Year: 2015

To begin with let’s get something out of the way.  I know the popular idea of the libertarian out there on the public airwaves is the lone wolf, surviving by him/herself and needing no one.

That I know of that’s not true of any human unless he/she is actually insane — as in profoundly damaged to a level that can’t be retrieved.  Humans, whatever else we are, are social animals.  Okay, perhaps we’re not precisely animals.  Perhaps there is a greater animating spirit, an anima, if you will, there.

But rationality, no matter how shiny and glittery doesn’t overcome instincts laid so deep that they aren’t verbalized most of the time and we’re not even aware of it most of the time.

Whether we were made or just growed, what we came out of is a social animal base, and beneath the speech and the math, beneath the rocks we’ve gotten so good at piling together in sky-high caves, the social animal’s impulses and instincts remain.

Social animals — for our sins — have a need of belonging, and a need for the comfort of the band.  If I were a psychologist, instead of just reading a sh*tton about psychology and behavior (and yeah, I read about everything.  Wanna take issue with that?) I’d say it was perhaps worse in humans than in other apes because of our prolonged childhood which not only gives us the idea of a “golden age” when the group protects us, but also on the other side of it as an instinctive need to protect our kin, our kith, our tribe.

I’ve said before that tribalism is one of the greatest evils of the human condition.  In so far as it is exclusionary, it leads not just to racism and all the other isms that break humanity into bits, but also to things like voting for a president because he’s “our people.”  (And that’s not just a matter of race.  How many Catholics, whether they admitted it or not, do you think rushed to vote for Kennedy because he was “one of ours”?  If the bios I read are any indication, most of them.) Or refusing to listen to someone because he’s NOT our people.

The thing is tribalism is also one of the greatest goods of the human condition.  which of us has never had a group of people — friends, family, co-workers — that was just right and to whom we belonged?  Which of us doesn’t remember when you all gather together and everything works just right, with this sort of warm golden glow?

All those stories of large families, of kin groups, of villages that work harmoniously — why do you think they’re so successful?

It’s never quite right, of course.  There’s always one person who is an annoyance (I think lately at MGC that has been me, with all the late posting and stuff) and one person who is out of step, but it’s worth enduring it all for the golden glow of belonging.

There is a reason solitary confinement is a horrible punishment and few people emerge from it sane particularly if it takes a long time.

Which brings us to various evils of belonging, such as the instinctive ranking of people and positions, which brings us to “bling-radicalism” or “radical chic” which makes horrors like communism a positional good in certain (alas creative and academic above all) circles.

That will be dealt with in a later part of this.  Right now I want to talk about the groups that do not and cannot belong harmoniously to the whole, and the problem of their attraction for dictatorial regimes.

First I will give my cred for this.  Someone (ah — maybe more than someone, though in one body) on twitter was going on about how Brad and I were not real geeks/nerds and how we didn’t know the pain of not belonging.  (Rolls eyes.)

I don’t know what real nerds/geeks are.  There has been some intimation it’s tied to high IQ, but as a fan of mine who is a psychologist pointed out, we’ve got really good at measuring IQ.  We know it’s a consistent measurement.  We know what it does and how to test it.  What we don’t, in fact, know is what it’s good for.  Beyond that there are people of extraordinary intelligence who suck at testing.  Testing is really bad, for instance, when it comes to measuring kinetic intelligence.  There are tests that will do it, but not the normally applied ones.

I have reason to know this because there are indications both younger son and I (though doing well enough academically) are best at learning through our fingers.  What I mean is, I can figure out how to build something better by manipulating the pieces than by looking at the instructions, either drawn or written out.  And younger son, I swear, learned to read by learning to write, which sounds inane, but it’s what he did.

Anyway, so it all brings us to “what are nerds/geeks”?  Right now it’s hard to tell since so much geekdom has gone mainstream, but at its roots, and starting with us or our parents, you could substitute for both terms “odd” or even “excluded.”

And who are the excluded ones?

There are certain things that are almost constant about us. We usually have some things in common, like a tendency to overthink things, to have to do by thought what others seem to get instinctively, a tendency to like to take refuge in imaginary worlds and stories, and often (though not always) a tendency to create, whether machines or paintings.

Yes, I am aware that what I describe above sounds like “autistic spectrum” but there are some odds — me, for instance — who can read people quite well, thank you, and understand emotions perhaps a bit too well.

There is a phenomenon that my friend Dave Freer, who is a biologist and used to live in Africa, described to me.  Apparently ape bands have “odds” too.  He calls them “outliers.”  They’re apes whose behavior doesn’t quite mesh with others, and who often become the target of aggression.  The thing is they’re also usually the creative ones who figure out how to break the seed to get at the interior, or that a particular berry can be eaten if thoroughly rinsed, or whatever.

This brings us to the fact I think the medicalization of oddness, as well as the marginalization of it might be a factor of our mass culture.  With the advent of industrialization that required large scale machines, investment and labor, the concept of “normal” set in.  Since I grew up in a very weird place and time, I can still, sort of, see not so much through it as around it.

I’m not talking about “normal” as in “can look after self” but “normal” as in “does the expected.”

For instance, while dragging my kids behinds to school every day at the same time, and trying to get them to turn in homework, I became acutely aware that I’d have failed elementary school in the US. You see, the village hadn’t yet got the standardization thing and since my family was known to be — well — odd, but okay with all the learning stuff, the teacher didn’t bat an eye if I showed up at 9 or 8 or 10 or 11 or whenever mom persuaded me to go dragging into school.  And as for homework, well, the teacher proved willing to accept, in lieu of essays on “my favorite holiday” short stories about colonizing a planet.  Because standardization hadn’t hit.

But modern life and standardization have little room for outliers, which is why we medicalize it and treat it as an abnormality.

Recently (!) a friendly acquaintance in the field was lamenting that his son was “autistic” but the symptoms he gave was that the other kids wouldn’t play with him, and that he still couldn’t ride a bike or jump rope.

Well, by that definition, my entire paternal line is autistic.  When my brother was a star handball player, and part of the training involved rope-jumping, mom tried to teach him (and me.)  It couldn’t be done.  Brother never learned to ride a bike, even though it was the normal mode of transport over somewhat longer distances.  I’ve learned three times… and forgotten each time (and I was never great at it.)  And while mom used to go all over the surrounding areas on a bike as a young woman, I don’t think dad ever learned to ride, because all his stories are of WALKING everywhere, including high school which was hours away on foot.

As for getting along…

We might not know what Odds/Geeks/Nerds are, but normal people do.  They tend to be the rejected kids, hanging out, solitary, often with a book (I suppose these days with a tablet) in a corner of the playground.

In my family we usually figured it out and could “ape” normality enough to have a social life by the end of elementary/middle school. Some of us were so good at it that we got a little lost, and the suppressed oddness came out with a vengeance in old age.

But anyway, I know what it is like not to belong.  My normal number of close friends is three or four.  I was “popular” in college but the acting and constant watching yourself in public made it difficult.  And even then I was only popular as the “Weird friend.”

So while I can’t point and say “I was a different color/gender/orientation and that’s why I was excluded” I can say I was an odd and an outlier, and I know what it is like to be outside.  (And in point of fact, at least in high school and college, I was a different social strata and a provincial — even though the village was only ten kilometers from the city, it’s a long distance when your transportation is mostly public buses — and my gestures/dress/speech showed it.)

Now I know, I understand, the desire and need to belong, and how, like a mirage, it recedes the more within your reach you think it is.  Short of denying who you really are you can’t “fit”.  It’s just not there.  And particularly for kids, this is very painful.  You don’t expect no to belong.  And when you don’t it comes as a shock and anger.

I think this explains why racial, orientation and gender minorities both tend to resent the regime they live under, particularly if it’s more or less free, and wish for a more top-down system.

Our first experience of belonging (or not, for some) is of a family.  And even in dysfunctional families, the parental authority, if it’s worth anything enforces the “he/she is weird, but he/she is ours.” In school, also, for the truly odd kid, the teacher and the supervising assistant, or whatever, are the ones who intervene to stop abuse by peers.

So at the back of a mind of a lot of oddlings — no matter how or what makes you odd — is the idea that a benevolent dictator could MAKE others accept you.  That you could fit in.

I completely understand the radicalization of minorities.

