John C. Wright's Blog, page 71
May 2, 2014
Coming Soon! TRANSHUMAN AND SUBHUMAN
TRANSHUMAN AND SUBHUMAN Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth.
Here is a preview.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Quote for the Day
From THE Z LENSMAN by David Kyle:
I note that you have a problem. You are wondering how to refer to me. Do you say, ‘He is certainly far more clever than I?’ Or do you say, ‘She is certainly more intelligent than I?’ Or perhaps you should use ‘it’?
I am a Palainian ‘two’, the defensive or protective sex, like a ‘mother.’ Use the female term for me, if you must. Ymkzex, in contrast is a ‘three,’ the offensive or aggressive sex, a ‘father,’ as is Nadreck, my offspring once removed. Angzex, the absent one, who so wisely chooses not to aid me, to ignore me, is a ‘one,’ like a prenuptial catalyst as opposed to a postnuptial catalyst such as ‘four.’ Emmfozing — breeding, that is — is a complicated process.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Confessions of a Hired Gun
Place no trust in princes:
I ignored—or forgot—one of the most important lessons my professors tried to teach me in college: politics and law are the products of culture. You will never repair or rebuild the latter by focusing your efforts on the former two.
…
And it really is a machine. However gifted a man may be in the “art of politics,” generally he won’t move above inconsequential offices without the backing of a machine.
…
The machine moves money, public opinion, votes, and jobs where they need to go in order to win elections and advance legislative agendas.
It does these things through a complicated network of candidates, donors, fundraisers, lawyers, savvy financiers, political and public relations consultants, political action committees, private companies, public office holders, non-profits, think tanks, party organizations, and more. The legal lines preventing some of these groups from coordinating are crossed regularly or bypassed in such a way that violates the spirit of the law.
P.J. O’Rourke nailed it when he said that lawyers writing laws is like pharmaceutical companies inventing diseases.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
A Public Comment about John Scalzi
Dear readers,
You are probably unaware that I recently quit SFWA. Since I am hardly a famous or significant writer, I assume no one noticed or cared, but a sense of professionalism required me to list in public the causes for my discontent. So I published a letter to that effect.
My discontent was the lack of professionalism from the guild: it had become a house of gossips. Naturally, so as to avoid the paradox of indulging in the vice to which I objected, I chose not to gossip about the specific persons who were behaving unprofessionally.
The drawback of my policy of reticence is that some may believe I condemn persons whom I do not condemn. Let me therefore, as publicly as before, salute John Scalzi.
During his term, he never behaved toward me with other than professional courtesy and genial goodwill. I like his writing and do not care about his politics. If he cares about my politics, by no sign has he shown it. We have always been on a friendly footing.
I also note that during the recent hyperventilation of accusations and counter-accusations surrounding the Hugo nominations (which had nothing to do with my resignation, but which is noteworthy nonetheless as a sign of the times) Mr. Scalzi was one of the few voices calling for all stories to be judged on their merits, and to scotch rumors of ballot-stuffing. This is as SFWA leader, past or present, should speak.
We also both support the restoration of Pluto to his rightful position as a full planet of our nine-planet system. In the grand scheme of things, this is a more significant topic than any infighting among a flock of science fiction writers.
Not that anyone should be concerned on the point, but, again, my sense of propriety requires the record be set right. If any man wishes to misunderstand me or my motives, he shall not do so with my cooperation.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
A Public Comment about John Scalzi
Dear readers,
You are probably unaware that I recently quit SFWA. Since I am hardly a famous or significant writer, I assume no one noticed or cared, but a sense of professionalism required me to list in public the causes for my discontent. So I published a letter to effect.
My discontent was the lack of professionalism from the guild: it had become a house of gossips. Naturally, so as to avoid the paradox of indulging in the vice to which I objected, I chose not to gossip about the specific persons who were behaving unprofessionally.
The drawback of my policy of reticence is that some may believe I condemn persons whom I do not condemn. Let me therefore, as publicly as before, salute John Scalzi.
During his term, he never behaved toward me with other than professional courtesy and genial goodwill. I like his writing and do not care about his politics. If he cares about my politics, by no sign has he shown it. We have always been on a friendly footing.
