Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Everyone I Don't Like is SJW: a Stroppy Teenager's Guide to Political Discussion

The True Story of How Several People Were Rather Rude to Me On Twitter



Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it.
                       The Screwtape Letters




Earlier this year, I came to the attention of one of the very minor fascist groups on the Internet. I don’t know why they selected me. They didn’t seem to have read any of my essays, and they certainly weren't interested in talking about (or even taking the mickey out of) any of my opinions. It was art for art's sake.

I initially thought that I was encountering the unacceptable face of the new atheism. I had at that time an advertisement for my book, Where Dawkins Went Wrong , pinned to the top of my Twitter page, with the comment I was saying that Richard Dawkins was a whey-face coxcomb before it was cool. So I sort of assumed that I had insulted their guru so they were insulting me back.

I now think that the Dawkins angle was incidental to what happened. I had recently made some remarks about Dawkins' shameful trolling of feminist academic Anna Hickey-Moody. I said that his tactics resembled those of Gamergate and the Sad Puppies, and that both groups resembled nothing so much as schoolyard bullies. (Comments I fully stand by.) I think that my use of the words Puppy and Gamergate attracted the attention of some right-wing Twitterati. Although there is evidence that the extreme misogynist right are statistically likely to be new atheists, I don't any longer think that this particular group were in Dawkins' orbit. I think they were using him as a stick to bait me with. Had they become aware of my existence during a different Twitter-cycle they might have said that Stan Lee or Giles Coren were twice the man I was.

If I describe the little old ladies who decorate the church as the flower mafia then you know what I'm saying: they are a closed circle who are very territorial about their hobby. If I refer to the freemasonry of parents with disabled children, you know exactly what I mean: they mutually support each other and some of what they say is incomprehensible to outsiders. I am obviously not saying that everyone on the flower rota comes from Sicily, or that members of the disability support group wear aprons and role up their trouser legs at meetings. If I describe a political group as fascists then it is pretty clear that I mean they are militaristic, authoritarian racists. Only a colossal bore would say "Huh, huh, they can't be fascists because they're not Italians and this is not the 1940s." I don't think that fascist is a particularly good term for the Twitter trolls who targeted me: I don't think they are a group and I doubt that they have anything as sophisticated as an ideology. I was going to call then small-f fascists but have decided to go with little fascists which is less of a mouthful.

The vector of the infection was Alpha, a journalist or intern who writes bog-standard political-correctness-gone-mad essays for on line publications. (I am not going to use actual names or Twitter handles here. These are, after all, the kinds of people who think it is funny to make death threats. Not serious or credible death threats, but death threats nonetheless.) Alpha's initial tweet, immediately liked and re-tweeted by about twenty little fascists went: 

SJW's are the saddest, most bitter creatures 1 RichardDawkins is worth a billion AndrewRilstone/PhilSandifer's 

This was attached to some screen shots of Tweets by me and Phil commenting on the Hickey-Moody affair. I am deeply chuffed that my name was linked with as learned and witty a critic as Phil Sandifer. I assume you've all read his Doctor Who essays? His ongoing series about Alan Moore and Grant Morrison includes the second best commentary on Watchmen ever written. I do wonder what an a marxist/post-modernist/occultist like him makes of being associated with a C.S Lewis worshiping reformist [1] like moi.

Alpha's first tweet tells you a great tell about the little fascists' thought patterns. They don’t think in terms of wrong opinions to be refuted; they think in terms of enemies to be squashed. Not Andrew Rilstone is totally wrong about the feminist academic, and here's why... but Andrew Rilstone, by virtue of his support of a feminist academic, can be given the label SJW and as such, barely even qualifies as a person. They don't say that someone is wrong: they say that he is sad or bitter or pathetic or ugly or deformed or smelly or weak or childish or mad or scruffy looking.

What followed was a barrage of playground level name-calling which revealed a fairly consistent set of preoccupations: 
  • Belief that anyone with mainstream political opinions is part of worldwide conspiracy called the SJW.
  • Overwhelming concern with physical appearance, and, curiously, with personal hygiene. ("Christ, maybe they're right about keeping the public baths open".) [2]
  • Fascination with military imagery, especially Warhammer 40,000.
  • Hatred and contempt for weakness of any kind ("He’s a bit delicate, this one. Talk about a manchild. Lunatic".) If a person responds in any way to an insult, this is taken as evidence that they are weak; the fact that they are weak shows that they deserved to be insulted. (An example of the Scotsman Tactic, (q.v.)) "Suck it up!" is their favourite response when challenged. 
  • Use of extreme right-wing imagery, such as swastikas and confederate flags. When they are called out on this they say that the SJW see fascism everywhere and that in any case the fascist imagery was only intended ironically. Readers may like to try imagining how the little fascists would react if one of us put an ironic image of Karl Marx on their website. (Claiming that the SJW think everyone is a fascist; and then claiming that since you accused someone of being a fascist, you must be one of the SJW is another good example of the Scotsman Tactic.)
  • Use of  homophobic and anti-semitic language while simultaneously denying that they are homophobic or anti-semitic.  
  • Hatred of what-they-call feminism and what-they-call-diversity. 
Journalists who have interviewed Katie Hopkins sometimes say that they have found her to be a likable, damaged woman who admits that she doesn't mean half of it. I have heard credible reports of pleasant pints of beer shared with Nigel Farage and Margaret Thatcher. I suppose at some level I believe that if we could have sat down over some beer and bratwurst after a long Bavarian evening listening to Parsifal, Mr Hitler would have admitted to me that he sometimes went a bit too far. I happily throw up my hands and say that I made the schoolboy error of attempting to engage Alpha and some of his little fascists in rational conversation. If I had taken my mother's advise and ignored them, they would probably have gone away. It turns out that rational conversation is not something they really do.

