Sometimes there really is a wolf.
I heard there was something of a kerfuffle about Lovecraft. The World Fantasy Award is a bust of Lovecraft… something I considered mildly appropriate to give the winner, seeing as my one brush with the award was being there when it was given to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (No. I didn’t like it, and not fond of Lovecraft either). Lovecraft was a horror writer, and, for the record, Wikipedia describes him as moderately socialist, and apparently an ardent New Deal Democrat, and an atheist. In other words, perfectly at home in modern New York publishing tastes.
He was was also a bigot and an out-and-out racist, which is something anyone reading his stories could hardly fail to pick up. That of course was fairly typical of the mores of the time, and it’s unlikely that the mores of current writers (myself included) are going to be regarded as anything but barbaric in a hundred years time. And, after all, bigotry and bias are intrinsic to almost all of the literary prizes, with some form of discrimination (either closet or overt) being quite normal and accepted. So Lovecraft seemed quite a good symbol for this award, besides the fact that, yes, undeniably, he had a huge effect, particularly on Horror, but also Fantasy.
By overt discrimination I mean that which is openly declared. ‘For Australian Writers only’, ‘For Women writers only’, ‘For People of Color only’ for ‘Gay-centric themes only’ etc. You could argue (and I have) that these are fair enough, if they exist for a reason which is justifiable. Of course, being me, I would like to see both the justification and the sunset terms stated openly, and um, feel that accepting one of these awards (or the existence thereof as justifiable) means accepting that others could have discriminatory terms that exclude you (can you imagine the reaction to a ‘white male hetrosexual Americans’ only prize?). Still, at least this is open and public, and no-one is pretending that this is the cream of all the crop.
The closet lot, I find fairly indefensible. And yes, I’ve been a part of the group that would be considered the beneficiaries of some of this. Oddly, no, I don’t think that makes it right. Look, if an award is to be ‘fair’ and really reflect the best of that genre, in the long term the laws of probability state that the winners should broadly reflect the demographics of the population. Being a bigot didn’t stop Lovecraft writing stories that many people deeply admired. Neither did John Norman’s views on women. The fact that I don’t like either, and neither reflect my personal ethos or politics, doesn’t change that. Bigots and chauvinists (male and female) are a normal part of any society’s demographic, and their writing can still be exceptional or popular or both. You could, for example, see something very obviously wrong the list of people winning the World Fantasy Award. In the 20 years from its inception – only two women won. Thereafter (from 1997) the ratio moved to a far more plausible and near equal one. An outcome, no doubt, that would be very popular in feminist quarters, and what Americans call ‘Liberal’ quarters, and with me too. I’m all for more representative prize winners. But the other, less noticed but just as unrepresentative flaws… I doubt are going to be as well received. Demographics say that if, for example, China Miéville on the far left is going to get one… there is a better than reasonable chance of a Neo-Nazi winner soon, as much as I detest them. Or if James Morrow’s anti-theist novels could win TWICE (as his religious views must be a tiny fraction of the theist demographic part of the population) we should expect about 10 Christian-themed winners, and roughly demographic representation of the other religious denominations. Hmm. Not going to happen is it? The trouble with ‘non-discrimination’ is that applies even to people you don’t like. Or is it ‘All animals are equal, except for those who are more equal?’
So when I read of a fuss about Lovecraft’s racist poem and his bust being frowned on as a symbol of the award… I was, shall we say, tepid about it. If I could see–from the bit of his work I’ve read, that he was a racist and bigot against anything not Anglo-Saxon, then it should come as no surprise to the organizers and recipients of the prize over the last near 40 years. It put me in mind of claims of sexual harassment by a few folk I’ve met… where I wondered (possibly wrongly, fair enough. There are some jerks out there) if this was street cred, and the victim was possibly the accused, and definitely the real victim was often the credibility of the genuinely harassed — who need support. We’ve engineered ourselves a social system where victimhood has value. There are always some people prepared to magnify that status for their own benefit, which is good for their careers, and may raise awareness of the issue… but can also be like crying wolf.
But, I thought, to condemn without reading is the act of those who piss me off as bigots. And MAYBE there really is a wolf. I don’t know the person offended by this, but they seemed quite reasonable. And you don’t defeat bigotry and discrimination by being one yourself. So I went and read the offending poem:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Creation_of_Niggers
And I have to agree, that IS disgusting.
A wolf indeed.
Worth getting a lot more upset about, than I was by other stuff I’d read.
There is approximately the same chance of my falling pregnant of my winning this award (not something that ever worried me. Sadly awards as guides to readers – their only value to me – has been eroded by nepotism, agendas, political correctness etc.) but on the vastly unlikely event of it happening, I’ll pass on the bust.