But I submit to you it also comes from a total lack of knowledge/acceptance of history.

There is a reason in my revolution-against-a-suffocating regime I had a gay couple as heroes.

I know that in many places, from Nazi Germany to Soviet Russia, Odds, including racial and sexual minorities, were part of the supporters that brought the regime to power and were also the effective target of those regimes, sometimes to the death.

I know that in no dictatorial/oppressive regime is ANY minority free to express itself.  It might be tolerated as long as it stays hidden.  And that definitely includes those undefinable individuals who are “merely” odd.

This is because cohesiveness is the greatest tool of an oppressive regime.  You can’t kill all dissidents, but if you create the impression “we’re all this way” you stop a lot of rebellion before it happens.  Hence minorities must become invisible in the whole, or perish.

In the Soviet Union (refer to Nicki’s essay yesterday) racial/ethnic minorities were excluded/treated like second class citizens/encouraged to hide themselves.  Sexual minorities…

I invite you to tell me in which communist or otherwise dictatorial regime homosexuality is free to express itself.  In China, apparently, there’s a concerted effort to deny that Chinese CAN be homosexual (and sexuality as a whole is considered a sort of downfall unless it’s married sexuality in its proper place.)  And we all remember Iammadjihad assuring us there were no homosexuals in Iran.

What else?  Cuba? Ah.  Even in Russian in his gathering, non-doctrinal dictatorship, Putin very much wants to exclude any sexual minorities.  I confess I have no idea what he’s up to with racial minorities, but I’d warrant it’s not good.

As for the other “Odds”, those of us who just don’t fit in and aren’t sure why, (And I’m aware some of you are double odds, yes, both an excluded, obvious minority and one you don’t know why you’re excluded, sometimes by your own subgroup) we also don’t do so well.  You see that “creative” and “doesn’t do what is expected” makes us the bane of dictators, who want both predictable and stable societies.  The stable is sort of how they sell themselves to normal people.  “You won’t be rich, but you’ll know exactly how poor you’ll be tomorrow.”

It seems to be part of the social destiny of the odds that in striving for inclusion and fighting against the regime we grow up in and which seems to exclude us (which if it’s a free regime is not exactly true.  We are excluded by structures remaining from mass industrialization and from the habit of “normal” in our schooling and society) we end up installing a regime that denies us/kills us.

On the other hand, the era of standardization, mass industrialization and “normalization” is passing.  The coming era of fractured production and industry and more importantly the coming era of communication long distance, allows each oddling to find his/her group and to belong without sacrificing all of oneself.

Which is something that will produce, hopefully, creativity without the pain of not belonging.

Even if the remnants of the mass-industrial-art complex are still doing their best to pound us square pegs into round holes.

It doesn’t matter.  Theirs is a time that is passing.  Ours is the time that is coming.

In the end, we win, they lose.

Ca Ira.

A NATION OF DRONES

By Nicki Kenyon

When I was a kid, my dream was to be an astronaut and be the first woman on the moon. It didn’t matter to me that I was a Jew in the Soviet Union, and Jews in the Soviet Union just didn’t achieve such heights. I didn’t care that my birth certificate duly noted my Jewishness, and every potential employer would see that both my parents were Jews, thereby limiting my career options. I wanted to go to the moon.

Inspired by one of the books I’d read by Soviet children’s author Nikolay Nosov entitled “Neznayka na Lune” or “KnowNothing on the Moon,” I had decided that this was an adventure I wanted for myself! After all, the novel explored friendship, devotion to one’s mates, the benefits of living together in harmony in communes, and sharing everything you have with your closest comrades. Everyone was equal, despite their abilities – or lack thereof. What’s not to love, right?

It’s only now, when I look back on the story, I realize that it and others like it, were part of a pretty elaborate brainwashing campaign that for most Soviet kids began in kindergarten and continued through adulthood.

Neznayka is a tiny little person who lives in a commune of tiny little people (I now see them almost like the Smurfs) in a “city” amongst regular-sized plants, fruits, and vegetables. If you imagine the Smurfs living in mushroom houses, that’s pretty comparable. Each member of the commune has his or her own function. Neznayka or KnowNothing is basically the village idiot, Znayka (from the Russian znat’ or to know) is the town brain and leader, and Vintik (small bolt) is the town mechanic. There’s a doctor, a builder, an artist, and the town grouch (think: Grouchy Smurf), among others. Everyone in their city has a function. Everyone is equal. Everyone has their function in this happy society. Take note, social justice warriors: IT’S A FAIRY TALE!

Neznayka became an iconic figure in the USSR, and Nosov was one of those didactic children’s authors, who pushed the communist ideology into kids’ malleable minds from a very young age by making the concepts fun and appealing. I was one of those kids. Thanks, in part, to Nosov’s story about Neznayka accidentally launching a rocket to the moon, stranding him and his buddy Ponchik (little fat dude, whose name literally means “donut”), in an evil capitalist society that existed in the moon’s core.

And by evil, I mean EVIL!

The moon society is a corrupt capitalistic state, controlled by millionaires, who own and control all means of production, while squandering their earnings on frivolities. Everyday little guys struggle to survive, while being exploited by the evil factory owners and the corrupt, violent police.

Neznayka meets a couple of street thugs, along with a naive, innocent gentle, worker type named Kozlik (little goat, which is generally reserved for someone stupid… I see what you did there!) He tries to start his own business of growing giant (normal sized for earth) fruits and vegetables, like his commune enjoyed on earth, and his enterprise starts to enjoy some success. But the evil capitalist businessmen cannot allow his business to succeed, because it might cut into their profits, and pay off the thuglings to steal all the money from the business.

BOOM! Done!

Nezkayka and Kozlik are poor again – so poor, that they have nowhere to live. They get nabbed by the corrupt police for being indigent and sent to an island that feeds, clothes, and cares for its inhabitants at first, allowing them to get fat, dumb, and happy, but then gradually turns them into sheep for this evil capitalist society to sheer!

Get it?

This and other Nosov stories promoted the ideals of communism in a fun, innocent childlike sort of way, while condemning the evils and excesses of the West at a time when information was heavily censored, and the Iron Curtain prevented even a glimpse into the world outside the grey, heavy, destitute existence in the Soviet Union. We all thought we were happy and patriotic, because we didn’t know any better.

My parents somewhere have old black and white photos of me, reciting a patriotic poem at a kindergarten ceremony with a huge portrait of Lenin, covered in flowers, behind me. The only acceptable game outdoors was “Reds versus Whites” – a tribute to the great Communist (red) defeat over the Germans in World War II (the whites) – and violent war games were the norm. Even though, I was never allowed to play with the other kids, because I was a Jew, I watched them as they chased each other around the playground, built forts, and beat the snot out of the enemy whites.

Today, I often wonder if they realized that by intentionally excluding the Jew and beating and abusing her on a daily basis, they were imitating the hated World War II German “whites.” I wonder if they remember those days. I know I do.

In first grade, one of the first questions the teacher asked the class was, “What is the greatest country in the world?” The correct answer, and the only one that was acceptable, was, “The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

Embedded in my math book were pearls of drooling adulation about the glory of all the bales of hay an agricultural commune could gather for the fall harvest, and how the hardworking, well-managed Soviet states could produce X more tractors than the capitalist one.

We were taught on a daily basis that becoming part of the Communist party was the greatest honor you could hope to achieve. When we were issued little red star pins with depictions of Lenin in the middle, I wore mine proudly on my school uniform – a splash of red on an otherwise all black or all brown field of drab, scratchy fabric. We were Oktyabryata – “little Octobrists” in honor of the October Revolution. We were so proud to wear those stars, that when one boy – a Jew, incidentally – dropped his star on the floor, he was beaten bloody by several of our classmates. We looked forward to getting our red neckerchiefs in a couple of years and becoming Pioneers – the precursor to the Komsomol (Communist Youth Union).

All this was normal.

After years of indoctrination with no access to outside information, everything was normal.

Wiping with pieces of newspaper, because there was no toilet paper? Normal.

Taking a bath in dirty water that your parents brought in buckets from the machine factory across the street, heated, and poured into a bathtub, after all other members of the family “bathed” in it? Normal.

Sharing your one-bedroom apartment with another three-four person family, sleeping on the floor, or on a makeshift bed in what used to be a living room? Normal.