A few examples should give a flavour of how their minds, or at any rate their typing arms, work. 

1:

Several months before all this, I had tweeted: 

I agree about fires in crowded theaters but anyone using the phrase "freeze peach" will still get slapped

Beta found this in my twitter history, and responded: 

Freeze Peach? Seriously, how pathetic are you people you can't say "Free Speech"?...Not afraid of free speech but call it Freeze Peach?

Beta could not possible have supposed that I actually advocated calling free speech freeze peach. It was absolutely clear from the message he had quoted that I was deprecating the expression; saying that it was silly, and, indeed, threatening to slap anyone I caught using it. (I followed it up with a second message saying that I didn't really approve of slapping people, and it would be better to give them a time out or put them on the naughty step.) However, Beta invoked the Midas Stratagem (q.v) and pretended that Andrew says "freeze peach" is a silly phrase and Andrew uses the phrase "freeze peach" are equivalent. Had the feud continued, "Andrew calls free speech freeze peach'" would have become something all the little fascists believed. Had I pointed out that this was not the case, they would have told me to suck it up, called me a crybaby, and invoked the Ricardian Device. (q.v)  [3]


2

Alpha had found a picture of me looking drunk at a Christmas party and reposted it to his Twitter friends. In itself this is well within the bounds of legitimate internet mockery, although it says something fairly unpleasant about the little fascists' modus operandi.

This yielded the following deathless bon mot from Gamma: 

He looks like the kinda guy who gargles kosher sausage

I took this to mean he looks like the sort of person who sucks Jewish dick. I still think this is what it means, particularly given that Gamma had a swastika on his Twitter profile.

I responded:

That awkward moment when you don’t know if a Dawkins minion is being homophobic or anti-Semitic

(I still thought, incorrectly, that I was being target by militant atheists. I don't now think that the little fascists were in fact anything to do with Richard Dawkins.)

Alpha chimed back: 

He's literally making things up too. Nobody was anti-Semitic.

Note the use of the Coventry Technique (q.v): he doesn't speak to me; he speaks about me. When I asked him directly what else "you suck Jewish dick" meant  he executed the Ricardian Device (q.v):

He said it over 12 hours ago and you're still banging on about it. Seems desperate for victimhood to me.

It doesn't matter that you were insulted, or what the insult meant, because it happened yesterday. 

NOTE: It has subsequently been pointed out to me that he gargles kosher sausage could be taken to mean he has bad breath. This would represent a particular bizarre from of political argument: We can tell from a photograph that your breath smells of garlic, therefore, your views on feminism are nonsense.

3:

I attempted to pursue this further. I entirely agree that this was a completely insane thing to do:

Andrew Rilstone: ‏May I once again ask what you intended by this remark? Are you saying I am Jewish, or Gay, or something else?

Gamma: You got a problem with jews and gays, bub?? 

Andrew Rilstone: if someone would explain what it actually meant, I could go to sleep happy.

Gamma: Guess who's not sleeping tonight, jew homo hater? 

This doesn't extend far beyond "I am rubber, you are glue". If someone accuses one of the little fascists of using anti-semitic language, they simply double-down ("jew hater!") and reflect the accusation back at them.

I had another go, for some reason:

Andrew Rilstone: In what way do you think that sending abuse to strangers furthers your cause?

Delta: You imply we have a cause, you amuse me greatly. Please continue 

Andrew Rilstone: You just simply think it's funny to post random words to strangers?

Gamma: There is nothing funny about anti semetism

Andrew Rilstone Well, I have obviously misunderstood what's going on here. I thought you didn't agree with something I'd said. you are evidently playing some kind of game involving saying random words, like Mornington Crescent. Have fun.

Delta: So first you tag us in order to get some obtuse satisfaction from talking to us, and then when we do you step away? How rude are you? Were you raised among bears in the wilderness or what? 

Andrew Rilstone: I am sorry to have wasted your time.

Delta: Well that makes two of us... Now please stop stalking me, I am shaking and hyperventilating here already God what a fucking monsters. I' hope youre happy Andrew.

Gamma: I think that qualifies as harassment if you ask me. He's abusively attacking us. 

Delta: ‏I would even go so far as to call AndrewRilstone one of the most creepy cyberstalkers I ever had the displeasure to meet

We are now into the realms of heads-I-win, tales you lose anti-logic. (see The Calvin Gambit). If you continue the conversation, then you are "stalking" and "harassing" them; but if you end the conversation, then you are being rude and uncivilized.

