah – but then you return to your plot, and the elves you’re going to show (unless their eccentricity is a major factor in the plot; or elves AND eccentricity thereof are a major factor in the plot) are just standard elves, which is what people will remember.
Same for the mono planet. When your trading ship lands, you might say that equatorial Gnroxes don’t act like these polar ones, but UNLESS that planet is the sole location of your novel, you’re not going to go into much detail, because then you’d have to set up the conflicts and geo politics of a planet that is NOT the subject of your novel.
So, novels are reality viewed through a highly simplified lens, and to try to mimic reality decreases the readability of the novel to the extent that you actually do mimic reality.
We don’t read reality, we read novels. We’ll put that on the shelf, too.
Unsaid, is that novels are written to be read. And ideally, at least in the world as is (the first person to come in and moan about capitalism gets punted with a baseball bat. Capitalism is simply the way humans choose to trade – it exists even under systems that repress it. It just becomes twisted.) novels are written to be bought, paid for and support the author.
Which brings us to…
Bringing it all together and tangential application to the professional association that shall not be named, but more closely to the madness that has been tearing through our field (and I understand through gaming, too, among others.)
Humans are tribal creatures, who find it easier to read/be interested in people like them – people they can consider “people.” Even the most “enlightened” human who has overcome “racism” or “tribalism” is a member of a tribe – it might be a tribe of belief or the spirit or whatever. Not saying there isn’t a benefit in a “tribe” that can include anyone and which values things other than skin color or geographical location. There is. I’m just saying it is still a tribe – which identifies itself in some way, usually by shunning and casting out the “not us.”
And novels and games and stories are simplified versions of reality designed to be sold/bought for entertainment. Yes, there can be other reasons to write and read a story – enlightenment being one of them – but if you’re not amused/entertained/captured, then you’re not going to pay much attention to the “message” either.
Which brings us to the call for more post-binary gender, more “diversity” (of genetics but not of opinion) more—nonsense.
Nonsense because most of humanity is still binary gender. Most of humanity, depending on location and continent, is one color or one genetic type. (With mix, of course, but it’s not mix they’re clamoring for.)
So if you write a novel people can’t get – either because you overcomplicate the imaginary races and get caught in side issues that have nothing to do with the plot, or because you refuse to identify the gender of the characters, or because there is no clear hero/villain (no one to cheer for, no one to hate) your purpose, which I assume is to enlighten and educate, will be lost. Because in the end we’re human. Yes, this imposes certain limitations on our reading/writing/understanding. But human is all we have. If we destroy the humanity in us, there won’t be anything else to take its place. Best to write for humans, and if we must slide in the story about the rogue gold mining elf, the tree dwelling dwarf, or whatever. But don’t try to make it the dominant trope, or you’ll make the story impossible to read except by those already committed to your cause, whether that be larcenous, ugly elves or post-binary gender, or “diversity” (of skin color.)
It is perhaps interesting the same people complaining about the terrible tribalist oppression of main-stream culture are using that complaint as a tribal badge. That tribal badge says “I am one of the enlightened people, and I belong to the intelligentsia.” Sad that they don’t know that’s all it is, and think that they can force everyone to behave as their tribe wants, without destroying humanity.
Because they themselves aren’t behaving the way they say they want. Just using different markers to identify “We’re people. Those others are not people.”
According To Hoyt 
“Race is a nineteenth concept, and in many ways an erroneous one”
You meant 19 Century right Mama Taz? I’ve been sayng the same thing myself for a while now. And the intelligensia are about the most useless bunch of over “educated” overbred morons on the planet.
yes, I do mean that.
Sorry, there’s stomach flu in the house — no, not me — and so I didn’t sleep much. I need tea before I do MGC chapter.
You can find the same concept as “race” throughout human history, and in almost every culture. It’s just that it’s not labelled as “race”, per se.
What was new to the Nineteenth Century conception of the idea was the Darwinian scientific backing behind it, which was mostly an artifact of people eagerly seeking justification for the things they were doing which were in opposition to the stated principles of their other beliefs and values.
Absent the inherent schizophrenia of putatively Christian nations practicing slavery and colonialism, I don’t think the ideas of “race” or the “scientific” social Darwinism that developed would have gotten very far. They wouldn’t have needed to be developed to help slaveowners and colonialists to sleep well at night–And, they likely wouldn’t have been.
A good deal of 19th Century philosophy snaps into focus once you start looking at it as having been developed to assuage guilty consciences.
Not race in the modern sense. For Greeks, for instance, there were the Greeks and the barbarians — thus sweeping up both the Germans (who had hair like old men) and the Ethiopians in one group. That was what was significant. And when they subdivided barbarians into peoples, it went more like tribe/nation.
And of course, even into the 20th century the racial divisions were not such as we would recognize.
Behold, my child, the Nordic man,
And be as like him, as you can;
His legs are long, his mind is slow,
His hair is lank and made of tow.
And here we have the Alpine Race:
Oh! What a broad and foolish face!
His skin is of a dirty yellow.
He is a most unpleasant fellow.
The most degraded of them all
Mediterranean we call.
His hair is crisp, and even curls,
And he is saucy with the girls.
Hilaire Belloc
I can agree with the erroneous label for race especially since the DNA markers– of recent years.
I think it is possible to suggest a heterogeneity in peripheral cultures with an economy of words that won’t derail the plot. I have several semi-human races in my works and I make an effort to show that there are divisions within them. These divisions don’t have to be explored–in fact, my narrator often doesn’t understand the reasons why one group of Necroidim isn’t on speaking terms with another–but it can be shown in how characters interact with each other.
To an extent it is, but only to an extent. And the extent to which it’s possible to do it means it won’t stick in people’s heads, anyway.
I think it can be useful – and sticks in my mind, anyway – to show there are spatial boundaries to those who are “us” and not “them”. The awareness of those boundaries make people and characters think & behave a little differently than they would in a completely homogeneous world.
Amen.
Thinking about differences within an alien species (I include fantasy critters here), IMO there’s a difference between a writer “adding” color to a species and over-complication in writing.
It would be one thing if a group of Klingons joked about the “oddity” of a fellow Klingon who was a member of a different sub-group of Klingons than them but another thing if the writer spent pages defining the different sub-groups of Klingons (and why one sub-group of Klingons were the ruling sub-group).
There is the type of book, usually military action and spy stories, that generally has a huge amount of weapon-system specifications. Generally I find it uninteresting past the rate of fire, bore diameter and range. It would be terrible to bring that trope to race/culture issues in SFF.
Yes, exactly.
Reading that in fanfic gave me the desire to do something where the story briefly gets into excessive detail on say, the tolerances of a light bulb, and then drops the thing and moves on.
Have you read “How David Weber orders a pizza”?
Choke… No, I hadn’t read that yet. Fixed now.
Weber generally works for me.
There are cases that gave me the impression the writer doesn’t get the human side of a military, and thinks a stat block for equipment is complete and comprehensive.
If I hear a screw is made by albino midgets who speak only French, I want that to be relevant. It should have significance to the characters or to the plot.
I might enjoy a story about manufacturing or inventory. Details suited to one sort of story taking up space at the start of a different sort do not draw me in.
Yep, Weber somehow manages to make his overly detailed infodumps appropriate. I still skim them, but you can skim them and get all the information necessary, and somehow he manages to signal what I need to skim without either causing my eyes to glaze over or the book to take flying lessons. It just seems right for the overly detailed stats to be there in his books, not sure how he manages to do it, I’ve never seen another author do it as successfully.
I think in Weber’s case, it works because he only does it when he’s radically altering the rules of the game, or explaining the perceived rules of the game, that are about to get hit by a very large hammer.
In the early novels its actually important to the story that everyone knows that wall-fights are only decisive if they can get into laser range, largely because they’re about to discover it just ain’t so.
By contrast, the six or so page dissertation on the lance thing was mostly useless.
Well, you notice that in say, Honor’s universe, he doesn’t talk about the people making the hand coms. He actually does ask himself if he needs something.
He also has a very strong grasp of the human side of things. Humans do things for human reasons with tools
He includes enough crunch that I can do analysis if I want to. Or if I’m not up to it, or don’t want to, I can skip around. This last safehold, IIRC, I had a speech I wanted to catch more than the nitty gritty on the infantry battles, so I started skimming and then skipped to the end. The battles matter to the characters, so if you only care about the characters, Weber will still show you what it cost them even if you skip all the battles.
Take a close look at Oath of Swords again. Yes, foreshadowing of magic, dwarf, and evil. Yes, industry influences lifestyle influences people. But other than that, because of the size and the place, Weber’s economy had free reign to leave out stuff like the details of the Purple Lords’ manufacturing.
Kratman may also be an interesting example; he tends to pack with details, most of which also serve some obscure point or another. I gather that he is also of the school that story must serve entertainment first.
I’d be happy to do a bunch of boring technical stuff for my job.
An author does not pay me. If they want me to work, they have to earn it by telling a story that interests me. Reader work generally counts against the fun of the story.
Thus economy.
