Gosh, John C Wright

[blamebrampton]

Two days ago I did not know who John C Wright was.

Yesterday, in the wake of his fantastically bonkers argument on how teh gay is ruining the world, I asked Mr Brammers if he had ever heard of him. After a Google, Mr B said 'Erk. Yeah, picked up one of his books in a shop, put it back down. Shitful writer.'

Today I see that the post has been amended to discard all the comments to it and to do the internet equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting 'LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!'

I'm going back to my position of two days ago, but I feel the need to say that if that's what he thinks passes for argument, then Mr B may have been overly generous in describing what Wright thinks passes for writing.

I like to think of American speculative fiction writers as being smart, talented and visionary, so I'll go back to thinking about Ursula K Le Guin, Ysabeau Wilce and Kim Stanley Robinson. MUCH nicer, and far less likely to provoke eye rolling at the stupid.

ETA: I received a reply to a comment I left on his original post. He apologised sincerely for his rudeness in the way that he wrote about the gay community. So in fairness, I should add that at least he has manners and the grace to apologise. I'd love it if the episode led him to think a bit further on the Christian message of love and charity and reflect on whether an anti-gay message fits that. Because that line of thought leads to the inevitable conclusion that it does not, since Christ's teaching was all about compassion.

Comments

Re: 'Christ's teaching was all about compassion'

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, I am not a Christian and you are a FAR more reliable source of doctrinal understanding than I am. But that's the overwhelming message that I received from the gospels. Paul then served to undercut a lot of it, but Christ's actual teachings seemed to centre around caritas and agape.

Yes there were moments of rage and authority: cursing the tree (fig tree? I need to reread the Bible) and overturning the tables in the temple, but they were directed at specific outrages, while the message preached to individuals and the acts shown to them were again and again of compassion and a wish to guide people to understanding rather than condemning them.

Admittedly, my only church visits since leaving school have been the standard hatch, match, dispatch set, and I only remember the words to Jerusalem because I like Blake. I'm far sounder on Austen, which is a bit dreadful considering the differing weights of the texts on our Western canon.

'you are a FAR more reliable source of doctrinal understanding than I am'

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

Now that is truly frightening, really.

And I suppose it turns on what we mean by compassion. When I've met the Deadline You Wot Of, we'll discuss Eliot and the wounded surgeon, shall we? Privately, I mean: this sort of public show serves only to bring in the lumpenfen w ill-digested views.... (I am indeed difficult to deal with just now, I do realise that....)

Re: 'you are a FAR more reliable source of doctrinal understanding than I am'

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

You are always a delight. Even when you are a delight who may need a comfy chair and cup of tea with something well-aged slipped into it.

Alas, I am practically a heathen, but with a fine mezzosoprano that saw me forgiven for my polite non-Dawkinsesque atheism by many school chaplains.

Damn it, woman!

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

Can you not at least leave me with a character for being a grumpy, blimpish old curmudgeon? You'll have the world once more believing I'm a fluffy bunny and an old dear at bottom, and then where will I be, eh? (See: http://wemyss.livejournal.com/206811.html.)

Mind, I'll not say no to the cuppa and a dram.

Re: Damn it, woman!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I meant to tell you how much I loved those posts! Sadly, at the time of reading I was in no fit state to construct a sentence, let alone a proper comment, but they lightened my heart and took me back to a time I often miss. I am the better part of the decade behind you in memory, but there were common moments in the landscape. Though, obviously, not what one was getting up to in the landscape.

You will be relieved to know that as you were writing this I was describing you to a friend on IM as a talented curmudgeon, and she, being an flister, agreed.

My reputation is saved, then. I'm greatly obliged.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

And the other was rather too Line of Beauty for words, wasn't it.

Re: My reputation is saved, then. I'm greatly obliged.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

It had a humanity that Hollinghurst can bury under artifice.

Alas, poor Hollers.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

It's his misfortune to fetishise the upper classes although - or, rather, because - he doesn't quite understand them and cannot manage to join them.