One of the barbs does strike home. I was indeed getting an obtuse satisfaction in talking to them.

The final exchange is so stupid it's almost clever: 

Andrew Rilstone:‏ I thought you were cross because I had satirized Richard Dawkins. That was where this started,

Gamma:‏"Cross" are you implying that the Jews killed Jesus? It's been proven already that's anti semetism. [4]

Delta: ‏Woah there, my granduncle was injured by a crossbow once, so that 4 letter c word triggers me greatly 

Gamma: ‏Do you mind putting a trigger warning on that?! 

Delta: I would, if I could look at the thing. all wooden, crossed and bowey... soo much PTSD 

It scarcely seems worth typing that none of the people involved could possibly have believed a single word that they were typing. It is impossible that they actually thought that the word cross (as in annoyed) had something to do with the Crucifixion; or that referring to the Crucifixion (in any context) was anti-semitic; or that asking someone what they meant by an insult amounts to "harassment". I think that these people are human beings with interior lives, even if they don't believe the same of me. They could not conceivably have thought that anything they were saying was true, or even meaningful.

So why were they saying it?

Once a thing is seen it cannot be unseen. I have descended into the abyss of the minds, or at any rate Twitter feeds, of these extremely minor-league web-fascists, and I have returned with the boon by which we shall understand all web-fascists. 

What are they doing?

Two words: performance art.

(continues)




[1] Reformist: I think that the rich should be a bit poorer and the poor should be a bit richer.
Socialist: I think that everyone should be as rich as everyone else.
Communist: I think we should abolish money and possessions and share everything.

[2] Who are "they"? Where is this debate about keeping public baths open happening? Unless you count shower cubicles in the public toilets on larger railway stations, is there in fact a single public bath house in the country which could be kept open? Is anything these people say anything more than word salad?

[3] I was under the impression that the term freeze peach was used by people who disproved of free speech, to disparage it, in the way that little fascists talk about numan rites and elf and safety. It transpires that it's more often used by people who take freedom of speech very seriously indeed, to disparage those who invoke it frivolously. So if a person was banned from Facebook for using racial slurs and tried to claim that this violated the First Amendment, someone might says "He thinks that freeze peach means he can go around calling strangers the n-word." 

[4] A priest and a nun were driving through Transylvania in an open top wagon. Suddenly, Dracula leaps out and threatens them. "Quick" says the nun, "Show him your cross". "Cross?" replies the Priest "I'm absolutely livid."




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Where Dawkins Went wrong is still available.

Monday, March 07, 2016

Rambling Think-Piece in Precisely Sixteen Thousand Nine Hundred and Eighty Six Characters





It depicts a lightsaber and the slogan “Kylo stabbed first”.

Although it contains only three words, someone unfamiliar with the past 40 years of Star Wars culture — let’s call her “Mum” — would not have the faintest idea why the slogan is funny.


To get the joke, you have to know:

1: The original 1977 movie “Star Wars” featured an amoral gunfighter who shot an enemy’s henchmen in cold blood.

2: In 1997, the scene was re-edited so that the gunfighter shot the henchmen in self-defense

3: Fans, who on the whole preferred the original version, expressed their displeasure by making badges and t-shirts with the slogan “Han shot first.”

4: In the new movie, a Very Bad Thing happens to the same character, at the hands of the villain Kylo Ren.

I find this kind of thing funny; but I must admit that I overuse it, to the extent that some people find my writing impenetrable.

I blame the post-modern condition. In the Olden Days everybody shared more or less the same cultural reference points: I could allude to Baby Roo, Moses, James T Kirk, Iago, John Nokes, Fagin, and Tommy Cooper and everyone would know exactly who I was talking about. What with public schools having turned everyone into zombies and everyone having decided that two TV channels just weren't enough, we all have less stuff in common. Oblique signifiers are a nice way of establishing community but they can also be a nasty of excluding people.

Suppose I describe Prof Richard Dawkins as a “whey-faced coxcomb”. Everyone gets that I mean “fool”; nearly everyone gets that I’m using an old-fashioned term for “fool”; and quite a lot of people spot that it’s a quasi-Shakespearian reference. (The bard was good at insults: “Thou base player of football!”) But only a minority — only one of our particular in-group — would spot that I am quoting five times Hugo award loser J.C Wright quoting Shakespeare.

Richard Dawkins is a whey faced coxcomb translates as “Richard Dawkins is a fool, and by the way J.C Wright is a pompous, in the British sense, ass.”

I sometimes wear a “WWTDD” badge because I want people who don’t get it to feel rotten and inferior.


*

Earlier this year I posted the follow squib/aphorism in response to something I had read on the popular social networking site known as Twitter:


Is there some particular reason why believing in Adam and Eve is incompatible with hosting a TV breakfast show which I may be missing?

This has (to slightly misquote Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide) “made a lot of people very angry, and been widely regarded as a bad move”.

The problem with Twitter is that each tweet is necessarily short. You have to sacrifice all nuances in the name of brevity and condensation.