Getting your tonsils removed without anesthesia while you were tied to a chair with a sheet, gagging on bloody chunks of flesh as the doctor cut them out of your throat with scissors, and hearing them plop juicily into a kidney dish she held under your chin? Normal. Too bad the anesthesia didn’t take. You got your share.

Getting beaten up by your classmates on a regular basis for being a Jew? Normal.

Eating rancid soup, throwing it up, because your stomach couldn’t take it, and then hurriedly slurping up the vomit for fear that your mom would scold you for wasting food? Yeah… you guessed it. Normal.

We never thought to question it. We never considered that there was a brighter future somewhere out there. We never imagined that there were shoes that didn’t fall apart after a month, dresses that weren’t a drab brown or grey, or store shelves full of food somewhere out there. We never knew. We lived our normal, and we were brainwashed into believing it was glorious and honorable, because we all lived that normal together.

Even when my parents and I escaped the Soviets and wound up in Ladispoli, Italy for a while…

Even when I saw that a store had food, that we could live in an apartment that had running water and electricity, and that we could wipe with toilet paper…

I still went outside to play one sunny day, and upon finding crude swastika graffiti scrawled on a stone wall, I grabbed some chalk, coal, or something similar from the ground (can’t remember what it was now), and assiduously worked to cross out the swastikas and draw big Soviet stars in their place!

When I grew up a bit, I realized that I was merely replacing one symbol of tyranny with another, but back then, it didn’t occur to me.

Now, I wasn’t a dumb kid. I thought things through. I started reading books when I was three years old, and newspapers by the time I was five. But I got sucked in – by Soviet literature, by Soviet culture, by Soviet media, Soviet books, Soviet newspapers, and Soviet school pressure. One of the first novels I’d ever read was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in Russian. It sure painted America as a scary place, where people were bought, sold, and beaten. I’d read Bradbury’s short story, “The Other Foot” in Russian, and I was terrified of the discrimination it described, as it reminded me of my own experiences. I didn’t consider that those experiences reflected badly on my “great” nation, and that it was there – in the USSR – that I was abused, discriminated against, and lacking in basic necessities.

That’s how you create a nation of zombies, who abide by every assertion of said nation’s greatness despite all the evidence to the contrary.

That’s how you build a compliant hive of senseless automatons, who mindlessly repeat declarations of Soviet greatness, even as they observe empty store shelves and a lack of basic staples of life.

That’s how you produce a country of unquestioning, loyal patriots to whom living without joy, without access to information, and without the ability to challenge authority is a normal way of life.

You develop patriotic, nationalist pride in the citizenry from a young age. You condition people to accept privations for the sake of their great nation. You convince them that suffering is virtue – especially suffering for the great ideal that is communism. You tell them that alone they are nothing, and that collectively, they are part of a great whole, and you develop, nurture, and encourage those tendencies, without allowing any shred of light to penetrate that cocoon of shared misery you’ve created. You persuade them that shared wretchedness brings you closer together, and the closer together you are, the stronger you are – for the glory of the nation.

Why do you think that Vladimir Putin enjoys such high approval ratings, even as he has tanked Russia’s economy, burned food imports in front of the starving people, and stole state assets to make himself one of the richest men alive?

Why do you think he and his closest oligarch buddies live like royalty, while regular Russians starve and sing his praises?

Putin has awakened a sense of national pride in the people. They once again believe that the more you suffer, the stronger you are, and that Putin is bringing back the glory of Russia.

Russia is once again a nation of drones, and I’m so glad I escaped!

Someone asked me to write this a while back, and I’d completely spaced it until he reminded me on Facebook.

But sometimes, particularly when dealing with multinational twitter mobs, I feel like we’re speaking different languages and terms like “right” and “left” wing get wildly misinterpreted, leading to a certain twit(teriac) for instance saying I hated everyone to the left of Jeb Bush (Hate, no.  Despise their politics, yes.  And I include Jeb Bush and quite a few people nominally to the right of him in that.) while others claimed I was a big Jeb Bush fan because they think that’s what “right wing” means and they’ve self-obviously decided I’m right wing since I hate Marxists.

First, right-left have almost no meaning to where I stand.  I define myself in the authoritarian/non authoritarian axis, which is completely separate, and where I’m just a little shy of the “no government nutters” (I can call them that because, you know, they differ far less from me than the “government in your face” weasels, so I can say they’re totally crazy.)  Round about where the founding fathers were.  Government is a good servant but a bad master, and all that.

Of course, in the American spectrum, uninfected by the European Spectrum, that is indeed what should be called “right wing.”

The problem of course is that the spectrum is NOT uninfected, since we’re in an era of global communications and the meaning of Right Wing in Europe has started to seep in over here, both in leftists minds and in the minds of those who are self-defining as the right.

The other problem is that technically, if you go by the original meaning, the sides should be flipped.

Clear as mud?

Don’t worry, I can confuse it more.

Let’s start with the ever-reliable wikipedia: In France, where the terms originated, the Left has been called “the party of movement” and the Right “the party of order.”^[1][2][3][4] The intermediate stance is called centrism and a person with such a position is a moderate.

Let’s first correct the obvious problem.  If you’re precisely in the center, the position is called “dunderhead” — and this applies to anything, not just politics. That out of the way, if center is defined by “not following an exact party line” I think most of us would be.

OTOH look at that definition again.  “The party of movement” and “the Party of order.”

First of all impossible, since life is movement.  This is where I think the left gets their bright idea reality is leftist, except they’re missing the point of where these definitions originated and what “movement” and “order” really mean.

This was of course in revolutionary France.  Movement had a very specific meaning — mostly towards Madame Guillotine, obviously — in terms of you wanted to change everything, the hours of the day and the names of the days of the week included.  Order, meanwhile was the “not so fast, this structure works.”

So, what that actually means is that left is the side of “let’s change everything” and the right the side of “let’s keep everything as it is.”

If you apply that to the current spectrum in the US (and most of the west) where socialist-like-structures and “leftist” ideas have permeated the political lives of the citizens for far longer than anyone reading this has been alive, the spectrum does a tilt-whirl and suddenly we who are don’t tread on me libertarians and who think the cause of liberty could be justly served by taking everyone from office and putting them in jail become left wingers, in the mold of the ones who shouted “Aristo, aristo, to the lamppost.”  (And since I’ve often felt like shouting that, I empathize.)

BUT that is not really a good picture.  We know how the French revolution ended.  Having dived down that rabbit hole in order to write Through Fire, it became obvious that the French Revolution, the “leftist” movement of our time par excellence, the grandmother of the Russian Revolution and of every other movement that has fed the graveyards of the 20th century was very much a STATIST revolution.  If you ask yourself what the difference between the American and the French revolution was, it would be that in the American revolution the people were set free to pursue happiness and equality before the law, while in the French revolution, both happiness and absolute equality were ENFORCED.  (If you think happiness wasn’t enforced, read some of the trials of people who declared themselves less than ecstatic in post revolutionary times.)

So, left would be best defined as “movement towards an imaginary utopia in which the government grants all sorts of happiness, equality and other boons.”

And the right?

Ah, there we hit on the crux of the problem.  While we’re fairly sure what the left is (and btw, the definition above is why they believe they are the party of the future and they will inevitably win, because in their scatology any “progress” ends one way, with the government as a sort of smiling goddling dispensing benes to the happy people of Brutopia.) “right” can mean many things.

First let’s dispense with the left-enforced definition of right which ends in Hitler.  To quote a public figure “that’s just retarded, sir.”  Just because Hitler and Stalin had a big tiff and pulled each other’s hair, it doesn’t mean they weren’t both leftist, socialist bastards.  They were just arguing whether socialism — that utopian final stage of the revolution where the state looks after everyone like a mother or a father, depending on your language of origin — should be national or international.  And in this case “international” meant “Russian” — or at least it did in the seventies, and I have no reason to think it changed — while national meant “of the genetically related people.”

(For instance when Bernie Sanders announces he’s a socialist but a nationalist then says he’s not a communist, I believe him.  The appropriate name for his announced ideology is Fascist.)

That fascination of the fascists with nationalism, btw, explains why the left can’t seem to accept national love/pride (i.e. they’re not NATIONAL socialists) and why so much of Europe thinks patriotism is a precursor to war.  Europeans are taught that in school too.  I was.

