Discussion Literature / VictoriaANovelOf4thGenerationWar

I know this was heavily entry pimped by a guy who kept saying it totally wasn't racist guys, but is there actually anything to do with wicks if they're fine?

Or are you claiming that each wick should mention that this is white supremacist propaganda? Which... I'm on board for, even if it's a pain. The entry pimping did effectively launder the work, I'm seeing examples that just call it a "near future thriller" which sounds... cool, instead of racist.

Or other ones that seem low in context to the point that I don't know if it actually applies or not.

Basically, what do you think needs to be done? Clean up? Labeling?

We also have a Troping works that promote bigotry thread, which is intended to discuss this sort of thing and keep us consistent.

Clean up. Remove the wicks if they don't fit/ are a stretch. Some of them are of the type "a plot point because New Confederation doesn't have those", others are of the type "It's mentioned in one sentence in a novel, I'll pretend it's a huge part of the work". There was already a cleanup of the main page, the issue is that some of those "cleaned" wicks haven't been removed on the other side so they still link to the page.

Hypothetical example of the first type would be "A knight in shining armor: Averted. Nobody in novel Victoria is wearing any metal armor" which IMO is abuse of the trope. The second type would be one sentence describing a character as well-dressed and soft-spoken in the novel and using it to shoehorn Southern Gentlemen trope.

A sandbox might be in order. I've been clicking through and doing some cleanup, but without a way to tell what has and hasn't been cleaned up (as if something's deleted, it's just gone. If someone's cleaned up, then someone else will waste their time looking at it) we'll get redundant work.

May want a sandbox for this.

@Larkmarn the page already had sandbox, that's why there is a few wicks on the page itself. I'll clean the remaining 300 or so on the other trope pages and things will be alright.

Keep doing the good work cleaning it. Most of the wicks were added by one guy (Idumean Patriot) and a few more people adding a few wicks. I posted a review of the book in 2020 with the same note, that it shoehorned the examples. This current discussion we are on is on the page after the cleanup thread, which tells you that things were even worse. To quote:

"Another interesting thing to note, Victoria is one of the most linked articles on this whole site. That's one of the reasons I decided to read it in the first place. I thought it was just Tropperific piece like ASOIAF or Harry Potter but I was wrong. It's just a result of two very active and focused editors with a possible agenda.

For comparison: "Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone" has 594 references. "Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban" has 527.

Victoria has 520."

Thank you.

I feel as though calling the Civil Rights movement "partisan bullshit" (or at least, deleting criticism of a passage attacking it as anti-freedom, which is a distinction without a difference in my eyes) is marginal on this front, but I can't deny the page could use some trimming so I guess I'm just getting this in writing here and now in case the situation gets worse.

...Actually, considering the guy in question just got banned for seemingly politically motivated fights on the wiki, maybe I ought to be even more careful than I was already trying to be...

I second that recommendation.

I third this.

Some of the content may have been too subjective before, but the edits seem to have way overshot in the other direction, and may have sought to hide the more ugly parts of the work.

Fourthed. Fucking hell, it doesn't even have a tenth of the vitriol from the spacebattles thread. And apologism for this canNOT be tolerated.

Fifthed.

Sixth. There is only so much that can be dismissed as 'in story.'

I'm moderately amused that my edits were taken as apologism for the book. I would've thought it rather obvious I kind of like a lot of the crazy stuff in it, but most of it not, I'm pretty sure, for the reasons the writer and publisher most likely intended. I just thought the page could use some, well, subtlety, along with a general clean-up of misplaced YMMV entries and assorted mistakes.

But sure, go ahead. I don't mind.

By more offensive that a work is, i guess that act as tropes are audience reactions is not okay. Read Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Language.

It has been a bit since then without trouble, and it seems to me there are still many examples to add. While my personal position is that this book is the worst, I am trying to keep things neutral and factual.

Sounds good. I'll also add some further stuff. Hopefully people won't have a problem with it, though if anyone does, I'm perfectly willing to discuss any entry that annoys him. Like I said, I think much in the book is sort of fun in its own "special" way, though then again, I don't take it as deadly seriously as some apparently do.

The last paragraph of the main page really could use an edit, or at least some distancing. There is something profoundly uncomfortable about the way it is currently written.

What did you have in mind, Gargulec?

It's been through a couple of versions to get to this neutral form.

I'm going to take a guess and say that it can be read as implying that what it describes of the books description is true - IE, 'atheists are morons', due to the book 'holding nothing back'. TBH, I can see how it can be taken as such; maybe just adjust it to say that the book holds nothing back about the author or character's views regarding what's there?

Okay, I tried to clean out that implied 'truth' in the last paragraph by highlighting it more as the author's views rather than that read of it being implied to be true. Hopefully that should remove that discomfort about the last paragraph.

I'm wondering why this page is neutral-leaning-toward-positive in its description of the book while The Turner Diaries' page is allowed to have scathing condemnations of the book's contents?

From a legalistic viewpoint, that's kind of an interesting question. Generally speaking, TVTropes policy discourages bashing, even of widely disliked right-wing series like Terry Goodkind's fantasy stories or the guy who writes the Left Behind Christian novels. Victoria certainly isn't any worse than those. Glancing at the Turner page, on the other hand, that one is definitely bashing that book. Maybe people are just more upset when it's Nazis praising mass genocides than when it's all-American Christian fundamentalists who do it?

That's probably a topic for another discussion, though. Concerning this page, I'd say neutral and honest is really all we need. So I think it's actually pretty good the way it is now, with mostly relatively unbiased descriptions. Victoria speaks for itself. No one reading the intro and the first few examples, never mind the whole thing, can possibly miss that this is a surreal, wingnut book. And then everyone can judge for himself whether it's the So Bad, It's Good or So Bad, It's Horrible type of crazy.

For the most part, I agree with Idumean, it's better to be objective and let the work speak for itself.

That said, I have to take exception to the present note for Anti-Intellectualism, since the heroes of the book kind of do slaughter liberal college professors and institute a college where only their views can be taught.

I don't think the Victorians are really "anti-intellectual" as such. They go after those people because they are so-called Cultural Marxists, not because they are professors. (I was going to say, "perceived to be" Cultural Marxist, but in the book they really are far-left absolute lunatics, to strawman-like levels.) Meanwhile, Kraft, Rumford, Sanft and most of the other Retroculture ideologists are either academics themselves, or else moderately to heavily pretentious self-taught intellectuals. They bash everyone else for being anti-intellectual, ignorant, and stupid and laud and praise the great classics of philosophy and culture. The way I see it, it's not intellectuals as a class they hate, just people who disagree with them. Regardless of whether their enemies are tenured professors or illiterate "Orcs" in the ghettos. Does this interpretation make sense?

Feels to me more like the trope is being played with unintentionally. On one hand most of the maniac higher ranks are fairly well read in certain subjects (if completely missing the point of them)... on the other, they don't tolerate any practical development of it because it disagrees with Retroculture. And even the stuff they do support like Tolkien would have... choice words for their doctrines. Which could be another form of anti-intellectualism given that it misrepresents the works they read to their own ends and then expects others to accept being spoon fed such an explanation.

So probably "Played with. On one hand Kraft and Rumford are fairly well read and encourage literacy of works like Lord of the Rings... on the other, anything else they despise as being Cultural Marxist and massacre an entire auditorium full of professors on those grounds." Or something to that effect - they aren't necessarily anti-intellectual overall, but they sprun anything but their approved intellectualism. So Anti-Non-Retroculture-Intellectualism?

Heil satan, there is still much to do in reminding people that nothing stupid in this book is done on purpose.

The page is still too positive. We need to cut out the "if you agree with x" statements.

Ditto, and "controversial" is too weak a word to describe it, since that implies the content is subject to debate. Racism is bad, and the book tries to weasel out of being called out on it.

Again, why are apologists allowed to run roughshod on this page but not The Turner Diaries?

I dunno, I honestly don't think the page as is, is apologetic in tone. Like I said before, you can't really miss what the book is like if you read more than a couple of paragraphs. Or arguably if you read less. It certainly doesn't read like an ad, at least to most people not gone off the deep end of the political spectrum.