Yeah, Lee Child has that problem in the Jack Reacher novels. I don’t know if other writers are worse, but by the time he gets done describing the weapon someone is using, my eyes are glazing over, and I’m going, ‘Can we get on with it, already?’
I haven’t read the Reacher novels, but being a bit of a gun geek this doesn’t bother me when done about current age or currently plausible weapons. You know, something that I might feasibly be able to get my hands on. On the other hand when we get into the fission powered, Z-ray, galaxy-to-galaxy missiles of the distant future? Yeah I don’t need four pages of detailed stats, rate of fire, bore diameter, and range pretty much cover it, possibly yield if we are talking about a non-kinetic weapon.
From a gun geek perspective don’t read Child. He gets it wrong more often than not. Irritatingly, head-slappingly wrong.
If that’s true, then all those details are really a bad idea.
Yep. Throws me right out of the story, and I can usually let it slide.
Seconded. Easily checkable details… *headdesk*
Much as I like the concept of “fixer,” and love the Weapon Shops of Isher reference, it kills immersion and ruins story flow. Skip, if you have even a passing knowledge.
I’m a gun geek and it bothers me. 😉
What bothers me is when they get it WRONG! You know, the safety on the glock, 357 magnum Beretta semiauto, etc.
Sometimes they can excuse their overly detailed descriptions with a witty line, however. The one in Dead Six where after giving an extremely detailed description of a gold inlaid custom revolver Lorenzo observes that being pistol-whipped by a ten thousand dollar gun hurts just as much as being pistol-whipped by a $99 Hi-Point, comes to mind.
Yes, but the questions would come up and need to be dealt with later. I’m not saying this wouldn’t be fascinating — it just wouldn’t be the same series.
Very perceptive, Sarah, as your ramblings usually are.
One thought, however: you wrote, ‘Humans are tribal creatures, who find it easier to read/be interested in people like them – people they can consider “people.”’
This is, of course, why all those tropes listed at tvtropes.org (TIMEWASTER WARNING!!) work. On the other hand, and just to be difficult 🙂 (or maybe not….) — a year or two ago I read a fantasy novel called simply ORCS, by one Stan Nicholls. The cover blurb traded heavily on the fact that the lead character, and in fact most of the main characters, _were_ orcs, those always-chaotic-evil, barely-sentient swordfodder that populate so many epic fantasies .. except that in this novel they were _people_. Well, I LIKE SF/F that has races that are _believably_ non-human, so I dived in eagerly. And was bitterly disappointed to find that Nicholls didn’t follow through. Yes the main characters were orcs, but other than the name there was _nothing at all_ ‘alien’ about them. They were just garden-variety humans in funny suits. I agree that an alien species can’t be TOO alien — but shouldn’t there be something in-between “too alien” and “humans in funny suits”? Like James Hogan’s Ganymeans, perhaps?
I’m also a long-time reader of Tam’s blog, and I find myself agreeing with her about RPG character races. There _is_ something wrong with the idea that a human character can be any class, while other races can’t. Adventurer characters are by definition unusual — can’t they be unusual in class as well as in personality?
Yes the main characters were orcs, but other than the name there was _nothing at all_ ‘alien’ about them. They were just garden-variety humans in funny suits.
This was my one complaint with the books that I’ve read so far of the Chronicles of the Raven (Which I do recommend, strongly). There are elves, who form one of the magical traditions that heavily influence the world. One of the main characters is an elf, and eventually the party visits his homeland. If you had not been told that he and they were elves, you would never know. Their speech, behavior, and apparent culture were all indistinguishable from any human fantasy standard. In fact, I half expected to be told at some point that “elf” was just a term for this particular human tribe that went and did their own thing. For an otherwise excellent series with unspectacular-but-solid worldbuilding, it was a letdown.
Yes, yes, yes!
The chief problem with elves in fantasy is the writers who don’t ask the vital question, “Is this elf necessary?” If you can make your character human, do it.
Two things — yes, there is something in between, but each bit towards believability, the more you lose audience.
On gaming — I don’t game, so this is an outsider’s opinion, form observing friends who game (I don’t have anything against gaming, but the two times I tried, I thought “it’s too much like writing” and I’d rather write.)
The simplicity of the setup is what attracts many people INTO gaming, I think, particularly the young. It’s a way of playing through still-bewildering to them social interactions.
For all I know, there MIGHT very well be a market for more grown up and complex games, (but then you have to wonder what makes the ah… pointy eared races special, if like humans they can be everywhere) and if I had the slightest foot in the market, I might try to do one. It’s worth a try, if you can find an answer to the parenthetical question.
I’m someone who has been running games for a few decades, and am now trying my hand at writing. I have to say that there are some similarities, but lots and lots of differences between the two skills. They might be complementary, but they sure don’t substitute for each other.
Hence why my first attempt at a novel is 12 chapters I’m (mostly) pretty happy with to open, 2 chapters I’m (mostly) pretty happy with to close, and a vast gulf of a blank spot described generally as “the protagonist grows the $%^& up” separating the two. (OK. That’s a *slight* exaggeration. But not by much. It’s very much a learning experience.)
As to the question at hand, I tend to make different “races” into variants of humans (or incomprehensible, natch). In the last game I ran, orcs were just stone-age animists/tribalists with a funny complexion. The perspective shift was radical enough that they were extremely “alien” to the players, but close enough to somewhat identify with (most of the time). I don’t think I could have pushed much farther without violating the willing suspension of disbelief.
Yes, it’s different, but it “pulls from same place” — teaching does too. If that makes sense.
Eh, filling in that gap is a problem for those of us not coming from a gaming background too. I took to outlining to ensure I did it before spending time on other tasks.
There are in fact distinct difference between writing and playing — especially DM’ing. This outlines the major ones:
http://marycatelli.livejournal.com/197911.html
Rich Burlew’s “Order Of The Stick” webcomic (which is set in a D&D-type universe) deals with this issue on a regular basis. He spends a lot of time poking fun at gaming conventions in general.
And you CAN totally do it, if it’s one of your main themes. For instance, in writing aliens, if it’s a novel about a diplomat/translator, this is perfectly acceptable. It just depends where the focus is.
I’ve always been fond of Herbie-the-elf-who-wanted-to-be-a-dentist, myself. But, as you say, that IS the story – the misfit who makes good – and we can identify. Herbie, and Rudolph and the rest, are all very human.
I might add that in order to have the heroic misfit, you still have to set up the tribe to be rebelled against. And, IMO, the grey-goo people create the most stereotyping societies out there in order to do that. This includes their attitudes to the real world.
I’m so tired of the “abusive, tyrannical father” that it’s enough to throw the book against the wall. Since DST needed it (for reasons other than normal society) I tried to give hints…
There’s a certain type of pillar of the community that is obviously the villain from the moment of appearance.
yep. And never the one who should be, if we go with real life…
Just going by the percentages, the child-molesting sexual predator ought be a female school-teacher rather than a priest.
Just try to get an editor at Big Pub to buy that.
Last night, my 80-year-old dad mentioned one of his jr high school teachers – she was a terrible teacher and wore a lot of clanky heavy bracelets. And none of the mothers trusted her, so there was always a mother in the classroom – they all took turns.
Rusty & Co. is a fun little webcomic where some of the monsters have decided to opt for the other side.
Goblins follows a similar trope, though the story seems to have stalled lately:-(.
In most modern RPGs, they’ve moved away from “only certain races can be this class” and switched to allowing any race to be any class. Sure, that Wookiee with his bonus to Brawn and his penalty to Willpower would make a better beserker than a cleric, but you know what? If you want to make a Wookiee cleric, go for it! You’ll have to spend more character creation points than others would to get his Willpower score up to acceptable levels where he can cast the “standard” healing spells everyone expects the cleric to be able to handle, but playing against “type” can make for more interesting characters, so the GM might give you a bit of a helping hand to make the character viable. Say, a magical cleric’s robe that he inherited, that just happens to give a +1 boost to Willpower… but is way too large to fit any race but a Wookiee, so the other party members won’t be envious.
(And for those who do play RPGs: yes, I’m mixing two different systems. So what? I’d love to play an Edge of the Alphatian Empire game sometime. Wouldn’t you?)
…And that right there is more interesting than anything GLucas wrote by himself before he sold the lot to The Mouse.
It’s not a matter of “modern RPGs” allowing it. Everybody always allowed it. D&D explicitly said that they were putting out their house rules, and that there was never anything stopping you from running your own house rules (except the need to interact with other groups at gaming tourneys or conventions).
I suppose the homogenized aliens problem could come in if you have a long-running series or expanded universe.
Author A creates an alien culture/race/society. Because he has to actually make them somewhat different than humanity (put the mean (of culture, biology, society) somewhere else), for the foreignness to register on our rather insensitive sci-fi-fan radar. He doesn’t have time/attention/pages to produce the great mass of detail and internal differentiation that such a large society/s of aliens would have, so he gives a few characters and a Star-Trek episode.
Author B is writing in the same universe, and wants to return to planet X, but the aliens aren’t his creation, and to remain true to Author A, he makes his aliens conform to author A’s portrayal. They become homogenized.
