These People Don’t Mean You Well

Our recently departed, beloved Havelock-cat was not the brightest bulb in the string. Or if you prefer, while not precisely dumb (he could figure out how to manipulate us a treat) Havey had two enormous areas of mental blindness: One was hygiene. We assumed he lost his mommy early and was never taught to clean himself. As far as he was concerned there was one part of his body he was supposed to groom: his left paw. His being a very fluffy cat this caused incidents of chasing him through the house while he distributed the poo in his tail and backside all over the carpets. His other huge blind spot was more endearing and also more exasperating: Havelock-cat was incapable of imagining that anyone — ANYONE — human or animal could wish him ill. (Which is one of the reasons we made d*mn sure he didn’t go outside, ever.)

The inside of our house should have been a perfectly safe place except that when we acquired him the house already contained D’Artagnan. I’m not going to cast shade on D’Artagnan, who was adorable and also older son’s cat, but his nickname was Slinky McEvil for a reason.

We had — still do, I’m looking at it — a glass fronted bookcase that is antique and was bought a millionth hand or so, for which the key has long been lost. You can open it by grabbing the upper edge and pulling. Which requires either a human hand at chest level or a cat standing on it.

Havey would inexplicably end up on the bottom shelf, looking piteous and trying to get out. I had to hide to find out what was happening. And the sequence was this: D’Artagnan would jump a top the bookcase, pry the front open just enough, then toss “coveted disputed toy” (a realistic mouse) in the bottom shelf. Along came Havey and went in to retrieve the toy. at which point D’Artagnan body-slammed the door closed. Voila, piteous, crying, stuck Havey.

Now for this to work once makes perfect sense. I mean, it was pretty d*mn devious for a cat to do that. But it happened over and over and over again, till I wedged a shim in the door that had to be removed before the door opened (and which cat paw from above couldn’t reach.) It’s like after getting trapped ten times, Havey came along and went “Oh, wow, there’s the toy and no D’Artagnan inside, I’ll just nip in!” “What could go wrong THIS time?”

My mantra when freeing him quickly became “Havey, this cat is not your friend. This cat does NOT mean you well.”

This story came to mind yesterday when I was thinking of DEI, particularly in the arts (though honestly, to an extent, in everything else.”

Because I keep looking at people (and enterprises) caught in it and going “These people are not your friends. These people don’t mean you well.”

And yet– I was talking to my husband and said the only people hard-sure that writers will be replaced by AI soon are people who have no understanding of technology and the fine flowers of trad pub, particularly “literary” who were published on the strength of being called “I’m Foreign and Oppressed” and writing about their oppression. And in their case it’s because their entire work could be replaced to advantage by ChatGTP (Or a small PERL script. Whichever.)

So, I understand the temptation. Look, heaven knows I do. When I was a struggling writer, trying to get in, if I had half a clue how to sell “exotic tale of hardship” without lying, I’d have tried it. Yes that’s different from nowadays when rather inexplicably all of trad pub (with the obvious exception, thanks guys) has gone headlong for “must have exotic name and Marxist-story-of-oppression” to be published at all. But still. When you’re in the phase that you’re flinging manuscript after manuscript into the maw of an establishment that will reject you for the stupidest reason and sometimes no reason at all, and which will often NOT TELL YOU when you’re rejected, after year two or three you’ll take anything that gives you a hand (or foot. Or nostril. Or eyebrow) up.

So what is the problem with that?

The problem is that while most publishable — heck, most bestseller-quality — manuscripts never got out of the slush pile (for the simple reason for about ten years slush piles weren’t even read. But that’s a long story) the reason these people got out of the slush pile had nothing to do with readibility let along reader appeal.

In fact, let me tell you as someone with a non-standard back story, it might relate INVERSELY to finding a wide audience. Why? Well, because story telling is the art of evoking a whole world from a half dozen details. To know which details to pick, you have to be VERY plugged in to the culture. As I tell people, most of the 13 years it took me to break in was acculturating enough. Because storytelling is a form of communication. And communication is harder across cultures.

On top of which if you are randomly selecting people for reasons other than quality QUALITY ALWAYS SUFFERS.

And that applies not just in writing, but in every single front of human endeavor.

Do I mean that EVERYONE advanced by DEI is mediocre? Oh dear Lord, of course not. Just the vast overwhelming majority.

In which they partake with the rest of the human race, because of most human endeavor is a mire of mediocrity, most people (duh) never rise above average (half never make it that far) and even geniuses are pretty hopeless at things that are not their core competency (TRUST ME in this. I raised two of them.)

Which is why if you are not selecting for excellence at “the thing” (Whatever the thing is) what you’ll get is mostly crap. Sometimes by sheer accident you’ll pull up a diamond, but the vast majority will put a hoover to shame, they will suck so badly.

And it doesn’t matter if they were advanced for being able to tan, having a family that worked on a tan for the last ten thousand years, or being female, or any other reason. If there were a DEI program initiated for left-handed blind-in-one-eye, one-legged Samoans, we’d end up with a lot of useless people there too.

The thing is that for the people thus selected, this seems like mana from heaven. It’s “I don’t have to struggle so hard” and it’s “Advancement for me and my family” and…

Look, I’m not saying I’d resist it if someone offered me a million dollar contract for aging people of Portuguese origin who have trouble losing weight (Curse you thyroid, couldn’t you have gone the other way?)

BUT–

For the group, in aggregate, it’s a disaster. Part of the perception that women just aren’t as competent, that even all the propaganda about girl bosses can’t counter is that we’ve been randomly advancing women on the flimsiest excuses for decades. Thus most women found in positions of authority are… not worthy of being there, and screw up at higher than average rates.

The same goes for every single protected category.

On the other hand if you want to make a group hyper-competent? Discriminate AGAINST them. (No, I’m not recommending this. I think everyone should get a fair shake, but historically this works.) Why? Because the people who make it to the top are by definition those with the ability to work harder, to work smarter and to just be more ambitious and focused than anyone else.

We’ve been applying this refining process to Jews for generations, and now idiots think Jews run the world, because they’ve run into enough examples of hyper competence. Also, it’s what’s at the back of weird ideas of female or black supremacy. Because back when they were discriminated against those categories threw some spectacular examples of genius and drive. I suspect my sons’ generation is going to see, in ten to twenty years a lot of examples of spectacularly hyper achieving white males. Because they’ve been discriminated against since kindergarten and most are lost boys, which means the VISIBLE and powerful ones will have had to swim through shit to get there.

I’m not advocating for discrimination. I’m advocating the reverse of discrimination. Treat every person as an equal competitor and concentrate on his/her/it/hamster’s ability to DO THE THING.

You’ll get the occasional dim bulb that slips in. (Look, every boss has a nephew or a son in law, okay?) but by and large, you’ll be picking the best people for the job if you pick for competence and ignore irrelevant characteristics.

The alternative is to destroy how everything works (Every incompetent person in a position of power will have a knock-down effect that affects hundreds, if not thousands) and to create actual hard-set racism and sexism in people who are affected by this.

Because in the end, why would people advance you for no reason? To be helpful and kind to you?

Well, no. Since these are politicians it’s most to own your group’s vote forever. And to make you more and more dependent on them.

Falling for it once is one thing. But it’s been decades. We know the knock-on effects of these policies.

Like Havelock in the glass case, it’s time to consider: These people are not your friends. These people don’t mean you well.