I originally put in a little humor in my edits to lampshade the over the top right wing utopia, but that got shot down. As per TV Tropes' rules (helpfully linked by MagBas and others) I've since tried to be strictly factual and neutral about it. And on the whole, that seems to work. Actually, I'd say we've all generally managed quite well so far, given we're handling a sort of tricky subject. It's a thin line between accurately describing the 'verse and the views of the characters, and bashing/mocking them.

I'm totally open to discussing improvements, though. Did you have any specific trope examples in mind that you object to, Starform?

I'll squeeze in front of him for one particular thing. Long coats. The Badass Longcoat entry feels unwarranted, as in-narration the long coays are not noted prominently and does not serve much in action nor characterization.

I felt it sort of has a point, since their period uniforms are one of the things that make the Victorians distinctive in the setting. I'll agree the greatcoats as such aren't really emphasized very much though. So I can go along with that. If no one else minds, I'll cut the example.

Edits in the recent months have become a bit messy. Anyone mind opening a thread in the TVT forum or coming to Spacebattles and talk about setting things straight?

AFAIK, TV Tropes policy is that talk about edits is handled on the work's own discussion page. That's how we worked things out here when there were some disagreements last year.

What is it you'd like to change, enderheisenberg? Any particular trope example you have in mind that looks messy?

Okay, I'm game. I'm not really sure what's up with some of your edits, in particular the constant referring to Rumford and Kraft as: badasses, geniuses, enlightened etc. I confess I have a dim view of the characters, but I really see no evidence for these claims in the text. Frontline General also strikes me as a misnomer for Rumford, who only comes close to the action twice, in a drive-by shooting in Atlanta, and the Boston campaign.

Well, in my earliest edits on the page I was sort of playing around with it tongue in cheek to make fun of the (seeming to me at least) over-the-top writing. But insofar as I've called them stuff like that more recently, when I try to be more neutral, it's simply because that's how the book refers to them, and/or it's relevant to the context. Rumford is the New Moltke, the great soldier of the age, the guy with the courage who'll do what needs to be done, etc. Kraft is the wise and enlightened leader whose iron will, insightful philosophy and moral example save everyone, and so on and so forth. (Paraphrased from memory, but I can dig out actual quotes if you want them.) Everyone is obviously impressed with them, as various characters testify. And bending over backward to be "fair" to them, they do carry out a number of rather impressive (=improbable by real life standards) feats in the course of their adventures, so it's not totally undeserved in-story......

As for Frontline General specifically, I think that's pretty accurate for Rumford. He doesn't actually lead platoons in firefights or stuff like that like you'll see in a TV show, but then neither did (say) Rommel in World War II, the prototypical real life inspiration for this archetype. But what Rumford does do is to stay very close to the action, always. Besides those bits you mention, he also leads the ambush at the bridge, puts his headquarters right in harm's way at the front against the Azanians (and almost gets blown up by their missiles for it), wants to lead the bombing mission in person, etc. In Cascadia he goes out with the team who hunt the fleeing Paleopitus, and he's on the spot when the Victorian commandos fly in under the radar and take down the Azanian high command in their risky raid behind enemy lines. I mean, it's not quite at the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie level of improbable action, but he's clearly very active out in the combat zones for a general and chief of staff.

Does anyone else feel like there's something a bit weird going on with how much this book is mentioned on this wiki? When you search for "Victoria" it's higher up than the actual Victoria TV show, which is a hell of a lot more popular and noteworthy. I've never seen this book mentioned anywhere else on the internet, yet it seems like every second page on this wiki has an example from this weird alt-right book on it.

Okay, after reading a bit more of this, this whole page is seriously weird. Fucking Twilight has more criticism than this book. The example under "Badass Boast" is literally Nazi propaganda updated to a modern context treated unironically as badass by whoever wrote that entry. Deleting a lot of these entries seems like the best option to me.

As was said before, TV Tropes policy is to try to be neutral when describing works and the tropes that apply to them, including on political issues. Even if Victoria is a reactionary book, and obviously controversial, disliking its politics is not sufficient reason to delete entries from its page. See the policy page Mag Bas linked to earlier in this thread. Quoting from there, the most relevant paragraph in this case is probably this:

• Other people may have different opinions about the quality of a work or a creator's work; they may even like something or someone for qualities that you find objectionable. Leave room for differences of opinion when you write about media.

That said, if there are entries you think are inaccurate, just list them here, so we can discuss them.

That's the thing: it's *barely* even controversial since no one I've ever talked to or seen on the internet has ever heard of it aside from this wiki, which seems to be mostly added by you and Rhodes 7. Why has such an obscure piece got such a huge page? Is Lind or mates of his working on it?

Anyway, give me some examples of these positive non-white and female characters who aren't just token extensions of the authors radical viewpoint if you feel this way about it, otherwise I'm removing a lot of the "some" and "mosts" in this article.

While I cannot really speak for Rhodes 7, nothing I have heard from him suggests that he has any connection to William Lind. As for myself, I am certain that I do not, and indeed I would be very surprised if he has any idea that I exist. I am writing here strictly for fun, just as I do on other pages.

As for obscurity, TV Tropes has no notability requirements, in fact there is a policy page specifically spelling that out. Many pages on here are for web-published stuff, or even outright fanfiction. So a published novel would not seem out of place, even if relatively obscure.

For sympathetic (and/or at any rate intended as such) examples of characters of color, women and religious minorities, you have for example the Gunny and John Ross, Patel, Tomo, Trooper Meyer, Father Dimitri, and of course Maria, for a start, and you can add more to that list. My own impression is that the views Lind presents on religion and the sexes and races are, well, certainly not mainstream by the standards of most 21st-century Americans, but it is not factually correct to say that he portrays all non-white characters in Victoria as evil.

I am hereby informing you that tomorrow I will be starting the cleanup of this page. It has too many wicks to the tropes that do not really fit the description of the linked trope and is purely "fan wank" not present in the text as written.

Several people agree with you; the page is far too supportive of the book (especially the subpages). One troper just really seems to like it, though and generally argues longer than anyone cares to.

Ditto. I am on my second strike for poor conduct and worry about getting into a tussle, or I would definitely be arguing more often and trying harder to edit it into shape.

A number of TV Tropes readers appear to dislike Victoria for political reasons, and given its controversial nature, this is of course completely understandable. However, TV Tropes has no policy of political censorship, even for conservative or right wing works. So the politics of a work (or its author) should not affect whether, for example, a character is listed as The Ace. What matters is simply whether he qualifies as an example or not.

In Victoria, to take one example, the protagonist, John Rumford, is consistently described as a learned and intelligent man. Some fan haters have objected to this, because they dislike the politics of the character (and/or, sometimes, those of the author). Nonetheless, Rumford is certainly written as a well-read amateur intellectual; throughout the book, he constantly reads highbrow works and drops quotes and references spanning everything from Socrates to H. L. Mencken. Thus, it makes sense to list him as an example of the Genius Book Club trope, among other things.

More generally, a blanket statement to the effect that everything about a page is bad and needs to be fixed is usually less than helpful. However, if there are specific trope examples on the Victoria page that you think are factually incorrect or otherwise inappropriate, you should of course feel free to bring them up here for discussion.

(I've been away for awhile, let's find out if my apostrophes and line breaks work now...) I don't dislike Victoria for political reasons. I disagree strongly with its politics, but I enjoyed reading it for the same reasons I enjoyed reading the Turner Diaries. I dislike it because it makes a total mockery of military science. Hardly a single military action in the book makes sense, and the absurd handicaps foisted on every antagonist beggar belief, given that Lind seems to believe he is proving why 4GW tactics are superior. Like Pierre Sprey, Lind had a good idea in the 1970s, and refuses to consider that it might have been rendered obsolete since then. Nonetheless, because of the author's reputation as a theorist, some laymen actually take the military aspects of the book seriously.

IP, I don't mind your takes on the book - in fact I enjoy talking about Victoria - but I do agree that the article could stand to be a shade more critical. At some point I'll try adding to it, and when I do I will invite your commentary.

I admit to being personally offended by one aspect of Victoria, which is Lind's assertion that women simply do not do war studies. Two of the best milsci professors I ever had are women, both highly respected in their field, and their scholarship is far more relevant to 21st-century warfare than Lind's inane quasi-teleological four-generation framework. For a once-serious theorist to insult his colleagues in this way is totally unacceptable.

edit: sweet, my line breaks work!