Mad Genius Club 
21 responses to “Don’t bring me the head of HP Lovecraft”
I’d take claims of “bigotry” given out by Liberals more seriously if Liberals didn’t show “bigotry” of their own.
Paul, try to think of it in Akido terms. To paraphrase: Use your enemy’s strength against them, do not simply try to do what they do, back at them.
I think a lot of the acceptance of “categories of competitors” comes from sports.
Any sport that children compete in, say track, will have age and gender categories. I’m most familiar with the horse show scene–or the way it was thirty years ago. Classes split in “5 and under” “Under 12” “under 18” “adult” and “open.” Usually no gender specific classes, except at a few that had side-saddle classes where one expected the riders to all be female. Some of the largest shows had gendered classes, mostly to toss out as many trophies and ribbons as possible, so people would like to come to their shows. And now that I think about it, they could be quite “racist” as well. Some shows or classes were only open to documented members of a specific breed of horse. The riders could, and did, come in all colors.
But getting back to the subject . . . if it’s OK for five year olds to not have to compete against fifteen years olds in in the 100 meter sprint, surely it’s fair to not make women compete with men in writing.
If you don’t mind inferring that women are lesser beings and not capable of writing to adult, err, male, standards.
Or maybe they’re just throwing out all the awards and trophies they can, in the hope that everyone will want to come to their big show/play the game their way/validate their opinions.
I think there is a time and place for discrimination – as in 5 year olds not not having to compete against 15 year olds. But as I said, sunset clauses would stop the same person winning the 5 year old competition for the next thirty years;-/
Can I propose one minor change? The demographics of the winners should eventually mirror the demographics of the competitors…. not necessarily the population at large.
Also, determining the source demographics for comparison can be… tricky. For example, do we use percentage of say, women writers? Women writers making a living? If we don’t restrict the genre, then can we use the percentage of women who write romance to complain about less women winning SF awards?
In the end, I like your overall answer re which is allright. Overt selectivity – age groups and gender for athletics which map generally to different abilities, “GLTGB themes”, “zombie fiction”, “women authors” “authors of color” (as long as “white authors” and “male authors” are allowed…) is fine.
Covert – Stamping out, or even declaring it exists based on statistics based on discrepancies can be tricky, and smacks of totalitarianism. How do we know we’ve handicapped all the factors properly?
Your books, Andre Norton, and the late McCaffery’s all hold high places of honor on my shelves. Nevertheless, most of the authors I own – especially in history and technical books – are by men. The thing is, I don’t care who wrote it, I just care if I like it. I don’t care if my collection is representative of the “demographics” of aspiring and published authors and historians. I want to be entertained, enchanted, and/or informed.
Nope, if the women entering the contest are “low end of writers. male or female”, then they shouldn’t get an award.
I’ve read plenty of women who deserve awards.
IMO, their reputation who suffer if people began to think they got awards just because they were women.
IE there weren’t enough women good enough for the awards so the award givers picked the best of the “not quite good enough for awards”.
Darius – the trouble with ‘competitors’ is that it effectively states the status quo — to exclude certain viewpoints before they even start –is OK. The fact that they don’t win at least partly points to fact that they’re not in the competition at all, and that should worry us. I’m no fan of John Norman or his views, but publishing shut him out, despite a large fan base. If you believe in free speech, it means that people you think are complete butt-heads are also free to speak.
And you’re quite right, choosing for representative demographic (which is totalitarian) is the road to shitty collections (or books getting awards). However, what I said was: ‘in the long term the laws of probability state that the winners should broadly reflect the demographics of the population.’ What I mean is: If your prize is awarded on merit, and anyone can enter, in the _long term_ it is probable that demographics and prize winners will reflect each other. In other words, if it does the competition is fair. If it doesn’t, we ought to start asking why? The answer, I suspect, lies both in entrant selection and in judging.
There is approximately the same chance of my falling pregnant of my winning this award (not something that ever worried me. Sadly awards as guides to readers – their only value to me – has been eroded by nepotism, agendas, political correctness etc.) but on the vastly unlikely event of it happening, I’ll pass on the bust.
Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to take the bust, and spray paint it black?
First of all, thanks for your reply. I may not of made clear that outside of thinking the demographics of winners should match the demographics of those wanting to play, rather than the demographics of the population at large, that you are spot on.
I guess what I meant by changing the “selection of demographics” to “the competitors” was as follows:
Some fields have more women in them than men (teaching, nursing), some quite the opposite. Some of this may be societal, and some of it may be temperament. Some genres have more women writers in them, and I submit that while some of it may still be (and in SF’s past, definitely has been the case) “girls have cooties” – that some of it is temperament as well. Ditto with professions. Some, like firefighting suits body types that are more prevalent among men – and so the true demographic percentages of “capable people interested in the job” is NOT the same as “the percentage of men vs. women”. Also in the computer sciences. I’ve known stunningly competent women programmers. Yet, they are rare, and if I get involved in an even semi-technical discussion at a party, it is almost always men. This despite decades of encouragement to get women into the sciences.
