manifesto

[dichroic]

Oursin asks, “Is it better to have massive ambitions, and fail, or to have modest aims, and succeed?”

My answer to that is enough of a “this, I believe” statement that I’m copying it here.

In my opinion, it is better to have massive ambitions, and to break down the steps to achieve them into small and realistic ones. That way even if you don’t get all the way to the Promised Land, you can at least tell if you’ve gotten 30% of the way through the desert.

Corollaries:
1. I’ve climbed a lot of mountains. The most encouraging thing I know, when you’ve beein going for hours and you’re tired and you’ve just found that you’re coming up on a false peak and there’s still a lot farther to go, is to look back and see how far you’ve come.

2. I suppose it’s also worthwhile to look at the actual stories of the Hero’s Journey (Moses and the Israelites *didn’t* go straight through that not-very-big desert; neither did Odysseus go straight home) and realize how often there was a lot of wandering in circles going on, and how sometimes those circles gave you what you need to progress.

3. One of my most favorite quotes ever: “You are not expected to complete the work, but neither may you refrian from beginning it” attributed to Rabbi Tarfon, in the Pirkei Avot.

4. This has been coming up for me a lot lately in assorted discussions. Just because someone was flawed does not invalidate the work they did (even when the flaws are built into the work itself). On the other hand, just because the work they did is important (to you personally or to society as a whole) does not mean they are not flawed or that the flaws can’t be discussed. The flaws may mean, once you understand them, that the work is not as great as you once thought. Or not.

Concrete examples: I can’t read Heinlein or Sayers without being bothered a bit by the racism / sexism / antiSemitism in there, but I do still read them. On the other hand I think the Declaration of Independence is as brilliant as I ever thought it was, no matter flawed jefferson himself was.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

Comments

[apis_mellifera]

I think it's the reluctance to even admit that there are flaws that's been so frustrating. I've unofficially removed myself from that particular discussion because I don't trust my ability to be civil--I really don't understand why it's so difficult to admit that aspects of the book under discussion are racist.

[dichroic]

Easy - it's what some people said in the Heinlein discussions at Tor. So many people have built their dreams and their selves on writers like Heinlein or Sayers (the only reason I'm not built on *both* is that I didn't encounter DLS until I was in my thirties - but she's certainly part of how I continue to build and rebuild my self). When you say "there is racism* in this book", when that book is a part of you, it's really easy to hear it as "this is a racist book" => "this is a racist author" => "if you love this author or have internalized her work you are a racist". It's the same reason many people have been making the distinction between telling someone they said a racist thing and telling someone they are a racist.

A more constructive line might be "Sayers' stuff is flawed by racism" => "Sayers herself was flawed by racism" => Sayers was a great writer anyway" => "It is possible to be great despite deep flaws" => "there's hope for me yet!"

There are points where I disagree with you, mostly on that 'product of her time' bit. I don't say it's an excuse but I do think it's a reason. But I should probably conduct that discussion on-list.

[apis_mellifera]

The 'product of her time' bit mainly annoys me because it's so often used as an excuse to not examine the issues more closely. For, I think, the reasons you mention--if they admit the work is flawed, then that may call some of their own sense of self into question.

[dichroic]

I love this comment. I keep going back to it and I think it applies to DLS as much as it does to RAH. It says to me"The author is flawed. S/he was born in a time that wasn't ours, s/he imbibed the mores and morals of that time, overcame them to a certain extent and deserves credit for that, and did less well in other ways." I agree with DD-B that the failures are less interesting than the successes, but also that you can't (I'm extrapolating from his words here) talk about or understand the successes without realizing their limits and where they fall short. I don't think a partial success is a failure and I do think it's interesting.

This case really is fascinating, the more I think about it. DLS is clearly trying to say that racism is wrong; the bad guys view Hallelujah Dawson as no more important than an ant you step on, the unsympathetic but not strictly evil (at least, not murderous) ones see him as subnuman. Miss Climpson, who is portrayed throughout as likeable but limited in her outlook, sees him as human and tries but doesn't succeed in putting herself in his place. (The "we might have been like him but for God's grace" speech. And then on top of the heap you have Peter and Parker, who are clearly supposed to be non-racist, who view him as an individual deserving of respect - and who still fall prey to their own elitism (it can be debated if this is racism or classism or national chauvinism or not-like-us-ism or all of the above) and fail to recognize that "human like us" demands consistently respectful treatment.

I think what we have here is a case of DLS falling short of her own vision.

(And now I will go post the above to the list.)