Spider Star

The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
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Praise for Star Dragon

"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin

"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine

"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review

"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly

"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
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Well-Meaning Anti-Whatever Zealotry and the Perils of Blogging

July 14th, 2008

This entry might be a bad idea, but there’s this thing that’s bugging me and I’m going to get it off my chest.

I blog because I’ve got a particular perspective on life and the world, and some things I think are interesting and important to say from that perspective. I write novels for similar reasons, and also to take my turn providing an experience to others that I have enjoyed myself, very much, for my entire life. Most of the feedback I get, public and private about the blogging, is positive.

Some of it is well meaning but rather negative and of a type, unfortunately, too common on the internet. It makes blogging suck sometimes.

I’m calling it “anti-whatever zealotry.” It can sometimes be called political correctness (a negative term to me as it implies control of thought or speech for someone’s political purpose, which may or may not always be a noble one), but not always. I’m pretty sure I’ve been guilty of it a few times myself, which I’ll get to in time.

Let me provide some examples. A couple of days ago I blogged here and at sfnovelists about how it helps to have had some life experiences to be a writer, and used as a lead-in the point that most writers seem to have had a long list of varied jobs or a single professional career (often scientist or engineer in the case of sf writers). Besides being anecdotally true, my premise was that these histories give a person a lot of experience — broad in the former case and deep in the latter. Several people left offended comments about how I was showing a class bias or belittling their education, professionalism, etc., which in my opinion arose from a combination of less than crystal clear writing on my part and sloppy reading on theirs, as well as a form of zealotry/bias.

Blogs don’t get revised three or four times like a novel, or run past several editors. (I do appreciate a few readers who let me know when I make obvious errors, which helps.) There is sloppiness from time to time here and on nearly every blog I’ve ever seen. Instead of looking more deeply, asking for clarification, the biased zealot with a chip on their shoulder assumes the worst and attacks. Instead of discussing the main point, they take a cheap shot, make an innuendo impossible to rationally respond to, and leave a foul taste in the mouth.

Here’s a very recent case which had me thinking about this, too, in which implications of racism were made due to missing a larger context (see Sheila Williams’s comment in particular that makes the context clear, at least concerning the issue about the suggestion that certain editors might be racist because they were talking about the legalities of making rejection letters public rather than condemning a likely case of prejudice in sf).

I’ve seen dozens of similar examples, or experienced them, over the years. You probably have, too.

The zealots mean well. They’re trying to stomp out something they hate that they see: racism, classism, chauvinism, whatever. Usually bad stuff that most ethical people can agree about. Sometimes it’s really there and the stomp isn’t a bad idea. Sometimes it’s questionable if it’s there, and the stomp is questionable too. Sometimes it’s only there in their own eyes.

But the zealot doesn’t stop to consider that. They’re hyped up to see their issue, always ready to go nuts (or at least snipe), and ready and able to discuss it until most people would be exhausted. Moreover, they’re ready to do this when the offense is very subtle, or not actually present at all, attacking friends even, while all the time there are real bigots and asses openly espousing hate or whatever elsewhere on the internet that they don’t bother to seek out (at least not often enough to prevent the less warranted or unwarranted attacks).

For my own part, I must admit I’ve been guilty of this a few times. Anti-science and irrationality are my big issues, and some types of bigotry (e.g., against atheists and weird people in general like sf fans, nerds, and goths). Michael Crichton is probably, nominally, pro science by most measures, at least as a methodology, even if he gets a bunch of stuff wrong and overuses the danger of new technology as a theme — but I went after him even though there are much worse offenders. I mean, The Secret?

And the hell of it is that when we get up on our hobby horses and aggressively go after friends or those in our field for minor slights or perceived slights that might not even be there, well, we make the world a little nastier. It’s bad enough that there are assholes out there using racial slurs regularly and staking out hateful positions quite openly, but to go after good people who write an unclear sentence or who don’t jump on your bandwagon as fast or with as much righteous fury as you’d have them do…seems like a poor way to spend our time. When we’re wrong, or overreact, we risk alienating potential friends and making enemies.

And if your issue pops up, consider taking a deep breath and asking yourself what response is the most constructive. Is the infraction blatant? Are you absolutely sure you know what the writer/speaking really means? Would someone lacking the same zealotry see the same problem without you framing it for them?

For my part, I’m going to try. Probably fail sometimes, but less often I hope. And I’m going to try to toughen myself up and take comments less personally even though comments left on blogs are usually personal.

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