This is also what makes it fun. There is a haiku-like joy in telling a joke or expressing a political viewpoint in precisely 140 characters

One often finds oneself sacrificing grammar, punctuation and elegance to make what you wanted to say fit exactly into the character limit…

OTOH, the very brevity sometimes creates a kind of poetry of its own, and some people actually think and speak in twitter ideolect hashtag gimmick

I feel sometimes I’m in a double-bind. People treat silly little twitter squibs as if they were my final word on great matters of state… (1)

…But when I direct them to my more substantive essays they throw up their hands and say “Oh I couldn’t possibly read anything that long” (2)

To be fair, the same thing is probably true of the twitter output of Prof Richard Dawkins though probably not the Rev’d Giles Fraser LOL (3)

*

The very select group of human beings who have traveled in space all tell us how awesome it is to look down on the Earth. I don’t suppose I shall ever travel in space — I am scared of heights — but am happy to take their word for it. I imagine that looking at the earth from space must be very awesome indeed. (We probably take this too much for granted. Before 1959, every illustration of The World or The Planet Earth was an artist’s impression of what it would look like. In retrospect they usually looked too much like geography teachers’ globes.) Indeed, when English astronaut Helen Sharman appeared on The Museum of Curiosity — a rather odd Radio 4 talk show in which people with nothing in common are invited to talk about whatever they feel like — “seeing the world from space” seemed to be one of the main reasons why Space Travel was a good thing.

Once you’ve seen the Earth from orbit, you realize how insignificant you are, and in particular that the borders and differences between countries and nations that we make so much of aren’t really real.

Woo-oh-oh-oh-oh, you may say I’m a dreamer.

Travel broadens the mind. Traveling into space presumably broadens the mind exponentially. Seeing the earth from space changes your outlook. But then, being wrongly accused of a serious crime probably changes your outlook, as does having heart bypass surgery and taking too much Lysergic acid. The question is whether the new outlook is better or worse than the old one. How could we tell? Yes, I fully accept that you “spoke in tongues” at a revival meeting. So what? Did the experience make you a more pious Christian or a nicer human being, or did you just feel excited during some gospel music? Not that there is anything wrong with feeling excited during some gospel music. There is absolutely nothing wrong with looking out of porthole and saying “Wow!” either. I am just not quite sure what it proves.

Bristol is very big. The world is even bigger. I am very small relative to Bristol. I am very small indeed relative to the world. I am very big relative to my friend Richard. But the idea that I am insignificant compared with the world only works if you think that big things are in general more significant than small things. In which case I am presumably twelve inches more significant than my friend Richard.

I am currently cutting out snacks and taking more exercise in the hope that it will make me less significant.

Up in space, you can’t see any borders or any countries. Well, no, of course you can’t. No-one ever supposed you could. People used to say that you could see the Great Wall of China from space, but apparently you can’t. I don’t think I ever believed that there was a cosmological distinction between England and Scotland that was obvious from the Moon and would have been even if no-one had invented highland clearances, whisky or irn-bru. I always understood that the difference was mostly cultural — language and history and politics. And climate. You can’t see climate from space; not very easily, but I am still taking a coat if I ever go back to Dundee.

We are only entitled to say “in space, you can see that countries aren’t really real” if we have first agreed that “real things are thing you can see from a long way away”. According to which criteria, history and language and politics, and whether the shops open on a Sunday and what time the pubs close are not real. But they make a real difference to the real lives or real people most of whom have no real chance of really going up in a space rocket, whatever Richard Branson says.

A grown up may say to a child “Stop quarrelling about that toy. It only cost sixpence and a few years from now you won’t even remember it, and a century from now you will both be dead” Yes. But to that child at that moment, the teddy bear or the ball or the small ray-gun that came with the second Cyborg and Muton accessory pack is simply the most important thing in the world. The people of Palestine don’t want to hear that from a sufficiently elevated perspective their struggle isn’t very important and from space you can’t even see the wall. What they want is justice. Which is another of the things you can’t see from space.

*

It transpires that there is a journalist named Dan Walker. He used to talk about football for the BBC, and now he is going to appear on a breakfast time talk show. (One of the things I find it hardest to get my head around, from a terrestrial or extraterrestrial perspective is that a man may make a living talking about football.) It transpires that Mr Walker is a Christian; and it further transpires that he is a Christian of a fairly conservative flavour. For example, he believes that Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden were really really real.

This is pretty much all I know about him. Whether he believes that the Red Sea was actually the Sea of Reeds; whether he thinks that John Mark is the same Mark who wrote the Gospel and how he deals with the prophecy of Daniel being written in Aramaic I couldn’t say. The first I heard of him was a post on the aforementioned Twitter by the aforementioned Prof Richard Dawkins.

Why in the world is BBC hiring a young earth creationist to host BBC Breakfast? Why not someone who accepts reality.” said the very great man.

Is there some particular reason why believing in Adam and Eve is incompatible with hosting a TV show which I’m missing?” said I.

Or does the New Atheist movement think that only people who believe like they do should have jobs and everyone else should be blacklisted?” continued I.

It’s not like they’d be the first” I concluded.

