Posted by Patrick at 01:26 PM * 199 comments
Donald Trump Will Be President. This Is What We Do Next. By Jon Schwarz. This is the piece that got me back on my feet.
Masha Gessen, Autocracy: Rules for Survival. “I have lived in autocracies most of my life, and have spent much of my career writing about Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I have learned a few rules for surviving in an autocracy and salvaging your sanity and self-respect. It might be worth considering them now.” Rule #1 is “Believe the autocrat. He means what he says.”
Laurie Penny, On the Election of Donald Trump. “I am done listening to my liberal friends contort themselves to take into account the notional opinions of the ‘white working class.’ What does that even mean? How did we come to the craven consensus that the ‘white working class’ is a homogenous mass of blustering bigots who must be pandered to as one might pander to a toddler having a tantrum at the edge of a cliff? A great many white people who are far from wealthy take issue with that particular patronising strain of self-scourgery on the left. A great many non-wealthy white people manage not to blame all their problems on feminazis, immigrants and their black and brown neighbours. Those people are real Americans, too.”
Bruce Sterling, Notes on the 2016 Election. “It’s hard to write of momentous events in the hot, crispy, pan-fried moment in which events are momentous. But I know that the events of this week are just a part of stranger, larger things that are coming. During my lifetime there’s always been something sacrosanct about the American Presidency. Not anymore. Yes, it will still be the office of a chief executive with atomic bombs and a huge military and spy apparatus. But it’s no longer the lay Papacy for a unipolar superpower. Like other aspects of the digital landscape, the Presidency is just up for grabs.”
Monica Hesse, Stop saying “This isn’t my America.” Sorry, it is. “‘I’m seeing so many posts, from mostly white friends, saying, “America, I don’t even know you,”’ says Wendy Tien, a Milwaukee attorney and second-generation Taiwanese American. ‘And I’m thinking, “Where have you been? What do you mean you don’t know this America? Why haven’t you seen it?” I’ve seen it. I see it all the time.’”
Alex Steffen, There Will Never Be a Better Time to Save the Planet. “2°C is a vanished target now. But this isn’t a 2°C or bust fight. It’s a fight to limit consequences. It’s a fight for every 1/10th of a degree. If we fail to hold to 2°C, we have to fight for 2.1°; failing that, we battle on for 2.2°. With millennia of impacts at stake, we never get to give up, even if we end up in 4°C. For future generations, 4° is still better than 4.1°. ‘Game over’ is neither realistic nor responsible. Even the most catastrophic outcomes humanity aren’t the apocalypse—the end of the future itself—they’re just appalling failure and tragedy. We have a duty to people who will live after those failures.”
Teju Cole, A Time for Refusal. “[O]ne by one, various people in the town begin to turn into rhinos. Their skin hardens, bumps appear over their noses and grow into horns. Jean had been one of those scandalized by the first two rhino sightings, but he becomes a rhino, too. Midway through his metamorphosis, Berenger argues with him: ‘You must admit that we have a philosophy that animals don’t share, and an irreplaceable set of values, which it’s taken centuries of human civilization to build up.’ Jean, well on his way to being a rhino, retorts, ‘When we’ve demolished all that, we’ll be better off!’”
Let’s Have a Fresh Start. Bush speechwriter David Frum isn’t buying the everybody-come-together happytalk.
Seems relevant: People will literally risk their lives for stories.
Hope in the Dark: Rebecca Solnit is giving away one of her books for free. You want this one.
Posted by Patrick at 11:46 AM * 167 comments
This morning, at 9:30, saw a long-planned major meeting at Tor, not quite all hands but definitely the majority of our staff plus various Macmillan-level sales and marketing managers.Last night, I found myself very grateful that I work in science fiction.It could have been better timed, obviously.
I took the opportunity to make some remarks. Here’s what I said:
Science fiction came into being in response to a new thing in human history: the understanding that not only was the world changing, but also that the rate of change was speeding up. That in a normal lifetime, you could expect to experience multiple episodes of rapid, disorienting change. Science fiction at its best has always been about examining and inhabiting those experiences when the world passes through a one-way door.
Modern science fiction grew up in the Great Depression and flourished in World War II. It thrived in the strangeness of the 1950s and the different strangeness of the 1960s. It has continued to be an essential set of tools for engaging with our careening world.
I don’t want to argue that reading science fiction makes us smarter or morally better. (I personally believe that, but I don’t want to argue it.) But I do believe that good storytelling is a positive force in the world. And I really do believe that science fiction and fantasy storytelling makes us, in some fundamental way, a bit more practiced in the ways of a world caught up in wrenching change—and more open to imagining better worlds that might be possible.
Bottom line: I’ve never been more convinced of the need for more good science fiction and fantasy, and I’ve never been more fired up to find it and publish it, hopefully with the help of everyone in this room. Thank you.
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 02:08 PM * 203 comments
Summer, child,
Come on with me to Orcus
Leave your mother
And her worries behind.
Your dearest wish
Will lead to adventure
So come, little Summer,
It’s leaving time.
When you’re in Orcus
Birds going to speak like people
Women will shape-change
And frogs grow on trees.
But what’s that behind you?
It’s the Queen-in-Chains’ servant.
The Houndbreaker’s hunting;
Time to fly.
