People are products of their environment, and morality is a slippery slope.
If it is inevitable that OSC's work be attached to his politics, is it then okay to fire an employee because he is on the board of directors of an anti-gay marriage organization? Even if his political leanings have little to no effect on his work? What if you decide not to hire a qualified candidate because of his association with anti-gay NPO's.
I can maybe see someone in PR getting the boot, but a writer at a magazine, newsroom or website?
I think a strong case can be made that it is just as unconstitutional (or un-bill-of-rights-ional, for us Canucks) to exclude someone for anti-gay-marriage connections as it is to exclude them for being gay. The pendulum swings both ways.
The only way to possibly defend against such a violation may be to argue that having someone with homophobic leanings on your staff would negatively affect your business. But then we get into the same thing with homosexuals, where people in highly conservative areas could argue that no one would patronize a place of business if a gay dude worked there.
Either way, it's discrimination. The only difference here is that homosexuality is a product of nature, where as homophobia is a product of nurture. Who among us has a good enough education in sociology to tell us which one is more fundamental in our development as humans?
Granted, we have a right to vote with our wallets, but is it fair to punish everyone else who made Shadow Complex because of a decision 90% of them had nothing to do with? Could it be argued that this too, is a form of discrimination? What if we were the homophobes and OSC was the sympathetic liberal? Would it still be okay to vote with our wallet, and boycott everything OSC is attached to? Didn't this kind of happen to the Dixie Chicks?
So if it's okay to boycott OSC for his politics, is it okay to also boycott the Dixie Chicks for not being happy with George Dub-ya?
I seem to be starting another essay. Really, I just like challenging norms in public venues. I think I may be a jerk. Anyhow, I look forward to future responses.
What if we were the homophobes and OSC was the sympathetic liberal? Would it still be okay to vote with our wallet, and boycott everything OSC is attached to? Didn't this kind of happen to the Dixie Chicks?
So if it's okay to boycott OSC for his politics, is it okay to also boycott the Dixie Chicks for not being happy with George Dub-ya?
Of course it would. I don't think that you'll find anyone around here who would say that the only moral boycott is their boycott.
Either way, it's discrimination. The only difference here is that homosexuality is a product of nature, where as homophobia is a product of nurture.
This is a big leap you're making. If all the ideas we believe in are the result of nurture, how come many people don't believe in the same things as their parents? Why do polls show a huge shift in views regarding gay marriage over the years?
Vulgar or Ridiculously Childish wrote:Either way, it's discrimination. The only difference here is that homosexuality is a product of nature, where as homophobia is a product of nurture.
This is a big leap you're making. If all the ideas we believe in are the result of nurture, how come many people don't believe in the same things as their parents? Why do polls show a huge shift in views regarding gay marriage over the years?
I tend to side with you on this, Funkenpants. It's pretty genetic to dehumanize people different from the Self, and race, gender, and sexual orientation are pretty easy differences to settle on. As is always the case whenever this old discussion comes up, I think we can all agree that people are the product of both their genes and their environment, and skip along merrily to sample the everlasting gobstoppers.
If all the ideas we believe in are the result of nurture, how come many people don't believe in the same things as their parents? Why do polls show a huge shift in views regarding gay marriage over the years?
Because this is a non-issue in most families. However, OSC is a product of the Latter Day Saints, which has a very definite stance on homosexuals. One which was likely relayed to OSC at a very young age.
I think it could easily be argued that values instilled by parents or religion contribute to our views or personality.
Because this is a non-issue in most families.
Wait- a view on the morality of homosexuality is the result of nurture because it's not an issue in most families, but when kids believe different things on other issues it's not the result of nurture?
OK, so OSC does not benefit from the sales of the game directly and proportionally.
Still, the developer brought him on board because his name and sci-fi cachet lend the game extra credentials (although with this additional baggage). Perhaps it was a gamble the publisher and developer took intentionally.
I am kind of surprised by the amount of the apparent apologism that is going on here. The decision is so simple and trivial. The product at hand is a videogame. A piece of entertainment. Indulgence. It's not any kind of serious moral dilemma you're forced into, whereby NOT playing this game would cause some dire, profound consequences. The mere consequence is that if you're not playing it, you aren't getting to indulge into your gaming fix.