We had one big wave of alt-right edits shortly after the page went up. These days it's mostly Idumean.

This would be to replaced the wishy-washy caveats of "Victoria has been called "the Paleocon Turner Diaries" by at least one reviewer, referring to the infamous far-right novel by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce. While this is less than fair (since, unlike that book, Victoria does not endorse such things as Nazism and genocide of billions of people), Lind's novel is generally recognized as polarizing and extreme, and often considered part of the "Alt-Right" milieu (though Lind does not describe the book, or himself, that way). "

Of these two, the current version would seem preferable (though of course the exact wording can be discussed). It is rather more informative and precise, catches more of the nuances of the issue, and (most importantly) anchors the issue in the reception of the book at large, rather than simply how it has been discussed here on TV Tropes. How individual people here feel about it one way or the other is not of very great interest to the readers.

As it stands, the paragraph notes that one (and so far as I can tell, only one) published review has compared it to the Turner Diaries, while also showing the most important differences between the books. Similarly, it tells that the book is controversial, has some similarities to the ideas of the "Alt-Right" group, and has been considered related to them, while also explaining that the author himself does not adopt that label. That would seem more relevant than noting vague and general plot similarities between the two books, which moreover are also widely shared by other thriller and science fiction series that are never compared to Turner (e.g., Atlas Shrugged, Left Behind or even something comparatively mainstream like The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress).

Also, while the politics of Victoria itself are certainly eccentric enough, there is the problem intrinsic to comparing the Turner Diaries to any book, which was noted in our previous discussion:

Since pro-Nazism and worldwide genocide are the two major things Turner is known for, we must then note that Victoria does not include or endorse these. Otherwise many readers will assume it does, simply due to the comparison, and then we are not presenting it honestly or fairly.

Well, you're not looking very hard. Amazon reviews show multiple people making the comparison. Edits are decided off consensus. Please show that there is a general agreement that Not a Nazi must be mentioned. Multiple people have stated that iding it as Paleocon is distinguishment enough.

Propose the change to:

Victoria has been called "the Paleocon Turner Diaries" by at least one reviewer, referring to the infamous far-right novel by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce. Though Victoria does not endorse Nazism, Lind's novel is generally recognised as extreme, and often considered part of the "Alt-Right" milieu (though Lind does not describe the book, or himself, that way)"

When there's a disagreement, you're supposed to go by majority opinion on the discussion page. More people on this discussion page have argued that the comparison to the Turner Diaries is fair than they have that it's unfair. So the main page should reflect majority opinion. This argument over the comparison has gone on for months because one person disagrees with everyone else.

Works for me.

I would like to include some of the parallels I had, because I think it helps distunguish why this far right novel gets the comparison over others.

Terrie, thats cool with me.

The same

A little tweaking:

Victoria has been called "the Paleocon Turner Diaries" by at least one reviewer, referring to the infamous far-right novel by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce, based on a shared core plot of revolution against a liberally corrupt government and its intent to present the political views of its author. Though Victoria does not endorse Nazism, Lind's novel is generally recognized as extreme, and often considered part of the "Alt-Right" milieu, though Lind has never described himself or his politics that way."

My only question would be on the last bit. Lind has never used the term "alt-right" for himself, but I haven't found any evidence that he has rejected the term either. Given that the term was only coined in the last few years, and Lind's been spouting his nonsense since the 80s, he's lack of use of the term seems more a generational thing than a rejection of alt-right philosophy. Any thoughts?

Terrie:

When I talk about "published reviews" I mean reviews published by a magazine, book-review blog or similar. Not random spoutings by people on Amazon who often do not seem to have even read the book.

Clanger 00:

While that may well be so, have all or most of the people on here who are eager to pillory Victoria actually read the book, or are they driven more by knee-jerk reactions against the author's reactionary politics? Because it would seem odd that consensus about what a book is or is not should be determined by people who are not in fact familiar with its content, especially when the issue is one of great inflammatory potential.

In case of doubt, there are easy ways we could check who has and who has not read it. For example, we could ask and see who knows on what page a given line is spoken in a certain chapter. That would put the discussion on a firmer basis and reveal if there is anyone who is not debating in good faith.

Trying now to be constructive, the latest version suggested by Terrie has the problem that it suggest the politics in Victoria are the same as those of the author in real life. There is no evidence of that, and in fact (as we have recently discussed at considerable length) much evidence against it, since those politics appear very satirically exaggerated, and at least significant parts of them (e.g., a viable all-female state by feminists, or alliance with a superpower Imperial Japan by the (designated) good guys) are very obviously possible to implement only in a science fiction setting, even theoretically.

I would also like an explicit mention that Victoria does not endorse a Turner-style genocide of all non-white peoples.

So building on the latest proposal, how about:

Victoria has been called "the Paleocon Turner Diaries" by at least one reviewer, referring to the infamous far-right novel by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce, based on a shared core plot of revolution against a liberally corrupt government, as well as its generally right-wing political themes. While Victoria does not endorse Nazism or genocide of non-white peoples, and instead advocates libertarian direct democracy, Lind's novel is nonetheless generally recognized as polarizing and extreme, and often considered part of the "Alt-Right" milieu (though Lind himself has never described the book, or his own politics, that way).

—?

Idumeanpatriot, you have been told what you need to do. You need to show support of others for your stance. This does not do so.

So what more precisely do you object to in my suggested revision of your latest proposal, Terrie?

The whole "he totally doesn't believe the politics his novel advocates" argument is pretty nonsensical.

Idumean Patriot, you have been told what you need to do.

Terrie, that's a good point. I suggest dropping the part about how the author hasn't said the book is for the alt-right since the alt-right grew to prominence after the book was published.

Also Idumean Patriot, I have to agree with Larkmarn, your insistence that the author doesn't believe any of the stuff in his book is nonsensical. Sure he exaggerates things like the feminist state that clones people, but he quite clearly believes the underlying concepts of those exaggerations: that women are inferior to men, that gays are degenerates, that black people are prone to violence and crime, that Marxists run the media and education, ect.

edit: Also how is Victoria 'libertarian'? Libertarianism is supposed to emphasise freedom, and in Victoria people are 'strongly pressured' not to use too much technology, black people are relocated to the countryside, gay people need to keep their homosexuality to themselves, and women are 'returned to the home'...

Maybe "part of the alt-right milieu, though it predates the term."

^ Yeah, I think that covers it.

For the millionth time, I am not saying Lind does not stand behind any of it. I am saying that what Victoria presents is, at most, a highly exaggerated and caricatured science fiction story with some basis (how much is uncertain) in the author's real life politics. Lind is a right wing libertarian and self-professed reactionary in real life, this much is fact. However, there is no evidence I am aware of to suggest that the insane societies in Victoria represent his actual beliefs, even if he probably agrees with the basics.

Since we do not have any evidence as to the matter of to what extent Lind supports the politics in his fictional novel, it is wrong to say that it reflects his real life politics as a blanket statement. This is not a matter of opinion or community consensus, but simply one of truth or falsehood. We cannot make claims about real life people and their opinions without proof. Though if Terrie (or anyone else) can provide reliable evidence to prove his wide-ranging contentions, I will certainly drop this point.

The point about "Alt-Right" is a red herring, since Lind has had every opportunity to claim adherence to the movement since it became prominent if he wanted to, but has (to my knowledge, at least) consistently failed to do so. So if the introduction is going to claim that others call him Alt-Right, it is the barest necessary measure of fairness to point out that he does not himself use that label. It would in fact arguably even be defamation to do otherwise, since "Alt-Right" is such a negatively charged label.

Finally, on libertarianism, the Republic of Victoria portrayed in the book is libertarian because those things Clanger 00 mentions are all presented as the results of private initiatives and democratic votes and choices by people within the libertarian state. There is no legislation outlawing homosexuality, for example, or at least none is mentioned in the book. This is simply a social/cultural thing. Similarly, the blacks move out of the cities on their own initiative, led by black community organizers. And the book explicitly spells out that there is no law against modern technology—in fact, one major political battle for the protagonists is making sure that there is none (since that would clash with their idea of freedom)—but simply a strong grassroots movement campaigning against technology. Politically and economically, the Victoria Republic uses a very hands-off and laissez-faire government. There is almost no taxation or regulation of business, and the federal government is tiny, concerned almost only with foreign policy and national defense. For all important issues, they use direct (and binding) popular referendums to hear what the people want.

