Cultures are something that must be respected… without them, no yoghurt, no sourdough. Agriculture definitely needs respect too, because most of us would starve without it. Human ‘cultures’… well, interesting. It’s not like you put a human in and get the same result out, like yoghurt. They can’t even be relied on to always produce the same thing twice, not even in the supposedly ‘static’ and ‘ancient’ ones. The biggest problem is pinning the damn things down, let alone understanding them well enough to ‘respect’ them.
Let’s face some realities that we have to deal with as writers: cultures are changing, moving and largely amorphous targets. What was a norm within a culture 50 years ago, isn’t now. Hell, in some fast-moving bits, what was an avant-garde norm last week is a social solecism tomorrow. I’ve just read an advisory in a Terry Pratchett book warning me that some of the Discworld books may contain references that modern audiences might find offensive, for crying in a bucket… If you were deeply worried about offending xyz group and spent your cash on a ‘sensitivity reader’ I strongly recommend asking for a warranty on the work for as many years as you expect to be in print. You can be pretty sure of getting your money back, methinks.
That’s without the fact that one culture’s ‘respect’ is another’s derision — even within supposedly the same ‘culture’. Look, I come from an outlier culture, which I thought was unique, but I have since come across similar aspects in several American cultures (which the more I get to know them are very distinct across many variants). ‘Why Bless your heart’ and the sort of abuse two soldiers – best of friends – might greet each other with would fit right in. Back where I came from the supposed ‘respect’ so beloved of the perpetually affronted, is reserved for those perceived as needing looking after. The weak, the far less mentally able, and first acquaintances (briefly, unless you decide they fit into the categories before) are treated like that. Equals, or even betters, are – to their faces, not. Mockery and abuse, freely exchanged, is the sign by which two peers acknowledge that status, and display respect, and indeed deep affection for each other. Behind their backs is it is a different story, and God help you, if, as a third party you slight the absent one in any way. It has taken me a long time to learn that I can say things that I would say to others about people I admire, to their faces, in other cultures. You just DON’T do that where I come from. It would be telling them you actually think they’re… well, poor weak little people you were trying to be nice to.
That said: human cultures are plastic and can be very accommodating – when they choose to be, and what you think is so unique it will be incomprehensible to others turns out to be surprisingly similar in cultures so vastly different. When I wrote JOY COMETH WITH THE MOURNING, I was surprised to at the sheer number of people from small country towns in so many cultures comment how this resonated with their experiences. When I wrote CHANGELING’S ISLAND and CLOUD-CASTLES… honestly, I wrote them because I wanted to, and because they reflected people and communities and cultures I knew. I expected them to be, well, not really anyone outside that society’s cup of tea. I was wrong. Again. What can I say: it is my métier, and I feel I should stick to what I am good at.
Which is kind of my point today. Culture is a currently fashionable stick for the perpetually offended to beat people with. It leaves me feeling like they’re so condescending and superior about their own culture (which is a narrow little subset of US culture – slavishly imitated in several other countries, including my own). Why, bless their hearts. You’re not likely to get it right, and even if you do, it will be ‘wrong’ soon enough. So just write it. Be like me. Trust me, it can be fun, if hair-raising (that is why I am so hairy. Would I lie to you?). Be wrong.
Mad Genius Club 
38 responses to “Cultures”
I still remember being told I was depicting the laws and customs of a fictious kingdom wrong.
Well, shame on you! 🙂
I got a warning from Wikipedia over my description of the fictional villain Pavel Young.
Larry Correia got some sort of online punishment for posting bad stuff about Pinelandia — a country HE MADE UP to be the historical enemy of Krasnovia, another fictional country.
Larry has a genius for understanding how these creatures work.
The Krasnovia/Pinelandia “scandal” is another big win, ripping the sheets off the censorship machine again.
*grins* Krasnovia is actually created to be the bad guy! It used to invade the People’s Republic of Pineland in Robin Sage as the graduation exercise for the Green Berets, but since the fall of the Soviet Union, Pineland has been conquered annually by the United Provinces of Atlantica instead, IIRC.