This is a thread to discuss, speculate about, and squee over Ursula Vernon’s new web serial Summer in Orcus, without worrying about spoiling it for people who aren’t caught up.
Note that the introductory lyrics are entirely drawn from the blurb and the first episode; I don’t know any more about what’s going to happen than anyone else. Except Ursula, I suspect.
(Also, it’s free on the web, but your attention is of course drawn to the Patreon and Paypal links on the front page.)
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 06:00 AM * 145 comments
Normally when we use the phrase think of the children, it’s dismissive. And rightly so. The abstract possibility of children’s presence, a low-resolution notion of children’s safety, has been used as a club or a gag far too often. And the worst of it is, the people who say it are not thinking of the children, or they’d stop crying wolf and save that argument for when it really mattered. (When this is can be determined by listening to the children: a related skill, and indeed a basic prerequisite.)
I’ve read many stories about family breakdown in the news, heard them in conversation, seen them in my wider circle of friendship and acquaintance. These stories usually center on the adults whose relationships are in trouble, but I often find myself thinking of the children, wondering how they’re faring, wondering what hurt they’re suffering. Wishing someone could teach them how to navigate the situations they find themselves in far too young. So many of them will cope, but at a cost—one they’ll be paying interest on for years.
One thing that’s gone past my Twitter stream this last week is a British family court judgment written to be accessible to the people it affects: a mother who “often finds things hard to understand”, plus two children aged 10 and 12. Content warning for gaslighting. (But not, mercifully, for any neglect or physical or sexual abuse.)
I like this judge. He seems to be trying to give his intended audience the tools to deal with their situation, both explicitly and by example. So he says things like:
- People can tell lies about some things and still tell the truth about other things.
- I know that the children are loved and have been well looked after in many ways. Everyone says that the mother deserves praise for that, and praise also goes to Mr B and to Mr A when they deserve it.
- There is a good side to Mr A - everyone has a good side - and this makes it hard for H and A and their mother to see what he is really like.
- He has got inside her head and it will take time for her to recover.
He also talks about everyone in the story as people, with comprehensible motivations and reasons for their actions. The policewoman who was upset when Mr A put a video of her visit up on YouTube. Mr B, who has served time for violence and drugs offenses, but still tries to be a good father. The headteachers who have dealt with the family. The officials who exaggerated and skipped steps while reacting to the family’s trip to Turkey. Even Mr A, for good and ill.
And he talks about the children in the same way, with the same language. He writes with an awareness of what makes up their lives: school, home, parents and stepparents, grandparents, vacations; he treats these things as seriously as he does terrorism, religious extremism, crime, imprisonment. In doing this, he shows the children that they matter as much as adults do. That they have, as Jo Walton would say, equal significance.
This is what thinking of the children looks like. Thinking of them as people in need of concepts and tools for dealing with the situation they’re in and the people around them. Thinking about how to minimize the damage they’ll suffer from these chaotic circumstances. Thinking about how to support the good relationships in their lives and reduce the impact of this bad one.
Yes, please, let’s think of the children.
This is part of the sequence of Dysfunctional Families discussions. We have a few special rules, specific to the needs and nature of the conversations we have here.
- If you want to participate but don’t want your posts linked to your contributions to the rest of Making Light, feel free to choose a pseudonym. But please keep it consistent within these threads, because people do care. You can create a separate (view all by) history for your pseudonym by changing your email address. And if you blow it and cross identities, give me a shout and I’ll come along and tidy it up.
- On a related note, please respect the people’s choice to use a pseudonym, unless they make it clear that they are willing to let the identities bleed over in people’s minds.
- If you’re not from a dysfunctional background, be aware that your realities and base expectations are not the default in this conversation. In particular, please don’t do the “they’re the only family you have” thing. Black is white, up is down, and your addressee’s mother may very well be their nemesis.
- Be even more careful, charitable, and gentle than you would elsewhere on Making Light. Try to avoid “helpiness”/”hlepiness” (those comments which look helpful, but don’t take account of the addressee’s situation and agency). Apologize readily and sincerely if you tread on toes, even unintentionally. This kind of conversation only works because people have their defenses down.
- Never underestimate the value of a good witness. If you want to be supportive but don’t have anything specific to say, people do value knowing that they are heard.
Previous posts (note that comments are closed on them to keep the conversation in one place):
- Have a Dysfunctional Families Day
- Dysfunctional Families Day: Inversion Experience
- Dysfunctional Families Day: No Expectations
- Dysfunctional Families Day: Tangled Emotions
- Dysfunctional Families: You Must Be This Unhappy To Ride
- Dysfunctional Families: Circled Strangers
- Dysfunctional Families: Fish Hooks
- Dysfunctional Families: Everybody lined up for the parade?
- Dysfunctional Families: Sitting and Rising
- Dysfunctional Families: Surviving and Thriving
- Dysfunctional Families: Shooting and Shouting
- Dysfunctional Families: Hope
- Dysfunctional Families: Forgiveness
- Dysfunctional Families: Books on Tape
- Dysfunctional Families: Toolbox
- Dysfunctional Families, the Role-Playing Game
- Dysfunctional Families: Witnessing
- Dysfunctional Families: Boundaries
- Dysfunctional Families: Looking Back, Walking On