Of course, there may be better ways to phrase something expressing this than my version, which was only a suggestion (just as the one Terrie produced). But the system, as described, is far closer to libertarianism than anything else I can think of right away. Certainly closer to that than (for example) fascist dictatorship, which is what most people will think of when hearing of the Turner Diaries.

"Lind is a right wing libertarian and self-professed reactionary in real life, this much is fact."

The man's own wikipedia page calls him a paleoconservative and specifically says (under political career and related writings) that he is not a libertarian. Paleoconservatives believe a woman's role is in the home, and tend to oppose homosexuality. Lind himself has argued for hanging to be the punishment for crime in 'urban areas'. He was also described by the SLPC as believing in the Frankfurt School conspiracy theory, and has said that "The real damage to race relations in the South came, not from slavery, but Reconstruction, which would not have occurred if the South had won".

"However, there is no evidence I am aware of to suggest that the insane societies in Victoria represent his actual beliefs, even if he probably agrees with the basics."

I'm not even sure what we're arguing about anymore. No one is suggesting that Lind actually thinks there's a state where feminists rule through human cloning, we're saying he's taking his beliefs and then dialling them up for the book, which you just agreed with.

Clanger 00, I don't think it's worth engaging with him. This portion of the description is about public response to the book and his attempts to argue about Lind is just derailment. Until he can show there is support from other editors that his desired comments are needed, he's just wasting his time and ours.

Clanger 00:

I have been saying all along precisely that the book presents what seems to be an exaggerated and caricatured form of what seems to be Lind's actual beliefs. If that is also your opinion, and we apply an order of priority, that is not me agreeing with you, but rather you agreeing with me.

If this is so, as we both then appear to agree, do you not see why it is dishonest to write as (for example) Terrie does:

Victoria has been called "the Paleocon Turner Diaries" by at least one reviewer, referring to the infamous far-right novel by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce, based on a shared core plot of revolution against a liberally corrupt government and its intent to present the political views of its author

—?

Here, he says that the book's politics are the same as those of the author in real life. There is no evidence for that. I agree entirely with you that it seems very much as though those two are related, but neither Terrie nor anyone else has shown any evidence that they are the one and the same. The politics of the characters in the fictional novel are much more extreme than anything Lind is on the record as supporting in real life.

As for Lind and libertarianism, that single line on Wikipedia is unsourced, and notes even there that he often writes on libertarian sites, so clearly he feels he has many things in common with them. Most of his policy positions otherwise would likewise be consistent with libertarianism (for example, being both libertarian and tough on crime is not a contradiction). But that is a rather minor point. There is great overlap between paleoconservatives and libertarians in real life as well, with both groups being usually anti-war, anti-big government, anti-taxes, anti-immigration, and so on. Even monarchism is a somewhat less than fringe position among libertarians—for example, I believe it was advocated by one of their chief philosophers, Eirik von Kuhnelt-Lediehn (sp?).

For clarity though, I will agree to call Lind a paleoconservative here in this discussion. We could also change my proposed version to reflect that, if you prefer, like so:

Victoria has been called "the Paleocon Turner Diaries" by at least one reviewer, referring to the infamous far-right novel by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce, based on a shared core plot of revolution against a liberally corrupt government, as well as its generally right-wing political themes. While Victoria does not endorse Nazism or genocide of non-white peoples, and instead advocates paleoconservative direct democracy, Lind's novel is nonetheless generally recognized as polarizing and extreme, and often considered part of the "Alt-Right" milieu (though Lind himself has never described the book, or his own politics, that way).

(Changed bit presented in bold type for emphasis. It would of course not be bolded in the finished article.)

Terrie:

With all due respect, I feel that you are now being deliberately obtuse. Matters of fact are not subject to talk page consensus. Even several fan haters banding together have no right to present blatant untruths about a work, and far less to make defamatory postings about authors. To call someone "Alt-Right" and not even mention that he does not call himself that can easily be taken as defamation. That is a violation of the TV Tropes Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment, and possibly of real life laws against libel in several jurisdictions. We would do well to avoid that sort of thing.

Now, I at least am not opposed to mentioning the fact that some people associate Lind with right wing groups and causes as such, but only the biased way Terrie wants to do it. I have suggested a compromise for how it could be done in a less incendiary manner, by simply noting the author's own position on the matter as well.

The issue is that whilst the portrayals of these societies/groups is exaggerated, the 'corrections' of these people is not an exaggeration, they're highly likely to be Lind's own beliefs. The idea that black people are committing genocide against whites in Atlanta is an exaggeration, but the idea that racial segregation is a good thing is not an exaggeration. The idea that feminists have starting cloning themselves is an exaggeration, but the idea that feminist women need to get back in their husband's home is not an exaggeration. Some of the book is the author Strawmanning his opponents, and some of the book is the author genuinely presenting his political views (like the idea that public hangings will cause crime to fall). But yes, since the book is such a mess of genuine opinions and caricatures then we can remove all parts about any political opinions the author may have.

Agree on the paleoconservative change, since libertarian is a much vaguer term. Also all of your claims are unsourced, so your (unsourced) claim that he's a libertarian is worth just as much as the (unsourced) claim that he isn't a libertarian.

I disagree with the idea that the novel does not endorse the genocide of non-white people, since the book ends with the 'good guys' using germ warfare in the Middle East to wipe out those evil Muslims. Since we can't determine when he's pushing his political opinions, then we also can't determine when he's not pushing his political opinions. (Lind has in the past 'made a case for Islam being a religion of repression and backwardness' so we don't know whether he does or doesn't want Islam wiped out).

Clanger 00, which portion ate you referring to for pushing a political opinion? That I noted that the novel reflects Lind's ploitical philosophy? Would includes be a better word? The novel sticks one of Lind's most prominent political ideas right in the title, so I see it as a gimme. Or we could say perceived inclusion of such, since it's about public response to the book.

The main issue is that the book contains the genuine political opinions of the author (i.e. Lind is an irl proponent of the idea that 'cultural Marxists' are trying to destroy Western culture, and this is something that is in the book too; ect), as well as dramatic exaggerations (i.e. Mexicans are sacrificing white people), and it is impossible to tell which ones are actual beliefs of his and which ones are his exaggerations. So to get around this we could remove any parts that attempt to guess what the guy supports irl, or just say that the book has some of his beliefs in it and also say that he thinks Nazi's are bad.

If we remove the part about the author 'using the novel to push his political beliefs' then we should also remove the parts about the author not endorsing genocide or Nazism, because if we take the book's support for nuking a city overrun with gangbangers with a grain of salt, then we should also take the book's condemnation of Nazi's with a grain of salt.

But if we include the bit about how the book 'includes' the authors political beliefs, then it would be consistent for us to include how the book opposes Nazism.

So to give two examples:

At least one reviewer has described Victoria as "to Paleocons, what the Turner Diaries is to neo-Nazis", based on Victoria's core plot of revolution against a liberally corrupt government, and the inclusion of some of the author's paleoconservative views (though peppered with exaggerated caricatures and 20 Minutes into the Future scifi elements). Though Victoria does not endorse Nazism or genocide against every non-white person, Lind's novel is generally recognized as polarising and extreme, and often considered part of the "Alt-Right" milieu, though Lind has never described himself or his politics that way.

or:

Victoria has been called "the Paleocon Turner Diaries" by at least one reviewer (referring to the infamous far-right novel by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce), based on a shared core plot of revolution against a liberally corrupt government. Lind's novel is generally recognized as extreme, and often considered part of the "Alt-Right" milieu, though Lind has never described himself or his politics that way.

I think the first one is better since the second one just comes off as unfinished. These are just two quick examples of including all or none of what the book 'endorses/condemns', feel free to write better versions.

Clanger 00, it seems we now at least understand each other somewhat well as to where we are coming from. Thank you for clarifying your position.

In the most recent discussion, though, I think that you may be conflating two separate issues. The politics of the book are fair to comment on, since those are presented explicitly. What we do not know is how much they concur with the real life political opinions of the author. So, it is perfectly acceptable and correct to comment on the former; it is the latter we should leave off limits, at least until/unless Lind chooses to speak up on the relevant issues.