Okay, so that’s disposed of, now … if the right isn’t National Socialism, what is the right?

If I had to hazard a definition that would fit both Europe and the US I’d say the “right wing” meant “a clinging to the essence of what the nation means and to the nation’s original idea”, as it were.

In Europe, of necessity, right wing means a lot of “our people, our land” and really in its ultimate expression “our king.”  Right wing parties in Europe are often associated with keeping or reviving ancient traditions, with the country’s state-religion and with the “way things have always been done.”  There will almost always be a reflexive xenophobia, for instance, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  It is not racist to say “our land, our customs.  You want to live here, you conform to us.”  (The left’s reflexive oikophobia tends to chew the ground out from what people know they can count on, from language in everyday interactions to things like protection of children and women. It is time the European right learns to say “No, not all cultures are alike.”) If you’re thinking that this is the same as us saying “if you want to live here, speak English and conform to our laws”… not quite.  In Europe an immigrant will never be “of the land, the people, the traditions.”  You could be Yoless from Pratchett’s Johnny Maxwell, and learn Morris dance, and you’d still not be “quite British.”  Assimilation takes generations, and sometimes not even that.  Other things come with that definition as freight.  The right will still prefer to keep women and men in traditional roles, and they’re often shocked half to death by differing sexual personas.

Now if that description sounds familiar, it is because it is what the left assumes the right here is.  And some right wing people, reflexively, will embrace it and claim it.  Just because the left hates it.

But by and large, as someone who has cruised right of center blogs in this country for a very long time, no.  That’s not what right means in the US.

This is why when the leftists (who true to their origins only understand themselves as in opposition to the European right) come cruising in, they’re always shocked when we don’t rise to the bait of “racist, sexist, homophobic.”  They’re always terribly confused a lot of people here in fact are of “non conforming religions” (or none at all) and non-conforming sexual habits, and varying shades of tan.  And the only explanation they can find is “self-hating.”

That is because the left (worldwide, really) since the collapse of their model, the Soviet Union, has gone a little loony and fallen down a time-space-funnel, in which they’re fighting “right wing” in Europe (and probably circa the eighteen hundreds, but never mind that) not in the States.

The right in the US is the side that clings to the origins and the founding.  This is the side that believes ultimately sovereignty rests in the individual and the government should bow and doff its hat to us. We’re the side that believes that no matter what color, size, sex or whomever you decide to sleep with, you’re still an individual, entitled to equal protection under the law.

We believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Which means in many ways we’re the horror of the European right.  If it weren’t for the fact that both “rights” are fighting the much greater evil of the Marxist theology unleashed upon the world (and yes, it is more evil than even the European right) we’d be going at it like two equal weight boxers in a ring.

My dad, who is Europe-right (mom weirdly is MOSTLY American-right.  Not fully, because she still thinks morality, etc. should be enforced, but I think that’s a generational thing.  And no, I don’t know how she ended up don’t-tread-on-me in Europe.  She didn’t even read Heinlein) for instance believes it is not only the government’s right but the government’s duty to look after things like health care.  Oh, and if the government periodically shoots the wrong guy, well, that’s the cost of keeping other people safe.  He’s not a bad man, understand — but he’s a man of his time and place.  He draws the line at communism, not just because it’s evil, but because it’s a stranger to his country and enforced from outside.

We’ve gone the full rounds (one of the few times we’ve yelled at each other) because he can’t understand that I don’t view the government as some thing that should “look after” me, but as something that should do the minimum possible to ensure I have the space to look after myself, and anything more than that is a violation of my rights and a thwarting of my duties as a free human being.

And that’s the difference between our right and their right.  I’ve found it easier and far more conducive to familial harmony to pretend there is no difference, and to nod along with their serene belief that “right wing” in America means the same it does there.

Since our left doesn’t see the dividing chasm, they often refer to the “right” as monolithic and what they get in their press (which is to the left of ours) is convenient in obscuring the differences.

No reason to shock mom and dad by letting them know their daughter has become a USAian radical, after all.

BUT the actual meaning is radically different (quite literally RADICALLY different.  We are the “radicals” who turned the world upside down by believing authority flows from the individual up, not from the state down.)  As I hope it shows above.  Though being a word more often defined by opponents and people with the “feels” it has the imprecise quality of a mirage rising from asphalt on a hot day.

One caveat is that the American right wing might never make any sense in Europe.  Culture is something that changes very slowly and often doubles back.  So I restrain my evangelizing impulses there.  They might come to be like us, but it won’t be in my life time.

And the right in Europe only makes upside-down sense in America.  It would be impossible to create a right-wing-in-European-terms country out of the US.  Our multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-racial country couldn’t turn into an European traditional country.  Not for a few hundred years at least.  Which is why all movies that do that are profoundly unconvincing.  And why it’s so weird that the left doesn’t see the difference between the two rights.

It is also, unfortunately, why the sf books from the fifties or so, particularly the ones by Heinlein, which show the whole world unified under the American system are such a pipe dream.

It might have seemed logical and even attainable after WWII but as he himself seems to have realized in Tramp Royale, the real world is too diverse and culture and cultural differences too real for that utopia ever to have been possible.

America is a place in the heart, and as such it can only be won one heart at a time.

Thoughts on the road. – William Lehman

I just completed a round trip run from western Washington to Pennsylvania in an RV. Most of this drive was along I-90, and I-80, through what the coasts derogatorily dismiss as “flyover country”. This gave me some opportunity for observation and reflection, during the drive, and this is the result.

I’m a Marine electrician lead (as well as an author) who comes from blue collar roots, and my dad was a member of the Teamsters union for most of my life, until his death. Some people have called me a traitor to my people for being anti-union. This trip helped remind me why I am.

It’s a not terribly well known fact that the Pacific North West, makes a LOT of money off exporting hay. Yes, hay. First quality green hay gets shipped by the bulk carrier loads from ports in WA, to Japan, South Korea, and the Middle East for the Horsey folks in those areas, and they pay TOP dollar. Farmers make a decent living off this trade. So I was surprised to see literally thousands of bales of hay (and we’re not talking the little 50lb bales that we used to buck growing up, no… these where the 800 lb. round bales that you need a machine to load, usually the size used for export, and large farm operations) rotting in the fields, all looking about a year old. Then I put it together.

I have good friends who are truckers. The Longshoreman strike and slowdowns on the west coast last fall hurt them big time. All of the truckers I know that work the docks own (with the bank) their own rigs. By the way, those suckers ain’t cheap. They cost about as much as a house. So my friends basically have two mortgages to maintain, one for their house, and the other for their truck. If they’re not hauling loads, they’re hemorrhaging money like it’s going out of style. (or like they’re congressmen) guys lost their trucks over this.

There was a big thing in the local papers because a couple of the farm co-ops dumped hundreds of thousands of pounds of apples that were destined for overseas for the same reason. They couldn’t ship them overseas, and if they put them on the US market the price would drop so low that they wouldn’t even break even after shipping costs.

What’s that? You in the back with the occupy something T-shirt?

“How dare they throw away food, while people are going hungry” you ask?

Well sparky, it’s like this. The farmers are going hungry too. They get a pay day once or twice a year, and that’s from selling their crop. They have to make the payments on all their REALY EXPENSIVE equipment, pay their employees, including the guys that are demanding $15 an hour as the new minimum wage, out of that one or two paychecks a year, and pay their mortgage, and put enough back to feed the family for the year. So they (like any prudent business man) insure their crops. If they don’t sell, or are destroyed, the insurance pays off. (not anything like full value, but enough that maybe they don’t lose the farm this year) If they sell at a loss, the insurance doesn’t pay. And if they give the food away, not only does the insurance not pay, but who’s going to pay the truckers to take it from where the food is, to where the mouths are? (Yes, I have a point, and I’m getting there, I just need to give you the back ground)

Well, the thirty or so shiploads of hay that I saw all date from about the same time frame. So here’s another layer of people hurt I theorize( if there’s any WA, ID, MT, or NB hay farmers that read this and can tell me of a different reason that millions of dollars of hay was allowed to mold, I’m all ears) all because of a strike that didn’t, in the end, really get the rank and file union member much of anything. (It got the union more power though, and that’s what’s important… to the union)

My dad was a teamster during the great Teamster strike of the early 70s. His team got along great with management, where happy with their pay and working conditions, and didn’t want to strike. But some big guys came down from Detroit in a couple Caddies, looked around and said “Dwayne, The union is all going on strike, youse gotta go on strike too.”

