Opinion: When Writers Punch - Up, Down, or Sideways

February 26, 2021
One Comment
daily life
arguing on the internet, baen books, cancel culture, jason sanford, tolerance, writers behaving badly

This is, I hope, my final followup to earlier pieces on reactions to Jason Sanford’s post identifying hate-speech and similar posts in a specific forum of Baen’s Bar, Politics, and the subsequent DisCon action in removing Baen’s leader, Toni Weisskopf, as an Editor Guest of Honor. I want to address a specific phenomenon, which is writers punching people who displease them via their readers, which has been directed at Jason Sanford.

When a writer publicly calls someone out, they need to be aware of all of the implications, including the fact that the more popular the writer, the more devastating the results can be, not due to any intrinsic quality of the writer, but the number of fans. The more fans, the more likely it is that the group will contain people who, emboldened by the idea of pleasing a favorite writer, can — and will — go to lengths that go far beyond the norms of civil, and sometimes legal, behavior.

This played out recently with reactions to Jason Sanford’s piece on a specific forum within the Baen’s Bar discussion boards administered by Baen Publishing, which have included web posts doxxing Sanford and calling for complaints to be made to a lengthy list of people at Sanford’s placement of employment about the post he made on his free time on a platform that has nothing to do with his employment.

As I’ve said earlier, I have a great deal of respect for Baen and hope it emerges from this watershed moment in a way that suits the bigheartedness of its founder. But in the fray, a lot of writers have been egging their followers on to do shitty things in general, and what has emerged include the above specifics.

It’s not okay to point your readers at someone and basically say “make this person miserable.” It is okay to vote with one’s pocketbook. To not buy the books of people you don’t support. That is called a boycott, and it is an established tactic. (One of my consistent practices throughout the years, though, is to read a book by each one before I make that decision, so I know what I might be missing out on. So far, no regrets.) Going beyond that is, in my opinion, is the act of someone who’s gotten carried away and is no longer seeing their target as a fellow human being, and who needs to stop and think what they are doing.

We have witnessed the results of this tactic when it happens in science fiction. Campaigns contacting employers to complain about posts made in someone’s free time, or even when they’re just suspected to be a particular blogger. People feel free to attack economically or via harassment, ignoring collateral damage in the form of their targets’ families. And let’s not forget SWATting or otherwise attempting to use the police against someone.

Someone started a baseless rumor about Sanford having had a book refused by Baen, and assorted unhinged souls have been running with that one in large and frenzied patterns that spell out “it is possible I am projecting” when seen from above, including repeatedly contacting the Ohio News Media Association to demand that Sanford ~~stop beating his wife~~ explain the allegations.

That one’s bizarre to the point of being more comical than serious, but there’s plenty worse, and that’s because of another phenomena. Free-floating online trolls cluster onto these situations like leeches, doing their best to drive people at best to shut down their social media, at worst to what those trolls see as an ultimate victory: suicide. They’re not in it for politics; they’re in it to feed on the festering hatred being stirred up and to use it as a justification for their own behavior.

I am not overstating things, and anyone who thinks that I am might want to go for a remedial course in Common Sense About the Way Shit is in 2021, as opposed to 40 years ago, which would be when I was first floating around on one of the first message boards. In all sorts of senses, I’ve continued to engage with the world rather than letting someone else moderate it for me, and I don’t know that I had a choice in that but have dealt with a lot of bullshit from people trying to up their visibility in one way or another. I’ve been doxxed so many times it’s lost any scare value. I learned to shoot a gun a couple of years ago because of one doofus sicking his followers on me, and in some situations I carry a taser in my bag. Given some of the stuff that’s happened, it’s not an overreaction.

A person should not have to go to these lengths in order to speak their mind; intimidation aimed at silencing someone overall, rather than a particular platform, is the true damage to free speech. I said it before and will say it again (and again and again, I suspect):

What “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” aka “people who are too weak should avoid this discourse” says is “only certain people get to speak here.” And that’s shitty, no matter how many noble words you try to dress it up with.