There is also the issue of in-story genocide, where I think you might be misremembering things. The book does not end with the biowar; that takes place much earlier in the story. There is also no genocidal intent behind the protagonists' use of it. As presented in the book, it is simply retaliation against the Islamic alliance (which used it against them first), and while the death toll is considerable, it is never said to destroy whole populations.

As far as I can tell (and/or remember right now, at least), the only thing the (designated) good guys do that would count as genocide in real life is destroying the culture of the feminist republic, which might be a "Cultural Genocide" as defined by the UN. They never physically exterminate any races or nations (although various of the bad guys act genocidally at one time or other).

The thing is I want to capture the parallels that seem to inspire the comparison. So the parallels are:

• the core plot as mentioned
• far right author
• said author has, pre-novel, written on political conflicts between certain groups (white v.s everybody for Pierce, "traditional" values people vs. Cultural Marxists, feminists, Muslims, etc. for Lind)
• The group conflicts in their political writings are central to the novel

I just can't figure out a quick and snappy way to sum that up. Maybe:

Victoria has been called "the Paleocon Turner Diaries" by at least one reviewer (referring to the infamous far-right novel by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce), based on a shared core plot of revolution against a liberally corrupt government and its use of cultural conflicts from the author's political writing. Lind's novel is generally recognized as extreme, and often considered part of the "Alt-Right" milieu, though Lind has never adopted the term for himself.

As for your recently suggested possible emendations, of those two I would also prefer the former, which seems more complete. I would perhaps also suggest some small further additions, possibly something like the following:

—

Victoria has been called "the Paleocon Turner Diaries" by at least one reviewer (referring to the infamous far-right novel by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce), based on a shared core plot of revolution against a liberally corrupt government and the inclusion of some of the author's paleoconservative views in its plot (albeit exaggerated for dramatic effect and peppered with additional science fiction elements). While Victoria does not endorse Nazism or genocide of non-white races, instead advocating paleoconservative direct democracy, Lind's novel is nonetheless generally recognized as polarising and extreme, and often considered part of the "Alt-Right" milieu (though Lind himself has never described the book, or his own politics, that way).

—

As seen, mostly fairly minor stuff. I removed the link, because some of the science fiction tech feels a little too advanced and game-changing to be just 20 Minutes into the Future, especially toward the end of the book. But in general, I think we are getting closer to a final agreement.

—EDIT: This was based on your first draft, before you edited it, of course. Also, this post is of course addressed to Clanger primarily, rather than Terrie who got in between. Though everyone is (of course) invited and welcome to comment on it.

I stand my stance that the parentheticals aren't needed. This is about the response to the book. How much of it Lind believes is irrelevant to that, and violates the basic concepts of sentences and paragraphs having a topic.

The "Paleocon Turner Diaries" description is basically accurate. It is not saying the work is pro-Nazi, it's saying Victoria is to Paleocons what Turner Diaries is to Nazis. Turner Diaries is a fictional first-person memoir of a guerrilla campaign against the Federal Government. It is a didactic work, primarily ideological, but also trying to convey practical lessons about how to fight such a war. For example, the book goes into detail about the procurement and use of a mortar, and about the construction and use of Improvised Explosive Devices (the latter example infamously directly inspired the Oklahoma City Bombing). The protagonists' enemies are powerful, but are destroyed in large part by what the author considers to be their internal contradictions: the politically correct security services and military have riddled themselves with minorities, who in this universe are shiftless and incompetent, crippling their own ability to hunt down the protagonists. Victoria mirrors this in many aspects. It is also a first-person memoir of a guerrilla war against the Federal Government and friends. It is primarily an ideological tract, going on at great length about things Lind doesn't like, but it also tries to convey what Lind considers to be authentic military lessons for the conduct of Fourth Generation Warfare (the Order's campaign described in Turner is also archetypal 4GW, so there is a lot of overlap in these lessons). The enemy, in each case, are undone by their internal contradictions as much as by any action of the protagonists - Sec Def Mowunuu sabotages the Loyalist campaign, the Azanian Air Force can't dogfight because they're girls, the Nazis are incinerated in their own ovens, the New South devours itself, et cetera. The biggest difference here is that whereas Turner focuses on the fight against the American state and only briefly describes the subsequent destruction of other ideological enemies (the mass murder of the Chinese and Africans) in the epilogue, Victoria goes on to describe wars against other powers after the Federal Government is destroyed. This is only a change of target, and the story continues to match the Turner model throughout - it's just a series of campaigns to build the ideal state, instead of a single campaign. Both stories end with the creation of the author's ideal state, after their ideology (Nazism or Retroculture) has been proven categorically superior in all respects to the degenerate globalist System which fought in vain against it.

Obviously Victoria is a strongly political work, and a reactionary one at that. Still, being utopian fiction does not in itself make it a Turner Diaries. For example, your general description applies almost equally well to a book like Atlas Shrugged, the Objectivist manifesto which describes how (what the author considers) good management is done and shows the heroes easily triumphing over their pathetic strawman socialist enemies (who fight in vain against them and collapse painfully under their own contradictions) and building a capitalist paradise. But even so, while lots of people dislike both Objectivism and Atlas specifically, calling it "the Objectivist Turner Diaries" is rare.

What I was aiming at is that there is still a great moral difference between a book that gleefully advocates literal genocide of billions of people (Turner) and one that does not. If we say Victoria is mostly equivalent to Turner, we imply that it is morally equivalent as well—which, whatever may be said (at length, with diagrams) about its libertarian/reactionary politics, it is not. Saying it is as bad as the very worst neo-Nazi propaganda is purely objectively speaking not accurate or fair (though it can certainly be fairly censured on many counts in other ways).

There is also the point that Victoria does not take itself as deadly seriously as Turner at least appears to do (I have not read the latter, so this is working from its page on here and Wikipedia/Wikiquote). Lind writes a story where 21st-century soldiers wear plumed helmets, ride fusion-powered zeppelins and fight wars against all-female lesbian states, and that degree of weirdness creates some narrative distance that makes it at least relatively less offensive (and/or horrible) than a similar right wing fantasy could potentially be if played totally straight. My own impression is that even Lind himself wrote at least some bits deliberately tongue in cheek—and even if not, at any rate that is assuredly how it comes across.

I think there's a pretty valid argument that Atlas Shrugged is the Objectivist Turner Diaries (or perhaps that Turner is the Neo-Nazi Atlas Shrugged), but there are a lot more differences between Atlas Shrugged and these works. Atlas Shrugged does not go into much practical detail about how Ayn Rand's objectivist revolution might actually be achieved. As I said, while Lind acknowledges parts of his scenario are fantastical, he is earnestly trying to convey a variety of practical lessons on the conduct of a Fourth Generation War in the same way the author of Turner Diaries does. There is also a substantial thematic similarity between Turner and Victoria which is not present in Atlas - the former are war novels about a major guerrilla and terrorist campaign, whereas Ayn Rand's focus is almost totally on passive resistance (the strike of the Men of the Mind) while the System destroys itself. I think there's one scene where Dagny Taggart or Hank Rearden conducts some kind of armed raid, but it's very brief and iirc not even violent. Ragnar Danneskjold's actual war against the Communists is barely mentioned in the narrative and is implied to be futile. The comparison does not depend on relative morality: it rests on how both novels use a cartoonish 20-minutes-into-the-future setting to push the author's ideological viewpoint, highlight the fatal contradictions of the modern system, and try to impart lessons on the conduct of war against this system in order to transform dystopia into utopia. They are thematically similar. Lind's style is a little more tongue-in-cheek than Pierce's, and his ideology marginally less monstrous, but that doesn't mean the books aren't comparable. I will address the relative morality of the two books in a separate post, because I want to make clear that it isn't relevant for the objective comparison. An arch-feminist tract by noted man-hater Wilhelmina Lindette describing an dystopian patriarchal Texas being liberated by valiant intersectional Californian feminists (with their staunch allies, the Council of Responsible Males) would also merit the Turner comparison even though it may not advocate genocide at all. The biggest difference I see is that Pierce fairly revels in the slaughter and brutality of the war, whereas Lind prefers to gloss over those parts. Lind is at his most eloquent (and likeable) when describing trains chugging happily through autumn woods, or clydesdales drawing a carriage through the snow. Pierce's most vivid descriptions are reserved for race-mixers dangling from trees in the streets of San Francisco. (I hope the line breaks work properly this time. My first post is absolutely hideous and I can't edit it.)

