Great Moments in Author Filibuster History

Arthur tracts?

Kill all math nerds

I think 1984 and other dystopian novels tend to work because their actual purpose is to condemn a certain idea if taken to an extreme. Author filibusters are more "bad" when you wouldn't necessarily go into the novel expecting them.

Hodor

I've seen some that are possibly worse, but the most memorable to me was Michael Crichton's State of Fear. Considering that I was a huge Crichton fan before reading it and had just finished most of his other books, it was kind of painful to read through several hundred pages of why global warming is a farce made up by evil scientists, especially when he actually did a pretty good job staying scientifically accurate in previous novels.

Me Too!.

Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.

@R Labs M. Crichton was already notorious for his author filibusters in previous novels. It's just that people tended to ignore that because look dinosaurs, cool! But even in JP he has Malcom giving boring pretentious rants.

I haven't picked up The Diamond Age in a couple of years, but if I remember right this is more subtle than you're giving it credit for. Finkle-McGraw's speech is not aimed at cultural superiority  ^*

but at cultural differences: he's saying that the cultural assumptions people carry affect their development in moral, intellectual, and practical terms. Which is absolutely true, even if it does come uncomfortably close to some of the doctrine of 19th-century scientific racism. And even that tension must be 100% deliberate: why else would you spend all that time thinking up the details of a neo-Victorian society?

I didn't mind the diatribe against postmodern academia in Cryptonomicon, either, although that's probably because it played to some bitterness I harbored when I first read it. I did think that Anathem went over the top in pushing its odd brand of scientific monasticism, though; although there are some late indications that the system's ultimately maladaptive, the mathic characters and lifestyle are cast in such glowing terms relative to the outside world (which is a pretty transparent stand-in for early-21st-century popular culture) that they all end up ringing pretty hollow.

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.

I think the speech bugs me because it sounds like the idea that you ascribe poverty to "black culture" or "Latino culture", etc.- it replaces racism by saying that racial groups are badly off because they have a bad culture.

I also just have a general thing that I wouldn't want to live in the world envisioned in Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, and it's hard for me to tell how much Stephenson thinks it's a good place to live.

Hodor

Wait, so now culture plays a role in determining someone's success and failure? What happened to that being postmodern liberal bullshit in Cryptonomicon?

Kill all math nerds

I suppose it could, in the specific sense that a culture which values education very highly is probably going to turn out more academically successful people and a culture which highly values athletics is probably going to turn out more athletically successful people. Pressure.

survival of the tight-lipped

I think it's sort of like you are still responsible for your successes and failures even if your culture had a role in making you this way- it sounds like Stephenson (or at least Finkle-Mc Graw)'s solution to poverty is to fix the culture, not help the people.

Hodor

I love the kind of belief in self-reliance and egoism that only someone born into a well-off white family in a first world country can display.

Kill all math nerds

Well, talking about "black culture" in this context is racism, strictly speaking: it implies that race is inextricably linked to culture and thus to cultural effects on social outcomes. ("Latino culture" is a little more complicated: it can be similar, but "Latino" can also describe a cultural as well as an ethnic group.) Once you correct for that, I think that Finkle-McGraw is putting some responsibility for poverty down to culture, and I think there's a decent argument for that.

It's important to remember, though, that treating cultural factors as significant doesn't necessarily imply treating racism as insignificant (or "replaced", in your words). In the context of modern society, both matter, and so a comprehensive approach to poverty would have to address both. In the context of The Diamond Age race pretty obviously doesn't matter, but given that it's set a couple of hundred years from now, that it's a book about culture rather than about race, and that the speaker is, IIRC, ethnically Chinese, I think that's an acceptable authorial conceit.

That said, if we look at the big picture of Stephenson's worldview with his books as a proxy, I don't think racism fits well into it as a causal factor. He's touched on the issue elsewhere (and usually treats it as a sign that the racist is an ignorant and irredeemable sister-fucking yokel), but his model of social outcomes seems to revolve almost entirely around personality (as influenced by the surrounding culture), and especially around how people work with knowledge. I do think this is an overly reductionist way of looking at things, as I might have implied above in my critique of Anathem. It's also kind of ironic given Stephenson's stated thoughts on totalizing philosophies, but we know from The Diamond Age that he doesn't mind a little hypocrisy: there was another Author Filibuster about that, as I recall.