“But we don’t have anything we want to strike FOR.”

“Do it for youse families.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“How would youse feed your families if this place was to burn to the ground? If you was to be kicked out of da union, and your little boy was to get hurt bad, how would you pay medical expenses? Oh and youse guys gotta actually walk the picket line or youse don’t get your strike pay”

Then the goons in the caddies drove back to Detroit, and dad and the rest walked the picket lines. People who wildcatted that strike where hurt or killed… I remember one guy was hauling dynamite for the coal mines in KY. The sniper that shot his truck hit the load… It cratered the road.

Dad died in harness about 20 years ago. Mom got the princely sum of 28 bucks a month as survivor benefits until she remarried. Tell me why I should support the union?

Another observation is that pretty much all of my leftist friends (yes I have friends from the far left, I view them as slightly retarded, but love them anyway) have been freaking out over the eminent demise of the European Honey Bee, and thus over the inevitable death of all life on earth… Now that ignores that fact that it’s the “European Honey Bee” and not native to the Americas. Somehow life in the Americas managed to continue to exist before European immigrants brought the Honey bee to the continents. Still, if you talk to the left Honey bees are doomed, and with them, the entire biosphere, all due to Monsanto, or Nicoloid gene splicing, or whatever the current evil is, that is causing CCD (colony collapse disorder)… If you do a casual search of the Web for bee population data you’ll find nothing but doom. But on the drive, I counted about 100 hives an hour while going though agricultural areas, most in groups of 6-10 hives, all with multiple supers under the hive. Well, unless ALL the bees in North America are on the I-80, US 28, and I-90 corridor, (which I doubt) the gloom and doom just doesn’t seem to match reality.

SO I dug a little deeper… Yup, if you look at the propaganda on Bee populations, it’s all bad, but if you look at the HONEY HARVEST, it’s been increasing for several years (since 2004) and in those numbers (but surprisingly enough NOT in the numbers on bee population, even though they’re from the same office) there are more hives in cultivation this year than last, and that holds true since 2004! http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do?documentID=1191 HUMM.

Finally, I’m viewed by those aforementioned liberals as a rabid frothing at the mouth conservative. Well, I’m starting to feel like Marten L. King jr. on that. Because I hate to break it to the folks from both coasts, and the really big cities in between, (Denver, Austin, I’m looking at you here) but you folks really want to talk to me, because you DON’T want to talk to Malcom X.

I went hunting in MT a couple years ago. Talking with my Guide and some of the other locals, I felt like I was the liberal in the room, and practically in the barking Moonbat category. (These folks where ready to start the revolution tomorrow) Now I filed that under the category of “These guys live out in the back of beyond, they’re outliers statistically”. On the drive to and from the East Coast, I paid attention to the billboards and bumper-stickers. Folks, the people in “Fly over” country are PISSED, from the guy that guides hunters, to the mayors of towns and cities, to state senators congressmen and Governors who are voting to arrest and imprison federal law enforcement officials for enforcing federal gun laws that don’t agree with state law.

You guys (the left) really want to stop pushing quite so hard. The political pendulum has never, in the history of humanity, stayed on one side of a swing. The back lash from over reach has always been proportionate to how far off center it went before coming back. (Hint, that’s what started the whole prohibition thing, and it’s also what started the 60s, was backlashes) Well right now we’re staring at a whole hell of a lot of the country (about 80-90% of the land mass, as well as about 50% of the population) that is FED UP. You really don’t want those guys to decide that the only way to fix it is to burn it down and start over… REALLY! Most of these folks are vets, and the children of vets, they’ve had guns in their hands since middle school or before, or they’re still serving either in the regulars, the reserves, or the NG. If it goes to armed insurrection, even if the left wins, (highly damn unlikely) it will be a mess worse than reconstruction, worse than the Balkans. For the love of the country that I’ve served for over three decades, start seeking peace now.

*I want to point out this is a blast from the past post.  I want to point this out because I don’t want you to think I’m sick again.  I’m not.  I started an exercise program and I’m feeling like someone put me through the ringer, but I’m not sick.
On another note I noticed below that I mention The Left Hand of Darkness.  This amuses me because the usual twitter suspects are throwing fits that we don’t want to allow (!) non binary science fiction, because we’re such idiots who never heard of the Left Hand of Darkness.  I thought we’d spent years yelling at them that their sad attempts were nothing new and that everyone and their parents had done it better, The left Hand of Darkness most definitely included.  I’m starting to believe they’re not liars.  They’re mentally deficient. Apparently they can’t process it’s not the subject we object to, it’s the execution.  (Poor prose should not be suspended by the neck till dead.)*

When I’m sick – yeah, let’s just say that my respiratory system is a walking liability – I can’t read fiction. This is part of the reason I’ve fallen so far behind on my fiction reading. It doesn’t seem to be a rare affliction. When you’re sick you can’t handle emotion and, of course, all good fiction is emotion.

However, I can’t stop reading. Reading is what gets me through the stupid stuff that must happen in life, like washing dishes, cooking, cleaning. I have yet to figure out how to read in the shower. Someone must make a better, water-proof ereader.

So, instead of fiction I read non-fiction. The more tired/sick I am, the dryer my reading material. Years ago, when pneumonia put me in the hospital (ICU for eleven days) I read a collection of nineteenth century biology manuals. No, you probably don’t want to ask.

And I know I’m at least becoming somewhat more human because I either start having story ideas, or I start figuring out how what I’m reading applies to some aspect of writing.

This last month and a half, as I’ve been spiraling deeper and deeper into illness (And no, I don’t even know if it’s the same illness or a succession of respiratory bugs) I’ve been reading about the pursuit of the Indo-European language and culture.

Yes, this morning I finally decided enough was enough and this afternoon I dragged self to doctor and I’m now medicated. While I’m still not substantially better – except the fever must be down because my head is clearer – in the “up” points of this er… bug sequence I’ve been able to realize what I’m reading is both a wonderful seed for stories, possibly a setting for a series of novels which has deviled me (my last run at it was … fifteen years ago, when I was definitely not ready) and, more importantly, a world building tool.

What I’ve been reading, particularly, which attempts the reconstruction of an ancient culture that might have been homogenetic, but was almost certainly heterogenetic (same or different genetic heritage), might have been located over a region or another, and might have worked out one way or another, has made me realize how things are connected, things we don’t tend to think about.

No, I don’t know how much their guesses are true, but I do know that there are certain “rules” that tend to apply and that these archaeologists use them to reconstruct a culture just like a paleontologist reconstructs a dead animal from a loose tooth. Will they sometimes be wrong? Oh, yeah, heck, yeah. Remember the dinosaurs that have changed name or shape as more has been found out about them? But still, there are certain things that apply. If you find a certain shape of tooth, you know you’re dealing with an herbivore, for instance. And if you find human craniums with largely cavity-free teeth, you know you’re dealing with a culture whose diet was low on carbohydrates. Oh, there might be some genetic freak that keeps them from getting cavities, but, more than likely, you’re dealing with a diet based on protein.

The same goes for population replacement, for instance. One population disappears, another comes in. Was it war? Maybe. Sometimes you do find a population where the graves show women of the previous population and men of the new one. You could be dealing with a Rape of The Sabines situation. Alternately, you could be dealing with some elaborate treaty and bride price, and perhaps the men of the tribe moved elsewhere to marry women from the other tribe. Yeah, that wouldn’t be total replacement, but these graves never represent everyone, just the powerful families.

And then there’s that too – what was powerful at the time? What was “wealthy”. A man is buried in a grave that would require immense labor with only a few shards of pottery and a dagger. Was it because the culture was terribly poor, or were the gifts symbolic? You only know by comparing to smaller graves of the same culture.

I’m not going to go into details, but it is important, not just for historical fiction but for science fiction and even for fantasy to think through these details. “What does my culture use for transport?” for instance, limits how far your character can travel. That much is obvious. But it will also limit the ideas of the world; how far her parents’ married; how many languages there are in the immediate vicinity; what they eat and possibly how they pray. “What do they eat?” again limits or shapes what the culture is like. If they are mostly agriculturalists, their culture will be different from if they are herders. And if they are herders with frequent cattle raiding (which also correlates to weapons) the culture is yet different. (And if they eat mostly stew, you’re caught in The Tough Guide To Fantasyland.)