I think James Cambias in his recent novel pulled off a detailed and nuanced “really alien” culture very well.
Other random thoughts:
I think in Star Trek TOS, the Klingongs started with more internal variation in personality than they eventually ended up with.
In Star Trek TNG, an interesting similar process happened when they introduced the Borg. They started out as this creepy mysterious technological/organic gestalt thing that wasn’t at all interested in engaging the humans as humans or on any sort of personal level. They just invaded, rifled through their technology looking for anything interesting, and left. (They didn’t *have* a personal level to engage, and were entirely uniniterested in the humans – that was the point)
The whole assimilation thing was added later, after enough cycles of the stereotyping treadmill. Oh, they’re some sort of hive entitiy – that means they’re like bees! That means they’re ruled by a queen! And so on…
PS – in Nivens universe, I wonder what it says that I always ended up identifying with the Pak Protectors and seeing the human culture of Earth as other. 😛
But if you were a Pak, and Earth culture was Other, who would you be protecting?
If I remember, the original Pak protector had to adopt a population or die from purposelessness. To truly take over the population of Earth it had to make sure that the Tree of Life would still operate on the modern Humans, which is why it grabbed Brennan. Brennan, after going through the change saw that the Pak would stunt, kill and devolve Humans in making it over from being “Other” to “mine”, so the first thing Brennan did was kill the Pak to protect “his”.
This is a timely post for me, since I haven’t been around and just read Kate’s post yesterday. Sitting down at the computer this morning I was still annoyed at those that insisted on attacking Tam as “one of them”. Insisting that either she is serious, or that there is no way to know that she isn’t serious, or the worst, that she is say “it is a joke” after the fact, because people took offense to it.
Excuse me, people. I realize that so much over the top idiocy has been written on the subject lately that taken out of context her post would fit right in with it. But she is known as the Queen of Snark for a reason, practically everything she writes is sarcasm/satire. When EVERYBODY who knows her, even those who visit her blog seldom or practically never (myself) know that and tell you this; MAYBE YOU SHOULD BACK UP AND DO THIRTY SECONDS WORTH OF RESEARCH! Refusing to admit you are wrong and insisting that this one time, she really meant what you said is stupid. Sticking your head in the sand just means you are showing everyone your a$$.
And if you leave it sticking up there, don’t be surprised if someone sticks a boot in it.
Exactly. I missed the fireworks (I had work to do that day), but I did catch a few bits that got mentioned on the book of faces. The idea that anyone who hangs out in the blogosphere could in any degree of seriousness call Tam a prog was… I’m having trouble with a good word here: exasperating, mind-boggling, ludicrous, frustrating, hilarious… When I found out that one of those people was someone I know in passing on the Internet, and who is ostensibly a member of at least one of my tribes, I was embarrassed as well. “Please, just stay off my team.” This is why Sarah’s recent post about Internet warfare is so important.
I stumbled on the lingering fog from the dust-up last night late. And my groggy brain was torn between mild embarrassment at two groups I’m familiar with warring over a misunderstanding and — exploding my sinuses secondary to powerful snorts.
Context shifts can reveal behaviors in those you ‘know’ that perhaps were less apparent in the original context. With humorous results.
I’m sorry, but no one ever effectively responded to my request for contextual clarification, so I’m still in the dark, although you will note that I was willing to accede to other people’s more informed opinions, though she gave that opinion a serious hit with her exchange with Foxfier. I guarantee I cannot fill in the gaps in 30 seconds of research, and do not have the 3-5 days it would take me to read enough of her posts to gain a better insight, so I remain unconvinced.
Wayne, there’s no burden on you to familiarize yourself with someone else’s work. Unless you (generic ‘you,’ not Wayne-you) are going to present a critique of that work. At that point the validity of the critique is directly related to the understanding of the context in which the critiqued work occured.
Kate’s misfire has been explained, all is well. But, several commenters (on both blogs) proceeded to critique based on erroneous assumptions. And when those errors were pointed out, they chose to blame the original rather than acknowledge a lack of contextual knowledge (very tribal).
Communication is a two way process, and there’s a burden on both sides to ensure that it’s actually happened. When a misunderstanding occurs, the receiver does not legitimately get to insist that their interpretation of the sender’s message is the valid one. Especially in the face of correction/clarification.
That this happens is human and normal, but much conflict results. Oftentimes this conflict is difficult to resolve because of personal investments.
Anyroad, there’s no reason to worry overmuch about how Tam writes unless you want to frequent her blog, and it can safely be taken on faith that those who are familiar with her are telling the truth about how she writes.
Kate’s misfire has been explained, all is well. But, several commenters (on both blogs) proceeded to critique based on erroneous assumptions. And when those errors were pointed out, they chose to blame the original rather than acknowledge a lack of contextual knowledge (very tribal).
Why on earth should people stop messing with an idea because it was intended as parody? Good grief, there’s at least one entire subdivision of writing that is nothing but taking a parody seriously and carrying it to logical extremes to fiddle with the ideas involved.
Unless the entire point is “point and laugh,” the notion that people were supposed to shut up as soon as the misfire was identified is silly.
Who said anything about anyone shutting up? I know it wasn’t me, I would have noticed when my head exploded.
Fiddling with ideas and seeing where they go, what sparks what in various people’s minds, where experience derails expectations, etc. This is all part of communication, and wonderful fun.
So — I’m baffled by what you mean?
What exactly do you think your objection to continuing the critique as originally framed in Kate’s post is, if not wishing people would stop talking as they were?
Incidentally, it was not helped by showing up to declare humans are xenophobic bigots.
“What exactly do you think your objection…is, if not…”
Um…that thing I was talking about in the original comment? It’s happening here.
I don’t care if folks want to continue the critique. Truly. Matters not one whit to me. I am bemused when folks want to declare that their understanding of the original intent is more valid than that of the person who actually wrote the original. But, I’ve got no skin in that game one way or another and nobody involved needs me standing in their shield wall.
I was responding to Wayne because I understand that looking in from the outside can be blurry, he seemed frustrated that nobody could clarify the original intent, and the additional comments noting Tam’s operational pattern seemed to irritate him. I was simply attempting a “Hey, man, don’t sweat it. You don’t have to understand her if’n you don’t wanna.” I tossed in some additional info about why folks who know all parties to some extent were — concerned/baffled/irritated (pick one or more as appropriate).
Nowhere did I say people should shut up, imply that I wished people would shut up, hope people would shut up or in any way attempt to communicate the concept of shutting up as related to any or all parties involved (or not) in the prior posts, any subsequent posts, or any completely unrelated posts. Please, nobody feel compelled to shut up, I beg you.
Matters not one whit to me. I am bemused when folks want to declare that their understanding of the original intent is more valid than that of the person who actually wrote the original.
Where’d that happen on Kate’s?
I’m not going to go mining either comment section for examples because I have no desire to continue (or start) any feuds. It was intended as a general observation about why some folks on both sides of the issue were worked up. Nothing more. It has received more stress in this subthread than necessary, and for that I claim my measure of responsibility.
Apologies as necessary.
So far it looks to me like Kate’s page got a lot of flack for stuff that happened over on Tam’s page, and I rather object to being accused of things I not only didn’t do, but that are opposed to what I did do.
Pretty stressful over here, too.
No accusations were leveled against specific persons involved in the dust-up on my part. Others can answer for their own behavior.
*headdesk* And people wonder why I don’t list blogging as a stress reliever…..
You made a claim that people on Kate’s post did something; that is accusing specific people of an action, even though you did not list out our names. Same way that wanting people to not say a specific thing is wishing they’d shut up (on that specific), even if you would not mind if they said something else entirely. It’s not direct, but that’s a matter of style, rather than substance.
*Deep breath*
I’m not saying I didn’t accuse anybody, I’m saying I didn’t accuse anyone specifically (as in, by name or description). Because I didn’t want to get into a long round-about regarding the issue. For clarity, that doesn’t mean I don’t have specific people in mind when I make the comment, just that for the sake of civility I’m not going to call anybody out. Because, again, I didn’t want to get into it. And because I think it’s entirely reasonable to expect that the way I (and others) took things that were said was not the way the people saying them intended them. Which is the point.
To the more direct issue, unless you can quote me somewhere wanting people to not say a thing, you don’t get to tell me I’m wishing they’d shut up about about that thing. Because that is not what I said. That you keep insisting that it is is kinda my point.
Now if you want to talk about whether I’m going to take those things those folks said seriously or not, well, that’s addressed in the original comment. But me taking somebody seriously (or not) ought have zero (or substantially less) to do with whether or not they go on about doing their thing.
This is not a matter of style over substance, this is the substance of the point. You can tell me I’m a lousy communicator. You can tell me my writing sucks and is obscure. You can tell me those things don’t mean what I think they mean. Feel free to tell me I need to go get an ESL book and study it. You don’t get to tell me what I mean. Sorry.
l. But, several commenters (on both blogs) proceeded to critique based on erroneous assumptions. And when those errors were pointed out, they chose to blame the original rather than acknowledge a lack of contextual knowledge (very tribal).
