Fiction, like society, is capable of social progress.
Progress is quite a loaded word, and if you assume fiction will progress, then you are almost assuming your conclusion.
This isn’t a completed project. Stopping the production of fiction in its tracks now would leave us with a corpus of stories that under- and misrepresents many groups, and this would become even more of a problem than it already is
Let’s make ‘progress’ concrete. Perhaps progress means that ‘the fiction produced every year will feature characters that will statistically ever more closely match current demographics in the United States’.
Why is fiction mirroring demographics important?
Think of science-fiction; should Accelerando feature a carefully balanced cast with a few African-American men & women, 3 or 4 Hispanics of various ethnicities & nationalities, and a number of South-East Asians and old sansei? How would it be improved by such mimicking?
Or think of regular fiction—When William Shakespeare was writing Othello, the number of blacks in England must’ve been a rounding error; would he have done better to reflect the 100% white composition of England and make Othello an Arab or just a regular white northern European? When David Foster Wallace wrote Infinite Jest, would it be somehow more just or better, and not just more “progressive”, if he had randomly noted that Michael Pemulis was of Chinese descent?
Fiction has never mirrored society even crudely, not in racial composition of characters, socio-economic status, career, religious or philosophical beliefs, or any distinction that you would like to honor with the title ‘group’. That’s the whole point: it’s fiction. Not real. To make it ever more accurate this way would be to turn it into journalism, or render it as pointless as Borges’s 1:1 map from “Of Exactitude in Science”.
Everything I’ve read has said that England had, at least until the 1800s, a minuscule black population, and particularly before and during Shakespeare.
Here are some random links on the topic since I don’t remember where I read that blacks were exotic & unpopular rareties in England and next to none of the slaves passing through British hands came to the home isles:
This book Black Breeding Machines mentions that blacks were such a small minority in England that when their presence began to bother the Londoners, Queen Elizabeth could simply order them out of the country. And it’s worth noting that one of the few mentioned blacks in England is a ‘blackamoor’ in the Queen’s service—reinforcing my rare, exotic characterization.
(And the general lack of material itself argues that there just weren’t that many. It’s hard to research what didn’t exist.)
EDIT: As for Italy, I can only point to a similar sporadic appearance of black servants in Roman and medieval Italian sources, and links like http://www.blackpast.org/?q=perspectives/africa-and-africans-imagination-renaissance-italians-1450-1630 which make me think that if the medieval Italians could have such strange beliefs about Africa and its inhabitants, there couldn’t’ve been very many actual Africans/blacks among them; and if that’s true about Italy, which is right there above Africa, what about England, a continent away (so to speak)?
I am not qualified to teach this subject, not even on the 101 “the stuff you are saying appears on bingo cards that anti-bigotry activists use to summarize common ignorance for crying out loud” level it seems to be on. Trying would be unpleasant, probably would have no positive effects on anyone, and would doubtless solidify the reputation I seem to have accumulated as a usually sane person who mysteriously loses her mind when bringing up “politics”.
I will, however, note that Othello took place in Italy, not England, and it would be bizarre if it reflected England’s demographics.
I think the two of you may be talking past each other here, namely that gwern overlooked the phrase “corpus of stories”. What gwern seems to be attacking is the thesis that every individual story should have a racial/cultural balance of characters that mirrors the general population. Your argument that the corpus as a whole should contain a reasonable balance is not one which I think gwern would refute.
Obviously every story need not be balanced. But it’s not obvious to me why the corpus should be balanced, and I can think of reasons why it either doesn’t matter or is a good thing (half the attraction of anime for people is, I think, that it borrows enough Western material to be relatively easy to understand, but the overall corpus is still very ‘unbalanced’ from a US perspective).
Arguments for either position would be good, but Alicorn’s original post just says being unbalanced is a problem and anything perpetuating the problem is bad, thus bans/taxes/withdrawal-of-subsidies is bad; I have no positive arguments in favor of new works from her, so I have to content myself with offering criticism and negative arguments in the hopes that she’ll offer back.
(Or I could just drop this whole thread, but then I’d leave unsatisfied because I wouldn’t know all the flaws with my approach, like the argument about works being enjoyable in different ways like being contemporary.)
If you’re interested in continuing this conversation with me in particular, I’d prefer to move to a private venue. I really don’t like the “mysteriously loses her mind over politics” thing, or the karma nosedive that comes with it, but I’m willing to assume that you as an individual won’t interpret me that way.
