Fantasy & imperialism

[mirrorshard]

Somewhat incoherent - reaction-dumping. Context:

• http://deepad.livejournal.com/29656.html
  
• http://seeking-avalon.blogspot.com/2009/01/open-letter-to-elizabeth-bear.html
  
• http://truepenny.livejournal.com/625351.html?style=mine
  

Writers (and fans, by extension) are caught on the horns of a dilemma (or possibly a gazebo): on the one hand, we don't get to write honestly about other peoples' cultural experience, because it isn't ours to write about. On the other hand, other peoples' cultural experience is really fucking cool and interesting. On the gripping hand, most of these Interesting Cultures are actually really poor and deprived and don't have luxuries like time to write, a thriving publishing industry, or even a corpus of work in their own language and cultural idiom to grow up with. Which means that if it isn't written about by privileged white people (or coconuts, or bananas) then it isn't written about at all.

Poor us, what a problem we have.

Except...

We don't. It's not our problem. Seriously. The cultural experience of imperialism is not about the imperialists. I don't give a flying fuck what keeping someone in chains, whether steel or economic or both, does to your soul. Angsting about that makes you sound like Cordelia. [Edit: That's as in Buffy, not as in Lear or Vorkosigan.]

It's really tempting to assume that a) for every problem, there's a solution somewhere, if we only work hard at it with good intentions; and that b) that solution is more likely to be arrived at by smart educated people in developed countries.

But I don't see anything to support those assertions in these cases. Problems come in a lot of different domains, which often don't share anything with each other. And I appreciate that Not Doing Anything is a) hard, b) morally problematic when you think you might have an answer, and c) a whole barrel of No Fun.

(No, I don't have a consistent, coherent answer, or a manifesto to set out, or a program of things to be done. I'm neither that naive or that arrogant. Besides, I'm a privileged white Westerner myself, and the nearest thing to an oppressed minority in my bloodline is Welsh.)

Comments

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

What is "Not Doing Anything"?
- Not writing fiction?
- Only writing about your own culture?
- Writing about whatever you want to write about but ignoring the debate?
- Reading the debate without contributing to it actively, and then trying to write in the way you think the majority of BME people participating it would like you to write?
- Participating in the debate but only to ask questions so you can do the previous thing more effectively?
- Reading the debate without contributing to it actively, and not trying or not succeeding to find a consensus among BME participants and then writing whatever you think it's good/OK/right to write about, having considered the issues?
- Something else?

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

I think what I basically mean here is the equivalent of the Cake Principle - articulated about men joining in feminist debates, but applicable to any privilege-laden debate, really. It was either libellum or slightlyfoxed who articulated it, and I can't remember which or where. It goes "If you were going to open your mouth to inform or argue or nitpick, shove some delicious cake in it instead". Um, assuming gluten-free cake, obviously.

deepad has an interesting post (http://deepad.livejournal.com/29826.html) on white-ally-actions - I've not digested it entirely myself yet, though.

"Nothing" is probably an overstatement. But most of us have a tendency towards finding, or at least looking for, generalizable answers and overarching schemes, and I have a strong gut feeling that those don't exist and would do more harm than good if they did. (Or possibly we just can't see them from here.)

I'm not in the slightest advocating that anyone should stop writing fiction, or stop writing about interesting things - I like reading, I have a fairly high tolerance for rough edges and good intentions. Unless of course they're writing about pink sparkly were-unicorns who steal Captain Jack Sparrow's heart, in which case flamethrowers are too good for them.

One of my default assumptions is that most of us will screw up and get things wrong, and that that's never the end of the world.

From your list of suggestions, I'd pick the last one, I think - with the proviso that basically, we need to write what we need to write, and trying to force something else will lead to a pile of crap. Reading commentary and problematizations and arse-kicking by smart passionate people helps stretch us into something closer to the right shape to need to write something appropriate, I think.

And they also serve who only stand and wait! I've always had a lot of trouble with that one, but I try.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Yes, I basically agree. I spend quite a lot of time reading activist blogs etc. and have learnt a lot, but don't really feel ready to contribute yet.

Two pedantic points:

1) The Cake Theory (http://xxxlibris.livejournal.com/157177.html) is by xxxlibris (and was first articulated with regard to anti-racism, not feminism.)

2) Remember that 'waiting' is also what a waiter does, and that this sense was arguably dominant or equal to the other one when Milton was writing!

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

1) Aha. I did suspect after writing that that you probably knew more about the Cake Theory than I did - thank you for the link.

2) Absolutely!

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately (sorry xxxlibris, as I believe it was yours), I *loathe* 'The Cake Principle', as it is a means, however justified, of limiting dissent. Yes, I get tired of all the "but what about teh menz???" too, but *sometimes* people really are genuinely ill-informed and might learn something from asking the question (and hell, aren't we trying to educate?). And, more than that, I think stifling debate is something fundamentally anathema to me and I won't promote it.

From your list of suggestions, I'd pick the last one, I think - with the proviso that basically, we need to write what we need to write, and trying to force something else will lead to a pile of crap. Reading commentary and problematizations and arse-kicking by smart passionate people helps stretch us into something closer to the right shape to need to write something appropriate, I think.

Yeah, I agree there.

deepad's post was interesting too, and I agreed with much of it. The fact that it can be written almost identically with the Other as female, queer, disabled, etc, doesn't diminish its usefulness, but does mean, I think, that we may want to question whether approaches to tackling unconscious biases are best enacted specifically or generally.

In this, as in so many thing, I have to come back to the wonderful Harvey Fierstein, and his famous quote from 'The Celluloid Closet' (about gay characters in Hollywood fillums);

"I'd rather have negative representation than no representation, because negative representation can be challenged."

This is applicable to pretty much any disenfranchised group, IMHO, and is a way in which tackling the problem by turning from the general to the specific works. Critiquing *can* lead to refinement. Of course, women writers and readers have been working on this one for centuries, and we're not out of sexist stereotypes yet, so it's clearly a bit of a long haul....

But *hearts* Harvey anyway!