If you have but a smidgen of convictions that tell you OSC's views are wrong and you aren't approving of the product's affiliation with him, just don't buy this game and be at peace with your convictions rather than making a deal with them in the name of satisfying your sensory inputs. Walk right past that shiny display window of the donut shop without caving in to your sugar cravings, peer pressure, glowing reviews in FoodSpot or Metafoodie score or whatnot.
As the man said, no compromise.
Actually, the relationship between Orson Scott Card and Shadow Complex is very interesting. Shadow Complex is set in the universe of the Empire IP. That IP was created by the founders of Chair Entertainment to be a multimedia IP; that is, there could be books, games, movies, and comic books set in the Empire universe, all of which would be licensed by Chair. Orson Scott Card's 2006 novel Empire was the first product to use this IP, but he pays Chair a royalty to use the Empire universe.
Rorshach-esque speech
Bravo. Nail's head, hit.
Wait- a view on the morality of homosexuality is the result of nurture because it's not an issue in most families, but when kids believe different things on other issues it's not the result of nurture?
My parents never sat me down and said "Billy, I am going to tell you about all about homosexuals." I was pretty much free to figure things out on my own.
However, I'm sure OSC was raised in a house that DID have a firm stance on homosexuals, an assumption I base on his close relationship with the Church of Latter Day Saints. At a young age, he was likely taught such behavior was wrong, something he obviously still believes today.
My point is that many parents don't preach, or if they do, they preach tolerance. If they come from similar backgrounds as OSC, then perhaps they teach their children something else. My dilemma is that I do not think you can blame someone for believing something taught to them at this age, even if they should technically know better. Humans aren't as rational as many give them credit for.
What about people who come from religious backgrounds that preach against homosexuality and end up as adults without any problem with homosexuality? I've met people like that. Same with people who have parents that are racist. Some end up racist, too, and some don't.
What about people who come from religious backgrounds that preach against homosexuality and end up as adults without any problem with homosexuality?
Hi, nice to meet you. 
What about people who come from religious backgrounds that preach against homosexuality and end up as adults without any problem with homosexuality? I've met people like that. Same with people who have parents that are racist. Some end up racist, too, and some don't.
What about them?
You say some end up racist, and some don't. So are we to hate the racist ones for doing what they were taught was correct? I only put forth that we owe these people a degree of understanding, as they were raised with a set of backwards rules. When a bulldog bites a man, you don't blame the dog, you blame the owner who taught the dog to be cruel. When a child grows up racist, who's to blame?
That being said, my level of commitment to this thread is starting to waiver, and I find I'm making posts to clarify positions I laid out in previous posts.
Gorilla.800.lbs' comments are true, but I stopped talking about Shadow Complex several posts ago. I was wondering if boycotting OSC is the same as boycotting a writer because he is gay. The assumption is that the gay man had no choice in his sexual orientation, but OSC decided one day to hate homosexuals. I'm saying that perhaps it's not that simple, and OSC didn't really have a choice in the matter - not until he had already been socialized, thus set in his ways. I think it's a debate worth having.
I only put forth that we owe these people a degree of understanding, as they were raised with a set of backwards rules. When a bulldog bites a man, you don't blame the dog, you blame the owner who taught the dog to be cruel. When a child grows up racist, who's to blame?
First, people aren't unreasoning animals. Second, we're not talking about an 18-year old kid fresh out of his parents home, but a wealthy, educated man well into his middle age. I think we can assume he's had the opportunity to see a bit of the world, meet a wide range of people, grow out of his parents' intellectual shadow and reason for himself.
Both Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss were rabid antisemites, but I don't have a problem listening to the Ring or Ein Heldenleben. I probably won't have anything to do with that game, but that's just because it is a genre I don't care for.
If he decides to write a novel condemning homosexuality, I'll skip it. Until then, I have no problem separating the man from his work.
This.