Also - Victoria is like Turner Diaries in that it is presented as a diary. That particular framing device is one of the things which make it directly comparable.

Actually, I would say Atlas Shrugged does go to considerable lengths to teach real-life lessons (according to what the author considers appropriate) as well as ideology, whether it has to do with relations between the sexes, good business management, bureaucratic brokering or even practical arrangements for a utopian society. The commune in Galt Gulch has a quite developed code of conduct, for example, and Ayn Rand even goes into some detail explaining its economics and political system. (Whether, and/or to what extent these would actually work as advertised in real life may be another question, but in any case she clearly wanted to inform as well as entertain.) The focus is on passive resistance, with the attack on the government facility at the end a small-scale and somewhat exceptional thing, but that is more a matter of means than ends (and as Ragnar shows, terrorism or armed resistance is certainly not disapproved of, though Galt himself prefers other methods). Bluntly speaking, the barely restrained glee describing the worthless parasites of the system and how they die horribly (for example, in the railway tunnel) is rather more unsettling than anything comparable I remember from Victoria, and quite closer to Turner in that respect (though to be fair to Rand, still not even close to equally bad as William Pierce at his worst).

On the other side of the hill, meanwhile, there are also significant differences in both theme and form. Initially, to be pedantic, Victoria is not actually written as a diary; the format is rather that of the notional retrospective memoirs of John Rumford, occasionally jumping back and forth in time, but usually a largely chronological narrative. It does have the first-person perspective in common with Turner (as opposed to Atlas), but otherwise it is not really very close. Turner seems to be taking a grunt-level view of his guerrilla war, but Victoria chronicles its revolution from an elevated position, with Rumford a senior strategist for most of the story, rather than a soldier in the line. Moreover, Turner is (again from what I can tell secondhand) more or less only about a terrorist campaign, while Victoria actually devotes more space to the succession wars and the building up of the ostensible libertarian utopia than to fighting the Federal oppressors.

The crucial thematic difference I would point to in the two books is that while Pierce was by all tokens a hard racist and hereditarian (rather unsurprisingly, being a literal neo-Nazi), Lind is rather firmly on the Nurture side of Nature-Nurture. In his book, Pierce presents all enemies as biologically inferior, degenerate, subhuman and literally fit only for extermination. By contrast, Victoria holds forth culture (rather than heredity) as the root cause of all evils. The villains are terribly bad, but only because raised or educated wrong; when they get the chance to live in Victoria, people from all the "enemy" groups (whether Muslims, feminists, black militants or whatever) tend to convert to their conservative libertarian ideology and then live happily ever after. While obviously still patronizing and condescending to them in its own way, this would still seem a far more positive and hopeful view than a blanket genocidal approach to everyone who is different. (Similarly, your hypothetical anti-Victoria (which sounds like it could potentially be amusing to read if written) would also not be equivalent to Turner, for the reason that it too does not seriously advocate and glorify genocide of billions of people.)

Then of course there is also the fact that, as already noted, Lind uses a rather more cartoonish style, which tends to mitigate his excesses (that he does have, even though they are far less heinous than the Turner atrocities). Zeppelins, Tesla-tech and outlandish uniforms that would not look very much out of place in the Red Alert series lend an impression of surreality and satire that make the brutalities of the narrative less problematic simply by making them less real. (One might compare the British media franchise Warhammer 40,000, for example, if you are familiar with that: its heroic faction is made up of hilariously exaggerated fantasy fascists IN SPACE, but the tongue in cheek treatment and silliness of the setting in general make it acceptable to most people even so.) It also helps that in Victoria, Lind makes his protagonist show occasional regrets about his ruthless actions (in an I Did What I Had to Do sense) once in a while, which I believe Pierce never does with Turner.

On your concluding sentences, however, we are in general agreement. The relative lack of overt sadism and morbidity of that kind is one of the chief traits that separate Turner (and to a point, arguably even Atlas Shrugged) from Victoria, and one of those that make the latter relatively more palatable, though it certainly has problems aplenty of its own.

I am going to hold off on a full reply until I figure out what's going on with my line breaks, but an aside regarding the content of Turner Diaries - the protagonist, Earl Turner, does show some moral qualms about the actions he commits. He doesn't spend as much time talking about it (possibly because the framing device is a private journal, so Turner is not so worried as Rumsford about justifying his actions to posterity) but there's the same vein of did what i had to do in there. Off the top of my head, for example, the infamous scene I alluded to takes place in the aftermath of the Neo Nazi takeover of San Francisco, in the aftermath of which thousands of white women, from hollywood actresses to teenage girls, are dragged from their homes and hanged for racemixing. Turner makes clear in the narrative that these summary executions are being done in a slipshod manner based largely on unsubstantiated accusations. He acknowledges that some of the victims are likely innocent, and admits that he is (paraphrase from memory) "troubled by the things I witnessed today." Turner then describes in graphic detail a girl begging for her life as she is strung up, hysterically pleading that everyone was doing it (dating black men) and denouncing her friends in the crowd. This scene is not meant to be funny or pleasant, and Pierce's intended audience is not supposed to feel good about the racemixer getting what she deserves. He is quite clear that the girl really does not personally deserve to die like this (the friend she denounces is not hanged, because the point is not to exterminate every racemixer, but to terrorize the survivors into self-correction). Pierce is trying to illustrate the kind of gruesome-but-necessary atrocities his audience will have to commit in order to realize their utopia. This message is reinforced by the opening of the chapter (you have probably read this part on wikiquote) in which Turner is confronted by a low-hanging corpse on a midnight street. The scene is one of the few really arresting ones in the book, certainly Pierce at the height of his (mediocre) writing powers, and it is about the protagonist being literally confronted by the atrocities he has committed. He concludes the atrocity was worth it, of course, because Turner is a demented shitpile written by a lunatic, but he does frame it in the same had to be done way.\

A second informational aside: elsewhere on this page you offered that some of the events in Victoria are justified in-universe because the victims really are (in-universe) a vast leftist Cultural Marxist conspiracy. That omits key context: William S. Lind is the guy who originated the modern Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory in 1998. When Kraft exposits on the cancerous conspiracy of liberal academia, he is not describing an alternate world where this happens to be true. He is describing what Lind publicly believes to be the objective truth about our world.

Gotta say, Dongs Galore has the more compelling argument here.

... what a strange sentence.

Without having looked into his nonfiction political works in very great depth, I would nonetheless tend very much to doubt that Lind actually imagines the cartoonish villains he presents exist in real life, or at least in the way he presents them. I know he is an actual reactionary (he even calls himself a monarchist, from what I can tell), but the strong impression remains that the liberal dystopia in Victoria (which is definitely an alternate universe) is cranked up to eleven for literary effect, not a literal representation of an authentic authorial worldview. My own guess would be that Lind agrees with the basic thrust of a lot of things as he depicts them, but not the specific (and fantastically exaggerated) details. Just as, for example, Azania is rather obviously a caricature of feminism (and the Victorian state itself is basically a caricature in its own way, of libertarian and neo-reactionary politics), his Cultural Marxists would be a caricature of real life big business, big government and liberal academia (which, whatever moral value we ascribe to that fact, has certainly been influenced a lot by the Marxist thinkers Lind dislikes—though then of course not in the manner of a formally coordinated worldwide communist conspiracy purposely designed by the KGB to bring about the destruction of all civilization).

On Turner, I did not know it was actually that much self-aware about itself. I assumed it was just preaching to the choir and totally unreflective and uncritical about its atrocities; that would also be what most of the available quoted snippets would seem to suggest. Perhaps I should read it after all, just to see how Pierce went about crafting his far right bestseller. That would still be rather low on my list of priorities, though, so thank you in any case for sharing the information.

I would nonetheless still disagree on the matter of the equivalency (whether moral or literary) of Victoria and the Turner Diaries, for the reasons I already named (among others). While Victoria is a rather unique work itself, we should still try to be "fair" to it, and given how horrible Turner is, that comparison still would not be that if given without qualification. (Though as I also said before, since it has actually been described that way by a reviewer, I do not necessarily oppose the mention of that fact either. I just feel we should then supply context so the claim can be evaluated, if we do include it.) The mere mention of Turner most probably serves to make most people (insofar as they know of it at all, of course) think Nazis and genocide of all non-white people. Eccentric as Victoria is, it endorses neither of those things, and it would be wrong to imply it does.