I also note that during the recent hyperventilation of accusations and counter-accusations surrounding the Hugo nominations (which had nothing to do with my resignation, but which is noteworthy nonetheless as a sign of the times) Mr. Scalzi was one of the few voices calling for all stories to be judged on their merits, and to scotch rumors of ballot-stuffing. This is as SFWA leader, past or present, should speak.
We also both support the restoration of Pluto to his rightful position as a full planet of our nine-planet system. In the grand scheme of things, this is a more significant topic than any infighting among a flock of science fiction writers.
Not that anyone should be concerned on the point, but, again, my sense of propriety requires the record be set right. If any man wishes to misunderstand me or my motives, he shall not do so with my cooperation.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
May 1, 2014
The Toleration Blacklist
Catholic Family News is included on the blacklist. No comment by me is needed.
The original article is here: http://mobile.wnd.com/2014/04/amazon-now-urged-to-blacklist-haters/
For many years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled groups with values it doesn’t tolerate as “hate groups” – but now the organization is taking its attacks a step further, demanding Amazon and PayPal blacklist bloggers and websites that don’t fall in line with its leftist agenda.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
April 30, 2014
The Realm of Faerie
A very bright and very earnest young man asked me as a personal favor to write an article explaining J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous essay ‘On Fairy Stories’. It is a task I am honored to attempt, but inadequate.
The essay is seminal for understanding the role modern fantasy should fill but which it so often does not. It is also one of many examples of the general rule that Christians see things in their entirety, which the pagan worldview can only partially see, and to which atheists are blind.
Professor Tolkien in his opening tells us precisely what questions he means to answer in the essay: What are fairy-stories, what is their origin, what is their use? This last point is the true meat of the matter. Tolkien’s theory is that the use of fairy stories falls is Recovery, Escape, Consolation.
But he starts with a word of warning that the subject matter is itself elfin:
The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveller who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
We’ve Made the Washington Post Notice
The article is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/04/29/the-politics-of-science-fiction/
* * *
Ironically, in the comments section, the lying Left (but I repeat myself) continues to misquote Vox Day calling a woman savaging him a half-savage as ‘racist.’ Contra, see here: http://voxday.blogspot.com/2014/04/am-i-racist.html
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Open Reply to Mr. Wright
From the Pen of Fail Burton, concerning my recent departure from an organization no longer properly calling itself SFWA (the Science Fiction Writers of America), rather than SFWA (the Socialist Fantasy-believing Witchhunters of Agitprop):
I don’t really see how you or Mr. Torgersen had any choice. Though you may not be being targeted as individuals, you are certainly on an informal blacklist because of being white, male, and heterosexual, and therefore responsible for anything any other white, male, and heterosexual has ever done throughout all time and space. When this is turned on its Orwellian head the PC call this “Islamophobia” and “homophobia,” though there is no proof of such a movement within SFF.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
The Cosmic Chessboard, or, ONCE MORE FOR OLD TIMES SAKE!
A reader or two unwisely commented that my endless debate by Dr. Andreassen on radical materialism was worthwhile, perhaps as a case study on the pathology of a man like me who keeps arguing long after it is clear his opponent has left the room, but he continues to prance and mince about the stage, making grand orator’s gestures and barking rhetorical questions at an empty chair.
For the sake of those one or two unwisely flattering readers, I would like to offer one more argument along the same lines as the infinite number already spoken. Since this is not addressed to Dr. Andreassen, I will not try to simplify the argument to slow and childlike steps, but merely speak as if I were addressing someone learned in this discipline.
Let us start with two assumptions: first, all existing things whatsoever are made of matter.
Second, this or any other meaningful statement made about an existing thing is either true or false.
If a statement represents what it intends to represent, (namely, that if what a statement says is so indeed is so) that is what we call true; and if not, the statement is false. For the purposes of this argument, we need not bother with graduated variations of degrees of accuracy.
To this was must add a third assumption: that when a statement is true, a certain correspondence obtains between the statement in the brain, and the object the statement represents.
Hence, there is no possible condition or arrangement of the cosmos (including the parts of the cosmos where we human brains store statements both true and false about the cosmos) can be represented by a given number.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
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