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Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

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Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#71

Post by CWuestefeld »

nhebb wrote: post #65

I found that the less I put on the stage, the more the audience would imagine a much more compelling set than I could ever build Analogous to Card's statement, lately I've come to realize that I like movies better when they don't explicitly tell you everything. I think a good formula for writing is to lay all the facts out, then remove one or two of them from the script.

I'd almost agree with you, but as you describe it, the result would just be deus ex machina. It's not fair to just pull a resolution out of your butt, that couldn't possibly have been predicted.

Better to have all the facts there, but not in your face. Commonly, a film with focus on a key point, or dwell on an image, to ensure that the viewer gets it, and I think that's a mistake. A good example of a movie that gets it right is Silence of the Lambs, in which all the information is there, but the viewer needs to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#72

Post by CWuestefeld »

burgerbrain wrote: post #14
hugh3 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But where do you draw the line between "Opinions with which I disagree" and "Opinions which make you a bad person if you hold them"? I tend to classify really silly opinions as "loopy" rather than "evil", as long as they don't actually advocate violence or similar. OSC has loopy opinions, not immoral ones.

Hateful and discriminatory seems like a decent line to me, but hey, its a judgement call. Decide for yourself.

Hateful and discriminatory seems like a decent line to me

To me, you sound like the thought police.

In my moral code, we're entitled to think what we want, and nobody has any business condemning us based on our thoughts. The line is our actions: if we do something to someone as a result of our thoughts, that crosses the line.

I've said to a few gay friends that I personally think that homosexuality is gross; but I also think that broccoli is gross. The fact that I feel that way doesn't have anything to do with the way I view them as people, and certainly not how I treat them -- not any more than my distaste for broccoli affects my relationship with eaters of broccoli. And everyone I've talked about this attitude with seems to think it's a perfectly reasonable one to hold.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#73

Post by Hawramani »

ab9 wrote: post #58
rubergly wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the claim is that no book can survive any hostile reading, but that you can always approach a book with enough hostility to ruin it.

That's not how I interpret him. Here's the quotation with more context: "Of course, those who approached Ender's Game skeptically or because they were 'forced' to read it can hardly imagine their response is valid for those who read it as volunteers or with belief: No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading."

Maybe Card's definition of a hostile reading is different from yours.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#74

Post by burgerbrain »

chernevik wrote: post #66
burgerbrain wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what? I think I'm actually alright with someone thinking that I am terrible because I think that outspoken homophobes are terrible. Yeah, I am pretty sure that doesn't concern me in the slightest. Edit: fixed stupid corrective spelling thing...

Is that because you are willing to fight it out? Or because you think you've got the people with the "wrong" opinions well out-numbered? Use your imagination and consider circumstances where people with the "right" opinions are outnumbered, and considered dangerous. I _hope_ that I'd be saying the right things in Berlin 1935, or Richmond 1855, or Birmingham 1958, or Moscow 1920 - 1985. But I'm damn sure I'd be _conce…

I mean I am not going to lose sleep over people thinking less of me for disliking homophobes. I won't be persuaded to modify my opinions by warnings that the people I dislike (homophobes) will dislike me in return.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#75

Post by burgerbrain »

grandalf wrote: post #70
burgerbrain wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe its all that hard to respect Bobby Fischer's chess (while despising everything else about him), while at the same time failing to respect Scott Card in general. Unlike chessplayers, authors play an important role in society by creating literature for that society to consume. They therefore, in my opinion, should be examined with more scrutiny.^ The fact that people hold up Ender's Game as a work with…

Many would say the same about athletes... What professions do you think play such an important role that they should be judged for their personal political views rather than for the biproduct of their professional work? While I agree that Card's views on homosexuality are disturbing, stupid, and quite shocking considering the considerable depth with which he appears (from his fiction writing) to understand difficult…

We don't look towards athletes for their intellectual output. We do with authors.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#76

Post by michaeldhopkins »

burgerbrain wrote: post #55
michaeldhopkins wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't want this recursion to apply to you too. Saying a person who says someone is terrible is terrible puts you next in line. Fortunately for both of us I don't think you're terrible, just a little too excited to dislike someone.

You know what? I think I'm actually alright with someone thinking that I am terrible because I think that outspoken homophobes are terrible. Yeah, I am pretty sure that doesn't concern me in the slightest. Edit: fixed stupid corrective spelling thing...

Okay, then follow the recursion back the other way. You should expect them to care as little about what you think as you care about what I think.