The implications here do you and your argument a disservice, I think.

edited 2nd Jun '10 3:00:20 PM by Nornagest

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.

^How, so? I'm sorry if I accidentally had some Unfortunate Implications there.

Kill all math nerds

Do I really need to explain? It's fundamentally an ad hominem argument against valuing self-reliance and egoism, and it's made worse by relying on race and class. Very bad form.

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.

...no, it isn't. (Except the egoism part.) It's saying that privileged people ascribe excessive effectiveness to self-reliance.

edited 2nd Jun '10 4:00:34 PM by Aoede

survival of the tight-lipped

Rejecting an argument (viz. the value of egoism and/or self-reliance) by invoking traits of the people making it (viz. privilege) is the definition of ad hominem, Aoede. I don't know how much clearer I can make this.

edited 2nd Jun '10 4:05:35 PM by Nornagest

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.

It's because of those traits — or circumstances — that they place excessive importance on self-reliance.

edited 2nd Jun '10 4:06:07 PM by Aoede

survival of the tight-lipped

Which would be a point worth making if privilege had any bearing on the actual (not perceived) value of the traits in question. It doesn't.

You'd be right if Myrmidon was only talking about beliefs, but I think the implications of his statement are pretty clear.

edited 2nd Jun '10 4:09:38 PM by Nornagest

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.

I don't know about you, but I'm definitely talking about perceived value: "ascribe excessive effectiveness", "place excessive importance". As in overestimate. As in self-reliance might have value X, but certain people ascribe it value X+100.

//ninjedit: Then perhaps it's a matter of differing interpretations of his original comment. "belief in self-reliance" read like an assessment of perception to me.

edited 2nd Jun '10 4:11:14 PM by Aoede

survival of the tight-lipped

Hah, well I read the Sword of Truth series (yes, the whole thing) and didn't even notice any Author Filibuster stuff. Although looking back, all the dilemmas faced by the main character and all the exposition makes a lot more sense. I think I was probably reading the series in between a bunch of other door stoppers and really, it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between a book that is simply padded, and a book that is padded with author filibusters.

Also, I'm never reading Animal Farm again because the book is too depressing for me. And the pig is evil. Although I do appreciate the message.

I call forth Unlimited Stories!

@Aoede: Consider the context. That came right after Jordan's comment about people being responsible for their own failures despite the effects of culture; placed as it is, it's hard to get anything out of it other than a suggestion that people are not responsible in that way, and that Stephenson only thinks they are because he's white, male, etc. We weren't talking about people's self-constructed political views; we were talking about the influences leading to actual outcomes.

At best, it's a non sequitur.

edited 2nd Jun '10 4:20:25 PM by Nornagest

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.

I thought Anna Karenina's author filibusters were a bit tedious at times especially Levin's. Still a good book though.

I don't think responsibility is Boolean.

survival of the tight-lipped

@Norm- I'm kind of inclined to agree with Myrmidon- it's not that the only people who preach self-reliance are white, male, and middle-upper class, but I do think that people of that class who preach it tend to ignore the advantages they've had from birth- which is arguably true of Stephenson given one interpretation of his filbuster in Cryptonomicon.

You're right that Stephenson always portrays racists very negatively though, so I don't think he's racist. Actually, one of my problems with the future in his novels is I'm rather disturbed by there being a "white power"/white South African ethnic enclave (I believe there were two).

I know being a libertarian allows for bad outcomes to individual choice, but I think/hope Stephenson overestimates the number of people that would join this kind of thing.

edited 2nd Jun '10 4:23:18 PM by Jordan

Hodor

Neither do I, as you may have gathered from that wall of text I posted half a page ago. I've got my own issues with Stephenson's worldview, but I have enough taste not to voice them via snide insinuations about privilege.

edited 2nd Jun '10 4:24:13 PM by Nornagest

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.