I’d really prefer not to. I’ve made a point of conducting all of my Wikipedia business on the wiki itself, and similarly for mailing lists. There seems to be only one person downvoting you in this thread, and that’s easy enough for me to cancel out.
The karma is only a secondary concern. It bothers me more than I would like it to that I am seen as suddenly and inexplicably turning irrational whenever stuff about -isms comes up. This is germane here in particular since to continue this conversation, I’d have to talk about (gasp) feeeeeeeeelings.
The comment that claimed you turn irrational has zero karma. My response that it was an ungenerous interpretation is +2. So I’m not sure you should conclude that a significant number of people see you as turning uniquely irrational, but obviously there is no need for you to say anything you don’t want to.
I don’t think it’s that many people (although I got the same reaction over the gender kerfluffle; it’s not just this one-time thing). But it’s enough to make me uncomfortable.
What’s inexplicable about it? We all turn at least somewhat irrational whenever stuff about -isms comes up. It’s human nature. Politics is the mind killer and all. That’s why discussion of contemporary politics is discouraged here, or at least was last I heard.
Okay, perhaps I’m seen as explicably losing my mind. That’s not a whole lot better. I don’t like to have conversations with people who start out presuming me insane, even if they have a lovely narrative about exactly how it happened.
You’re entitled to your emotional reactions, up to and including stonewalling unfavored commenters, but I see this behavior as a blatant self-defense mechanism for your beliefs. Likewise a theist could reject LW’s arguments for atheism because oooh those evil people say I’m crazy and it’s making me uncomfortable.
I don’t think I’d characterize calling one’s interlocutor crazy as “evil” so much as “mean”. I wouldn’t expect my theist friends to want to talk to me—about anything, really, much less religion—if I started out presuming them insane because they disagree with me! For the same reason, I don’t blame the theists I know from steering clear of this site. It’s a hostile environment for them, and they have no reason to enter any hostile environment, including this one. Similarly, I have precious little interest in having nonessential exchanges with or near people who have announced their intention to be mean to me. Calling it a “self-defense mechanism” looks like you think I need some reason to refrain from having conversations with or around you and those who agree with you, apart from predicting that they’ll be unfun.
Progress is quite a loaded word, and if you assume fiction will progress, then you are almost assuming your conclusion.
Let’s make ‘progress’ concrete. Perhaps progress means that ‘the fiction produced every year will feature characters that will statistically ever more closely match current demographics in the United States’.
Why is fiction mirroring demographics important?
Think of science-fiction; should Accelerando feature a carefully balanced cast with a few African-American men & women, 3 or 4 Hispanics of various ethnicities & nationalities, and a number of South-East Asians and old sansei? How would it be improved by such mimicking?
Or think of regular fiction—When William Shakespeare was writing Othello, the number of blacks in England must’ve been a rounding error; would he have done better to reflect the 100% white composition of England and make Othello an Arab or just a regular white northern European? When David Foster Wallace wrote Infinite Jest, would it be somehow more just or better, and not just more “progressive”, if he had randomly noted that Michael Pemulis was of Chinese descent?
Fiction has never mirrored society even crudely, not in racial composition of characters, socio-economic status, career, religious or philosophical beliefs, or any distinction that you would like to honor with the title ‘group’. That’s the whole point: it’s fiction. Not real. To make it ever more accurate this way would be to turn it into journalism, or render it as pointless as Borges’s 1:1 map from “Of Exactitude in Science”.
It may have been small, but I severely doubt “rounding error” is accurate. Do we have a historian in the house?
Edit: In light of Alicorn’s remarks, it would be good to have both Italy and England.
Everything I’ve read has said that England had, at least until the 1800s, a minuscule black population, and particularly before and during Shakespeare.
Here are some random links on the topic since I don’t remember where I read that blacks were exotic & unpopular rareties in England and next to none of the slaves passing through British hands came to the home isles:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060913100505AAx2vYc
http://www.angelfire.com/md/8/moors.html (to point out that mentions of Moors proves nothing)
http://www.historytoday.com/MainArticle.aspx?m=19634&amid=19634
This book Black Breeding Machines mentions that blacks were such a small minority in England that when their presence began to bother the Londoners, Queen Elizabeth could simply order them out of the country. And it’s worth noting that one of the few mentioned blacks in England is a ‘blackamoor’ in the Queen’s service—reinforcing my rare, exotic characterization.
(And the general lack of material itself argues that there just weren’t that many. It’s hard to research what didn’t exist.)