Here, where you basically complain about people responding to Kate’s post instead of to Tam’s– you object to people responding in the spirit of Kate’s, rather than Tam’s. That is wanting people to not say something.
I don’t care what you MEAN, I care what you SAID, even if you don’t care to be direct or defend your claims specifically.
Telepathy: I do not have it.
You made a claim that 1) people on Kate’s post insisted that Tam did really mean it, and 2) that they should not respond as if she meant it.
On consideration, someone did act like Tam’s post was serious, and deny that their stance was satire– Tam. Shortly before falsely accusing me of thinking she was a vile whatzit for not appreciating the greatness of the “satire.” (Note, these are scorn-quotes– they indicate that I think it was poorly executed, not that she truly believes it, even though she’d just finished claiming she did, and now my head hurts….)
It is NOT civil to accuse people of a thing in a manner that they can’t defend themselves, especially when your response to being challenged is a half-apology (without a retraction) and refusal to defend the claim.
You don’t care about what I mean or what I say. This is clear from this thread and from others. All you care about is how you interpreted what I said. No amount of clarification, explanation or begging is going to change your mind. Each and every one of these discussions devolves into the same thing. You declare I said something, I attempt to clarify, you insist I don’t know what I’m talking about, I attempt to further clarify (and get irritated) you accuse me of jumping around, dancing, equivocation, whatever. You pronounce your frustration with my density and declare you’re done.
Now you’re insisting I’m not being civil because I made a general observation and you think I ought to name specific people so they can defend themselves from that general observation. For the record, for (pointless) clarification: I was not apologizing, halfway or otherwise, for the general observation. I was apologizing that it has received so much stress in this sub-thread. Because it simply was not, is not, will not be that important. So, no retraction was necessary or intended. Nor will one be forthcoming. Because the original general observation was in service to an explanation about how people took comments that were being made and why there was a dust-up in the first place. And it is civil, despite your insistence otherwise, because I am not calling anyone out. I am not calling anyone out, because I’m not taking anyone to task. I’m not taking anyone to task, because I have no reason to do so. I have no reason to do so because I’m willing to accept that the things people reacted to were not meant as they were taken. In short, I’m willing to admit to human fallibility.
What is uncivil is your repeated insistence that you have taken the righteous path and I, dastardly villain, will continue to thwart your honest efforts in a duplicitous attempt to… What am I supposed to get out of all that, by the way? Fame? Glory? Cool points?
Now, people are getting bored with all these things showing up in their inbox (other people are popping corn) and I’m crossing the line out of irritated.
Good night.
IMO both you and Foxfier should have ended this conversation hours ago. I don’t care which one of you was “In The Right”. IMO Both of you were annoying.
No argument. I apologize, one of the things I have to remember to do is let go.
Again, sincerely, I apologize for the distraction.
Thank you Paul. Endorsed. It started as a mistake, it’s still a mistake.
Apologies proffered. Gotta break the habit, it’s unseemly.
Oh, to Godzilla with it– you’ll dance around some more and make passive accusations, I’ll run around trying to nail them down some more, and it will just go on and on with nothing but me being frusterated and you beating your breast about it.
I don’t think anyone was trying to tell anyone to shut up, but rather to check before inserting their foot in their mouth.
Nothing wrong with taking a parody and carrying it to logical extremes to fiddle with the ideas, in fact that is pretty much what a parody is intended to do. But insisting that Tam was a vile prog and the parody was NOT a parody was ridiculous.
But insisting that Tam was a vile prog and the parody was NOT a parody was ridiculous.
I know she accused me of thinking the first thing there, and I can see how my scorn-quotes could be interpreted to the second one– I used them because I thought it wasn’t good satire, agreeing with Sarah’s “didn’t go far enough” point but disagreeing on the “it being funny anyways” one, for reasons somebody else already said better — but I didn’t say or even think anything about her politics, or what her motives might be.
Shoemaker said something about progressive star trek under attack from the progressive side, and someone popped up to defend Tam against “right wingers,” but all I did was object to the in-the-comments characterization of humans as xenophobic bigots. (that exchange is also why Wayne is so confused, I suspect)
I wasn’t accusing you of calling Tam a vile prog, I am aware it wasn’t you, although I would have to go back and look to see who it was now.
But yes I did interpret what you said as insisting that the parody wasn’t a parody, and then someone else (Shoemaker I believe, but again I would have to go look it up) took that and ran with it, insisting multiple times that she meant what she said, literally.
I won’t say humans are xenophobic, but I will agree that humans are naturally bigots. We must work to understand that those people over there are equally people as ‘my people’ are. This is a survival trait, has been throughout history, and will continue to be for the forseeable future.
If he did, it wasn’t on Kate’s post. I went and double checked, the only mention of politics besides the ones I listed were on her side.
I think you might be half way remember Wayne trying desperately to get someone to explain it.
I couldn’t figure out how to explain it to Wayne, it seemed like trying to explain red to a colorblind person. It is so blindingly obvious to most of us what red is, but you point at it and just splutter when you realize that the person asking you to explain it can’t see a difference between it and blue. How do you explain that?
I’d compare it to other colors, partly to establish if they could detect any besides blue.
In this case, before she showed up to defend the who “humans are bigots” thing (complete with denying the defense is satire, and I’m still not sure what that is), I’d have said “out of place joke– makes sense in context.”
Post that, I think she just likes pissing people off, and that her defenders should keep Shoemaker’s Zombie thing in mind. Just because something makes sense in the original context doesn’t mean that it’s blindingly obvious outside of that context, especially when the context is someone’s entire blog history.
I won’t say humans are xenophobic, but I will agree that humans are naturally bigots.
As I said over there, the “xenophobic bigot” claim has to be expanded beyond all utility for it to be true.
“… there’s no burden on you to familiarize yourself with someone else’s work. Unless you … are going to present a critique of that work.”
Didn’t this get discussed here a couple weeks ago in the “internet war” post????
Probably. I’ve not been around consistently of late.
Excuse me, people. I realize that so much over the top idiocy has been written on the subject lately that taken out of context her post would fit right in with it
No lately about it; like I said on Kate’s post, I had that argument a decade or so back on the Yahoo! Star Trek boards. With people who were quite serious.
I vaguely remember some satirist or other that had an article rejected by the editor, because the editor knew folks who’d gone further than what the guy’s satire had shown.
Thing that still annoys me about the “monoculture” complaint is that it can be accurate enough for reality—if you’re comparing on the level of species, there are going to be higher probabilities, especially when the non-fitting can just leave. (Remember Worf’s brother? Or Harvey Mudd?)
Can’t crank it up to “I am Asian so of course I know kung fu,” but on the “Latin ladies– handle with care, may explode” level it works. I can’t remember what the book was called, but there was a Star Trek book that had a small, rather weak Klingon as a major character. He was an engineer. The final scene was him attacking the problem with the same psychology that he’d use in a fight if he were bigger and stronger.
*************
You’re right about it being tribalism, not racism– I think they’re quite different because racism means overriding the tribe. When it was broken down by country, it at least had some utility, but when it’s by skin color (or various stand-ins indicating skin color) it’s useless. The guy who lives next door, has the same religion and was born the same year as me is supposed to be an outsider, but a guy on the other side of the world who doesn’t speak the same language, practice the same religion and isn’t in the same generation is an insider?
The “tribal” thing is useful in that you know what to expect, broadly.
Yes, when you don’t have a “tribal” thing in a story it frequently (as in 99.44% of the time) becomes grey goo. Trying to obliterate all stereotypes in all characters usually results in nobody being good, and nobody being bad, everybody becomes a gluey glop of overcooked oatmeal. I mean obviously you can’t have the main character be heroic because that is stereotypical! Same for the villain being villainous, the Apache being a warrior, or the sturgeon being a bottom-feeder, etc.
Hmm, a multi-species polity powerful and dysfunctional enough to attempt to make the whole of a species fill one role.
Depending on how broad the role is, it’ll just happen— like the guy on a shopping trip packing the purchases.
Yes, but every single one of them an actuary, at least on paper?
I’m thinking with the ancient astronaut model for humans, I could have the polity accidentally book humans for different roles, and then have the wheels come off faster than they can smash them back on.
Not sure what you’re talking about.
Actuary being an example of a fairly narrow role. Even with fancy tech, one isn’t going to be able to force everyone into such a role, except on paper.
….still not sure what on earth you’re talking about.
If I understood that correctly, he was talking about how such a group who tries to make an entire species fit a single role, as he mentioned, would come to ruin if it tried to do the same thing with humans.
David Brin’s Uplift novels had this kind of a concept. In the last three books, however, on the planet where several species had sent illicit colonial groups, they had changed considerably, and got along together just fine (as groups – individuals still had their quarrels), after they had gotten over the differences they brought from their parent cultures.
The Hoons (who fit the Actuarial role in the outer culture) wound up becoming sailors on this planet, despite the fact that they couldn’t swim.
I was trying to say that it was a bad idea in general, excepting maybe a species made custom to be suited for it. (Which wouldn’t be make success a certainty either.)
