The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and everything in between.

[Anthony]

For me, I don’t love knowing authors whose work I admire turn out not to be a great human being in some ways, but there’s a wide gap between the implications of infidelity vs serial rape or sexual abuse of children or killing sprees or being a Nazi, etc etc.

[TomK2]

The forward to "Rediscovery:..." linked above put the Sci Fi market in the 50's and into the 60's as 92% male. And shocking, to me at least, was that the average age was 29 years old at that time.

[Antti]

I hadn't heard about MZB before, but I'll just assume here all the allegations about her are true. Will that make her books worse?

Imagine you saw a water color painting and thought it was pretty. Then you heard the painting was done by Hitler. Does the painting turn ugly? Can the same painting be pretty and ugly at the same time, like some artistic version of Schödinger's cat?

I mean, I totally understand not wanting to buy a copy of the painting to your own house, so as not to send weird messages, but that's different from saying the painting is ugly. Even if it was created by a horrible monster, can't the work of art still be good?

I understand that many people don't want to financially support artists who they consider morally questionable or outright evil, but wouldn't that be a case where pirating the book would be ethically sound decision? And anyway, in MZB:s case this doesn't apply, since she's dead and I'd guess her children - the victims - would receive the profits.

But not all would still see it that way. I think I've understood reading this discussion that there are people who automatically separate the author from the work (and more generally, ethics from aesthetics), but some people don't (won't? can't?) compartmentalize things like that. They look at things more holistically: the author and the work are part of the same whole and can't be separated from each other. If the author is bad, then their work becomes tainted as well, and reading the work would feel wrong.

This sort of thinking is very alien to me, and I don't really understand how that would feel like from the inside, but decades of consuming SF has taught me to encounter alien minds with curiosity. So, if anyone with that more "holistic" mindset wants to explain further, I'd have lots of questions, but if not, well, that's completely fine!

[Art, Stay home, stay safe.]

To be fair, the most of us just wing it on a daily basis. We attribute logic to our decisions which goes back and forth without our realizing it.

It's how the quote goes: Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.

[Ed]

Antti wrote: "I hadn't heard about MZB before, but I'll just assume here all the allegations about her are true. ...."

Her husband, Walter Breen, was convicted and jailed. I think the main complaint about MZB is that she knew and didn't object, and was even willing to let him adopt a 13-year old whom she knew he was having sex with. (There may be more things that I don't know.)

I'm certainly not going to be picking up his book "Greek Love" in which he advocates for man-boy relationships.

There is a fairly recent interview with their daughter here on a very conservative website. While I believe her personal experiences, I regret that she accepts the idea that "Without pederastic relationships, there would be no adult gay men" and "Always in male homosexual relationships, there is the top and the bottom, the giver and the receiver, and these roles are predicated on age and the ability to project masculine dominance." Those things are not true and are harmful stereotypes.

She also has things to say about Worldcon and seems to support Vox Day.

...since she's dead and I'd guess her children - the victims - would receive the profits.

That would require some investigation. It's not always simple to figure out who owns rights.

In response to Antti, in general, if I think a painting is beautiful, I would not stop thinking so if I later learn something bad about the painter. Unless the subject of the painting was related to the bad thing. But I'd probably stop do anything that might promote that painting.

[Kristenelle]

Antti wrote: "I hadn't heard about MZB before, but I'll just assume here all the allegations about her are true. Will that make her books worse?

Imagine you saw a water color painting and thought it was pretty...."

I think there is an argument to be made that even if an artist isn't being financially supported by your consumption of their art that you are still contributing to their popularity. In that case, pirating is still contributing to the memory of the artist and will lead to others consuming their art. Idk. Just another factor to consider.

I've been thinking about "Ender's Game" though and how it in no way reflects Card's homophobia. I consider it to be a really profound, good book. It is both enjoyable and accessible while also asking deep, important questions. Am I going to keep my kids from reading it in the future, for example? Truthfully, I consider it good, valuable art. In terms of what is better for the universe...I really don't know.

And then, does the offense itself matter? As horrendous as Card's anti-gay activism is, it is also pretty mainstream, especially for Mormons. Do we give him any grace for the mores of his bubble? And I think the answer to that question depends on the situation.

[Kristenelle]

Scott wrote: "A fact that is often forgotten (or intentionally ignored) in modern conversations is that, in general, men and women have different interests. It's not as obvious now because SF has moved into the ..."

Yikes.

I think it is less that men and women have different interests than that they are punished and rewarded differently by society for their interests. I mean, just look at gamergate.

Scott wrote: "So to look back through history and ask "where all the wimmens at" isn't very realistic."

This is super disrespectful.

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

Kristen wrote: "Scott wrote: "So to look back through history and ask "where all the wimmens at" isn't very realistic."

This is super disrespectful.."

Sorry, I as a mod missed it. Definitely, no need to go sarcastic and disrespectful.

I think that in the 1830s we had more women in (proto-)SF both as writers Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and likely as readers. However, after the stage was taken by Jules Verne with his idea of 'scientific/educational novel' and the genre turned more technical there was an increase in male readership just because due to the then-present gender norms, engineering and tech in general was considered "a male thing". However, I don't think that Verne pushed women writers from the genre - more likely in its nascent state the SF was considered a one-man writing style. In support of my argument I cite a small number of works similar to Verne's in the mid/late 19th century by any author irrespective of gender.