To raise a couple of other examples, I think Allen Ginsberg is a towering giant of a poet and a truly great man. His poem Sweet boy, gimmie yr ass and his NAMBLA support make me uncomfortable. However, the safe and comfortable position on the legal age of consent takes some shots from his line of reasoning. Whatever our moral position is on age of consent questions, it can only be improved by exposing it to the best arguments of those who disagree. In the end, I respect the man's art and his life, so I'll listen to his reasons.
While Card is no Ginsberg, he has paid his dues as an author. I don't think he's a hack. I do think his writing shows him to be someone who thinks about issues and puts them into play in ways that make his reader think thoughts worth thinking. At the end of the day, I do not choose to hold many of the worldviews his heroes exemplify. But, at the end of the day, my own decisions are richer and deeper for having been exposed to Card's writing.
So the librarian in me can't help but to be frustrated by calls to black-list Card based on his political and religious opinions. On the other hand, my fellow librarians are the ones who have pointed out some of Card's more incendiary opinions about homosexuals. Karen Schneider (someone I greatly respect) and the School Library Journal both published highly informative opinion pieces on why Card should not have been given an award for writing YA novels.
I really don't want to come down on the side of supporting a bigot and his archaic and incorrect views about sexual diversity in society. At the end of the day, though, I'm more afraid of censorship than I am of enabling something "wrong" to go uncorrected.
So I'm likely to buy and play Card's game. I'll likely read more of Card's books. (least if he publishes another Alvin Maker title) I'll recommend that other people read Card's books. I'll also recommend that they read Howl, Dorothy Allison's Bastard out of Carolina, Jeanette Winterson's Oranges are not the Only Fruit, and Tom Spanbauer's The Man who Fell in Love with the Moon. After having read all of the above, they will have more than they need to make an informed decision about how to treat people.
When it comes to art (and I include games in that category) we have more to risk by enforcing group-think than we do from allowing artists to explore their ideas.
When it comes to art (and I include games in that category) we have more to risk by enforcing group-think than we do from allowing artists to explore their ideas.
Who is enforcing anything? OSC remains free to spout whatever enters his brain, and no one claimed he shouldn't be. Isn't it my free-speech to be able to say "I don't need to hear this bullshit"?
Everyone has that old relative who would go around using the "N" word in casual conversation, much to the horror of the rest of the family. Attitudes towards homosexuals are no different. But no one bothers lecturing racist grandma. Know why? Because she's too old to know different, and she's gonna die soon anyways. The best course of action is to sit the grandchildren down, and explain to them that what grandma said was a hurtful word to some people, and that they should never say such things.
What my mother did was tell racist grandma (father's side) that if she didn't stop saying racist things around us, she'd never see us. She's still racist, but I didn't know it until I was in high school. She even bought my sister the black barbie that my sister picked out.
For my mother's side, it wasn't a problem, because while her mother and father spent the first part of their lives racist, my grandfather spent a lot of time with black soldiers in the army. He was too poor to travel all the way home for holidays, so he spent them with his army buddies who lived nearby, many of whom were black. While my grandmother never had this exposure, she trusted his, and they didn't pass on the racism their parents passed on to them.
To tie it to OSC, hate is learned, and can be unlearned. Being raised Mormon doesn't excuse his homophobia. That said, if I can get past H.P. Lovecraft's racism/classism, I can get past OSC's homophobia, provided the story is good enough.
Oso wrote:When it comes to art (and I include games in that category) we have more to risk by enforcing group-think than we do from allowing artists to explore their ideas.
Who is enforcing anything? OSC remains free to spout whatever enters his brain, and no one claimed he shouldn't be. Isn't it my free-speech to be able to say "I don't need to hear this bullshit"?
The group think comes when the decision not to buy becomes an organized boycott. I understand the personal choice not to purchase, but the conversation has also touched on the concept of boycotting and sending a message to the developer/distributor/publisher.
I certainly didn't mean to imply that those who are disgusted by OSC are somehow wrong not to buy his stuff. I did mean to say that in my internal debate over how to deal w/ his ugly side, I choose art and expression over enforcing what I believe to be justice. There is risk both direction.
I had a friend when I was young, who said that he just couldn't stomach buying anything Orson Scott Card wrote anymore, after reading one of his earlier essays decrying homosexuality. (and his books are LOADED with homoerotic undertones; that man is as gay as they come. This is very typical among those who are loudest about repression... they're already so practiced at doing it to themselves.)