If I do go with my specific idea, the humans might only be the most visible and obvious example.
In this thread I started messing around with an idea for a ‘plucky humans, spurred on by human nature, topple the big alien space empire’ story.
The government of the empire is in the habit of conquering species, and then trying to force them into only performing a single narrow role. ‘Your people have been assigned the role of drug addicts. We will kill anyone who tries to become anything else. Others will provide drugs, secret police, and the necessities of life.’
Needless to say, it doesn’t work.
Maybe it is a bad idea, maybe it is one I don’t want to use, I haven’t finished answering those questions.
Makes more sense now.
Would be a fun short story, at the very least.
I don’t have a cast or plot yet, we shall see. Execution is the real test. 🙂
Yes, that’s what I think too….
“Latin ladies – handle with care” oh yeah. I happened to be at an archive when a Latin Lady came in to complain because something had been used from her collection without her permission. I suddenly understood where certain stereotypes come from. Definately not how my “tribe” would handle the situation.
Calumnies. TOTAL vile calumnies. (She says her hands planted on either side of her hips and a “wanna make something of it?” look on her face.
I’d thought that telanovelas overdid the waterworks, running mascara, and waving hands. I sat corrected.
See, I don’t act like that (seriously) because I’m from the North of Portugal, but you can see that at any bus station or airport in Portugal ANY DAY. And for my pains, being more restrained, I was considered “repressed” and “not lively.”
What’s really interesting (in an “oh sweet turtles, what do I do?” way) is to watch this exchange with someone who has little/no experience outside their culture. You didn’t respond to the cues as expected — so you get more of the same, only moreso.
“Perhaps I was too subtle. Poor dear, some folks aren’t well socialized. Guess I have to turn it up…”
This can be an escalating pattern of confusion. Loads of fun.
You just described why the SFWA scenes and drama keep coming closer and closer… 😛
“Perhaps I was too subtle. Poor dear, some folks aren’t well socialized. Guess I have to turn it up…”
Wherein it goes from, “just ignore them and maybe they’ll go away,” to, “stuff a sock in it, or I’ll stuff one in it for you.”
The waving hands and loud, lively, er, conversation, never bothers me. But the waterworks always disgust me and makes me wonder how they expect that to get them what they want. It does, I’ve seen that it often works, I just don’t understand WHY someone would cater to some crybaby acting like they were three years old.
I will say that the reaction is rather interesting when the object of feminine waterworks does not react as expected and in irritation tells said female to, “Knock it off and quit your blubbering, or I’ll bend you over my knee and give you something to cry about.”
“You people are sooooo cold, so non-reacting, its like you don’t care at all! WHY are you so uncaring!”
How do you explain that in your family when someone starts hooting and carrying-on like that, it means there is likely to be a killing?
Oh, in mom’s too. It didn’t stop them.
I’m people– everyone else out there are just pixels and frequencies. 😉
While my frequency is variable I hope my amplitude remains interestingly deep…
😉
lol
You could very well be imaginary. As I was telling Thena this morning….
Hi Thena– I have a cup of coffee here– We can chat about your next book–
Oh wait– ummm you were saying Sarah?
My husband does THIS. At one point, he was really mad at me over something — ten years ago or so — and he said “And I can’t even divorce you. Half of my friends live in your head.”
(Broad grin.)
LOL– Well – I have been around some high IQ science and electronic types– I can channel them too.
Well, THIS zombie says YOU could be imaginary. (RUNS)
And if I’m imaginary, I gotta hand it to the guy, he’s got a a heck of an imagination. Seriously. Truth stranger than fiction has a footnote with my address on it.
Which explains the vicious solipsism of the average internet troll.
lol
My husband use to game with a gal who really, really, really couldn’t grasp that other players were people, too. Everyone else was an advanced NPC.
Scared him a bit, I think!
NPC?
Non-player character
On Sun, Mar 2, 2014 at 11:22 PM, According To Hoyt wrote:
> bearcat commented: “NPC?” >
I am not “average”.
Would it be better to say you’re “mean”?
What a strange mode you’re in.
I crossed the median a few miles back.
BAD men. BAD.
Bunch o’ deviants. No standards:-P.
Ah — the first coffee snort of the day. Many thanks.
Glad to oblige:-).
No need to get hysterical.
Hmm, that didn’t work, did it? I was trying to make a pun out of “kurtosis” but remembered the term wrong.
I will now crawl back under my rock …
LOL
Don’t encourage Kent, he is just trying to bait me into “fixing” his pun.
Grrrrr.
I don’t know. I just read Jim Cambias’s A Darkling Sea, which I think I learned about here, actually. And a big part of what made it such a pleasure to read is that all three of its races, humans, Ilmatarans, and Sholen, had internal divisions that helped drive the plot.
I haven’t read it yet. Mean to, but well… You know my health. And yep, if it works with the plot — but William, take something like Star Trek or heck even The Still Small Voice Of Trumpets. If you get into the internal divisions of each world (or that world) it won’t help the plot. Same with even The Left Hand of Darkness, which has a “dual culture world.” What are the odds? But anything else wouldn’t work.
Well, you know, very probably my favorite book ever is The Lord of the Rings. And there, you have one dwarven culture, and one entish culture, and one hobbit culture, and while there are differences between different groups of elves, they aren’t strongly emphasized, and we really don’t see any significant roles for wood elves and the like. So I’m hardly going to insist that everyone has to do it. I’m just saying that it can be done, and done well.
It’s undesirable to have it take over and take attention away from the theme or the main plot. But that can happen with any fictional element. We don’t have the phrase “wiring diagram fiction” for nothing. And there’s the kind of historical fiction where the dresses and the houses and the silverware get more detail than the people. E. R. Eddison sometimes trembles on the brink of that with his Renaissance high fantasy novels.
Yes, of course it can happen with anything — but demanding more “post bi-gender” as a GIVEN is to introduce this type of thing into novels, for no good reason.
Trembles and plunges from a great artificial height, weighted down with thesauri.
Here I was going to submit LotR as offering multiple sub-cultures, human and non-human — but most of the differences are “off-screen” as they are not relevant to the primary story.
Most of the cultural variants occur in human culture and are displayed (Gondor, Rohan, the Humans living around Bree and Lake-town) and are implied — the Southern tribes that attack march for Mordor.
The non-human peoples are also revealed to have cultural differences — most notably the Orcs, Uruks and Uruk-hai, but also the dwarves (Dain’s followers may succor Thronn’s, but there are clearly indicated distinctions) and Elven folk of Mirkwood, Lothlórien and Elrond. But the Dwarves are incredibly long-lived folk whose diaspora from lost Moria would present a generally unified culture which would be slow to mutate. Elves, as immortals, would be similarly slow to develop distinctive cultural sub-units, although in Silmarillion we get hints of variances from their original culture.
Oops – beg pardon, I forgot to point out that, had Tolkein dwelled on those factors at greater length he would have produced a fascinating anthropological work but a (some would insist I insert “even more”) tedious novel.
Tolkien did go into detail about the sub-groups of Hobbits … in the appendix of LofR not in the story. [Smile]
Imagine how riveting the book would have been if only he’d have incorporated those elements into the story!!! He’d have had a best-seller, a classic that would be read for generations!
BTW, while on the subject: is any one else miffed that:
Pride & Prejudice so stiffs the lives of the British middle and working classes, not to mention the plights of the subjugated peoples of Wales, Scotland and Ireland???
Pygmalion stereotypes the British under-class and ignores the working classes even though Shaw was an open Socialist.
Huckleberry Finn provides no insights into the circumstances of the Northeastern labor classes, Irish and German immigrants nor the environmental effects of railroad construction?
Catcher in the Rye ignores the problems of migrant workers, share-cropping farmers and Southern negroes?
A Handmaid’s Tale tells us nothing about the lives of working people in that society?
The Color Purple has nothing to say about the life experience of Guatemalan Dwarf sheepherders, nor the culture of the New England WASP?
Actually, the Hobbit culture differences do make it into the story, both in The Hobbit and LOTR. You just don’t understand what they are and what they mean, unless you read the appendix.
Boats, for instance.
OK, I can see not getting into the weeds with peripheral aliens/elves/cultures, but in my books I love getting into the borderlands between species and cultures–so, for example, I do spend some time illustrating that my aliens are not the mindless uniform hive like the aliens in “Independence Day”. To me it makes them “people” to have different squabbling factions, cultural arguments about which way to go, and who has to go talk to these small squeaky ferocious humans, no I did it last time it’s YOUR turn. But, if I understand you, that’s not the kind of thing you’re talking about.
Another lovely example is Andrea Alton’s “Demon of Undoing”. We’re always in the head of an alien who truly has a different culture than humans, is trying to understand a particular human (and frequently failing because the species-culture is too different) and it is *wonderful* fun.