Perhaps because we geeky types are marginal outliers already, and perhaps Larry Summers had a point about flatter, wider bell curves for men?
*shrug* All I know for certain is that most of us guys who are sysadmins and coders would LOVE to have more women who understood our language, there has been decades of effort to get more women into the field, and they are still rare… Even with more women than men going to college in the states! (Most go into business, english, etc…)
So this leads me back to Sci-Fi – I’d expect the percentage of women in the sic-fi award winning community (as long as Sci Fi deals in technology, science, adventures, and change rather than dressed up romance novels) on a level playing field, to eventually mirror the percentage of women who are interested in writing Sci-Fi… , not the population of women at large.
That said, barring cultural differences inherited from parents in second-generation-plus ethnic communities and educational availability factors, I’d expect a fairly equal number of SF authors to eventually be black, white, hispanic, jewish, etc. in proportion to their demographic percentages overall – or close enough as it doesn’t matter, because I expect that SF is universal enough, and the desire to write equally so, that race is a null factor, as it should be for most things (outside of, say, genetic propensities to certain diseases like sickle-cell, or the resistance to malaria that that genetic trait in a population confers). I also suspect that the percentage of LGBT writers will eventually match the percentage that bother to play as well, AND likely in the general population. If anything, they may end up with MORE representation in proportion. Again, self-selected communities.
Also look at pro or college level basketball or football… I’d like to see numbers how the demographic makeup of a typical team compares to the demographics of their recruiting pool, and to the population of the country or their regions. I suspect they’re wildly different for football and basketball than for baseball. If it varies, that would be another example of the top people in a field being proportional to the demographics of those willing to play, not those of the population at large.
wups – I meant to reply to Dave, not you, Ori. Apologies.
I agree. To pick an extreme example, the IQ distribution of Nobel prize winners in sciences (not necessarily peace and literature – those are more subjective) is very different from the IQ distribution of the population. That does not mean that the Nobel prize committee is prejudiced.
I expect most Romance prize winners are women.
Darius: I agree that ‘willing to participate’ is a potentially skewing factor. I have a son who just finished his honours in Physics and Computer Science – he’s a matlab geek, and it’s not that physics or programming don’t welcome and encourage _any_ female participation — the opposite is true. It’s still not popular. (I’ve noticed the howls of outrage about this disparity have gone vewy vewy quiet, as the reality of the overall ratio, and fact that really there are no barriers has sunk in.) I’d say you have some grounds to claim some disparity could exist particularly in sf, and I’d also cite the age of the winners, and the change in participation as factors to consider. However there is is still overwhelming evidence I think of systematic exclusion, particularly in fantasy, particularly of the less obvious things than race or gender. I don’t, by the way, agree that romance is natural female-only arena. I think there is good evidence that males are romantic (we’re bigger and stronger on average than women – which means force is possible. The species has evolved toward wooing rather than force — which means men (in general) have to feel this is good idea.) Romance’s own figures show 20% of their readership is male, and that’s with clear bias toward general female leads/POV and interests. Stories with strong romantic elements — many of Military sf novels for example of Bujold and Weber, have no trouble attracting both genders.
I agree. It isn’t a matter of men not being romantic (you can’t be the protector if you’re too rational), but the current definition of the field.
“However there is is still overwhelming evidence I think of systematic exclusion, particularly in fantasy, particularly of the less obvious things than race or gender”
Hmmm… nahh, an inclusive genre like SF&F would never, I repeat, never be subject to cliques and groupthink.
[/sarcasm]
FWIW – I think you’re right, but better evidence lies not in the final statistics but watching the reactions of the gatekeepers to various ideas.
Males are WAY more romantic than women. WAY. Seriously.
He was, generally speaking, a fairly nasty piece of work, Ori. I assumed, as they’ve all happily ignored this for years, that this was the equivalent of a Nazi-camp-follower upping their status by finding another excuse to badmouth Jews. I was wrong, and that is a particularly objectionable piece of poetry even for 1912.
I’m not chucking my copies of his stories, but if the maxim “write what scares you” holds true, the man was a piece of work based on that alone.
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You know I agree with you. There is another side to this, though. The ones crying “no one writes this” are the ones crying the loudest “you can’t write this.” My own proclivity for a type of character they consider “victim” — mine never are, because NONE of my characters are. They are sometimes vicitimized, but they’re NOT victims — has caused them to yell I’m “stealing victimhood”. I hope Indie allows us to ignore these cry babies.
Athena style victimhood – hurt me once, shame on you. Hurt me twice, you must be a zombie or something.
YES!