John C. Wright's Blog, page 108
December 19, 2012
Outrage of the Day
Canadian right-wing blogger Blazing Cat Fur is being sued for linking to Mark Steyn. Donate to his legal defence.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Fifth Wave Feminism
I had recently come to realize that the feminist movement is not feminist at all. It is masculinist.
By this I mean, the purpose of Fourth Wave feminism (if you wish to judge not by what they say, but by what they do, and to know the fruits, so to speak, by their fruits) is not to make women legally and culturally equal to men, but to make them be men: that is, to abolish the female from life and thought altogether.
No clearer homage could be paid to the concept that males are superior to females than the tacit acknowledgement that the only path to equality was imitation. What the feminists are doing is about as insulting and degrading to women as if the Civil Rights movement of Martin Luther King, rather than abolishing Jim Crow laws, kept those laws in place, and instead urged all Negros to have their skin dyed white.
I cannot think of a deadlier insult, or a more outrageous.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
December 18, 2012
The Theodicy of Hell
Vicq Ruiz asks a fascinating and very hard question:
I … have noted that one element in which Christianity appears to be unique is the doctrine of eternal punishment for unbelief, and for unbelief alone among man’s sins. And it is that doctrine which stands between me and Christianity like a thousand mile high granite wall. For if it is true, not only are both my (loving, and unbelieving) parents in eternal torment even as I write these words, but I am also to acquiesce – no, to delight! – in the “justice” which placed them there.
Of all doctrines, the one I am least eager and least qualified to defend is the doctrine of eternal damnation, and precisely for the reasons Mr Ruiz adumbrates: nothing seems, at first, to be more absurd, unjust, and sadistic than a benevolent and loving God who would throw the into a furnace the weeping innocent child, His own child, who is guilty of nothing but a reasonable, even inevitable, skepticism.
Add to this the cruelty of asking the believer to rejoice in this divine justice, and you have perhaps the most powerful argument against theodicy imaginable.
It is as bad as if, during a highrise fire or a mine collapse, the fireman who raised the ladder or dug a tunnel to find the dying victims, upon opening the way to escape from the flames or from the darkness, suddenly and arbitrarily demanded to know which of the dying believed in fire department was coming. After finding some illiterate widow or small child or born pessimist who did not believe, the fireman yanks the ladder back, leaving the doubters to burn; or he bricks over the escape tunnel, leaving them to asphyxiate. Certainly we would question the justice, and the sanity, of a fireman who acted by such a standard. It sounds like a horror story worthy of Poe rather than the act of a divine spirit motivated by supernatural and infinite love.
Nonetheless, the evangelist commands that I be ready always (with meekness and fear) to give an answer to every man that asks a reason of the hope that is in me.
The short answer, my dearest Mr Ruiz, is that you are blaming the doctor for the disease.
You are pointing at the sole cure to hell, the escape hatch from hell, and calling it injustice that not all men avail themselves of it.
This answer is perhaps too short, and may unfortunately seem flippant. Allow me to expand on it.
The thing that stands between you and paradise like a brick wall is an emotion, a sentiment, a feeling. You imagine your loving and beloved parents thrown into the cruel and burning torments of a pit worse than a gulag or deathcamp by an arbitrary tyrant. What I ask, for the sake of your immortal soul, is that you put sentimentality aside and think carefully and clearly and rationally. Think as if your life depends on it, for it surely does.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
December 17, 2012
THE NEXT BIG THING (Somewhither)
John Moeller has tagged me for the THE NEXT BIG THING, which is basically writers indulging in self-promotion crossed with a chain letter. For this edition, I will discuss a book still in the writing stage, which has not yet been sold to an editor.
What is the working title of your book?
SOMEWHITHER.
Where did the idea for the book come from?
It came from a collision of three or four ideas.
First, it came from a jest. As a flippant remark, and in an excess of awesomesauce high-pulp imagination, I joked I would write about a prayer-powered mecha which was protected by ninja-nuns or something of the sort. Well, the ideas I had tossed off as a joke grew on me, and so I decided to write up an opening scene, about a mad scientists’ beautiful daughter being abducted. The tale grew in the telling.