I have seen it speculated (and I forget where) that some American cultural quirks that confuse foreigners came about precisely because so many people from different cultural “tribes” had to interact and work together in isolation, as individuals without the group to function as backup. We gravitated to a sort of lowest common denominator that was more or less universal, and added on some things we found helped. I think it was the American predilection for smiling that was used as an example. It doesn’t mean “I am your dear friend” between strangers here, it means “I have no immediate intention of killing you”. Which, if you came across a stranger on the frontier, was useful information 😉 But it confuses the hell out the French…
Oh yes– I love the smile interpretation… One of the things that I learned in South Africa was the handshake that showed both hands (or if you had an octopus alien all hands?) to show that you didn’t have a weapon in one hand as you shook with the other hand.
That speculation may be urban legend. Dale Carnegie made a big point of smiling at people when you met them, as something distinctive that would help you “Win Friends and Influence People.” And that was long after the frontier was closed and the threat of death from random strangers was diminished; it was more a stratagem of an increasingly commercial culture. I have the impression that Americans may not have habitually smiled before Carnegie sold the idea.
Maybe in Urban areas, but in my neck of the woods, you smile and possibly wave at anyone you meet (waving at people from a distance, or as they pass in a vehicle), unless you know them and don’t like them. It’s just the thing to do.
I read something a while back about how doing this in an Urban area is simply too much for the brain to manage, and people in Urban areas tend to let individuals who they aren’t acquainted with slide over their consciousness (see Crocodile Dundee for an extreme example), so the trait doesn’t stay well in cities (for which I’m glad Cincinnati isn’t a big enough city to take this away from me, because it would feel like I’m missing something).
Oh my, this reminds me of a bit of “cultchah”, as the Mainers would call it. I transplanted from the Seattle area to the north of Maine my senior year of high school. MAJOR culture shock 🙂
One bit we did figure out was the etiquette of waving from passing cars. From our mini-anthropological observations, it went:
One index finger raised from the steering wheel = I vaguely recall you, you don’t owe me money.
Two fingers, one hand=I know you, I owe YOU money, please don’t yell at me
One full hand off steering wheel=Hey buddy, how’s the family?
Two hands off steering wheel waving madly=”Behold, the love of my life!” or “WRONG LANE, FOR GOD’S SAKE!!!”
We had to learn this because if you buy a used car you get all the waves intended for the previous owner, and it is just easier to respond in kind than start a feud by accident.
Oh, my. I’d be killed, because I’m not that nuanced.
See now a couple hours out of Seattle that is a pretty good etiquette lesson; except,
Two hands off the steering wheel waving madly= YOU owe me money, and you better pull over and give it to me, or give me a dang good reason why not!
Also it is the half-smile that means, “I have no immediate intention of killing you”. The big broad smile means either, “you are a cute as a bugs ear, kid”, “you are my very dear friend,” or “I am REALLY going to enjoy taking my time killing you.”
But were you around before 1936, when Carnegie’s book came out? Or is this your personal observations of a time post-dating the proposed introduction of the custom?
No, but my dad was.
Besides, the area where he grew up is not likely to be influenced by someone like that, and I would question if perhaps he got the idea from people like the ones around there.
Cultural traditions long outlast their origins.
Fascinating! I’d never read anything on the custom of smiling, and had theorized it was culturally spread from a sort of general courting custom – young women learn (or are taught) that smiling makes anyone look more attractive, young men learn that it you smile at a young women she’ll probably smile back, everyone benefits. Of course, initiating casual interactions so generally pre-supposes a wide degree of tolerance, even some trust, of strangers – which I think IS a fairly (if not uniquely) American predilection.
Strikes me that there is a great kinship between stories and mathematical computer models. Both attempt to form a simulacrum of reality by extracting the relevant subset of data to form if you will a manageable slice of the whole.
Where they diverge is in purpose. The computer model is a useful tool for examining the interaction between datum and if proven to track closely with reality to predict future activity. A story’s primary purpose must always be to entertain and capture a reader’s interest. Informing and possibly even changing a reader’s beliefs are simply ancillary benefits, perfectly valid in and of their own rights, but wasted without that initial step of capturing the reader’s attention.
Does tend to explain why a certain sort is so enamored of both bad computer models and crappy stories just because they carry a message important to their world view. Must support the narrative after all, no matter what the cost.
My own definition of the fantasy genre is that abstract concepts/archtypes are explicitly personified by characters. It is racism to say that “all” of a real human race/ethnicity are greedy/bad/dishonest. It isn’t automatically “racism” to create an invented people that are archtypes to tell your story.
The “humanizing” of every alien species is exactly what turned me off of a particular sf tv show and their franchise of books. It became a soap opera instead of a space opera.
Going back to my lurk now.
“more—nonsense”
I will lobby here for a perfectly-grammatical alternative, in an attempt to reclaim nonsense for nonsense’ sake: UNsense.
Yes, I know “nonsense” has more than one meaning in any decent dictionary, and in any relatively-ept mentality. (What is the opposite of INEPT? EPT…) The point is, there are times when we need MORE nonsense in our lives — there are very good and lasting reasons why so many different/separated cultures in human history have developed Tricksters within their collective mythologies.
UNsense, in my evolving definition, consists of thoughts and actions which are at odds with and generally in opposition to the principles I associate with Human Wave storytelling. UNsense would be to continue a taboo shown to be life-denying when there are more life-affirming alternatives in absence of said taboo — sense may be understanding why the taboo exists in the first place, and “rationally” working through the current needs of the situation as opposed to blind adherence to outdated tradition.
Need an example for the type of taboo I was considering in the preceding examination? Consider a case where the fertile / child-rearing population of a tribe [community in isolation, whether by choice or through disaster] has been reduced to, say, 10 couples and perhaps a few “extra” singles. How long does a taboo against first-cousin matings survive the needs of the community? What are the biological pressures? the cultural? How does the available level of scientific knowledge impact the community norms and expectations? What about Ralphie in the corner, decent guy and all that but not originally mated to any of the still-fertile females, who is still living and viable as a male / father / sperm-donor, when the first generation of offspring reach biological maturity?
(Uh-oh. Now I’ve shredded it, world-building leading to a rationale for “inappropriate” conduct / “non-moral behavior”. Excuse me, “exploitation of a minor” and some other modern legal concepts — and their associated “morality” bases — just may have to be re-examined under some species-survival conditions. Considerable angst, on the part of both individuals and the culture[s], also might have to be explored here…)
According to Wiki, there are only seven plots; but, you can make them do an infinite number of variations. Louis La’more said thirty-two, but I can’t find the quote. Gordon Dickinson in his bear world story related that someone has to deliver the mail. No matter, the Irish or Wop or Jew joke still has to have a punchline. ie: It’s all been done before. In one of David Drake’s series, the human that comes back in time to help the Greek/Roman army at Constantinople was a rock. “All you sedimentary bums get behind the lava rock lamps, stalagmites go on the shelf.” That’s why it changed from Science Fiction to Speculative Fiction right?
I want to do something like a planet of mostly vending machines, but I wouldn’t want to be stuck with it as the whole of a story’s setting.
After an antagonistic encounter with a vending machine, I wrote half a short story about a lab trying to create a truly intelligent machine, oblivious to the fact that the ultra modern vendo in the break room was already there, and didn’t much like humans . . . Couldn’t get the story to work, however much the idea tickled my fancy.
“But you like scented air!”
“No, I do not.”
etc. from Hitchhiker’s Guide….
been a bit busy, so I saw the link to Tam, read the post a bit fast, and really didn’t read through the MGC post very well either.
Known of Tam for years but for what ever reason don’t read regularly, but took it much as I think you did. I didn’t get into Tam’s commenters or anything so I guess I missed some fun.
This post reminds me of a movie I had seen being done some time back. It’s a future tale of a woman going out into the barren wastelands outside her totally sealed off domed or buried city in search of something.
Looks like a decent story, but I don’t know how silly it may or may not have gotten, and the linking was to point out how good everyday digital cameras and software has come (it look better produced than a soap opera on TV), but a comment on it got my attention.
The commenter complained that everyone was definitely African.
Um.
Lets see:
Movie maker was African, shot apparently in Kenya using mostly people she knew, about a story she wrote based in her home area …
Gosh, for what ever reason I am not overly surprised the supermajority of the cast was African and even though they spoke English it was with a Kenyan accent.
This comment was based on a preview that just gave a gist of the beginning of the movie. Maybe the heroine runs into a group of Lapps or Inuit in her adventure, but you know, I’d not be surprised if she didn’t. Not unless it was a longer journey than I think was implied.
I got the impression the commenter thinks all non-white people in Africa are either the downtrodden masses of Apartheid or the Bushmen from ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’ and nothing outside that, but had the nerve to complain the lady was unrealistic (because all fantasy and SciFi is extremely close to reality).
Or your human trader is working in a single species alien “empire”. He’s likely to encounter sub-groups of that species (or be burned if he isn’t expecting differences among that species).
If I’m spending some time with an alien species, I’ll at least hint at them having different cultures and beliefs. But unless it’s really important, I leave it at that.
EXACTLY!