I confess that even with as much as I know about history and how cultures evolve, and how economics influences daily life, I’ve caught at least a couple of mistakes I’ve made in one of my cultures – where they could not possibly be settled agriculturalists with those habits.

We live in a time where the world is our backyard, where food of all seasons and all continents is available to us and transport is cheaper and easier than it’s ever been. This divorces source from event in our minds, so that we have trouble creating even complex, future cultures.

Of course, the classic work with everything integrated is Le Guin’s The Left Hand Of Darkness. I’m not saying I don’t have problems with some of her extrapolations. I do. She and I come from widely different philosophical traditions and that always shows. Also, though I liked it originally, the presentation itself now seems incredibly dated to me. BUT at least she tried to show a culture integrated in all facets of myth and daily living and its natural environment. And managed to hint at a full fledged society, which of course never fits in a book.

What is your favorite such example? Do you have one? What would you like to see? How do you think archeology can help us learn world building?

Recently there was a link on Insty about a mother who raised her son to be a fanatical environmentalist.  She said she was following the Jewish precept of teaching your children to “heal the world.”

Of course, having raised the kid to think the world is “infected” and “dying” and that humans are the cause, she’s then shocked he’s absolutely impossible to live with, and that she’s relieved to have him move out.

I find the concept of “saving the world” as she interpreted it and as my teachers (mostly hard left) taught us an interesting piece of hubris.

Look, it’s sort of like all those early science fiction novels, in which some government or other took over the whole Earth and this worked out, no problems.

It is almost by definition an adolescent idea.  You know just enough about the world, to not know what you don’t know, so that you think you can right all wrongs.

It also exaggerates your importance, and the importance of your group or class in it.  Let’s suppose I went ultra enviro (well, you know, I could get shot and lose a large portion of my brain) and decided that I must live the absolutely most sustainable lifestyle possible.  No paper, no disposables, minimal electrical, no driving, etc.

Oh, h*ll, let’s suppose a couple of million of us decided to live like that.  (No, I don’t think it could be more.  That type of lifestyle depends on a large and technological society to support it.  It’s impossible to be that environmentally conscious while trying to survive (trust me — most of the damage done to the Earth in terms of local climates etc is done by people who really can’t afford not to do it.  For instance, in Portugal our garbage collection was so unreliable, that we burned everything.  Also you burn forests to create semi-arable fields.  Your inability to replenish those fields means you must keep burning, etc, world without end) and it’s impossible to live even a semi-civilized life unless your exigencies and pieties are supported by the greater society. For one “organic” agriculture is a great piece of inefficiency and the only way to get enough organic produce anywhere is to fly them, you know, on those fossil-fuel powered planes.

Anyway, so let’s supposed you managed to get 2 million people to really do this, instead of, say, pretending to do it and putting pious stickers on their prius.

Would these two million people make a dent on pollution, the use of artificial products, landfills, etc?  Not even.  Two million amid six billion (or whatever they claim the population of the world is now.  As you guys know I have my doubts that their count is anywhere near reality, but even assuming they’re wildly wrong and it’s 5 billion or even 4: what difference would the worshippers of Gaia living the life of austere monks make?)

Of course, I suspect the idea is to convert others: but that not only is psychologically impossible, it’s physically impossible.  If the whole world went that crazy, billions would die, and most people aren’t going to sign up for suicide to cater to the illusions of the American left.

I read that and I thought that the mother would have done better to teach her son traditional Jewish practices, instead of the fashionable beliefs of his time.  For one because environmentalism is essentially anti-human, so of course it made him very unpleasant for other humans to live with. For another because environmentalism is a de-facto impossible to practice, unsustainable religion.

BUT this led me to think about raising our kids to heal the world — or save the world — or whatever.

I’m not a scholar of Jewish law (Duh) and therefore cannot possibly say whether she even translated the idea right, but it seems to me that she interpreted it wrong, regardless of how she translated it.

I said above the whole idea of “I’m going to save the world” is a piece of hubris.  It is also an immature idea.  Sometime around 20 we get the feeling for how big the world really is, and also come to understand other people also have a vote.

This is when we realize that yes it is an obligation for humans (who wish to live as humans) to try to make things better for those around them and those who depend on them.  But most of the time this is not big movements and certainly not “save the world” poses.

Most of the time, except for those very few who ascend to positions of great power where they can make the world immeasurably better or worse, what the rest of us do is at best the little things.

This doesn’t make us insignificant.  Yeah, whether you buy a plastic bottle of water or not is insignificant.  Those are showy gestures.  But whether you study how to make a new type of plastic with fewer effects on water, say, is NOT.  Even if you don’t accomplish it, someone might take your research and run with it.  So, if you’re really worried about the environment, that small gesture, which doesn’t allow you to hound your mother for using a plastic bottle in front of your friend, is the way to go.  Not as much fun (come on, being an ascetic for belief is great fun to a certain type of mind) and doesn’t give you as many chances to berate others, but in the end will have a heck of a lot more effect in the world.

Most of us who care to live ethically and who are adults, try to make our mark in those ways.  Help those who need help, wipe the snot from the un-mothered children thrown into the world, keep the undisciplined toddlers (particularly those older than us) from destroying things and creating what we can that will continue our work into the future.

I don’t know if it makes us more pleasant to live with, though even my parents were NOT looking forward to my moving away, and my kids departures are proving to be a bit of wrench.

But it does, in a little measure, heal the world.  Or at least make it better (if we succeed) for those who come after us.  Even if just a little bit.

Saving the world?  Bah, what kind of a bank would you need for that deposit?  And what interest rate would it pay?

We’re not that big.  And there are a lot more people who get their own say, out there.

We’re not teens posing in superhero flight-mode atop the bed.

We’re adults, and therefore we accept the burden of doing the little things.  And that sometimes we’ll fail.

We also accept the most that we do — the kind word, the helping others achieve their goals, the cleaning up of a small space, the fixing of a small problem — are at best pebbles dropped in a vast ocean.

BUT you know pebbles have ripples and those small gestures, which respect others as human beings, will create other small gestures, and eventually things change.  Not all of a sudden, not in a big way, not with you getting all the credit.

They do however change, and often for the better (unless you think the living conditions of the nineteenth century were better, in which case I wash my hands of you.)

Go forth and toss some pebbles into the ocean today.

No, this is not a post on my marital status, which is fine thankyouverymuch. It’s rather a definition/sense of something going on in the culture, where the current situation comes from, what it means, and an exploration of where it might take us in the future.

If you think that’s too large for a post, yeah, it is.  For months now, I’ve been contemplating doing a series of posts about it, but getting slammed away to other things.

It’s going to happen now, partly because Dorothy asked me a question about a mechanism of political signaling, and how it has lost its power, but is still being followed, slavishly, by those for whom it used to pay off, and I realized it was part of “the great divorce.”

It will touch on science fiction, some of whose movements I’ve observed up close and personal over the last fifteen years, and more distantly probably for 35, but it is not a series per-se about science fiction.  Heck, in its largest arc it touches the upcoming elections and why we are in the basket, on greased skids.

If I can do it justice, the real topic is culture change on a grand scale, which is why I’m naming it after the divorce of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, an event that fed off myriad smaller, contributing factors, and which ended up by changing an entire country and eventually the world.

These might not be serially uploaded, so, because I’m lousy at tagging, I’ll title them all after this The Great Divorce and then the name of the post.

As you know, back in March, doped to the gills after the surgery, I kept thinking of the sentence “There was a war in heaven” to cover what was happening in science fiction.  This is because at one time, long ago, writers to me lived on a sort of Olympus, where they concerned themselves with nothing but writing the best books possible and there was a sort of collegiate fellowship among all of them.

So that illusion was shattered long ago.  And I’d had inklings people of different beliefs (not even necessarily “right”) were not welcome.  But the violence of the “war” took me by surprise.  It shouldn’t have.

It shouldn’t have because viewed in a larger social context it was expected and I’d seen “the mechanism” operate about a hundred times, and that was just when I was paying attention. Only I’d seen it happen with individual magazines, or newspapers, or clubs, never with an entire subgenre.  Nor could the things that I observed the mechanism on before be saved, as they were entirely in the hands of one side of the culture wars.  Science fiction is… different.