EDIT: As for Italy, I can only point to a similar sporadic appearance of black servants in Roman and medieval Italian sources, and links like http://www.blackpast.org/?q=perspectives/africa-and-africans-imagination-renaissance-italians-1450-1630 which make me think that if the medieval Italians could have such strange beliefs about Africa and its inhabitants, there couldn’t’ve been very many actual Africans/blacks among them; and if that’s true about Italy, which is right there above Africa, what about England, a continent away (so to speak)?
I am not qualified to teach this subject, not even on the 101 “the stuff you are saying appears on bingo cards that anti-bigotry activists use to summarize common ignorance for crying out loud” level it seems to be on. Trying would be unpleasant, probably would have no positive effects on anyone, and would doubtless solidify the reputation I seem to have accumulated as a usually sane person who mysteriously loses her mind when bringing up “politics”.
I will, however, note that Othello took place in Italy, not England, and it would be bizarre if it reflected England’s demographics.
I think the two of you may be talking past each other here, namely that gwern overlooked the phrase “corpus of stories”. What gwern seems to be attacking is the thesis that every individual story should have a racial/cultural balance of characters that mirrors the general population. Your argument that the corpus as a whole should contain a reasonable balance is not one which I think gwern would refute.
Obviously every story need not be balanced. But it’s not obvious to me why the corpus should be balanced, and I can think of reasons why it either doesn’t matter or is a good thing (half the attraction of anime for people is, I think, that it borrows enough Western material to be relatively easy to understand, but the overall corpus is still very ‘unbalanced’ from a US perspective).
Arguments for either position would be good, but Alicorn’s original post just says being unbalanced is a problem and anything perpetuating the problem is bad, thus bans/taxes/withdrawal-of-subsidies is bad; I have no positive arguments in favor of new works from her, so I have to content myself with offering criticism and negative arguments in the hopes that she’ll offer back.
(Or I could just drop this whole thread, but then I’d leave unsatisfied because I wouldn’t know all the flaws with my approach, like the argument about works being enjoyable in different ways like being contemporary.)
If you’re interested in continuing this conversation with me in particular, I’d prefer to move to a private venue. I really don’t like the “mysteriously loses her mind over politics” thing, or the karma nosedive that comes with it, but I’m willing to assume that you as an individual won’t interpret me that way.
I’d really prefer not to. I’ve made a point of conducting all of my Wikipedia business on the wiki itself, and similarly for mailing lists. There seems to be only one person downvoting you in this thread, and that’s easy enough for me to cancel out.
The karma is only a secondary concern. It bothers me more than I would like it to that I am seen as suddenly and inexplicably turning irrational whenever stuff about -isms comes up. This is germane here in particular since to continue this conversation, I’d have to talk about (gasp) feeeeeeeeelings.
The comment that claimed you turn irrational has zero karma. My response that it was an ungenerous interpretation is +2. So I’m not sure you should conclude that a significant number of people see you as turning uniquely irrational, but obviously there is no need for you to say anything you don’t want to.
I don’t think it’s that many people (although I got the same reaction over the gender kerfluffle; it’s not just this one-time thing). But it’s enough to make me uncomfortable.
What’s inexplicable about it? We all turn at least somewhat irrational whenever stuff about -isms comes up. It’s human nature. Politics is the mind killer and all. That’s why discussion of contemporary politics is discouraged here, or at least was last I heard.
Okay, perhaps I’m seen as explicably losing my mind. That’s not a whole lot better. I don’t like to have conversations with people who start out presuming me insane, even if they have a lovely narrative about exactly how it happened.
You’re entitled to your emotional reactions, up to and including stonewalling unfavored commenters, but I see this behavior as a blatant self-defense mechanism for your beliefs. Likewise a theist could reject LW’s arguments for atheism because oooh those evil people say I’m crazy and it’s making me uncomfortable.
I don’t think I’d characterize calling one’s interlocutor crazy as “evil” so much as “mean”. I wouldn’t expect my theist friends to want to talk to me—about anything, really, much less religion—if I started out presuming them insane because they disagree with me! For the same reason, I don’t blame the theists I know from steering clear of this site. It’s a hostile environment for them, and they have no reason to enter any hostile environment, including this one. Similarly, I have precious little interest in having nonessential exchanges with or near people who have announced their intention to be mean to me. Calling it a “self-defense mechanism” looks like you think I need some reason to refrain from having conversations with or around you and those who agree with you, apart from predicting that they’ll be unfun.
Indeed, categorizing one’s enemies as “insane” seems like a bad epistemic move—a bit closer to deciding they’re evil mutants.