In researching my first two pieces about Sanford’s report and the resultant furor, I talked to a number of people who’d been driven off the Baen discussion boards over the course of the last decade. The most prominent being Mercedes Lackey, who was dogpiled on after she suggested, post 9/11, that maybe unmitigated hatred for Muslims wasn’t the best approach. The posts driving her away came not just from the fans on the boards but some of her fellow authors. [I have removed information here that I believe is either in error or incomplete. See the comments for further info. -Cat]

Lackey had a good bit to say on the subject, including an angle I hadn’t thought of, which is that it can be dangerous to your readers to be pointing them at people:

People these days are crazy. Seriously, dangerously crazy. Crazy enough to send SWAT to someone’s house over a video game (and people have died). Crazy enough to track down your boss and try to get you fired. Crazy enough to show up in person and hurt or kill you or someone you love over an online post. Don’t take my word for it, do a news search.

So suppose you unleash your fans on someone who is that crazy. And he doxxes some of them and SWATS them. At the least they have a broken down door and several hours of horror. At the worst, someone is dead. Or maybe he just tracks the harassment to its source and comes after you. And it’s you that gets SWATTED or fired or has the Drug Cops trashing your house looking to put you in jail.

(I snipped a paragraph here with points covered elsewhere in this piece. -Cat)

The very, very, very best answer to that impulse to send your hordes of minions out to do your bidding? Put your enemy in a story. You’ll get revenge, and better yet, get paid for it.

Lackey also pointed me at this excellent essay on tolerance which has, I think, good points about why groups — including communities formed around discussion groups — cannot contain members attacking other members:

We often forget (or ignore) that no right is absolute, because one person’s rights can conflict with another’s. This is why freedom of speech doesn’t protect extortion, and the right to bear arms doesn’t license armed robbery. Nor is this limited to rights involving the state; people can interfere with each other’s rights with no government involved, as when people use harassment to suppress other people’s speech. While both sides of that example say they are “exercising their free speech,” one of them is using their speech to prevent the other’s: these are not equivalent. The balance of rights has the structure of a peace treaty.

Much of the hoorah has led me to re-examine some beliefs just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, most notably my ideas about professionalism. Professionalism is something I’ve always tried to abide by. It involves a certain amount of dignity and detachedness, and it also requires not throwing verbal lumps of shit at people, particularly colleagues. I dunno, is this old-fashioned? It doesn’t mean not calling out bad behavior, it doesn’t mean I don’t often disagree with others. But I treat them with respect, overall, even when it’s hairy dude-bro looming at me to demand why I don’t do something about some matter that I have nothing to do with, because they are fellow human beings and we are all stuck here on spaceship Earth together.

Being a bad passenger and using your fans to attack a fellow voyager is unprofessional. It gets you known for being unpleasant to work with in any form, because there’s always the worry you may turn it on the person the next seat over. You’re the person that has no qualms about waving live grenades; people don’t want to be around when they don’t know where you’re going to throw it, or even if you’re going to accidentally drop it.

Perhaps a lot of the confusion between professionalism and being “authentic” has to do with the relationship between writers and social media, which can feel mandatory at times. Kacen Callendar notes:

It’s dehumanizing that I or any author should be afraid to speak about our dehumanization, about the boundaries we want and need to set for our health, dehumanizing that we should be scared our work won’t be accepted unless we play along with commodifying ourselves.

When you know that any admission of weakness will be used against you by online trolls, that something like the death of a family member or pet will signal a new barrage of harassment playing on that grief, it becomes even more fraught. And those trolls go for the most vulnerable people — any vulnerability is like blood in the water to them. Can you be authentic and armor yourself at the same time? It takes some maneuvering and a certain amount of don’t-give-a-fuck-ery, and not everyone can do it.

Overall, should any writer cry “release the kraken!” and send these folks after a supposed “enemy”? No. No, and no amount of arguing will ever convince me otherwise. Instead, they should learn to be professional perhaps, because in this heated kitchen, we’re working chefs, not home cooks, and should comport ourselves with a little goddamn dignity.

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Chez Rambo in the Time of the Pandemic, mid-July Check-in

July 15, 2020

Wow, it’s been a long time since I last checked in. By now, pandemic existence seems somewhat normal. We have masks, plastic gloves, and sanitizer by the doorway; we’ve been out for fast food maybe once a month and felt quite daring about it. The move to Portland is on hiatus for now as we wait to see how the world shakes out.

I have a StoryBundle up today, focused on glitter and hope! Please check it out and spread the word.