Not that I have a leg to stand on, since I’ve taken Centralia and they are, indeed, my bad guys…
I was guilty of that, but mainly because it was a.leftist’s fictional kingdom that made no sense. It was the typical “Elves are bigoted and elitist” trope, but the elves were also patriarchal and pushed the female elves around. Even though there was no reason for these elves to be patriarchal: the leftist writer carefully established that there was no difference in male and female elf magic strength, and female elves can do their breeding early and have thousands of years of gathering power, so there’s no “biological” reason for elvish patriarchy.
But to the leftist writer, A bigoted society MUST be patriarchal.
The leftist couldn’t comprehend that females could take part in evil, or that there might be a biological basis for tradition, rather than malicious men keeping women down.
There’s a world of difference between “this would not work” and “this is incorrect.”
There is only one rule in writing fantasy fiction: 1) internal consistency.
Eh, sometimes a work is consistent but insane. Socialist Realism pops to mind.
And not fun. You can get away with insanity and even inconsistency if it’s fun.
Right? I’ve been told some things about my obviously fantasy robot-girlfriend book. People seem reluctant to accept “I made them up, so -I- get to say how they work” as a defense.
Years ago, I read a comment by Saint Hillary Clinton about “human rights” in Africa (especially concerning treatment of women).
It was laughable/sad to hear her talking about “respecting their culture” while also talking about “getting men to stop beating up on women”. 😈
Watching Leftists talking out of their nether regions about Africa has been a life-long entertainment.
I’ve never been there and I don’t know all that much about the place, but I can certainly laugh out loud at ridiculous statements like that.
This is like “respect India’s culture!” but then they get upset when you ask about suttee. Or ask inconvenient questions about -which- culture you should respect, because there are three of them vying for supremacy.
Every time I get people talking about how wonderful Africa and African culture is, I throw at them “Let Africa Sink” and a few other articles from people that have gone over and discovered that TIA (This Is Africa).
Short version-Africa is a s(YAY!)t-hole, and the only mechanisms that will keep it from being a s(YAY!)t-hole are ones that you can’t really use in these civilized days.
This reminds me of something I read years ago where a black writer mentioned talking to a black reporter who’d visited Africa in the 70’s to see how post-colonial societies were getting on. He’d done so to get research to write about the Bold New Africa. When they met again a year later the reporter said that after taking a year to see what Africa was really like, he was still going to write his book, but now he had a new title in mind for it. ‘Baboons With Guns’. I’m guessing he wasn’t impressed.
If you were deeply worried about offending xyz group and spent your cash on a ‘sensitivity reader’ I strongly recommend asking for a warranty on the work for as many years as you expect to be in print. You can be pretty sure of getting your money back, methinks.
That is an excellent idea, and might actually kill the whole stupid “sensitivity reader” fraud. “I promise you won’t get dragged on the internet, or your money back!”
Heck, even if you limited the warranty to the sensitivity reader himself not dragging you on the internet, and defending you if you do get dragged, I’m pretty sure you’ll get a 100% refund rate. In the cases I’ve seen, the sensitivity readers are always one of the first to toss their clients under the bus.
You are no doubt aware that sub-sub-unit of Random Penguin has re-released “The Big Sleep” by Raymond Chandler with a trigger warning.
However in -good- news I note that companies all over the USA (and probably Canada) are shedding their social justice departments during this “economic retrenchment” aka recession. Dead weight gets pushed into the sea in a storm.
Random Penguin just fired a whole flock of ancient boomers from their editorial staff. Sarah thinks that’s because they want to hire more Wokies, which is probably true, but I think they want to hire replacements at minimum wage or below. They’ll be Woke but work for free.
This is not the type of thing one sees in well established, profitable companies. Yay.
Then there’s this: https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2023/07/29/nolte-6-reasons-hollywoods-in-real-trouble-this-time/
Worth the trouble to read it because it lays out the economic foundation of the current fiasco in American media generally.