April theme poll is up:
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/99207-what-theme-shall-we-read-for-our-april-2014-book
I recall reading about a white boy (young man of 16 or so, of “caucasian stock”) who got everybody (well, a bunch) upset because he called himself African-American. Facts: He was born in South Africa. I don’t recall whether his parents were born there. Now he’s a naturalized American, from Africa, and he’s WHITE!!!!! As are many Americans whose black ancestors’ heritage has been lost thru intermarriage and light-skinned genes.
I believe Kim du Toit has used that line a few times. Born and raise in S.A. and now American.
Guess that makes Dr. Monkey an African-Australian
I seem to recall one of our dimmer politicians getting tripped up by PC language and referring to the population of the African continent as “African Americans”.
Yep. Also there was a book published where an editorial assistant changed all black to “African American with search replace. So women were wearing African American scarves and drank their coffee African American. Also the night was very African American.
The best part? This was in England.
A few years ago I read a newspaper article about the “Ballad of Casey Jones”. One thing jumped out at me. The article mentioned Casey telling his “firefighter” to jump from the train. The Ballad actually has Casey tell his “fireman” (ie the man who feed the engine’s fire) to jump from the train. Apparently, either the article writer didn’t know what the fireman on an older train actually did or somebody else changed the term fireman to the PC term “firefighter”. [Very Big Evil Grin]
Oh, I can beat that. Imagine my reaction when I read this quote in a paper:
“The greatest joy for a man is to defeat his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them all they possess, to see those they love in tears, to ride their horses, and to hold their married women and daughters in his arms. “
ROFL
The basic quote is from the Conan movie with Arnold S. I don’t know if Robert Howard wrote it or the screenwriter. Read the book about 75 and never watched the movie.
The basic quote is attributed to Genghis Khan, though not found till a century after — basically long before Conan was dreamed of.
Shows my history knowledge. Zip.
This whole foofurah about mono-culture and “binary genders” is all well and good, but I think we are missing the real point here: all tales are being told from an animalist perspective!! This herbism needs to end, and end now!
It seems every story I read involves animals, how they treat one another, how they enslave, genetically modify and massacre plants. Where are the stories from the herbal POV? You never read about a gourmet buffet of carefully selected loams, do you? You never get the grass’ view of being fenced in, force fed harsh-tasting chemicals and then brutally cut down to uniform height, do you? nNooooo – it is all about the animals, isn’t it? Animals tramping on the innocent plants, animals eating the innocent plants, animals DEFECATING the partially digested corpses of plants back upon their families!!!!
Once we get through into stories told about the world experienced by plants, we shall need to address the serious lack of representations of the mineral perspective, or possibly the thoughts and experiences of breezes — we shall judge which in due time.
Stupid animals, think because they’re the only ones who read theirs are the only stories that matter.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep a story with pollination in it PG-13? And if you have a character who tillers, well, might as well just label it erotica and be done with it. 😉
Gee, thanks, now I’ll have flashbacks to “Quark.”
This herbism needs to end, and end now!
Younger son, on why he never went vegetarian “Because you’d have done this” http://imgur.com/gallery/QMzmRD1
I just caught a moment to watch this — *snort-chuckle-guffaw*
Thanks, much needed.
I have forgotten where I first saw this insight… I do not think it’s original to me.
A lot of the problem with race-and-culture in Star Trek is self-inflicted. Gene Roddenberry spent the first few years of ST:TNG pushing a homogenized, politically correct, modern western leftist trope of what a member of an ‘advanced’ enlightened civilization would be like. The end-state of their vision. When there would be no further cause for anything that would spark conflict or any other type of drama.
BUT… when you looked at the TV guide, it said ‘SF Action/Adventure/Drama’ or something like that. So they needed weekly drama. Which they couldn’t provide with straight humans-of-the-future with the sort of belief system they were pushing for the humans-of-today. SO… they had to set course for what TVTropes calls the Planets of Hats, so they could pick up a Proud Warrior Race Hat Guy, have a conflict with some crafty-cheating-merchant-hat guys, heck, I think they even had a Planet of Open-Minded-Stewardess-chicks at Raisa. And, of course, if they want to explore the themes of the supposedly-post-Cold-War world, they have to introduce the Cardassians and Bajorans, who not only have political conflict but mutually incompatible religions. Things changed more as the show got more distance from Roddenberry.
But to make things short, Star Trek needed the aliens because the aliens were the only ones allowed to be humans; the humans were too constrained by the need to be New Soviet Federation Man.
Exaxtly. And it was why ST:TNG sucked so much, it was all about leftist PC crap with very little science involved.
Oh, there was science enough. Wonky, mis-begotten, mis-used, mis-leading, but there was science — and just enough of it was just good enough for me, at least. Even with the introduction of the Q, the hat was tipped to energy costs of the whims of their individuals.
And there was Tasha Yar. Survivor and *more*.
For my other nickel (utilizing a dime novel conceptualization to arrive at that figure), I certainly didn’t feel like ST:TNG was pushing a leftist agenda at the time I was watching it regularly. Later, I found that while some of the concepts may have been at some level, the underlying rationale of the Federation is such that I still consider the whole consistent — and better reactive to external threats than a monoculture of similar size would be.
Are the Ferengi capitalists portrayed in a negative light? Yup, but they still have intriguing facets to their culture. (Admit it, at least in private: the Rules of Acquisition are fun to collect!)
Are the Imperials (and to some extent the Republicans) nasty, brutish, short-lived, and still with admirable qualities? Yep…
Could they have done better? Absolutely. Could they have done worse? Oh, even more absolutely.
Oh, and in case anyone forgets: Human beer still tastes like Moose Urine.
Thank you for that bit of information as most of us are not that familiar with the taste of Moose Urine.
Yes you are, it tastes like Vitamin R.
Lar: it’s one of the running gags from “Order of the Stick.” Appropriately also the home of He’s a halfling, why isn’t he jolly,” Belkar Bitterleaf. (Hmm, never tried posting a link here before, I wonder what’s going to happen).
Nothing. If you post more than one, THEN that’s a problem and I have to unmoderate it.
BTW, have you considered that your icon might make SPQR feel “unsafe”? (Runs.)
The icon isn’t meant as a reference to SPQR, nor to advocate using anyone as a cutlery-block.
I know. I was joking. I do want that cutlery block, though. BADLY.
Knife block apparently is a photoshop of the statue available at http://www.amazon.com/Attakus-Asterix-Julius-Version-Mini-Bust/dp/B0051NM1YO/
*squints closer*
OH! That’s horrible– and amusing.
(I saw something totally different– Indian with a red blanket and his headdress off his head for some reason.)
You NEED GLASSES! 🙂
If I win the lottery, I’ll buy this, and attach it to all my knife blocks: http://www.amazon.com/Attakus-Asterix-Julius-Version-Mini-Bust/dp/B0051NM1YO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1393794513&sr=8-2&keywords=Julius+caesar+knife
Happens. Someone once thought my icon was a flower, not a woman.
But, of course, you can click on them to get a bigger picture.
Okay, I clicked on it and still see an indian in a red blanket with a bunch of knives in his back, what is it supposed to be?
Okay, then I clicked on Mikes link and see it is actually a Roman, totally missed the leaves in the hair, thing.
Thank goodness, I feel better!
I do need new glasses, but at least someone else does too….
well — the reason I yelled, Foxfier, is that I go along with my crappy glasses until something like that happens and then I realize I need new ones. I didn’t mean to yell. I was being my older-persons elf “Go get your glasses checked you dang whipper snapper. Not taking care of your eyes. When you’re my age…”
*laughs* Oh, you’re right, and I know it– I’m about six months past “I really need new glasses.” My mom nags me about it, too! Just hard to juggle Little Ones and make it to the eye doctor.
Figured it out– the green is so small that your eyes kinda fib that it’s black, and the white hair blends into the background, so it looks like a tanned guy with black hair instead of a white haired roman with laurel leaves.
Plus the differences between a caricature statue vs a photo type picture.
That’s what happens when “indians’ in tv and movies were most all played by Italians.
My favorite is the famous “crying Indian” from the eco-ad. (His parents came over from Italy.)
Still, it is pretty striking– I’d never thought of the classic hawk nose I grew up seeing as “Roman”!
Iron Eyes Cody. Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line (or claims one is not an actual indigenous descendant)
Roman noses are on dogs and horses, when I see one on a man I just naturally assume it has stopped a couple fists in its time.
Or Portuguese 😉
They used Mexicans for Arabs as well,
Hey, it tracks … before the Spaniards were controling Mexico, they had to fight off (okay, hire mercenaries to fight) Arabs occupying Iberia, so naturally Mexicans and Arabs are interchangeble.
And Yul Brynner looks just like a Thai to me (in Vlad Putin sorta way …)
Carlos Mencia said that when he went to Iraq to do some USO shows there, the Arabs always thought he was one of them and would talk to him in their own language until they found out he didn’t speak it.
I’ve known people who thought Ricardo Montalban was an arab. Actually he is a Mexican born Spaniard.
Julius Caesar with knives in his back 😉
I have gotten over it by now.
Do you still hold a grudge?
Not after the grudgee is deceased.
That was me!
