{"id":10353,"date":"2015-12-28T13:01:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T20:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=10353"},"modified":"2015-12-28T13:01:32","modified_gmt":"2015-12-28T20:01:32","slug":"george-r-r-martin-and-christmas-puppies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/george-r-r-martin-and-christmas-puppies\/","title":{"rendered":"George R.R. Martin and Christmas Puppies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sad-Puppies-4\"So it’s not yet 2016, and the first salvos in the Sad Puppies 4 campaign have already been\u00a0fired, in the form of a kerfluffle<\/a> over on George R.R. Martin’s blog.<\/p>\n

For those of you who haven’t been following Sad Puppies,\u00a0I can’t say I blame you. It’s basically an ongoing civil war\u00a0within Science Fiction & Fantasy fandom, between those who believe that the genre\u00a0should serve the cause\u00a0of\u00a0social justice, and those who believe that there should be room for writers on all sides of the political spectrum\u2014that it should just\u00a0be about telling good stories.\u00a0Last year, the Sad Puppies (the ones who believe it should only\u00a0be about the stories) swept the nominations for the Hugo Awards, the (onetime) most prestigious awards in the SF&F genre. The resulting brouhaha\u00a0was not pretty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last year, George R.R. Martin was very aggressive in attacking the puppies. That’s what makes his latest puppy-related blog post<\/a> so interesting. In it, he basically calls for an end to “puppygate” and for everyone to just get along.\u00a0In his own words:<\/p>\n

The last thing I want… the last thing anyone who truly loves science fiction, fantasy, and fandom would want… would be to have to go through the whole thing again in 2016. Whatever your view of how the Hugo Awards turned out at Sasquan, I think we can all agree that we would like MidAmericon II’s awards to be more joyful, less rancorous, less controversial.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I don’t disagree with Mr. Martin’s sentiment. I too would like to see reconciliation and de-escalation of the ugliness that we saw from both sides in 2015.\u00a0And to be fair, Mr. Martin does give a positive characterization\u00a0of\u00a0what’s going on right now with Sad Puppies 4. That’s a good first step.<\/p>\n

The trouble is, you don’t achieve reconciliation by shouting at the other side to lay down their guns first. You achieve it by hearing and acknowledging their grievances. You might not agree\u00a0that those grievances need to be rectified, which is fine\u2014that’s\u00a0what negotiations are for\u2014but you do have to make an effort to listen to the other side.\u00a0And it’s clear enough that Mr. Martin is not listening.<\/p>\n

The core of the Sad Puppies movement is a rejection of elitism. In contrast, Mr. Martin’s position is that there are fans and there are Fans. Fans like him,\u00a0for whom every aspect of their lives revolves around Science Fiction and Fantasy, should have more control, more respect, more ownership\u2014in fine, they should matter more to the genre than the\u00a0other kind of fans. When pressed, of course, he denies that any part of fandom is any better than the others, but that’s not what comes through in his other positions. “Separate but equal” is the phrase that comes to mind.<\/p>\n

The problem here is that Mr. Martin wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants the Sad Puppies to lay down their guns, but he doesn’t want to lay down\u00a0his own. If he were genuine about burying the hatchet, he would acknowledge his own elitism, acknowledge that this is\u00a0a grievance that the Puppies hold\u00a0against him, and either recant his position or say “we’re going to have to agree to disagree.”<\/p>\n

Personally, my position is the opposite of Mr. Martin’s. I think that SF&F should be a big tent that privileges or denies no one\u2014that everyone who calls themselves\u00a0a fan of the genre\u00a0should be on equal grounds. After what happened in 2015, I’m as disgusted with the Hugo Awards as Feynman was disgusted with honors and epaulettes:<\/p>\n