I don’t think my first bit contained any hidden meanings or obscure cultural references. By “believing in Adam and Eve” I meant “believing that Adam and Eve were historical individuals in the same way that George Washington arguably was”. By “incompatible with hosting a TV show” I meant “incompatible with hosting a TV show.” My question was “Why does believing that Adam and Eve were real people — even granted that you and me and Richard Dawkins agrees that they were not — prevent you from asking Brie Larson penetrating questions about her dress or asking Jeremy Corbyn equally penetrating questions about his tie?

I admit that the question was rhetorical and I already knew the answer

*

"But” asked my Aunt Sally “You would surely agree that at the very least a journalist who believed in Adam and Eve should not be allowed to work on a science programme?”

“You’ve asked me a question” I replied “So let me ask you a question. Would a journalist who didn’t believe in the Christian God be allowed to work on Songs of Praise”

Songs of Praise is a long running British soft-religious TV show. In the olden days they simply put a camera in a church and recorded half an hour of community hymn singing — Anglican, Wesleyan or Salvation Army as the mood took them. They now go to town and chat to local people and ask them to pick hymns that they like.

“I suppose” said Sally “It would depend on what kind of atheist. If he was the kind who shouted ‘oh no there isn’t’ every time the choir started to sing ‘There is a Green Hill Far Away…’ then probably not. If he was the kind who thought that even though he didn’t go in for all this God stuff himself, it was his job to line up a shot of the stained glass window and the vicar so it looked as pretty as possible, then of course he could.”

“Well, quite” I retorted. “And you couldn’t have someone who was supposed to be interviewing the local Catholic clergymen and was somehow under the impression that he was Free Presbyterian. Particularly not if he thought it didn’t make any difference because it was all equally a pile of rubbish.”

“The question” said Sally, "Wouldn't be 'Is the journalist an atheist.' It’s much more ‘Is the journalist a dick?’”

“But that” said I “Is, in a very real sense, always the question.”

*

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who literally believes in Adam and Eve. It's a fringe belief, in this country at least. Is the literal belief in Adam and Eve, alone among the vast range of spiritual and fringe beliefs in the world — meditation and speaking in tongues and yogic flying and tea leaf reading and Gaia and the journey of the hero and homeopathy — the one which rules you out of presenting TV breakfast shows? And if so, why?  I can see that if the BBC are going to make a prestige 26 part series on dinosaurs and I want to be chief researcher and it turns out that not only do I not believe that any such creatures as dinosaurs ever existed, I actually think that the whole idea of dinosaurs is a myth put about by the Frankfurt Group to make it easier for the communists to take over… Well I probably wouldn’t get the job. I have, how would you say, preconceptions which would make it impossible for me to do it properly. But what's the connection between Breakfast TV and creationism? 

I try to imagine how my interview for the Breakfast time job would pan out in Richard Dawkins' universe: 

“Well: you are obviously a very good TV presenter with lots of excellent contacts. You would fit onto this show very well indeed. But as a matter of pure formality, I have to ask you some questions about your personal beliefs. Do you believe in Adam and Eve?”

“Well, I suppose it depends what you mean by ‘believe’. If you mean ‘were they historical people’ then no, I most certainly don’t believe that they were. But if you mean ‘do they represent important religious truths’ then yes I suppose I do. I think that the story is presented as something which happened a long time ago, but it is really a picture of what’s happening now, inside every human being, all the time. I think that each of us exiles ourself…”

What happens then? Does my interviewer say “Oh, your personal spiritual beliefs are none of my business or anybody else’s. I myself believe in the I-Ching, but naturally I wouldn’t tell you that. I just have to check that you don’t believe that the Garden of Eden was a real place or that God made the world in six days. Anything else is your own problem.”

Or does he say “Oh. So you DO believe in Adam and Eve, or else in something almost as stupid, or else you are using theology to pull the wool over our eyes. We obviously can’t have you, or anyone who believes in anything with the slightest hint of the supernatural working for us. Goodbye.”

Richard Dawkins has form in this area. Back in 2013 he was insinuating that Muslims couldn’t work on financial papers “because they believed in flying horses”. Earlier this year, he was rattling off little squibs asking how it was that people who believed that Jesus turned water into wine could possibly hold down jobs in the modern world. This makes me at least suspect that behind the proposition “Young earth creationists shouldn’t present breakfast TV shows” lurks the parenthesis “…and neither should anyone else who believes in miracles, angels prophecies or any other supernatural aspect of religion” which is only a hop, skip and jump from “you shouldn’t employ Christians or Muslims: you should only employ atheists, like me.”

It would have been better if I hadn’t used the politically loaded term “blacklist”.

*

I don’t think that you can deduce things about Scottish independence, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict or the Brexit referendum by looking at the Earth from space. I don’t think that the book of Genesis is very helpful as an explanation of why the male Kakapo parrot has a mating cry which positively repels the female. I don’t think Darwinism is much use as a religious myth. A friend of mind wrote on Facebook that the black-holes and gravity waves thing meant “Science has proved that God doesn’t exist.” I think he probably said it mainly to annoy me, but I still think it’s nonsense. I don’t think you can draw spiritual and ethical conclusions from material and scientific observations.