On the topic of writing around here, the formatting of comments has been bad and buggy overall since the site got its facelift a while back. I have also had occasion to be annoyed with it, and we are probably not the only ones either. So please don't stress yourself out over that when responding to the rest of my points. Take all the time you need.

"Without having looked into his nonfiction political works in very great depth" To be blunt, then you're not in a position to offer commentary. Lind is antisemetic, racist, and has advocated that people in Europe kick out all Arabs and Muslims — except for those they hang from the lampposts. Also, the Turner Diaries is very US-centric white supremist piece, not a Nazi one.

That Lind is a crank, and/or bigot is not in dispute. The strawman villain characters he puts into Victoria, however, are very clearly exaggerated for dramatic (or in at least some cases, perhaps rather comedic) effect, and so are the (designated) good guys for that matter. Just as Russia is not a Dieselpunk Czarist theocracy in real life, real life California likewise is not literally a feminist dictatorship, nor the Roman Catholic Church an organizer of literal military crusades to reconquer Jerusalem for the Cross. The fantastically caricatured characteristics attributed to them in the story would seem to be very much part of the fictional worldbuilding.

Running a search for Lind and lamp posts I find a blog post where he prognosticates that Europeans will turn into militant Catholics and hang or drive out every single Muslim in the future. He also suggests (among other things) that every policeman on the beat should carry an anti-armor rocket launcher on his back so he can defend himself against terrorist attacks. The commenters on the post generally assume that he is being sarcastic, and on balance that seems to be the more parsimonious interpretation.

Turner Diaries is very much "neo-Nazi" in the sense that the book celebrates real Nazism. It even calls Hitler the "Great One" in its page quote on here. Obviously it was not written by the literal card-carrying Nazis, since their party has not existed since 1945, but the message explicitly endorses them—though the Turner celebration of worldwide genocide is ironically enough also far more monstrous than anything we have recorded from even the real Nazis. Victoria can certainly be called a lot of things, but it never comes anywhere close to that level of horrific, gleeful vileness.

So if Lind suggests hanging people, he's just exaggerating for effect, but if people compare his work to the Turner Diaries based on the premise of a liberally corrupt overreaching government which results in an uprising against it, that's excessive?

In fact, I would put it exactly as I have stated. "It has been called the Paleo-conservative version of the Turner Diaries based on it's premise of a liberally corrupt government which results in citizens uprising against it."

Making sarcastic remarks is not the same thing as advocating things in real life. While I personally did not find that joke enjoyable, putting out things like that does not make Lind (or anyone) equivalent to people who seriously advocate violence and genocide. To use a left-wing example of the same principle, Stephen Colbert is not usually considered a monster for saying horrible things as part of his act, specifically because people realize he is (hopefully, at least) being facetious.

If people rebelling against a tyrannical government in a science fiction novel makes it morally equivalent to the Turner Diaries, that puts that label on a very large amount of fiction. By that widely stretched standard, The Hunger Games is a Turner Diaries knock-off. Even if we restrict it to settings with a "leftist" evil government and broadly "rightist" protagonists, it remains an extremely broad category. As was discussed earlier in this thread, is Atlas Shrugged the Objectivist Turner Diaries? For another, is The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein the Libertarian Turner Diaries? Is Left Behind the Christian Turner Diaries? Most people would not want to use those comparisons, since while people can disagree with some (or a lot) of the politics and message in those novels, they still do not advocate Nazism or straight-faced genocide of every single non-white person in the world like Turner does.

To use a left-wing example of the same principle, Stephen Colbert is not usually considered a monster for saying horrible things as part of his act, specifically because people realize he is (hopefully, at least) being facetious.

False equivalence, ho!

Seriously, that's astoundingly irrelevant. If you want to use a left-wing example, maybe that photo shoot Kathy Griffin did with a prop decapitated Trump head. Which people did realize she was being facetious. And she still was criticized for. By both sides.

1) People are making the comparison based on those similarities. That the comparison could potentially be made to other items is irrelevant if people are not actually making those comparisons. That you disagree with the comparison is irrelevant because that it is being made is factual.

2) Your whole argument is based on the idea that Lind doesn't actually believe or support the stuff in the book, that's it's "just" a story. When a guy who is one of the core proponents of the concepts of the evils of "Cultural Marxism" and Fourth Generation War writes a book about... evils of "Cultural Marxism" and Fourth Generation War, it's safe to say he agrees with the views in the book. I can't decide if I think you're naive or an apologist at this point.

Larkmarn:

That would also be fine with me. Which specific example you want to use is beside the point. Among people I know at least, there are plenty who cannot stand Colbert (and probably the majority of those are left of center as commonly understood, though they still hate his style), so I used him. You could take the Borat guy when he plays at his megalomaniac dictator persona for another. The principle to be illustrated was simply that sarcasm and spiteful humor, however poor in taste, and/or badly received, is not the same as, or as bad as, advocating horrible things perfectly seriously.

Terrie:

My question to you would now be: Have you actually read the book? Because, to echo someone else who posts around here, if you have not, then to be blunt, you are not in a position to offer commentary.

The way Lind writes it, Victoria comes across as crazy satirical science fiction in the vein of British stuff like Judge Dredd or the Red Alert series. The heroic faction is led by a fat man who dresses in a 19th-century Prussian uniform, and is an officer in the Prussian army in exile (which does not exist in real life). His allies include officers who dress in 19th-century dragoon uniforms with plumed helmets and pledge their allegiance to the New Confederated States of America (which does not exist in real life). His enemies include a techno-feminist state of lesbians who reproduce through cloning (which, needless to say, does not exist in real life). His troops use Tesla-technology and zeppelins for military supremacy. The book ends on the note of a literal Roman Catholic military crusade spearheaded by a literal order of modern Knights Templar.

Do you really, seriously think this fantasy land accurately depicts the real world, as seen by William Lind? To believe that is literal reality, he would have to be not merely cranky, but literally, clinically insane with some sort of seriously debilitating schizophrenia. He would have a hard time living a functional life outside an institution with delusions on such a scale. It honestly seems far more reasonable to me to suppose that he is deliberately writing over-the-top science fiction with his tongue firmly in his cheek. Do you have any strong reason to believe he really believes the scenario in his science fiction novel is true to real life?

To be absolutely clear, I do not myself agree with even Lind's (comparatively far less weird, though still reactionary) real life political ideas. I am rather to the left of his brand of libertarianism, and I think Victoria is fun, in its own unique way, precisely because I take it as a joke, just like I do with Judge Dredd. Furthermore, I fully understand if other people do not like it even so. Still, thus far I have had no reason to think Lind is literally frothing at the mouth insane, nor that he sincerely advocates a Turner-like solution to the ills of society. He strikes me as a cranky old man who writes weird ideologically slanted fiction, not a mental patient. More old age Heinlein than Philip K. Dick, if you are into sci-fi references. (Both of those are far better writers than Lind, though. The comparison is for personality types, not literary quality.)

If Lind thinks it is a literal view of what is to come is irrelevant to the fact that people are making the comparison to the Turner Diaries and that there are specific parallels on which they are doing so. We should note that FACT in the description and not editorialize.

As for my view of the book? I think you're missing the point in your focus on the story being literal or not. I don't think C.S. Lewis thought Jesus was a lion, but I have zero doubt Narnia is a direct reflection of his worldview. I also think it's irrelevant if Lind thought it was a big joke when there are (5 star) Amazon reviewers using phrases like "blueprint" and "how to."

If Lind intended it as a joke and those yokels on Amazon take it seriously, surely the joke is on them? And if some militia nut somewhere is made to think wearing 19th-century uniforms is the key to overthrowing the government, all the better in my book.

Like I said before, my personal impression is that Lind clearly agrees with the general political thrust of what he is writing: there is little doubt that leftists are bad and neo-reactionaries good, in his book. As far as that goes I think we are mostly in agreement. But the scenario he presents in Victoria comes across as a very exaggerated caricature, with both heroes, villains and plot deliberately magnified to cartoonish extremes.

