The Evil League of Evil is Given Pious Advice

A certain Mr Damien Walter whose books I have never read (perhaps because he has written none) makes bold to advise me how to conduct my professional career as a science fiction author. The comments are somewhere hereabouts.

“I think Correia did two things. The first was appeal for votes on the basis of a perceived liberal bias in the genre. That was the basis of his campaign, a protest vote against liberal influence. That was divisive and did a lot to spark the backlash he’s still feeling. Secondly, and this is going to be much more damaging for him longterm, he allowed himself to become very closely associated to Vox Day in the process. Ultimately people do judge others by their associations, and both Larry Correia and John C Wright have made very public declarations of support for Day, that I fear both will deeply regret in the long run.

I’m quite serious about my suggestion by the way. I think if Correia wrote publicly to support the new diversity in the genre, and apologised for any perception he was campaigning against it, that might help him a lot. Remember, we won’t know who missed out on shortlist places until after the awards. At that point Correia et al could find the response to them gets much, much worse even than when the story broke.”

Of the suggestion that Mr. Correia should apologize for the perception in passersby that he was or was not campaigning against Deracination, or Divarication, or Dipsomania or whateverthehell Mr Walter is talking about, other voices than mine must speak, since I am choked to silence with contumely.

Once I was trapped in a room by a opium-addled drunk who was hallucinating about trashcans, but I see no need to apologize about what other people perceive, particularly when they damage their organs of perception either with strong spirits, opiates, or the far more addictive spirit of partisanship.

I am confident Mr Correia can speak for himself, with more energy and patience than I can muster.

But I must speak up on my own behalf. If I may say it without offending Mr. Day, when did I ever publicly express support for him, or express anything like it?

Vox Day is not a nervous schoolgirl trying to break into a highschool clique, nor is he running for public office, NOR HAS ANYONE ACTUALLY ASKED ME MY OPINION ABOUT ANYTHING VOX DAY HAS EVER SAID, ergo the deduction of this Walter creature to know my thoughts on the matter would be insulting, if he were of the stature to be worth noticing long enough to take offense.

It is now considered not just to be a public declaration of support but indeed a very public declaration of support for someone to say ‘I decline to heed nor echo malign and false accusations against a man I hardly know, as it is none of my business, and I hate falsehoods’?

Vox Day and I have a professional relationship. He is a publisher of some of my work. It is a situation we both find to our mutual benefit.

The same hour Vox Day and I signed our contact, a small, shrill,  cowardly and mentally backward group of anonymous strangers and dank gargoyles wrote me incoherent and gargling notes expressing unsightly yet pathological hatred toward Vox Day for reasons that never were made clear.

(I am under the impression that he had offended their political cult dogmas but not allowing an arrogant leftwingy loudmouth named Jemisin to upbraid him in public, but manfully returned blow for blow. This is apparently an unforgivable sin, even though it pick no man’s pocket and breaks no man’s leg.)

But it is none of my business either way; I am not the father confessor of Vox Day, nor the father of N.K. Jemisin. I can neither hear his confession nor send her to her room without supper. The Morlocks knew this. The Morlocks were crowding my inbox merely to display their political credentials, that is, to pat themselves on the back for supporting Big Brother by dumping insincere ritualized hate on Emmanuel Goldstein.

I answered these uncouth Jacobin sans-culottes with the back of my hand, as any gentleman should do.

How is that a show of support for him? I just wanted the drooling and poop-flinging yahoos off my lawn.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.