Anyway, I sort of hemmed and hawed, because I really liked Ender's Game, and was enjoying the Hatrack River series. But then he said that buying any of his books amounted to saying this:
"Here, gay-hater. Have a buck."
After all these years, I can still hear him saying that. Because of those two sentences, I won't knowingly buy anything OSC-related.
I mentioned it earlier Malor. Naked, sweaty, soapy boys wrestling in Ender's Game.
What if the grand wizard of the KKK wrote a cook book.
What if it had some really great recipes in it.
Its one thing to buy books written by racists or homophobes, its another thing to buy books written by people who actively work to take away the rights of other individuals.
I believe that homosexuals deserve the same rights as the rest of us and I cannot on clear conscience give money to someone who spends there time trying to undermine the rights of human beings.
That said, it looks like he does not make any money off shadow complex so I see no contradiction.
What if the grand wizard of the KKK wrote a cook book.
What if it had some really great recipes in it.
Its one thing to buy books written by racists or homophobes, its another thing to buy books written by people who actively work to take away the rights of other individuals.
I believe that homosexuals deserve the same rights as the rest of us and I cannot on clear conscience give money to someone who spends there time trying to undermine the rights of human beings.
That said, it looks like he does not make any money off shadow complex so I see no contradiction.
Fallacy. He isn't in the KKK, he doesn't argue that gays should be killed or anything like that. I haven't seen anything stating he HATES gay people. He just doesn't believe that gay people should be able to get married and have those rights. Which is different than hate.
Fallacy. He isn't in the KKK, he doesn't argue that gays should be killed or anything like that. I haven't seen anything stating he HATES gay people. He just doesn't believe that gay people should be able to get married and have those rights. Which is different than hate.
how is it different?
Ulairi wrote:Fallacy. He isn't in the KKK, he doesn't argue that gays should be killed or anything like that. I haven't seen anything stating he HATES gay people. He just doesn't believe that gay people should be able to get married and have those rights. Which is different than hate.
how is it different?
The KKK murdered people and are terrorists. Being a conservative mormon doesn't make you a murderer, supporter of murder or a terrorists.
Right but the key word is hate, not terrorism or murderers. I agree that using the KKK is a rather lazy analogy (it, like using Darfur, is just godwinning with another comparison), but one can hate people without suicide bombs or murder.
I just want to clarify the justification that, if OSC isn't a terrorist, he's definitively incapable of hating homosexuals, despite rigorous and strenuous objections to their lifestyle.
This is not meant at all to be a parallel of the situation in question, but the discussion got me thinking about this possibility.
If Adolf Hitler had offspring and the members of his estate were not war criminals, would it be okay for them to receive royalties for Mein Kampf? Moreover, considering the historical significance of that book, would it be wrong for someone to purchase and read it?
I know this was meant to be a thought experiment, but Hitler does have family members that aren't war criminals--a bunch of them live in Long Island. But they don't own the copyright to Mein Kampf (or to his paintings). The UK and US copyright holders, which are publishing companies, donate any profits to charity.
Regarding whether or not Orson Scott Card hates homosexuals or not, I encourage you to read (in full) some of his own words on the subject.
For those that care, it seems Chair's connection to conservatism runs deeper than just Shadow Complex. Chair Entertainment is based in Utah, they reached out to OSC, they have more than casual relationship, they promote OSC's other material on twitter, not just the Empire franchise, and they apparently post conservative talking points on their twitter.
adam.greenbrier wrote:Regarding whether or not Orson Scott Card hates homosexuals or not, I encourage you to read (in full) some of his own words on the subject.
Thanks for the link, adam.
OSC wrote:When I was an undergraduate theatre student, I was aware, and not happily so, how pervasive was the reach of the underculture of homosexuality among my friends and acquaintances
If anyone here has ever read Wagner's Judaism in Music, one might immediately note the stunning parallels.
I read the link and why I really disagree with it I think he's stating that he doesnt' hate the person he hates the life style. Hate the sin/love the sinner type thing. I think he's backwards and wrong but I don't think he should be punished for being backwards and wrong.
Pages