But, second, I had also been toying with the idea of writing an Anti-Dan Brown novel, one where the Roman Catholic Church, through the Knights Templar, had indeed been engaged in a two-millennium-old secret war against Harvard Symbolists and other servants of Satan to save the world from vampires and werewolves and mummies and giants and astrologers. I envisioned the Church as secretly funding and organizing the Knights Templar like the special ops vampire hunters in VAN HELSING starring Kate Beckinsale.
The two ideas came together when I struck on the happy thought of having the millennium-old secret known to the Church, but not to the world, to be the existence of parallel timelines, where biblical history had gone differently.
By “Biblical history” I mean that the secret history of the world is what is written in the Bible, and in the parallel timelines history went differently: the giants come from a world where the Flood of Noah never happened, so they were not wiped out; vampires come from a world where Christ was never crucified; evil astrologers rule a world where the Tower of Babel was never smitten with the confusion of tongues; mummies rule the world where Moses never freed the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage; werewolves rule a world where Nebuchadnezzar never repented of his lycanthropy, but instead spread the affliction; immortals come from a world where Fallen Eve stole the fruit from the tree of life; and so on.
I also wanted to write a novel where the witchcraft is bad for a change. Compare the way witchcraft is treated in the characters, for example, of Willow Rosenberg from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and Serafina Pekkala from THE GOLDEN COMPASS and the Halliwell Sisters from CHARMED on the one hand versus the way witchcraft is treated in Samantha Stevens from BEWITCHED and Gillian Holroyd from BELL BOOK AND CANDLE and Eglantine Price from BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS on the other… Ditto for vampires and werewolves. I wanted to write a book where the monsters were, you now, bad. And one where the Christians were good. This is not because I am bigoted against monsters or particularly fond of Christians (all the ones I know are sinners), but just because I am weary of the stereotypes.
What genre does this fall under?
I have no idea.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Review of HERMETIC MILLENNIA: Pulp Action and Philosophical Gravitas.
from the pen of Paul di Fillipo over at Almost Invisible Worlds:
At year’s end the inevitable list making begins, focused on selecting the standout books, music, films, performances, and other superior artworks of the past twelve months. The attention of the critical compilers invariably gravitates to the high-profile candidates, those that have already garnered the most media and consumer attention. But in the rush to reach a consensus on the “best,” so many modest, low-profile, yet worthy offerings are often overlooked.
Here, then, are a mere five books from the vast flood of fine fantastika from 2012: five books not inevitably fated to end up on any best-of list and that might have passed below your radar this year — but all demanding a careful second look. In my column from last year on this same theme of under-praised books, I selected John C. Wright’s Count to a Trillion, released late in the publishing year. The subsequent twelve months saw the book retain its wallflower status, and now Tor debuts the sequel in the same understated manner. So, here we are again!
The Hermetic Millennia continues the exotic saga of Menelaus “Meany” Montrose, a rugged and cantankerous individualist of the twenty-third century, born to a high cosmic destiny while also unrepentantly seeking glory. This is a fellow who willingly takes on the title and duties of the “Judge of Ages” after all. But if the reader thought that Montrose’s previous adventures were spectacular, emulating as they did the primal and robust space opera outings of E. E. Smith and A. E. van Vogt, then his newest exploits will amaze the heck out of anyone. What Wright has put forth this time is a mix of British big thinker Olaf Stapledon (Last and First Men), Jack Vance (The Dying Earth), Philip José Farmer (Dark Is the Sun) and Jared Diamond (Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed). It’s a heady brew that achieves an ever-oscillating balance between pulp action and philosophical gravitas.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
December 14, 2012
THE NEXT BIG THING (The Hermetic Millennia)
John Moeller has tagged me for the THE NEXT BIG THING, which is basically writers indulging in self-promotion crossed with a chain letter. Unfortunately, I think chain letters are untoward, so while I am perfectly willing to answer one, I am not willing to tag people or goad them into answering.
Besides, I do not have ten friends. You are the only one.
What is the working title of your book?
THE HERMETIC MILLENNIA.
Where did the idea for the book come from?