Writing-wise:

I’m wrapping up the final edit of Exiles of Tabat and am on track to hand that in to the publisher on July 31.
After that I’ll spend August working with Devil’s Gun and getting ready to hand that in at the end of the month.
I’m up to installment 12 of serial novella Baby Driver, have found a publisher for it, and am also working on a comics script, while thinking about eventually funding that via Kickstarter as a comic book series.
Forthcoming stories include “I Decline” in Daily Science Fiction and “Crazy Beautiful” in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, as well as a story I co-wrote with my spouse in issue three of Dark Matter Magazine, “Stand and Deliver.” Anthology publications include “Snowflakes” in The Last Cities of Earth.
I’m one of the three writers behind And the Last Trump Shall Sound, which appears in August, and I’m beyond the moon at the chance to work with James Morrow and Harry Turtledove. Thank you to David Boop for acting as our development editor.
Also in the pipeline: an awesome space western collaboration; the final Tabat book, Gods of Tabat; book three of the space opera series, tentatively titled Flower Power; a 3/4s-written novella I’ve been tinkering with; at least three other novellas I would like to be tinkering; and a literary horror novel.

Other Non-Writing Stuff:

I have an anthology project in the works and am establishing some of its structure. Stay posted for announcements and slush reader calls.
I’m also thinking about a game module set in Tabat after having listened to Monica Valentinelli talking about adapting novels into games in her class last weekend.
Continuing to build my Patreon, which is currently at 241 patrons (!), who are getting fiction, snippets, Zoom events, co-writing, chat server access, and free/discounted Rambo Academy classes.
Finishing up the on-demand version of Writing Your Way Into Your Novel. There’s some other cool on-demand classes in the works from Evan J. Peterson and Jamie Lackey, along with others!
I started some little bonsai trees and have named two of them, Groot and Augustus.
Continuing to sous-vide all the things. Recently have been making homemade sandwich bread as well as my own butter. One recent success: garlic chili oil

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Nattering Social Justice Cook: Stay the Course

November 17, 2016

Like many of you, I was taken aback by the results of the recent election, to the point of depression, dismay, and concern for our future. Part of my past week, though, was spent in Chicago at a conference for nonprofit leaders, and that served as a heartening antidote in some ways.

Part of that experience was the reminder that our world holds people who don’t know where their next meal is coming from, or if they’ll have a dry place to sleep that night. That there are children who are abused, animals who are tortured, nations being oppressed, even eco-systems being destroyed. That so much is wrong. That so much needs fixing. Is it odd to say that was heartening? Because it was so inspiring to be around hundreds of people who have given their time and energy and so much more to help others.

It underscored the fact that we are not islands. We are part of humanity, a deep, rich pool in which we swim, and we will either do so or sink, collectively. The question of where to start with that is one that divides many of those who desperately want to fix things. And the truth is this: that helping wherever and whenever you can is fine, no matter what form it takes. The act of helping others enriches our souls and keeps them nourished.

There’s a concept created by Abraham Maslow, a hierarchy of needs. It looks like this:

The principle is simple. The lower on the pyramid, the more important the need. Until that need is filled, the person will not focus on the needs above it. The person with physiological needs like food, sleep, and shelter cannot focus on the needs other than that until those needs are met. Self-actualization needs, like education, creativity, and spirituality, cannot be addressed until all other psychological and basic needs are met.

These are generalizations, obviously. Am I saying that hungry people can’t think about self-actualization? No, but the overall trend — to which there will always be exceptions — is that they don’t. I suspect that the further up the pyramid you are, the more exceptions occur.

Here’s an important thing when you’re thinking about that pyramid and America. In a recent study by the Federal Reserve Board, 47% – close to half — of the respondents said that if an emergency arose requiring them to get $400, they would have to borrow the money or sell something in order to come up with it.

That means that almost half of the people responding — which would be a group that probably didn’t include children (who represent a significant chunk of the homeless population) — had less than $400 tucked away in case of the proverbial rainy day. Which could take the form of a medical emergency. Or a car repair. An unexpected hike in tuition, rent, or even groceries. Do not pass Go; do not collect $200.

If you’re not part of that group, take a moment to think about what that means and what that anxiety would add to daily existence. Think about that anxiety as a lifelong roommate. (If you are part of that group, sorry. I know things are depressing as is. I’ve been there briefly, for what it’s worth.)

