 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
From: ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wbm |
Date: May 14th, 2008 04:42 am (UTC) |
| (Link) |
|
Of course. There should be checks involved in everything to ensure quality. Goals & equality is always admirable, but, like you say, the appearance of equality can be as bad or worse. It is possible to be unable to find a single person of a race/gender/whatever-status in a population to serve in whatever capacity is needed. Maybe I'm just Devil's Advocating & being irritating, but ivy_broom seems to be assuming that her/his class of white, blonde, blue-eyed, tanned, well-clothed, manicured & very well off *persons* were naïve at best & stupid/willfully blind at worst by relating that, in their experience, there's no longer any discrimination based on their gender. Not that they're not either of those, cuz it's likely, but how are they any different from any of the groups of people who claim, rightly or otherwise, that they ARE discriminated against? I know a few housewives & stay-at-home single mothers who feel discriminated against by feminists for having made the *wrong* choice. In your SF story, is holding public office similar to a draft, where no one runs for it, but is a random selection of people of certain statuses, & it's considered a civic duty the way jury selection is (or should I say *is supposed to be*)? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
From: wbm |
Date: May 14th, 2008 08:44 pm (UTC) |
| (Link) |
Re: Wow!
|
Well, I think it's probably a bit of both, so I'll thank you for the compliment, & you don't need my compliments to know your are an excellent writer.
On my end, I think it comes from my need for things to make sense within their own rules - logic logic logic - and when you used the word *assign*, I wondered how that would be accomplished. The only doubt I had was that either the population would need to be exposed to a certain amount of propaganda to be 100% compliant, or there would need to be a rule of exception. It's nice to see your world has handled it in a more positive manner.
Which brings me to wonder how often, if at all, you write worlds & forms of faith &/or government that are less positive, & if so are these worlds always the antagonists or do you play with the duality of subjects that are outside your core beliefs? (just interested)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I always try to ensure that my fictional settings are internally consistent and that what I show to readers is discernibly coherent. There's more information than could ever fit into a story or even a series, but the parts that show have to make sense.
Last story I revised, "Peacock Hour," wound up with me spending half a day working out the protagonist's ancestry for eight generations, and what the political and weather climates were doing over that time. Only a bit of that is in the story, but it was added because the motivations weren't sufficiently identifiable.
I haven't figured out all the workings of Common Ground government yet, but I've spotted a lot of fascinating details. They can do some things that nobody else seems to accomplish, based on their founding population -- this is the colony based on *common sense* and the results are impressive but kind of peculiar. Most of the surviving colonies in my main SF setting, at the time I usually write, have quirks that derive from their founders.
You've noticed that I have a thing for eutopian societies, places that generally work well. I also have a thing for dystopic and pseudotopic societies, where something ghastly is going on either overtly or covertly. Those dark places often form the backdrop as characters escape from them.
My current story in revision, "Pebbles from the River Lethe," is about a WAR veteran. He's a wreck. The galactic society is just barely starting to put itself together, and there are still plenty of things going on that aren't pretty -- but that was humanity's last great war, after which they finally learned the lesson and put serious effort into finding other ways of conflict resolution. That's the manure pile from which the later galactic civilization blossoms.
I have a couple of settings on the fantasy side that run to dark stories and less-than-laudable societies. Penumbra is my main dark fantasy setting. It eventually gets taken over by my favorite anti-hero, the evil warlord-wizard Kovid. I love Kovid. He's smart and ruthless and practical and effective. This is the guy who waited until the end of The Fellowship of the Ring and muttered, "Sauron is a pussy." Anyhow, Kovid takes over the world and that is a big improvement over the previous condition, which should give you an idea of how bad things were. I've got one Kovid story on the market already, "A Soldier's Bargain," which features human sacrifice. The world isn't the antagonist; Penumbra stories have to be written strictly within the setting's own tone and natural laws. One of those is that true goodness is a fatal character flaw in that world, much the way evil is here; and evil is not inherently flawed there as it is here.
If you want to see me writing outside my own beliefs, read "Peaches from the Tree of Heaven" in newWitch. That's contemporary Pagan fiction, and there's a lot of stuff going on in it that leans in directions I don't.
On the other hoof, don't fall into thinking that I agree with the way my nicer characters have set up their societies. Many of them are places I'd love to visit ... but I'm not sure I could live in any of them. Some of what I bring back because it might be useful is stuff that I myself can't use.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I'll never forget my shock while working as a TA (Teaching Assistant) at the University I was attending as a Graduate student in Texas at the time. I was helping to teach an Anthropology course and we were examining introductory issues of the inequalities of different genders, races, etc. in many cultures.
Many of the young women (late teens early twenties) were offended by the concept of feminism. They argued that women already *have* equality in modern America and that they didn't want that ugly word "feminism" or anything to do with it associated with them. They really wanted to distance themselves from feminism as if it made them essentially unattractive, perhaps even social and economic pariahs.
They didn't have any evidence except for the experience of their own lives to back up their position, but it was clear that they were all white, (mostly blonde, blue-eyed, and tanned), and from their clothing, manicures, etc they appeared to be very well off. They seemed to fervently believe that the US was the ideal country to live in, and that it really was a fair and equal place for all its citizens. :::boggle:::
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
Previous
tired