If people continue to say “I have seen the earth from space; and this proves borders and nations don’t exist and Tibet should damn well shut up about it” then a certain number of people are going to be very tempted to say “Well, if that’s what it proves, then I don’t believe you saw it. Probably your trip into space was another trick, like that time O.J went to Mars.” If people continue to say “all living things shared a common ancestor, and therefore culture and morality are not really real” then some people will continue to say “well, if that’s what it proves, then I don’t believe all living things shared a common ancestor.” If people try to bring science round to reductive, misanthropic conclusions, some people are bound to reject science. It’s the only rational thing to do.

*

So anyway: all those thoughts were kind of bound up in the little tweet I posted from the coffee shop; just like the whole history of Star Wars is bound up in Mike’s little t-shirt. Kylo Slashed First. Is it just believing in Adam and Eve that disqualifies you from breakfast TV, or religious faith in general. That’s the joy of Twitter, although, of course, that’s the trouble with it too.

And the punch line is this: the people who were annoyed by the 140 character tweet will probably never know, because they will probably find a 3,000 word article much too long and dull to bother with. 


*
On no possible view is it literally true that a kangeroo is my cousin.










Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Ten more quotes from Star Wars: The Force Awakens which would have been hugely improved by the addition of the word "pants"

"Those are my pants! No, keep them, they suit you."

"I know all about waiting. For my pants. They'll be back one day."

"Take off those pants! You don't need them."
"What do you think you'll see if I do?"

"You will remove these pants and leave this cell with the door open."
"I will tighten these pants, scavenger scum."

"You will drop your pants."
"I will drop my pants."

"The pants you seek are not behind you. They are ahead." 

"What about that ship?"
"That one's pants."
"The pants will do."

"What about those pants?"
"They're garbage."
"The garbage will do." 

"If you see our pants, bring them home."

"When you live long enough, you start to see the same pants on different people." 


READ:


The most incredible article about the Star Wars trilogy you will ever read

How Hollywood got Star Wars wrong



What is Luke Skywalker's relationship to Rey? The true answer may surprise you. 





George and Joe and Jack and Bob (and Me) 



Available from Lulu.com

And Amazon.com

Andrew Rilstone writes more perceptively about Star Wars than just about anyone else alive
Echo Station 5-7

...the most intelligent and insightful articles ever on the Star Wars hexology....”
Mike Taylor

...one of the best things I’ve read on the whole Star Wars phenomenon in the last 27 years...
“Speedysnail”

For more than 30 years, fans have been waiting for the definitive guide to the monsters, vehicles and aliens in the Star Wars universe. Some of them may find that this collection of essays by passes the time while they carry on waiting.


Starting with the opening night of Phantom Menace, Andrew explains why the prequels aren't quite as bad as everyone say; wonder if sometimes a lightsaber is just a lightsaber; and tries to show why the Saga has become so important to so many people.

A very personal journey to the heart of the Star Wars saga, in the company of such luminaries as Joseph Campbell, Jack Kirby...and Bob Dylan?

Includes parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the seminal "Little Orphan Anakin", though not necessarily in that order




Available from Lulu.com

And Amazon.com

Monday, February 15, 2016

Thought for the Day


"I think (Tolkien) is a crypto-fascist" says Moorcock, laughing. 


"I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.”
Letter from J.R.R. Tolkien to Christopher, June 1941



"Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride."
Letter from J.R.R. Tolkien to his German publisher, July, 1938


Note: In deference to Mr Moorcock, it was arguably naughty of the crypto-communist New Statesman to take a remark he made lightheartedly out of context and use it as the headline for an interview. 

Note: Did C.S Lewis really commute from Cambridge to London to attend fan meets in a pub between 1956 and 1963 (the years he was married to a very sick wife, and dividing time between his home in Oxford and his chair in Cambridge)? I ask merely for information.

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Thought for the Day

"Each new discovery, even every new theory, is held at first to have the most wide-reaching theological and philosophical consequences. It is seized by unbelievers as the basis for a new attack on Christianity; it is often, and more embarrassingly, seized by injudicious believers as the basis for a new defense. But usually, when the popular hubbub has subsided and the novelty has been chewed over by real theologians, real scientists and real philosophers, both sides find themselves pretty much where they were before."

C.S Lewis

Ten quotes from Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens which would have been hugely improved by the addition of the word "pants"





"Without the Jedi, there can be no balance in my pants."

"Why are you helping me?"
"Because it's the right thing to do."
"You need pants?"
"I need pants."

"Luke Skywalker? I thought he was pants."

"Stop taking my pants!"

"Chewie, we're pants."

"The pants you seek are aboard the Millennuim Falcon, in the hands of my father."

"You changed your pants."
"Same jacket"
"New jacket!"

"You changed your hair."
"Same pants."
"New pants!"

"We'll see each other's pants. I believe that."

"It is I, C3P0. You probably do not recognize me because of the red pants."


READ:


The most incredible article about the Star Wars trilogy you will ever read

How Hollywood got Star Wars wrong



What is Luke Skywalker's relationship to Rey? The true answer may surprise you. 