Paradolia. I saw a “soviet realism” of a worker supporting the smokestacks of industry or some sort of metaphor until I moused on it and it expanded. Now I want a knife block made in the shape of Trotsky’s head.
OMG. I bet we could sell it.
With matching Stalin, Marx, and Lenin blocks … Collect them all!
Over here we have the Che and Castro archery targets and a Chavez bullet bank.
With the Stalin head it would really be a form of the game, “Operation” where you pull the one little item out of the dime-sized slot using 3″ flat-nosed pliers. Don’t touch the sides!
Mao is the Operation figure. Pol Pot is a flowerpot with him lying on his back, plant lilies in his hands.
It went something like this – my oldest son was tired of all the “humans in furry suits” and “forehead of the month” aliens and when writing about alien pirates, he made them as authentic as his training in biology and chemistry allowed him to.
Philosophy problem: what if the assumptions that aliens will not be inherently recognizable as people is wrong?
I know it’s popular to assume a no-common-denominator for moral beings, but what is it based on?
What we identify as “those are just repainted humans” might be better stated as “the characteristics of being a person are universal.”
The Dresden Files has non-person characters that, basically, aren’t rational beings– they’re not able to choose good or evil, they just follow their nature. (Trying to avoid spoilers, there, but he’s pointed out several of the fay and other magic beings.)
Kind of like the trope of aliens having sixteen sexes– it’s different, but generally seems to be different for the sake of being different, not because there’s a good reason to expect a sixteen sex alien species.
In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me, because when you come right down to it, the things necessary* to keep a species alive and propagating are going to force some similarities on them.
*Here, while I know there are a lot of highly religious people here, who would approach it from a different perspective, I am speaking in an Evolutionary sense. The likelihood seems high that a physically unexceptional species will be the one who develops sentient intelligence, because the fast and powerful simply don’t need it to survive, and we’re just not that impressive, physically.
Therefore, we have to have a social culture to provide safety in numbers, and a way to punish those who violate the social contract (please, no arguments about variant definitions of “social contract” here, I mean the unspoken agreement that people don’t act to destroy the larger group); and to be successful, the members of the group have to believe that, in general, the group is more important than themselves when it comes to threats to the entire group. This leads to some general traits that I would not be surprised to have in common with alien races, though we can see that those will allow for wide variation in culture, even here.
Also, sixteen sexes are not likely to make it to top species…
Why not? Then it would only take four bits to express in binary.
It could be a cladistic outcome. It would like ordering chinese where you have to chose one of eight choices from column A and one from the eight choices in column B, but the offspring would not be fertile with a sex of either parent or the offspring of like parents, to force out-matches and prevent creating a sub-species … I just realized that trying to plot this out would make me insane. This race would discover venn diagrams before they figured out mendelian genetics.
Editing issue. I did not mean cladistic, but another word that I cannot think of now, but probably is similar. It might even mean “bushy”.
You didn’t just say “bushy”, when discussing sexual variables, did you?
I’m sure not going to say “Furry”. Or “Wooly”
Similar line of thought for the “but those aliens are just like humans” psychology thing.
True about Dresden, but one of the identifying characteristics of gods or lesser numinous entities is a certain… arbitrariness of behavior. Otherwise you could treat them like rational beings and bargain with them. The better you can do that, the less they are believable deities.
Another way to look at it is the Iliad and all of classical Greek lit, where the doing of the gods are motivated, but obscurely so to humans on the other end of the tugged forelock. If Aristotle et alia couldn’t reconcile the behavior of the gods with their (inadequately justified) morality (or internal consistency), why should we expect Jim Butcher or anyone else to do any better?
I think he did do a good job, though… he made characters that were elemental, not personal.
Oh, I agree. I just wanted to point out that elementals (using your term) are behavioristically like aliens, not just humans wrapped up in special effects — they violate our sense of persons or they violate our sense of gods (Aristotle’s problem).
Actually, the Greek of Aristotle’s time started at least on clearing that up, by the simple expedient of declaring all the myths with gods behaving bad — man-made creations. Note that Plato starting to describe his censorship naturally mentions that first of all, you ban all tales ascribing evil actions to the gods.
Or Euripedes:
“Say not there be adulterers in heaven,
Nor prisoner gods and jailers: long ago
My heart has named it vile, and shall not alter . “
Not entirely sure what all the hoo-rah is about. I may not be the object of Sarah’s ire, here, but I do believe I might have been the first commenter at Tam’s to actually use the word “monoculture” in her comments. I took her invocation of her Indian name (Tells Jokes to Aspies) as sufficient rebuke for Taking Things Too Damned Seriously as though we were sitting on the patio at the Broad Ripple Brew Pub and she’d just wacked me with her Blackwater hat for being a silly ass. Point taken. But 125 comments? Jeeble Cripes on a Reebus, people! Get a life!
M
Mark — it wasn’t ire. I was amused by aux serious the whole thing was discussed — it’s just that it suddenly occurred to me why it’s something we all complain about and never do anything about. Because in most cases it would be stupid to.
I have to wonder about anyone who complains about a monolithic culture in a story. Have they never been inside a corporate office during the work day? Washington, D.C.? A military base?
Yes, humans have variety, but we also tend to adopt common behaviors, at least publicly. If an alien race were to arrive on Earth and meet with representatives, they’d see a bunch of people in similar clothing (suits), with perhaps a small contingent dressed slightly differently (uniforms), speaking a common language (English) for everyone’s benefit.
Reading this, I had a reminder of the old adage “The Map is not the Terrain”, or in this case, we’re having trouble with words because the meaning has changed over time (and sometimes that change has been steered deliberately to advance an agenda).
Take for example the word “Race” which is now almost functionally equivalent to “Racism”, in that you can’t even mention the former without invoking the latter. And for that to work, the current definition of Race has evolved to mean “Damn near to speciation” and therefore WRONG! (And EVIL, and Politically Incorrect). (Of course, BEING Politically Correct, it’s okay to use the term if you’re handing out bennies in exchange for votes from the poor benighted bastards.) And because the term has been forced into this new meaning, the OLD tribal usage, e.g. The English Race, The French Race makes no sense. You can’t even talk about race as a tribal thing because someone will point out that the races are inter-fertile, when you were never implying anything of the sort. The fact of the matter is that regional differences in the human genome are naturally going to occur when you cover the planet on foot as your species expands. It’s only the advent of sailing ships and jet airplanes that have thrown those regional differences into more extreme contrast. But even when we were on foot, we could tell the subtle differences that meant someone was not from around here.
Go look at that average face photoset again, and you can see how the average face from two close countries is similar, but still subtly different, but the more geographically distant, the more different they are. At some point you can draw a line, usually at a geographic barrier, and say there’s enough distinction here to call it an ethnicity, but the folks on either side of that line are going to still be awfully close.
But with the new PC that border is both IMPORTANT, and UNMENTIONABLE, depending on the context. And it has to be treated as something inflexible, rather than the topographic line in the gradation of some human physical trait.
Back to the language thing, I’m reminded of another bit, where an Alien, dealing with human language, comments to his colleague, “They call their planet dirt.” And all of the words for the Earth in pretty much every language are synonyms for the surface, Terra = Terrain, Earth = Soil, one could go on. I’m sure it’s the same in any language. So I discount the importance of the statement people make about “All words for themselves translate to “the People”” because that’s making too much out of the symbol, the word, when in either language, that symbol refers to the same concept. But most languages attach a word to several concepts, but they aren’t necessarily the same set. So building some huge logical structure out of English’s word for the concept of “us” (people), implying they regard others as “Not people” and thus “Not human” and thus “We can kill them because they aren’t human and don’t matter.” when that isn’t attached to the idea in the original language is an exercise in the Noam Chomsky textbook.
“Not our tribe” does NOT necessarily imply the thinking “Not our species”. Forcing that implication in order to critique humanity might fly in Critical Theory, but it ain’t reality.
This is not a Pipe.
One notes that when polygenesis was considered a respectable scientific theory, Southerners rejected it wholesale on religious grounds. They knew perfectly well that blacks were the same species.
To be sure, one reason offered for it was that mulattoes had diminished fertility. The Southerners knew perfectly well that wasn’t so.
An interesting example of the geographic rather than cultural side that supports the idea that people won’t notice a simple mention about different cultures in your alien races comes from an article I read a few years ago complaining about mono-geographic worlds. Which is fine and dandy, except that they accused Firefly of having mono-geographic worlds. Which simply isn’t true.
For example at one point while standing in the general store in a dusty town that wouldn’t look out of place in a western one of the characters (Zoe I think), says something like “What is it about _water worlds_ and wooden ducks? Every store, on every _water world_ has these same wooden ducks.”
And then when they visit a “core” or city world Wash talks about how it has really great national parks, a bioluminescent lake, etc.
And the only world they ever visit where they see two geographically isolated areas, one of the areas is green grass, willow trees, and mist, and the other is sand, slums, and industrial facilities.
Yet, still at least one viewer didn’t notice.
I’d guess that unless it’s a significant part of your story, or you take time out from the story for fairly major random digressions it’s likely that a lot of your readers won’t even notice whether you actually have mono-cultures or not.