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Eating Your Own
Feb. 27th, 2014 10:21 amTamara Keel, gun blogger and self-described geek, made a cogent remark about SF, to wit: All Klingons are honor-loving warriors. All dwarves are beer-swilling Lawful Good blacksmiths with, for some reason, bad fake Scottish accents. All elves are ethereal granola-munching bunny-hugging archers. But humans are people and therefore can be good or evil, horticulturalists or mechanical engineers, priests or physicists, saints or monsters.
Now, some SF tries to show aliens as not-monocultural (mine, for one) and others (memorably Babylon Five) very explicitly took a dig at aliens because they were monocultural, but Tam's general point is valid. Much of SF falls victim to the Planet of Hats trope. (Warning! TvTropes link = massive time-suck!)
At any rate, Tam's point should have been as controversial as "water is wet." But today comes news that a number of the "being a bigot is FREEDOM!!11!!" crowd has taken offence. Leading the charge is the inimitable Sarah Hoyt. I liked Hoyt's Darkship series, but I really think she needs to step away from the keyboard a bit.
Having said that, I think this latest volley in the ongoing war ties back to a bigger problem - the apparent inability of (some) conservatives to face facts. I note the "some" in that link because, frankly, Tam would qualify as "conservative" to most people. But since she's able to face a fact, that causes some people to want to kick her out of the club.
Now, some SF tries to show aliens as not-monocultural (mine, for one) and others (memorably Babylon Five) very explicitly took a dig at aliens because they were monocultural, but Tam's general point is valid. Much of SF falls victim to the Planet of Hats trope. (Warning! TvTropes link = massive time-suck!)
At any rate, Tam's point should have been as controversial as "water is wet." But today comes news that a number of the "being a bigot is FREEDOM!!11!!" crowd has taken offence. Leading the charge is the inimitable Sarah Hoyt. I liked Hoyt's Darkship series, but I really think she needs to step away from the keyboard a bit.
Having said that, I think this latest volley in the ongoing war ties back to a bigger problem - the apparent inability of (some) conservatives to face facts. I note the "some" in that link because, frankly, Tam would qualify as "conservative" to most people. But since she's able to face a fact, that causes some people to want to kick her out of the club.