There is often an idealism about the Left that is admirable, that is stirring, and that sometimes, unfortunately, clashes with pragmatism and does not emerge the victor. I personally believe human beings are primarily good — but I also know everyone’s flawed, everyone’s got a whiney and entitled inner child, and that sometimes we let that inner child steer the boat when we shouldn’t. And that inner child is more in connection with the needs Maslow talks about than one might like to acknowledge.

Here is a fact that holds true in a complex world, at least in my experience. Social justice falls on different places in the hierarchy depending on an individual’s circumstances. Are you a person who has to worry that if you are stopped by American police you may be shot? Then the Black Lives Matter movement is placed differently for you than for your white friend. You may both support it, but that context is different for the person that actually has to worry about a bullet. Privilege exists, and this is part of privilege.

And here are three important facts about privilege:

One’s personal privilege affects how the world treats you.
That privilege can take many forms: skin color, inherited wealth, education, how a legal system views and treats your physical body, and on and on.
Sometimes (often) our own privilege is invisible to us; we do not perceive it because it is the very definition of “normal” for us, how the world is.

That last one is important because many folks leave it at that, divide everything into normal and not normal. That’s a very easy way of thinking, one that lets us leave it all up to our base instincts, the monkey brain that governs us much more than we’d like to think. The same one whose first instinct with the strange is to throw feces at it.

One of the phenomena that led to the weirdness of the recent election is the use of binary thought, a basic Us vs. Them that does not allow for the fact that human beings are significantly more complicated than a single yes/no statement. I see it being embraced even more strongly now – by both the Left and the Right.

The world is more complicated than that. To fall into that trap is to let yourself be controlled by whoever wields the media around you the most effectively. You must think, you must question. You must figure out where your common ground is and how to use it. This is not the time to be silent. This is a time when how you live and act and speak is more important than it ever has been.

So. Here’s what I’m doing.

I’m listening to the voices that haven’t been listened to and amplifying their message wherever I can. Recommending a wide and interesting range of works for the SFWA Recommended Reading List. Reading across the board and making sure I look for new, interesting, diverse stuff – and then spreading the word of it. I’m nominating and voting for awards and taking the time to leave reviews when I can.
As a teacher, the most important thing I can do is try to show my students how an artist lives and works. Why it’s important to confront and acknowledge one’s own flaws so you understand them in others. How to be a good human, one that is responsible, ethical, open to the world. Feminism is more important now than ever, and being one publicly in a way that redeems the bizarre media stereotypes that have been imposed upon it is crucial to generations to come.
I’m practicing the principles of peacetalk. Choosing my communication goals, paying attention, rejecting preconceptions, staying in tone, not taking bait, helping the other participants maintain face, choosing my metaphors with care, trusting my inner grammar, telling the truth, and above all practicing the skill of skills, joy.
I’m continuing with the volunteer work I do and trying to be a good leader for SFWA at a time when a lot of members are very worried, particularly about their health care. Offering Plunkett scholarships for my classes so I can encourage writers who might not otherwise be able to take them. And maintaining the small practices, like shipping books off to the Women’s Prison Book Project, steering my shopping through the Amazon Smile Program, supporting HumbleBundle and StoryBundle (admittedly, buying books is not really a huge sacrifice), donating to local homeless shelters and food banks, and making charitable contributions for Christmas presents and to memorialize the loved ones lost this year.
I’m practicing gratitude harder than I ever have before. Letting the people around me know how valued and loved they are. Waking up each morning and thinking of someone that I find marvelous about this world, whether it’s marshmallows or goldfish or my friends or that book I read yesterday. Celebrating the tiny victories, like the fact that my Christmas cactus is blooming, and it is beautiful and bright despite the seasonal gloom here in Seattle.
One negative act. I’m not paying any more attention to the dickheads. I used to check out some of the blogs where the hate stew was getting stirred, just so I could see what the current trends were. Not any longer. Life’s too short to worry about the self-proclaimed super genii, who so often turn out to be the Wile E. Coyotes of the world. Let the trolls troll; they’re not worth the breath or brainpower. (And never have been.)

I’m not giving in to despair and apathy. Neither should you.

Stay the course. #sfwapro

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Opinion: When Writers Punch - Up, Down, or Sideways

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