I wrote this book as part of a projected five-volume novel reaching from COUNT TO A TRILLION to the finale COUNT TO INFINITY, and the plot action is meant to take place between now and the end of time.
I also thought someone should write a book about the difficulties to be overcome in setting up an interstellar or intergalactic polity, and emphasize the magnitudes of space to be crossed, energy to be expended, and social cohesion to be maintained if trade or war were to be feasible across such astronomical distances. The first thing that would be required is some method of ultralongterm hibernation, and the second, artificial superintelligence.
The first two volumes in the series deal with each of these problems in turn; the third volume, to be released next year, JUDGE OF AGES, deals with pantropy, that is, the artificial breeding of human beings, or genetic redesign, needed force mankind to the next stage of evolution.
The other inspiration for this book came from Mummy stories. My protagonist, Menelaus Montrose, has been set the task of maintaining human civilization across sixty-six thousand years, with himself in suspended animation in a cryonic coffin, a buried facility, a tomb, he has set aside for that purpose. With him are clients and patients, who have frozen themselves for a variety of reasons, medical, scientific, or exilic.
He is awakened in the year AD 10515 by little blue skinned men who seem to be archeologists, seeking a legendary tomb-builder, apparently himself: but they mistake him for a man of another eon. Their intent is sinister, even mortal, since the men dug up and thawed out from prior eras of history have no use, no part, in their society, and are only being thawed for use as slave labor.
Of course, like the unwary English archeologists who know nothing of the curse of the Pharaoh’s tomb, the Blue Men seem not to know who or what they are dealing with. Or do they? Odd little clues mount up. Why is there no detectable radio traffic coming from the world outside the archeological dig? Why do alleged scientists have so many guns and dogs? What happened to humanity while the slumberers slept?
The Archeologists, if that is what they truly are, meanwhile are working on a mystery of their own. Are the antique legends of a secret cabal of superintelligent spacefarers true? If so, where are they and what have they been doing? To what degree is human history under their control? And who are what has been killing them off, once every thousand years or so?
What genre does this fall under?
It is Hard SF crossed with Space Opera, a difficult combination to pull off. Kindly readers or harsh reviewers will have to inform me whether I have.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
December 13, 2012
Lin Carter Ave Atque Vale
I found this article by sheer mischance by one Stephen Aulicino. Out of love for the memory of an editor who, albeit I never met him, by his Ballatine Adult Fantasy series formed so much of my youthful imagination and life, I here reprint the whole thing. Figures like Mr Carter ought not to be forgotten, and men like Mr Aulicino who help keep those memories alive should be saluted.
I Was Lin Carter’s Friend
by Steven Aulicino
I was Lin Carter’s friend during the last years of his life and knew him very well. Over the years, I have checked the Internet for anything on him but found only a few references, usually related to his Conan writings. I hadn’t looked in a long time, so I was pleased to find your site last month. I always felt bad that nothing was done to properly mark Lin’s passing. On the first anniversary of his death, I wrote to the New York Times Book Review in an attempt to commemorate the day, but the letter was never published.
I met Lin in late ’83 or early ’84 when he moved into the apartment across the hall from me. The evening of the day he moved in, he knocked on my door and asked what time it was. That was Lin. When we introduced ourselves, I asked if he was THE Lin Carter and he was honestly flattered and even more so when I showed him my bookshelf. I had none of his science fiction or sword and sorcery work, but I did have his TOLKIEN: A LOOK BEHIND THE LORD OF THE RINGS and IMAGINARY WORLDS as well as most of the books he edited for Ian Ballantine under the Adult Fantasy imprint.
We became friends, good friends. He was “Boss” and I was “Pard.”
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
December 12, 2012
A Dire Announcement!
In keeping with the policy that all newly converted Catholics have of trying to be more Catholic than the Pope, I have just taken an Advent season vow to give up complaining, as well as to give up coffee, during Advent.
For any of my readers from Canada or England, Advent is like Ramadan for Christians. It is a season of repentance.
Because I have given up complaining, I can no longer whine, bitch, bemoan, bellyache, kvetch, murmur, mutter, nag, or natter until Christmas Day.