I also want to point out that other than the transformative power of the Aragon-Tudor thing, I’m not following the metaphor too closely.  I’m using “there were hidden factors, until it all exploded in this, and the world will never be the same.” I’m not labeling either side Catholic or Protestant, because neither current Catholics nor Protestants are what they were then, and also because I’m not going into religion or it history, because we have people in the comments way more qualified than I am.

I’m just going to note that Henry VIII was once proclaimed “Most Catholic Monarch”.  Everyone knows that he would never have separated from Rome without the wiles of Anne Boleyn.

Few people realize there were other factors (well a lot of people here do because we’re like that) including but not limited to “protestantism in the air” and the almost sure factor that Anne had protestant inklings from the beginning, because it was the cool, hip thing to do in the high circles.  Read the Bible, read books on religion not by Catholic scholars.

But that itself was a part of another, vaster change, including the fact that printing had become cheap enough to make reading a feasible and useful skill for middle class and above girls (I always laugh at historical romances where the girls of course WANT to learn to read in the middle ages, completely disregarding the fact, books were scarce, and there is no career path reading opens up.  Characterization, people.  Unless she’s going into a convent where a certain amount of literacy was encouraged, this was a millstone around her neck.) and it made books a possible means of encouraging dissent in religion and exploring religious ideas.

Then there was the rotten nature of the church as a structure at the time, with the Pope having a) become the arbiter of temporal disputes b) being weak enough to be dependent on the good will of kings.

I mean, Henry VIII was not the first king to demand a divorce.  Or weirder things.  He was, however, the one who asked at a time when the pope couldn’t afford to annoy the king of Spain, Catherine of Aragon’s nephew.

Which brings us to our portion of the culture war, incidental and minuscule thought it is.

We’d never have seen the revolt against the log rolling in the Hugos if it weren’t for indie.  A lot of involved in this are indie or hybrid, and those who aren’t, like Larry and Brad, are people who know they could go hybrid or indie.  Plus the iron band on book distribution got broken by Amazon.  Even if your book isn’t on bookstore shelves, you can make a living.  A good living. So defying the establishment has a price but not the price it used to carry, which was of being blacklisted and never working in the field again.  And by the field I don’t mean just science fiction, since of late agents wanted full disclosure of real name, etc, and said it was necessary to give this to publishers.  In fact, there was a scandal when an agent kept it secret that the new bestseller had a previous career as a midlister under another name.  (I think the book was The Seamstress.  The author name quite evades me, though.)

But the revolution in the last ten years is fully comparable to Gutenberg’s press, at least from the point of view of a writer struggling to make a living.  It’s a different world.  Nothing to do with the past.

And that means the choice of who “makes” it or even makes it big is no longer filtered through an oligopsony in NYC.  Which means we’re getting a greater variety of people in, not just in terms of skin color, orientation and whatever the writer likes to sleep with (which I don’t mind, but can we ease up on the lactation fetishes?  Every time one of those books comes up in a search for a time period I get a little urked.)  And we’re getting a greater variety of books.  For instance, I hear traditional publishing has declared UF dead.  I don’t think this will go as when they declared historical mysteries dead, or space opera dead, because I know tons of indie writers making a good living in UF and to them the pronouncement of the elites means nothing.

Which is what led to the war in our little patch of heaven. And why there’s a great divorce in progress. For many years we read authors who not only held idiotic and contra-reality opinions, but also lectured us about them in the middle of otherwise okay books.  We rolled our eyes and still read them because they were the only game in town.

They’re no longer that.  There’s a choice.  Traditional numbers fall and I know ever more people making a good living from writing.  That’s fine too.

But the reaction from and what is happening in terms of traditional publishing/entertainment/etc is the mechanism I wished to talk about and also will give you insight into what to expect to come at us as things slip more and more out of their control.

You see, for years being a leftist has been a positional good.  What I mean is for years (probably more than a century) it’s been assumed that the caring, etc. man is the one who wants to subjugate humans to the whim of the state.  This is partly because it is typical of humans to trust in the man on the white horse, and the peculiar form of it in the twentieth century was the “government bureaucrat.”  Possibly because the economic and industrial conditions meant the people doing the trusting (the “intellectual class”) were educated much like government bureaucrats.

But for years, certainly before I came here in the 80s, being leftist was the mark of education and breeding.

Because any views that disagreed with the left were considered “stupid” this by definition meant to be considered smart you had to make the right (left) noises.  A lot of upper class families, and certainly most of the intellectual establishment was all but communist by the 40s and 50s. (To believe Heinlein.)

And you’d think that they’d become less leftist since the USSR fell, but they didn’t.  They went around muttering that the good guys lost, for a while, and then set about carrying on their bizarre faith, now transmuted into radical feminism, radical environmentalism, etc, before they’d gotten far away enough from the debacle that was the USSR to come up with the witty idea that real “communism has never been tried.”  (I tell you what byotchs.  We’ll try it right after we try unfettered capitalism.  If the very fettered version of the thing we had in the US lifted the entire world out of historical misery, imagine what the unfettered version would do.)

Their social signaling remained the same.  The more left you were, the “smarter” and “more educated.”  (This is true so far as more educated in these days can mean more indoctrinated.)

So imagine someone in publishing (I saw this several times in magazines and not just in science fiction.)  Imagine a magazine that is known for publishing, say, fluffy romances.  It has an audience for fluffy romances, but as the editorial staff changes, you get a bunch of ivy-leaguers who want-to-make-a-difference.

At first the fluffy romances will just contain a sentence or two, like the one I walled this morning (we had to go out, early, again — yeah, yeah, probably last time for a little while) because of a sentence on page ten.  “War never solved anything.  We should negotiate.”  This in a regency referring to the Napoleonic wars.

Most people would ignore the line, and read on.  That’s fine.  But of course, if leftism proves you’re smart, more leftism is better.  So in search of the edgy and new, the crazy seeps in.

At some point every woman in every story is not only a suffragette but a modern feminist in petticoats.  Every man is either an abuser or a social crusader for “milk from the government.”  And readership drops off.

At which point you observe the following: the magazine (establishment, cabinet, Hollywood) rolls hard left before it dies.

Look, the fact is even leftists practice enlightened self interest, though they claim not to believe in it.

When the magazine (movie studio, talk show, presidential campaign) is about to go under, you have two choices.  You can list right or at least neutral and maybe it will sell again.  But what if it’s too far gone?  Well then the magazine (publisher, newspaper, radio station) is a lost cause, and what you have now left is a sauve-qui-peut.  That means you have to think of the people caught in the debacle, and of their pensions and careers.

If they list even a smidgen right before going under, they’re never going to work in that town/field again.  The crash will be attributed to their politics and their being “stupid.”

If however they go as hard left as possible, they’ve signaled they’re smart and idealistic.  There will be people lining up to hire them or give them venture capital.

I watched this happen in the culture for years.

And what you have to understand is that the culture is not a conscious or sane thing, nor one that can be “disproved” and thus changed.  Mostly it’s a series of things learned by experience, which would be denied by the fully-awake person who is not particularly introspective.

This means that the culture doesn’t change as quickly as the world, particularly in these days.  And the culture can become profoundly mal-adapted.

As it definitely has in publishing and in other forms of entertainment.

What this means is that there are a lot of people in the traditional establishments that relied on  the “roll left before death” maneuver to save themselves who know their establishment/field/endeavor is in severe trouble.

What they don’t know is how to get out of it.  And the excuses are always there and it’s never what is called in Portugal giving the customer “cat instead of rabbit.”  They’ve been trained to think of their positions as a pulpit with a captive audience and of their job as “enlightening” or “raising consciousness” or what have you.

Merely selling a product the customer wants is not even in their frame of mind.

BUT they know they’re in trouble.  So they’re rolling hard left because they know then there will be someone to pick them up, or at least admiration for their “bravery” and “intelligence.”

This later might be true.  The first is going to become more and more iffy.

Which means, straight head you’ll see a lot of hard rolls left and pitiful declarations of ideological purity as they die.  And the unhinged will become even more unhinged.

Fortunately we’re not only not dependent on them for our living, but we don’t need to pay them much mind.