TL/DR:
The death of Cable TV means the death of money for meritless crap content.
Streaming services are merit based. Aka people don’t watch crap.
Cable made Hollywood $huge$ money for creating meritless crap.
Wokeness made the crap worse. So much worse.
TV used to be free, and with the Internet the free is coming back. Youtube, for example, it 100% free.
The writers and actors on strike show that the money-for-crap model is dead.
My experience is that I mostly watch anime on Crunchyroll streaming and various videos on Youtube. Some content creators I actively look for every week the way we used to watch favorite TV shows. I occasionally watch something on Netflix, usually it is Korean or Japanese, seldom European, almost never Hollywood. I hardly ever watch Prime because it is generally boring garbage.
Disney+ I tried and cancelled, because it was actively objectionable. Seriously so.
From all of the above I conclude that -my- culture is just fine, thank yew, and that it has survived the Woke assault just the same as it has survived every other assault and affront over the years. Presently the cabal of appalling idiots who thought they were winning will be bankrupt, and there might even be something worth watching on TV that was made in North America. Eventually.
Books will likewise make a comeback, probably only after the last of the Big Four go under.
Just my opinion, of course.
I will disagree that streaming winning over cable will represent a decline in crap.
In basic cable, ultimately the question was, “Does this show attract enough eyeballs that it’s worth it for the advertisers to buy commercials on it, and do the advertisers in turn give us enough money to make it worth continuing to make the show?” And, yeah, I’m sure those numbers got fudged, but it was in some sense an objective measure.
In streaming, the question is, “How many marginal subscribers does this show bring in? Are there enough people who subscribe now, who wouldn’t if this show was canceled, to justify it?” And that’s a lot harder to answer. Sure, maybe only 10,000 people watch, but if those 10,000 people are people who would cancel if the show weren’t there, maybe it’s worth it to keep that show and stop production on one that’s got 100 times the viewership.
Certainly I’m not convinced that the medium that’s given us She-Hulk, Rings of Power, and the Wheel of Time TV series will represent a quantum leap in quality.
In the article it mentions a couple of things about streaming, one being that all major streamers but Netflix and Amazon are losing -billions- because no one is watching their crap.
Another thing mentioned is that the true viewing numbers are closely guarded secrets by streamers, because they don’t want anyone to know how bad it is. If the stock market knew their numbers, their stock would tank. That’s what he said.
Meaning, to me anyway, that the streaming companies are not going to save Hollywood. Reason being, as explained in the article, that streaming gains money based on MERIT, just like television used to before cable and 187 channels of nothing to watch. As you say, there is zero merit in She Hulk, the Rings of Power, the Wheel of Time and a bunch more. Watching Disney launch bomb after bomb the last couple of years has taught them nothing.
I think they will go broke. Then, after the last dinosaur is finally dead, tiny mammals trained up on anime and Youtube will take over. And -then- there might be something to watch.
Heh. Precisely. This is why I don’t read elves unless they come with hearty recommendations. 🙂
I was at a meeting today for a different institution (I’m a third-party contractor, not employee, thanks be to [DEITY]) and discovered that you are now asked (or required, if employee) to state your pronouns. In ten years, if that long, pronoun-stating will be something kids point at and laugh, or take as a sign of mental illness, or of being a political hard-liner.
I would argue that being required to state your pronouns is point-and-laugh territory -now-.
However the opportunity for some comedy with the pronoun boxes might be worth it.
Did you see any “attack helicopter” or “tyranosaurus” name tags? (This is what makes me unemployable in Normie Space, I am the geezer who will do that at a meeting.)
I know that when people actually find my books, they’re going to complain about…
*The cast is a part of a nice, polite and organized non-sororal polygamous relationship that is legal and has clear rules.
*Women are just as violent as men. They just use social violence, not physical violence.
*Cultures have a reason for why they do things. When times change…the culture has to change.
It’ll be an interesting conversation.
