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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

#111
post #39
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…

"This guy seems too intelligent to buy into half-assed argumentation of this kind - so what makes him write it?"

He's a Mormon! Two of the core dogmas of that religion are that (1) procreation is a duty, and (2) raising children well in a family is a duty. What you have to understand is that Mormons have remarkably low hypocrisy and cynicism. They give a lot of public lip service to procreation and family values, and then they go home, when nobody is looking, and make lots of babies and raise big families.

So they take it rather personally when a fringe political group (the tiny but loud homosexual lobby) tries to indoctrinate kindergartners that "it's my body and I can do whatever feels good", or hands out fisting kits in high schools. Mormons don't object to this because they are so fearful that their minds are diseased (phobic), but rather out of the belief that those activities do not make a strong basis for a society. (And they have a point. San Francisco's inverted population pyramid has even the secular authorities alarmed. If SF wasn't fascinating enough to attract enough a flood of immigrants, it would be Detroit with queers.)

Mormons are also very big on conscious self control of all appetites and lusts in the service of long-term goals. They don't just say "smoking is bad, mmmkay", they don't smoke. (The tobacco lobby does not diagnose this as the disease of tobaccophobia and hold My Lungs, My Choice rallies.) I suspect that this is the actual reason the Mormons and queers are so allergic to each other: the Mormons tend toward a very low time preference (long planning horizon) and the queers a high time preference (live in the moment). It is almost a law of nature that someone with high time preference will throw a hissy fit when lectured on moral choice by someone with low time preference.

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

#112
post #3

Unfortunately does nothing to change my view that authors should probably keep away from their own reviews. If he'd had some brilliant new insight that would be one thing, but instead he just comes off as slightly more defensive than anyone who has sold tens of millions of books should. I guess it was 1999 when this was written, though, so the norms for online reviews had not yet been established.

I agree that authors should avoid responding to reviews. However, this is the most gracious response to a review I have ever read from an author. From everything I have read from authors, it does not matter how many books they sell, bad reviews still hurt.

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

#113
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that a relatively sane viewpoint would cover the idea that being black is not something the person chooses to become, while engaging in homosexual behavior is very clearly a lifestyle choice; given that there is genetic coding for whether you are black or not, but no coding for homosexuality.

While there are many choices that all people make in the sphere of sexuality, choosing who lights your fire is not one of them. I can no more choose to find men sexually attractive than I can choose to not find sugar sweet.

I have no way to answer that without resorting to anecdotal evidence, as you are yourself doing. I could answer with quotes from the "ex-gay" movement ... but those are anecdotal as well.

I don't think there is a way to gather hard evidence without engaging in unethical conduct (that is, any psych experiment that would give data might irreparably harm people and thus would be wrong).

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

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but you can. :) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bbkfcamiocfccgmcjn...

Thanks. I normally use Firefox but I might end up using Chrome just for HN.

No need!

https://github.com/giu/hacker-news-threadify

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

#115
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wait... So if someone reads it voluntarily but skeptically it is somehow a hostile reading by the definition you cite? It seems to me you are selectively ignoring the part where he explicitly declares voluntary reading not hostile.

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

#117
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would take issue with your view that Card isn't homophobic. From "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality" by Orson Scott Card: "Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message to those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitte…

I'd need to read the whole article before knowing for sure how to react to that paragraph, as it appears to be part of a reductio ad absurdum -- that one would have to claim that society ought to have no laws whatsoever limiting sexual behavior in order to refute his point. This might explain his emphasis on laws, which usually boils down to an argument lauding the democratic process that got us those laws, while tak…

It is no way a straw man argument. A straw man argument is when you invent or restate the other person original argument.

In the interview he specifically stated that he supported laws that protected people from being fired based on race but NOT homosexuality.

There are certainly legitimate reasons to not support laws protecting people from discrimination. If Card had been against them in GENERAL and I had cherry-picked his opposition to those laws protecting sexual orientation, THEN it may have construed a straw man argument. But I did no such thing. I did not misinterpret his position; he was not opposed to such laws in general, but ONLY those regarding sexual orientation.

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

#118
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wait... So if someone reads it voluntarily but skeptically it is somehow a hostile reading by the definition you cite? It seems to me you are selectively ignoring the part where he explicitly declares voluntary reading not hostile.

No, Card does not explicitly declare that in the quotation I posted. (Did you mean elsewhere in his review?) He's saying: It's a hostile reading if it's skeptical rather than "with belief". It's also a hostile reading if it's forced rather than voluntary.

You probe his definition by asking, If someone reads it skeptically but voluntarily, does that count as hostile? That's a good question. I don't think we have enough information to answer it, because Card does not state how to weigh skepticism and forcedness against each other.

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

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And you've already dismissed the possibility that they actually have reasons for their opinions, or you wouldn't refer to them with a pejorative. So it looks like nothing could persuade to change your mind.

The problem with these "homophobes" is their closed minds, right?

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

#120
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then again, Ender's Game included the general idea of blogs as a plot point ... (Not sure what else you would classify Peter/Valentine's self-published online essays as.)

Aren't they explicitly described as forum postings?

Yes. And, sadly, USENET still has a lot of ways it was superior to current web-based forums, blogs, etc.
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