Still, there are things beyond writing this affects, including the economy (as various bankers, financiers, etc — remember it’s become the culture of the upper class, period, not just the creative class — execute the roll-left-and-take-institution-down in expectations of a proffered offer and smooth sailing for them.

They won’t get it.  And eventually the culture will change.

The bad news is there will be hell to pay on the way there as people who believed the pablum they were fed and who can’t figure out what’s wrong with it take down institutions that are vital for survival in a civilized society.

If this were only science fiction, or only in writing, it wouldn’t matter.  But this is everywhere, and we must get past this.  Technology and reality are on our side, but I won’t lie to you — I think there’s no way to avoid the unpleasant portions.  We can shorten them.  We can work towards a better aftermath.  But I don’t think we can avoid it.

Built under, build over, build around.  And hurry, for the night is coming, where no man may work.

The good news is in the end we win they loose.

Be not afraid!

UPDATE: Welcome to Instapundit readers and thank you to Glenn Reynolds for the link!

Okay, I lied, I’m a zombie.  Sorry.  Had appointment at six thirty am that ran MUCH MUCH later than it should and am home only briefly before running out again.

It looks like I won’t be doing much on the blog today, so, carry on!

It was a beautiful September day — no, not that one.  I was 9 years old and very excited about the Olympic games in Munich.  My dad had told me — I have mentioned, somewhere, right that my dad is an idealist, a dreamer, always ready to believe the best of people and institutions — that the Olympic games were a way for the whole world to come together in peace.  For a child of the Cold War, this was an important symbol.

And then the illusion was shattered by Black September.

It was a beautiful September day.  I was 38 (corrected the age.  You know there are ages you attribute things to?  Well, the year I turned 33 is one of those.  Ridiculous of course, since that’s when I had younger son.) and just the week before I’d thought “these are the best years of my life.”  My husband had a very good job, we had a beautiful house in a peaceful mountain town.  The boys were happy in school.  More importantly, we had a writers’ group that had been working together for years, and finally everyone was getting published.  Saturdays saw our house overflowing with our friends and their kids.  The meetings started at 12 and were supposed to be over at 3, but more often than not I ended up putting spaghetti on, and setting the table for the stragglers.

I took the older kid in, then sat outside the younger kid’s classroom, (I think he was in kindergarten, but it might have been preschool.  It started late) reading an old paperback, while he played with his friends.  Then he went in.

Before breakfast, I went upstairs to check for email from agent/editor/friends.  There was nothing, but there was a news tab saying a plane had hit the twin towers.  I thought it was a small plane, an accident.

I went downstairs.  I made coffee.  I got a phone call.  It was my friend Becky Lickiss.  “Turnonthetv,turnonthetv,turnonthetv.”

She knew we didn’t really get TV and didn’t have cable.  But I dutifully turned it on and through the “rain” on the screen saw the unbelievable.

Minutes later my friend Charles showed up.  They’d sent him home because he worked in one of the tallest buildings in town.

I tried to call my husband and he didn’t answer.  I knew he was somewhere in Washington DC, but not where.  (Turned out I was wrong.  He was near DC not in.) The pentagon was not an impossible place for him. I made doughnuts and drank Jim Beam from the bottle while trying to reach him.  Three hours later Dan called.  He was safe.  He’d been in a meeting in a secure room.

A few days later he drove across the country, and our friend Alan Lickiss and I met him in Hays, Kansas so he wouldn’t have to drive the whole way.  (We lost Alan last November. I’ll always remember that drive, his friendship and his loyalty coming to help me at a time of need.)

It was a beautiful September day.

I was in Dallas, staying with my friend Amanda, to teach a class on writing.  I was exhausted and my semi-chronic since the older son was born issues were reaching the point I couldn’t function.  I’d been working hard in the run up to the elections, including over at PJM.  As always when I’m stressed, my autoimmune was going crazy.  I couldn’t sleep and my arms were raw flesh.

Then the news about Benghazi came, and were buried by the media.

It was a video on you tube that caused it, they said.  They lied without shame, they lied to the country.  They steamrolled us. And I wondered why everyone was sleepwalking through this.  If we’d reached the point when attacks could be buried by the press, ignored by the voters.  (For the “gentleman” who said I freaked out when Obama was re-elected.  Yes, I did.  That incident was the harbinger  of what has happened since leading us to the edge of WWIII.  Deal.)

Tomorrow will be a beautiful September day.  In our area it should be mild and clear.

We are in a very bad position — across the board — our politics stink right now, and it’s very hard to figure out how our foreign politics would be worse if we’d been occupied 14 years ago.

But — remember 1972.

This is a new phase in a very old war.  You might not believe in the war, it believes in you.

You will say it’s not fair that we have to fight this now, while fighting the internal cultural battle as well.  But without our culture being where it was, this external enemy wouldn’t have a foothold.

Besides, fair compared to what?

The odds against us are just a chance to fight harder, to win bigger. You could say we are in a target rich environment.

We’ve been losing battles.  We’re nowhere near losing the war.  We’re not even in a permanent downturn.  Look at that link from 1972.  The murderers were released because their supporters  highjacked a plane.  Those who lived through the seventies remember.  I remember.  Flying was risky and the culture was coming unglued.

Believe it or not, we’re saner now — culturally.  It’s our politics that are rotten, because politics are downstream from culture.

That means we have our work cut out for us.

Did you think it would be easy?  Did you think it was just a game?

In the end, we win, they lose.  In the end, civilization will not be allowed to perish. Even if we have to fight against worse odds than a kinder divinity would allow.

Many have gone crazy, but we’re holding the fort.

Okay, because there might be ONE person left in the universe who doesn’t know this, Larry Correia and I are going to collaborate on MHI Guardian, to be delivered next year.  (Yes, yes, we’ll tell you when you can start your demands for e-arcs.)

That’s my big news for the decade.  The rest of it is small stuff.  I’m putting finishing touches on Witch’s Daughter to send to editing.  I’ve been trying to do this at the same time as writing Darkship Revenge, but the voices are too different, so I’ll try to get done with WD this weekend, so I can start on Revenge in earnest and on its own next week.

Other books that need editing include the two episodic novels, which I hope to resume in a couple of weeks.  After WD comes Dragons.  Yes, Bowl of Red will have to wait till the end of that.

As soon as I stop putting in and taking out big chunks, I’ll put WD in the subscriber area, and dragons I intend to write IN the subscriber area so you get to see the very rough draft.  Revenge is of course pre-contracted to Baen.

Yes, uncle Lar, if you wish to be beta on the fantasy too, I shall kick Witch’s Daughter your way.  The rest of my betas know who you are.

Meanwhile I’m the world’s worst friend.  The Free Range Oyster sacrificed his Sabbath-day to make the list of Hun promotion, and I got a wild hare and didn’t post it.  I’m posting it below with most contrite apologies.

And now I’m going to change 1/4 #derpfish’s water, get caffeine and produce that fiction stuff I actually get paid for.

John Van Stry

Lost Souls

Years ago Jarith was exiled from his home for purely political reasons. The leader of the Elven Queen’s armies he was shocked by this betrayal, but loyal to a fault he followed his orders and left.

But now, eight years later, he is being summoned back to deal with a dangerous problem that the Queen believes only he can handle. Still angry over his betrayal, only his desire to see his family and not have to hide his shrean heritage among the humans anymore makes him agree.

While others worry that Jarith is no longer the powerful shrean warrior he once was, Jareth wonders what became of the woman he once loved, and was forced to leave behind.

Alma Boykin

The Sweeper and the Storm

Alexi’s Tale Book 2

Which is worse: Baba Yaga’s anger or Kansas weather? Alexi’s about to find out.

All Sergeant Alexi Zolnerovich wants is to be left alone – by his commanding officer, by his grandmother’s cat, by his ex-girlfriend, and especially by mythical Russian creatures. Instead, a blizzard and Baba Yaga threaten to end his career once and for all.

But Baba Yaga might not be the worst thing hiding in Kansas…

Travis Letteer

Bayed or Treed

Travis Letteer was carried to his first coon tree before he could walk, and had been to numerous bear and cat trees before he was old enough to attend school. A lifelong houndsman, he was born and raised on the Washington Coast, but moved to Idaho when Washington lost it’s bear and cat, hound seasons. He has hunted his dogs in numerous western states, from the coastal rainforests of Washington and Oregon, to the high deserts of Nevada and Wyoming.