This will be impossible for me, but with God, all things are possible.
So I cannot make any comments about politics for the remainder of Advent, since my comment about politics consist of squawking, carping, crabbing, cursing, fuming, fulminating, fussing, groaning, grieving, grouching, grousing, grumbling, weeping, bewailing, mourning, and exclaiming in excesses of dolor, naturally I can make no further remarks on those topics.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Retrophobia
I read two posts recently that touched on the same topic, namely, the way writers handle female characters in historical fiction and heroic fantasy.
Both reinforced my opinion that Political Correctness is, at its root, undramatic and the enemy of the arts in the same way it is illogical and the enemy of science and reason, namely, because it is ahistorical and inhuman.
The first one reinforced my opinion by arguing in favor of the proposition that egalitarianism, here understood to be strong female characters whose strength was physical, not emotional or spiritual, was unrealistic as well as undramatic.
Alpha Game writes (http://alphagameplan.blogspot.ca/2012/12/its-not-historical-if-its-not-sexist.html)
The problem with what Wohl advocates is that by putting modern views on sexual roles and intersexual relations into the minds, mouths, and worse, structures of an imaginary historical society, it destroys the very structural foundations that make the society historical and the dramatic storylines credible – in some cases, even possible.
It’s problem similar to the one faced by secular writers, who wish to simultaneously eliminate religion from their fictional medieval societies, and yet retain the dramatic conflict created by the divine right of kings.
However, it is more severe because the sexual aspect touches upon the most concrete basis of every society: its ability to sustain itself through the propagation of its members.
[...]
Do you want massive battles between civilized cultures? Then most women had better be at home raising large families capable of providing the men for the armies and the societal wealth to support them.
Do you want dynastic conflict? Then you need mothers married to powerful men producing those dynasties.
Do you seek the dramatic tension of forbidden love? Then someone had better possess the authority to credibly forbid it.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
December 10, 2012
The State Cannot Teach Men Virtue
A reader with the somewhat calculating name (perhaps expressing when the number of distinct single-digit numbers in a counting system equals the change in time of nothing, or perhaps expressing a Naval station at the mouth of a river containing many marshy streams [but see footnote]) of Base Delta Zero, writes in and asks:
Leaving aside the fact that the American Republican Party just went all-out to turn back the clock to the 1880s, isn’t that pretty much the definition of a conservative? A conservative, by definition, is someone who works to maintain (or ‘conserve’) the existing order.
I have two comments. First, let me mention the definition here, so that no one is mislead by typical linguistic distractions.
The Progressives want to change the world.
Some (the soft sell) just want to change the world peacefully and incrementally to promote what they call greater social justice, by which they mean total control of all aspects of life by the state, that is, totalitarianism.
Others (the hard sell) want to change it violently and suddenly to usher in socialist utopia, that is totalitarianism.
The basic difference is that the soft sells would let you keep private property in name only, provided you used to as the state directs, whereas the hard sells would expropriate your property.
Both agree that the world is a ruthless Darwinian competition between oppressors and the oppressed, and one must side with the oppressed, no matter the merits of the case.
The hard sells identify the oppressed as the workingman, and the oppressor as Rich Uncle Pennybags from the Monopoly Game.
The soft sells identify the oppressed as a random collection of mascots (women, youths, certain sexual perverts but not others, Blacks, illegal aliens, Muslims, American Indians) and the oppressors as White Christian Males. Irish Catholics and Jews used to be members of the oppressed mascots, but now are oppressors. Orientals are oppressed except when they want to study hard and go to college, in which case they are oppressors. Or something like that.
So in the Progressive worldview, historical forces are always moving society in the direction of totalitarianism, that is, social justice, and anyone who opposes the forces of history is called a ‘reactionary’ or a ‘conservative’, that is, someone who wants the status quo of today maintained, or a return to the conditions of yesterday.
The implication is that there is no rational reason to prefer the past to the present, merely an inertia, or timidity, lack of imagination, or a desire of the evil exploiters to maintain the current injustices of the world for their own benefit, or a foolishness on the part of the exploited not to see their own degradation.
You see how flattering this conception is to the Progressive.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
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