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Oppression and Moving On
May. 28th, 2008 02:03 pmIn Monday's post I promised to talk about L. Timmel Duchamp's Guest of Honor speech and something from Tobias Buckell's forthcoming book Sly Mongoose
. The common theme is oppression and when to move on.
Let me back up a bit. Wiscon is a serious convention. They are very interested in defining "what SF is" and using literary tools to study it. So, the Guests of Honor get an hour each for a speech.
Duchamp spoke, and told the story of when she went off to college, the first in her family of small-town farmers. She tried to get admitted as a composition student, but that was simply not open to females. She back-doored her way in, and got a composition of hers played at a recital. She then expected that mark of approval to get her formally into the program.
Her male professor told her that the only reason the (male) performers played the piece was that they wanted to sleep with her. He then asked her out for a beer, and admitted that he'd like to sleep with her too. Coming from a small town, she took him at his word, and never composed music again.
She will be telling this story for the rest of her life. The incident happened in 1970, when I was four years old. My point is not that things haven't changed (they have - can we say "sexual harassment?") but that, for the rest of her life, she will remember that day, and filter her experiences through it.
The other side of this coin is from Buckell's latest book, Sly Mongoose. In the book, aliens enslaved humans, humans were "freed" and later rebelled. Years later, a human encounters an alien and says words to the effect of "you enslaved my people, you owe me."
The alien reply is to the effect of, "I wasn't born then, and when your ancestors rebelled they killed some of my people. I don't owe you squat."
I'm sure any resemblance of the above to the debate about reparations or apologies for slavery is purely unintentional. (Well, maybe not. I actually didn't ask the author.) But, especially taken in the context of the rest of the book, the point is clear. At some point, everybody just has to move on from the past.
Here's the trick. Part of moving on from the past is accepting and understanding the pain of the past, especially the pain of those who actually lived it. It's a necessary thing whether you're writing a book or running for President.
. The common theme is oppression and when to move on.Let me back up a bit. Wiscon is a serious convention. They are very interested in defining "what SF is" and using literary tools to study it. So, the Guests of Honor get an hour each for a speech.
Duchamp spoke, and told the story of when she went off to college, the first in her family of small-town farmers. She tried to get admitted as a composition student, but that was simply not open to females. She back-doored her way in, and got a composition of hers played at a recital. She then expected that mark of approval to get her formally into the program.
Her male professor told her that the only reason the (male) performers played the piece was that they wanted to sleep with her. He then asked her out for a beer, and admitted that he'd like to sleep with her too. Coming from a small town, she took him at his word, and never composed music again.
She will be telling this story for the rest of her life. The incident happened in 1970, when I was four years old. My point is not that things haven't changed (they have - can we say "sexual harassment?") but that, for the rest of her life, she will remember that day, and filter her experiences through it.
The other side of this coin is from Buckell's latest book, Sly Mongoose. In the book, aliens enslaved humans, humans were "freed" and later rebelled. Years later, a human encounters an alien and says words to the effect of "you enslaved my people, you owe me."
The alien reply is to the effect of, "I wasn't born then, and when your ancestors rebelled they killed some of my people. I don't owe you squat."
I'm sure any resemblance of the above to the debate about reparations or apologies for slavery is purely unintentional. (Well, maybe not. I actually didn't ask the author.) But, especially taken in the context of the rest of the book, the point is clear. At some point, everybody just has to move on from the past.
Here's the trick. Part of moving on from the past is accepting and understanding the pain of the past, especially the pain of those who actually lived it. It's a necessary thing whether you're writing a book or running for President.