George and Joe and Jack and Bob (and Me) 



Available from Lulu.com

And Amazon.com

Andrew Rilstone writes more perceptively about Star Wars than just about anyone else alive
Echo Station 5-7

...the most intelligent and insightful articles ever on the Star Wars hexology....”
Mike Taylor

...one of the best things I’ve read on the whole Star Wars phenomenon in the last 27 years...
“Speedysnail”

For more than 30 years, fans have been waiting for the definitive guide to the monsters, vehicles and aliens in the Star Wars universe. Some of them may find that this collection of essays by passes the time while they carry on waiting.


Starting with the opening night of Phantom Menace, Andrew explains why the prequels aren't quite as bad as everyone say; wonder if sometimes a lightsaber is just a lightsaber; and tries to show why the Saga has become so important to so many people.

A very personal journey to the heart of the Star Wars saga, in the company of such luminaries as Joseph Campbell, Jack Kirby...and Bob Dylan?

Includes parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the seminal "Little Orphan Anakin", though not necessarily in that order




Available from Lulu.com

And Amazon.com

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Ten More Facts About the Star Wars Trilogy


1: Peter Cushing also played such iconic roles as Dr Frankenstien, Dr Who, and Sherlock Holmes!

2: George Lucas also directed the Indiana Jones trilogy, featuring Harrison "Han Solo" Ford as the iconic archaeologist!

3: Harrison Ford also takes the title role in the iconic 1982 cult sci fi classic Blade Runner!

4: In the first version of the script, "Star Wars" was going to be entitled "The Star Wars"!

5: Until very late in production, Luke Skywalker was going to be called "Luke Starkiller"!

6: The Force is an energy field create by all living things. It surrounds them, it penetrates them, it bind the galaxy together!

7: Darth Vader was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force!

8: The Jedi Knights were the Guardians of Truth and Justice in the Old Republic for over a thousand generations!

9: Princess Leia turns out to be Luke Skywalker's twin sister!

10: The word "iconic" refers to a style of religious artwork in Greek Orthodox churches, and should not be used as a synonym for "famous"!


READ:


The most incredible article about the Star Wars trilogy you will ever read

How Hollywood got Star Wars wrong



What is Luke Skywalker's relationship to Rey? The true answer may surprise you. 





George and Joe and Jack and Bob (and Me) 



Available from Lulu.com

And Amazon.com

Andrew Rilstone writes more perceptively about Star Wars than just about anyone else alive
Echo Station 5-7

...the most intelligent and insightful articles ever on the Star Wars hexology....”
Mike Taylor

...one of the best things I’ve read on the whole Star Wars phenomenon in the last 27 years...
“Speedysnail”

For more than 30 years, fans have been waiting for the definitive guide to the monsters, vehicles and aliens in the Star Wars universe. Some of them may find that this collection of essays by passes the time while they carry on waiting.


Starting with the opening night of Phantom Menace, Andrew explains why the prequels aren't quite as bad as everyone say; wonder if sometimes a lightsaber is just a lightsaber; and tries to show why the Saga has become so important to so many people.

A very personal journey to the heart of the Star Wars saga, in the company of such luminaries as Joseph Campbell, Jack Kirby...and Bob Dylan?

Includes parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the seminal "Little Orphan Anakin", though not necessarily in that order




Available from Lulu.com

And Amazon.com

Tuesday, February 09, 2016

Hugo Awards 2016


The following essays were published on this forum in 2015 and eligible for nomination for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer and Best Related Work.





Captain America 1942 - 2015

It's not going to happen; but isn't it worth a go just to imagine the look on the face of the guy whose name we never mention (who lost in five categories last year)?


Hugo Award Categories

The Official Rules

Best Fan Writer: 
This is another person category. Note that it does not just apply to writing done in fanzines. Work published in semiprozines, and even on mailing lists, blogs, BBSs, and similar electronic fora, can be including when judging people for this Award. Only work in professional publications should not be considered.

Best Related Work: 

Awarded to a work related to the field of science fiction, fantasy, or fandom, appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year or which has been substantially modified during the previous calendar year. The type of works eligible include, but are not limited to, collections of art, works of literary criticism, books about the making of a film or TV series, biographies and so on, provided that they do not qualify for another category. Nonfiction collections are eligible here, but fiction anthologies generally are not because all of the individual works within the anthology are eligible in one of the “story” categories. There is no category for “Best Anthology.”







The Force Awakens I -VII


I

II



IV

V

VI

VII


If you have enjoyed these articles, please consider supporting Andrew on Patreon. This means pledging to give him a small amount of money, typically $1 (0.69 English pounds) each time he writes a substantive piece. 

He is currently earning approximately £44 per article; NUJ rates are around £250/1000 words for a small magazine. 





Did you like the Force Awakens, or didn't you?




VII

Chewie: we're home.



Very early on the morning of December 16th, I said “The Force Awakens was as good as it could possibly have been”.

Having now seen the film, er, five times, I think I would say “It was far better than it needed to be.”