It seems either you believe your opposites have a more open mind than you do (so you can convince them despite your unconcern about being perceived as being like them), or you are writing opinions you hope your intended audience will like so they will like you. Perhaps you are writing for a judging God or people you consider to be your social superiors (people who can upvote.) You might reply that you write your opinions only for yourself, but because you wrote them here instead of a desktop text editor I think you want some other benefit.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#77

Post by CWuestefeld »

sho_hn wrote: post #39
chc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting that the first passage offends you so much. I support gay rights and would really like to see gender taken out of the law altogether, but Card's philosophy there seems unarguably true. People have lots of natural impulses that society expects them to control, so whether homosexuality is natural or not doesn't matter . Homosexuality would be no less acceptable in my eyes if it were a choice. The…

I actually don't find it offensive (though I obviously disagree with it) as much as I find it oddly recognizable: What he's trying to do throughout the entire linked text is proliferate the notion that homosexuality is in fact a choice, in that homosexuals can supposedly chose to control their sinful desires at no greater personal cost (but possibly even personal gain), whether those desires be genetically predispose…

proliferate the notion that homosexuality is in fact a choice, in that homosexuals can supposedly chose to control their sinful desires

There are certainly a lot of behaviors that we're (as a species if not as an individual) predisposed to, that are viewed as socially unacceptable. For example, the benefits in a Darwinian framework of extramarital affairs are quite well established. It's to a males genetic advantage to have as many sexual partners as possible, and generally men do have such latent desires. Yet society condemns those who act on those desires, even though they're perfectly natural. Why can't we say that homosexuality is similar: something that an individual may be predisposed to for whatever reason, but if he wants to avoid society's scarlet letter, he must repress those desires? [1]

Of course he's also not giving any explanation for exactly why homosexuality is supposed to be sinful in the first place.

I'm not going to dig up citations for this because I'm not interested in proving it. Suffice it to say that there is sufficient text in the Christian Bible that someone who builds his moral codes from what he, personally, reads in its pages can reasonably come to the conclusion that homosexuality is a sin. [2]

[1] Not that I believe that a homosexual should have to repress those desires; I'm merely arguing that this is an internally consistent moral system.

[2] I also acknowledge that there are places in the Bible that might contradict that, or at least temper its severity. My point is that a reasonable person, weighing many passages in the Bible, might come to that conclusion.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#78

Post by nhebb »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #71
nhebb wrote: post #65

I found that the less I put on the stage, the more the audience would imagine a much more compelling set than I could ever build Analogous to Card's statement, lately I've come to realize that I like movies better when they don't explicitly tell you everything. I think a good formula for writing is to lay all the facts out, then remove one or two of them from the script.

I'd almost agree with you, but as you describe it, the result would just be deus ex machina . It's not fair to just pull a resolution out of your butt, that couldn't possibly have been predicted. Better to have all the facts there, but not in your face. Commonly, a film with focus on a key point, or dwell on an image, to ensure that the viewer gets it, and I think that's a mistake. A good example of a movie that gets…

I didn't mean deux ex machina. You can provide the information and let the audience infer the result, or you can explicitly show the result. As you build the storyline and subplots, judiciously allowing the audience to interpret what happened at intermediate points in the story or at the end can make it more interesting than simply laying it all out.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#79

Post by nandemo »

tptacek wrote: post #54
pitdesi wrote: post #5

I love Ender's Game and all of OSC's other books, but it seems like he might be a terrible guy... more on that in this very interesting interview: http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/card

This is a textbook terrible HN comment. It sources what may be the single worst literary interview ever conducted (the author interviews herself snickering at her subject) to illuminate the worst-kept secret in all sci-fi fandom (that Orson Scott Card is a devout socially conservative Mormon), all in service of the conclusion that social conservatives are "terrible" people. NOTHING GOOD CAN CONCEIVABLY COME OF THE EN…

Indeed. I wish I could collapse down a subthread a la reddit.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#80

Post by ab9 »

Hawramani wrote: post #73
ab9 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how I interpret him. Here's the quotation with more context: "Of course, those who approached Ender's Game skeptically or because they were 'forced' to read it can hardly imagine their response is valid for those who read it as volunteers or with belief: No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading."

Maybe Card's definition of a hostile reading is different from yours.

I'm understanding the term "hostile reading" as Card defines it in the above quotation. A hostile reader is one who approaches a book skeptically or is forced to read it (in the sense of being required to read it to complete a class). A hostile reading is what he does.
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