I don’t usually write “look at this stupid thing this guy said” comments, but this comment by John C. Wright is too jaw-dropping not to share with someone (I cannot bear this burden alone!).
Not just because Wright equates homosexuality with bestiality, pederasty, and necrophilia; that Wright has terrible, indefensible opinions is not news. But his actual argument would be the star exhibit in a museum of terrible logic. Here, read this, and keep in mind, it’s all one sentence: (Edited: Nope, two sentences! I missed a period in there, somehow.)
The first step was to agree to cease to fight over religion, but to hold all religions opinions as being private, therefore too private to be discussed; then society agreed religion was irrational hence not able to be discussed at all; then society agreed that, since religion was irrational, any moral rules not grounded in pragmatic experience were nonbinding, a matter of private opinion; then society held that one’s opinion of pragmatism, or one variations of experience, eliminated even the possibility of a consensus on these points, and that even the contents of reality were a matter of opinion; and then it was held that to believe reality was real equaled making a judgment equals being judgmental equal being prejudiced equaled being bigoted equaled being racist equaled being a genocidal maniac on par with Hitler. Hence, to observe that men should act with self control in the sexual area became the same as promoting the mass extermination of the Jews: and so every children’s book character or cartoon character, from Dumbledore to Avator Korra to Batwoman to the characters in Order of the Stick to each and every character from each and every episode of DOCTOR WHO that is revealed as being a pervert, or revealed as approving wholeheartedly of perversion, is another Jew whom the leftist, seeing himself as Schindler, allows to escape from the death camp.
This is in the comments to a post in which Wright seems (as best as I can make out through the thicket of overwrought prose) to be arguing that, data be damned, it’s just not possible that most Harry Potter fans are liberals, because liberals would hate any narrative in which the Death-Eaters don’t win.
Actually it seems to be two sentences, not one. There’s a period (instead of the usual semicolon) right between the part where he accuses postmodernists of comparing everyone with Hitler and the part where he unwittingly reinforces the homophobes-as-repressed-bisexuals hypothesis.
Also, Wright, it’s “Avatar Korra”, not “Avator Korra”. Though I for one would totally watch an “Aviator Korra” spin-off.
There’s a period between Hitler and Hence. So two sentences.
Oh, Kai Jones beat me to it!
In other news… You have a guess as to what he’s arguing? I thought it was some sort of post-apocalyptic dystopian fantasy followed by some sort of incoherent political literary criticism of F&SF.
Definitely not on the level of, say, Valis. That’s for sure.
Thanks, everyone! I’ve edited the post to note my error.
So is Wright trying to argue that the sexual identities of fantasy characters are trivial, or really important? If leftists are basically engaged in a campaign of hyperbole and exaggeration when they argue that it matters whether a stick figure in a comic strip about D&D is gay, then isn’t the appropriate response, “Who gives a shit?”
One of the things that I find entertainingly irritating about guys like Wright is that they never seem to figure out that the right response to something that isn’t worth caring about is to not care about that thing.
You criticize my logic, but do not identify any flaws in any argument, nor do you correctly identify any argument being made in which a flaw can be found.
The passage in fact is not an argument, but a list of the philosophical steps whereby what starts as a laudable toleration for differences of opinion ends with …. well … you.
You are a person who is an intolerant bigot who feels free to dump on Christians merely because they have a difference of opinion with your cult beliefs about human sexuality.
You cannot read a sentence written by a literate man in English — your attention span is too short — and so you use it as an excuse to call him bad names.
For the record, I said nothing about the political orientation of fans of Potter one way or the other.
But you knew that, I assume.
I will ask you what I have asked so many of your subspecies: why do you provide a link to a quote where any honest man reading your lies can click through the link, see what I actually said in context, and know you are lying?
Why bother? It is not as if you believe the nonsense you invent about me yourself.
You know you are lying and you know no honest man will believe you. So what is the point?
I went to the link provided and found that to be a cornucopia of reactionary chest-thumping tripe, with, in addition to the rampant homophobia, one commenter saying that because the Weasley twins left school to found their own business that meant the books promoted a conservative meme about hard work and staying off the dole (i.e. welfare, and a promotion of the whole “culture of dependence” lunacy that the right so cherishes as a way to cut poor children off from such non-essentials as food and medical care). The entire thing from blog post to the last comment is a primer on right wing theocratic ideology and classism.
Neither, really. As far as I can make out he’s describing (lampooning?) what he sees as the leftist post-modern moral arguments behind why people see a fictional character’s sexuality as really important.
You didn’t even quote the most bizarre part, to my mind:
Who hates “the Jew”? Who is “the Jew”? (Obviously it’s Israel, but come on – one really can’t criticize the country’s actions without hating an entire religion…?)
Who holds “all moral laws in utmost contempt”? Who thinks there aren’t “such things as right and wrong”?
Also,
Yes, homosexuality is exactly like those things – except it involves consenting, living, adult, rational humans. But other than that, exactly the same.
To be fair to John C. Wright, I agree that he’s not making an argument in those two sentences. As I wrote in comment #2, it’s some sort of post-apocalyptic dystopian fantasy followed by some sort of incoherent political literary criticism of F&SF.
It’s always gratifying to get confirmation from the author.
This is hilarious.
“Stop being so intolerant of my beliefs, you dirty heathen cult member! I demand respect which I will never, ever give you in return, because I consider you barely human!”
There’s too much insanity in the Wright sentences to even know where to begin (and there’s clearly a short circuit in his brain where he says: “why do you provide a link to a quote where any honest man reading your lies can click through the link, see what I actually said in context, and know you are lying?”)
Yeah, John, no. There’s a link provided because context DOESN’T HELP YOU.
The best response to those clearly disturbed ramblings I can muster is “That didn’t happen. Nope. Also didn’t happen. Again, not something that happened.” People are clearly free to discuss religion. Liberals are not sending people to death camps. What’s happened is that, for the first time in their lives, a lot of political and religious conservatives have incontrovertible proof that they’re in the minority on their views about gays and lesbians, and rather than somehow being able to come to terms with this, they are collectively having a psychotic break.
Is this an appropriate thread to note the passing of Justice Scalia?
While his opposition to homosexual rights was noteworthy, I’m more impressed with his capacity to suspend implementation of the Clean Power Plan. Even if the Senate stonewalls the appointment of his successor, it seems unlikely that there are now five votes to overturn those rules.
Though, to appropriately acknowledge this justice’s work in a wide variety of fields, we should note that stymieing the Clean Power Plan was merely his penultimate official act. His final act was to deny a stay of execution.
Truly, he will be remembered.
Wright (apparently) knows nothing about the history of the novel, either.
It isn’t based on the Medieval Romance — though yes, modern Romance novels do take their names from Rome, since the “Romance” was a genre at one point, meaning (basically) Works about Roman Stuff (including, interestingly, Troy, since Aeneis, who supposedly founded Rome, came from Troy).
The novel, in fact, has it roots in Greek literature. The earliest novel is probably Petronius’s Satyricon. There’s also the first science fiction novel, True History, by Lucian, in the 2nd century.
Neither of these people are Christian.