As for the Turner Diaries comparison, I think that simply listing it without comment gives very undue weight to one reviewer's negative opinion. Given that Turner is pretty much the worst thing there is, not to mention morally reprehensible to a gratuitous degree, saying that Victoria is just like it in the page intro sounds very much like poisoning the well. Especially when the similarities between them are mostly superficial (mainly the rebellion against the evil leftist government, as you noted) while the differences between them are very significant (no pro-Nazi message or pan-global genocide advocacy in Victoria to name two important ones).

Again like I said earlier in this thread, I am not opposed to including the mention as such. But since Nazism and worldwide genocide are the two major things Turner is known for, we must then note that Victoria does not include these. Otherwise many readers will assume it does, simply due to the comparison, and then we are not presenting it honestly or fairly.

There are multiple reviews comparing it to the Turner Diaries, not one. At this point, consensus across multiple discussions is that id'ing it as Paleocon is sufficient to distinguish it. The only times I've seen Nazis come into it is when someone is comparing the philosophy of the book to Nazis due to Lind's antisemitism. (Cultural Marxism, Lind's pet theory, is closely tied to the Frankfurt School conspiracy theory, a theory beloved of Neo-Nazis). So at the point, it's on you to show that there is a wider support for explicitly stating "Not a Nazi."

OK, I'm here. What trope example(s) in particular is it you have in mind?

Well, others could probably lay it out better than I could.

My biggest concern, however, is that you created Heartwarming and Tearjerker pages - you talk about neutrality, and yet you’ve created pages to serve as praise for the work. I’m curious as to why you’ve done that.

Well, the book does have sad and fuzzy feelings moments. Another poster was starting up several new subpages so I thought, why not and put in those too. I thought the examples were good enough. Are you opposed to any particular ones?

More just the creation of these pages in general.

I mean...that’s essentially endorsing the book in a fashion.

Well, as I said earlier I kind of like the book in some ways .... as exaggerated satiric right wing adventure. The Paul Verhoeven Starship Troopers movie also has Heartwarming and Tear Jerker pages, because there are Heartwarming and Tearjerker moments in it. I don't mind those, but neither do they make me take that movie (which I also like) seriously or endorse its (if you do take it seriously) rather blatant fascistoid message.

As I understand it by reading about it, the Starship Troopers film (not the book) isn’t meant to be read as a sincere endorsement of fascism.

But we’re getting off the subject - my point is that I’m somewhat disturbed that you made all of those essentially laudatory entries which frame the protagonists’ goals as noble, while completely flossing over what those actually are. And this seems quite clear as to what it’s about. It all seems very dishonest, quite frankly, regardless of your intentions.

Look, this is all a little too much for me to deal with right now, and me arguing with you won’t get us anywhere - I’d rather bring a mod in and ask what they think. Would that be alright?

No, by word of the director Starship Troopers isn't supposed to be taken straight, in fact I specifically noted that. Lots of people do it anyway, just like (in reverse) I take Victoria as satire. That's Death of the Author for you. What I meant was, having Heartwarming in it doesn't preclude a satiric reading.

Begging your pardon but since you bring it up, I feel I should address the point you raise at some length. I don't think most of what I've written on the page is "essentially laudatory" about the protagonists and their aims as you say. Or that I've somehow covered up the "bad" stuff. I mean, I'm the guy who wrote the example that literally compares the main protagonist to Hitler. As for the specialty pages, I put in Heartwarming, but I also wrote most of the stuff on the Nightmare Fuel page, including the bits that are far less than flattering to the heroes. I probably put in most of the trope examples overall (for sure a lot of them) that reference the characters' sexism, homophobia and even Kraft's purge of over a hundred Cultural Marxists, the single worst "onscreen" atrocity we get from them in the book. Sometimes with quotes to illustrate. I just don't recognize myself in your description.

What I feel I have done is two things:

• Where people have written inaccurately about the book, I've changed that. For one example, some guy said it says all gays are pedophiles. It doesn't, though; there's actually a line that says literally, "even most of the other gays don't like those perverts." Backhanded praise, sure, but it's not what that troper claimed. So I edited that. Same with another who said the book says the Victoria state is segregated and the protagonists boast about hanging all uppity n***ers—that's not what's actually in the book (though it's racist in other ways). So I changed that, too. However you feel about Victoria, surely the page shouldn't outright lie about it?

• I try to write generally neutrally, unlike the more radical fan haters (who often appear as though they haven't even read the book), but as TVTropes policy says we should. I certainly don't go around saying "This is awesome!" but, I also don't go "This sucks, and did I mention it sucks!" in the example entries like some of the people who complain about it. As part of this, I also remove the YMMV links they often put on the main page when I come across them.

Because of this, the fan haters who put in the inaccuracies and blatant POV items seem to get mad at me for changing or deleting them, and then they insinuate not so subtly that I must endorse the book's wingnut politics because I remove their substandard writing. That's just ridiculous though. I've never been coy either about kind of liking Victoria, or about the fact I think it's crazy. In my world you can do both. And in my writing I've tried to be "fair" to it.

If we return to the concrete issues: The thing is, I'd really just like to work with you to make the page something at least most people can agree with. But that's kind of hard when what I get when I ask what's bothering people is mostly just vague blanket complaining that can mean anything and nothing. I emphasize, I totally understand Victoria won't be everyone's cup of tea (even if you don't take it deadly seriously). And I absolutely don't blame people who feel that way, I know I've got sort of quirky humor. Still, a lot of the input from the "anti" side so far hasn't really been very constructive.

I ask like I've already done several times (and not necessarily just Karkat here, I'm not singling you out by any means): Let's talk about the specific examples you disagree with. What exactly is it you feel is currently misrepresented on the page? What is it you just plain don't like? Maybe we can change it to something we can all live with. Let's discuss it together and see if we can't figure out some compromise.

To be frank, I probably shouldn't have gotten involved here - all of my knowledge is secondhand, and researching this is something I really don't want to do now. If someone else gets involved who has, I might be able to offer some sort of feedback to their suggestions, but for now, I'm going to have to duck out of this one - you'll probably need to find someone here.

I've checked Idumean Patriot's recent changes and most of them are about this book. Dozens of edits about this book, often shoehorning it in where it really doesn't belong (*Feminist* Fantasy? Really?)

Adopting a pose of supposed irony ("I like it because it's crazy! I'm in it for the lulz!") and/or polite reasonableness are tactics straight out of the standard alt-right playbook. I've tangled with these guys enough elsewhere on the Internet that this is all starting to look very familiar.

IMHO you can easily read the Azania story arc as a subversion of the Feminist Fantasy: the amazonian paradise turns out to be a horrible tyranny, and then their plucky action girls lose to the ("good guy") conservative Christians. That's certainly subverting expectations for contemporary science fiction and its Girl Power vogue.

That said; if you don't like that entry to that effect I can edit it out. Do you want me to do so?

For my own opinions, I don't really have much to add to what I've already said. I don't mind totally disavowing people like Vox Day, Milo Yiannopolous, etc. in unambiguous terms, if that makes you happier. Frankly I find it more than a little insulting when you insinuate I belong to their gang. But I'm not going to keep justifying myself indefinitely before netizens who think liking bad techno-thrillers and trying to be reasonable on discussion pages is some sinister "alt-right" plot. I've made absolutely clear where I stand. You have my honestly stated opinion, and can take it or leave it as you please.

In any case, I'm not the subject of discussion: Victoria is. Do you have any specific trope examples on the page you wish to object to? My request last month for constructive dialogue still stands.

When someone entry-pimps an "alt-right" book to this degree, people aren't unreasonable for thinking that person is taking an unusually strong interest in it and might be trying to spread its message. I mean, maybe you're not and you really just DO find it hilariously bad in a My Immortal/Eye of Argon kind of way, but the sheer volume of edits about this book is kind of weird.

And the Weasel Words have returned with a vengeance. Seriously, where are those mods?

• shrug* I suspect it's going to boil down to one of those "He wants it enough to get banned over it, and it will continue until he does" situations.

My personal impression is that he believes most of the basics, but exaggerates a lot for dramatic effect, and/or twisted humor. IIRC he's a self-described monarchist in real life. "Alt-Right" publisher and grand old man of twitter trolling Vox Day says on his blog, at least some of the bad writing is deliberate. And he edited the book, so he should know.