Talking culture, I was recently looking at both some older anthropomorphic works (as in last century) and more modern ones like Zootopia and Beastars and I did wonder how a more serious work would handle having two or more races living together where one literally has to eat the others to survive? The older works I mentioned either had non-sentient prey animals or they simply didn’t touch the issue.
And then there was Brand New Animal where humans are shown as being so very racist towards the Beastmen, while making it obvious that said Beastmen are physically far superior to humans and quite capable of ripping you limb from limb in a fit of temper. And said fits are very common given that Beastman ‘culture’ boils down to ‘Law of the Jungle’. It’s the same problem I had with the anti-mutie sentiment in Marvel’s X-men. Isn’t it wise to be wary and cautious around people who can kill normal humans with no effort, and often do?
And then you get into issues about how it would change a culture if it had two sets of people who simply could not interbreed. It would change things enormously.
I was wondering also how far ideas of racial egalitarianism could go when you have races around that quite obviously are superior to humans and other races.
And the breeding thing can vary widely from setting to setting. The usual rules of heredity and biology often seem to be out to lunch in these stories. At least the more modern ones.
In Brand New Animal apparently humans can interbreed with the Beastmen, who can transform to look like humans. In fact much of the show’s plot revolves around a ‘pure blood’ Beastman trying to exterminate the ‘mongrels’ by driving them into a killing frenzy aimed at each other. And then you have Beastars where the main character is part-wolf and part-Komodo dragon!
The thing about wise and cautious is that the first thing you need to do to be wise and cautious is to avoid provoking them in ways you would not provoke a person without powers.
Unfortunately in BNA, just about any frustration can set them off. Being insulted, having to deal with an unhelpful bureaucrat, standing in line for too long, walking into their line of sight when they’re already in a bad mood…
That would indeed be a problem. Calling, bluntly, for separate living regions.
Now, in X-men, lethality is much less common. Depending on the writer, it’s often provoked, too.
Yes. However, in BNA, when they live with each other the Beastfolk got even more violent and aggressive. The main difference being it was happening around people who could usually take it.
It was suggested in the series that the best arrangement was for the Beastfolk to live with humans in small groups, as then they could control themselves.
And the X-men. I just got burned out on them decades ago. Nothing ever changed for the better, or if it did it didn’t last. Plus the increasing tendency of the heroes to behave as though human laws didn’t apply to them, to the point of defending mutant serial killers from being punished, while complaining that ‘Why aren’t we treated like everyone else?’ It drove me up the wall.
The problem with unlimited series is that there are only so many variations you can ring on an unchanging world, and the thing about change is that arcs, unlike straight lines, are finite in size.
A former favorite author of mine shows the same tendency in book form: $MAGIC RACE is more powerful than humans but Oppressed because humans are *just awful!* Reached its pinnacle for me in the alternate-world one where Magic Race had ALWAYS been there, ALWAYS been more powerful than humans, and ALWAYS been known for a hair-trigger temper and lethal response. For all of recorded history.
And yet here you have Random Antagonist #157 sneaking around cackling to herself about “we’ll show them to stay in their place” with the standard X-men “they’re so uppity and I’m so bigoted” vibe. Biggest eyeroll I’ve had in *years*.
At least the Xanadu series by Vicky Wyman did that right. She had the $MAGIC RACE (well, races) that were stronger, had magic, lived for centuries, etc., except they were the ones running everything. And they’d been doing so for about 5000 years.
All of history — they’d have worked out some accommodation by then.
I’ve seen settings that had different races living together for millennia and behaving like their society had been founded just last week with the express purpose of keeping the Noble Hero down because prejudice.
Very true.
I particularly note the religions whose sole doctrine appears to be “hate the Noble Hero’s kind.”
Of course, the “solution” might be the Final Solution. IE All humans are dead. 😈
Yep. But this was a case of “I do not have the imagination to work out how humans would change in that world because humans are always PAROCHIAL and BAD and can never be anything else.”