I remember the days when TV and movie adaptations of comic books had nothing to do with the source material, and you didn't really expect them to. The Hulk was a fugitive named Dave; Doctor Strange was a medical student; Spider-Man wore his webshooters outside his sleeves. Even the Tim Burton Batman, which was fan-approved and kicked the whole thing off, had us struggling to find the things which resembled the comic book. (Even Reeves Superman. Krypton made of sugar. Elderly Jor-El. Hairy Lex Luther. No Superboy.) But at some point, somewhere around the X-Men, I suppose, someone realized that hey, these comic books are actually quite good; and hey, the kinds of people who read comic books go to movies; so hey, let’s make a Captain America movie that actually, like, follows the plot of Captain America! Let’s make a Guardians of the Galaxy movie and reference the Celestials and Howard the Frickin’ Duck! Let's make geek movies for geeks!

As has been noted, Mr Walt “Uncle” Disney spent 2.75 billion pounds buying the rights to Star Wars. And while a movie like Force Awakens makes a tidy little sum in a tickets and popcorn sales, the real, ongoing money is in computer games and action figures and breakfast cereal and lunchboxes and lightsaber shaped water bottles and duvet covers and t-shirts and lots and lots of underwear. People were going to go and see the Force Awakens whether it was critically acclaimed or not. The main thing to do was not damage the brand. (Marvel and Star Wars and Star Trek and Doctor Who are called "franchises" nowadays, a word which originally had to do with secret recipes for fried chicken.) The easy thing to do would have been to just show us all the toys and not knock over too much of the furniture. Disney would have made it's money back out of any film in which a wookie and a walker said may the Force be with you to a lightsaber. But Disney placed Star Wars in the hands of a man who actually liked Star Wars (however much he may have disliked Star Trek); and he shows every sign of having put together the kind of film he would have liked to have seen. He didn't go for all the obvious fan-pleasing effects; he held some of the cool stuff back til literally the last moment; he killed off good guys; he left us wondering what was going to happen next and wanting more. This was a far, far better film than it needed to be. 

The Force Awakens was a film I felt comfortable with. It was not, in truth, a film that thrilled me or filled me with joy. But as you get older, that happens less and less, which is why we start listening to folksingers. The main thing which was missing, I am afraid to say, was George Lucas. Lucas brought a mad inventiveness to the table; a sense of excess. Yes, someone sometimes needed to take him aside and say “George, George, are you absolutely sure about the Jamaican fish people?” Star Wars had iconic X-Wings and TIE Fighters and The Empire Strikes Back had almost equally iconic Walkers and the Return of the Jedi had, er, loads of cool stuff as well and the prequels, bless them, and gold pointy naboo fighters and funny round Jedi fighters and robots that curled up into wheels like roley poley bugs... The Force Awakens offered us, I think I am correct in saying, not one single cool new piece of hardware: X-Wings and TIE Fighters with slightly different liveries; a lightsaber with a cross bar; an even bigger and more deathier Death Star.

But on the plus side, there was no sense of anyone going through the motions, quoting famous lines, referencing famous scenes for the fans to tick off on their scorecards. Carrie Fisher made very little attempt to re-do her turn as Princess Leia from the first movie. We entirely believed in Han and the General as a middle-aged couple for whom things hadn’t quite worked out. I have known ever since the Ewoks started their song that when I next saw Luke Skywalker he would be a wise old man with a wise old beard and wise old robes, so there could be no better image for the film to end on.






Star Wars is an ongoing, generational space-fantasy saga, created by George Lucas and others. 

It is set during and after the fall of a great Galactic Republic; like the Arthurian saga, it’s about holding on to what you can of civilization as night falls. The cyclical conflict between Light and Darkness is represented by a single family. The first trilogy deals with the messianic Anakin Skywalker; the second with his son Luke Skywalker and the third with his grandchildren Ben and Rey Solo.

In it’s original form, the fourth chapter was intended to be a stand alone work, and therefore does not fit entirely satisfactorily into the saga; although George Lucas engaged in an on-going editorial process to rework the films into a single “fix-up” saga. It was painfully possible to see the narrative crack between Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Episode IV: A New Hope; but when the saga resumed in 2015, fans were relieved that there was no such disjuncture between Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and Episode VII: The Force Awakens. 

At a micro level, the details of the generational trilogy may not have been what creator George Lucas originally envisaged; but we can be pretty certain that at a macrocosmic level, the saga was running roughly according to his intentions. Episode VII takes us into the third generation of characters; just as the heroes of episodes IV - VI were the children of the heroes of episodes I - III, so the Force Awakens introduces us to those characters grandchildren. A new political force, with a new technological terror, threatens the New Republic. The mystical guardians of peace and justice are once again riven by a schism between Darkness and Light. Unlikely heroes and heroines must take up their parents and grandparents swords to fight the coming darkness with their backs to the walls. This is the story that Lucas would have told; it is the story that Abrams is telling; and it is the story which will doubtless continue into the third decade of the new millennium when and elderly Rey Solo will doubtless witness her own children being tempted by the Dark Side of the Force. 

The saga begins with two Jedi Knights being sent to deal with an apparently trivial trade dispute which turns out * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

**********************










If you want me to carry on writing, either buy my book...