Intellectual Game

Even in intellectual discourse, the rules of Game apply.  Alastair's Adversaria considers the difference between male and female forms of debate and explains why the female form is intellectually crippling and prone to dishonesty and logical absurdities:

This ‘heterotopic discourse’ makes possible far more spirited challenges to opposing positions, hyperbolic and histrionic rhetoric designed to provoke response and test the mettle of one’s own and the opposing position, assertive presentations of one’s beliefs that are less concerned to present a full-orbed picture than to advocate firmly for a particular perspective and to invite and spark discussion from other perspectives.

The truth is not located in the single voice, but emerges from the conversation as a whole. Within this form of heterotopic discourse, one can play devil’s advocate, have one’s tongue in one’s cheek, purposefully overstate one’s case, or attack positions that one agrees with. The point of the discourse is to expose the strengths and weaknesses of various positions through rigorous challenge, not to provide a balanced position in a single monologue. Those familiar with such discourse will be accustomed to hyperbolic and unbalanced expressions. They will appreciate that such expressions are seldom intended as the sole and final word on the matter by those who utter them, but as a forceful presentation of one particular dimension of or perspective upon the truth, always presuming the existence of counterbalancing perspectives that have no less merit and veracity.

In contrast, a sensitivity-driven discourse lacks the playfulness of heterotopic discourse, taking every expression of difference very seriously. Rhetorical assertiveness and impishness, the calculated provocations of ritual verbal combat, linguistic playfulness, and calculated exaggeration are inexplicable to it as it lacks the detachment, levity, and humour within which these things make sense. On the other hand, those accustomed to combative discourse may fail to appreciate when they are hurting those incapable of responding to it.

Lacking a high tolerance for difference and disagreement, sensitivity-driven discourses will typically manifest a herding effect. Dissenting voices can be scapegoated or excluded and opponents will be sharply attacked. Unable to sustain true conversation, stale monologues will take its place. Constantly pressed towards conformity, indoctrination can take the place of open intellectual inquiry. Fracturing into hostile dogmatic cliques takes the place of vigorous and illuminating dialogue between contrasting perspectives. Lacking the capacity for open dialogue, such groups will exert their influence on wider society primarily by means of political agitation.

The fear of conflict and the inability to deal with disagreement lies at the heart of sensitivity-driven discourses. However, ideological conflict is the crucible of the sharpest thought. Ideological conflict forces our arguments to undergo a rigorous and ruthless process through which bad arguments are broken down, good arguments are honed and developed, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of different positions emerge. The best thinking emerges from contexts where interlocutors mercilessly probe and attack our arguments’ weaknesses and our own weaknesses as their defenders. They expose the blindspots in our vision, the cracks in our theories, the inconsistencies in our logic, the inaptness of our framing, the problems in our rhetoric. We are constantly forced to return to the drawing board, to produce better arguments.

Granted immunity from this process, sensitivity-driven and conflict-averse contexts seldom produce strong thought, but rather tend to become echo chambers. Even the good ideas that they produce tend to be blunt and very weak in places. Even with highly intelligent people within them, conflict-averse groups are poor at thinking. Bad arguments go unchecked and good insights go unhoned and underdeveloped. This would not be such a problem were it not for the fact that these groups frequently expect us to fly in a society formed according to their ideas, ideas that never received any rigorous stress testing. 

This is precisely why smart women like Susan Walsh are correct to be reluctant to permit their sensitive female readers, who have been steeped in an educational culture of sensitivity-driven discourse, the "safe haven" of criticism-free conversation they desire.  It is also why those who habitually engage in sensitivity-driven discourse, of which John Scalzi's blog is a prime example, are uniformly so inept whenever it comes to arguing.

The Rabbit People have three weapons and three weapons only.  The first is to demand submission to their terms by virtue of the sensitivity imperative.  If their interlocutor is unwilling to do that, they quickly move to the name-calling and the inevitable psychological analyses, again in the hopes of the interlocutor's submission.  (This, by the way, is where most people crumble and permit themselves to be sidetracked into defending themselves against the charges that they are a raciss, sexiss, homophobiss rapiss.)  Their final weapon is exclusion, which can be seen in the way feminized atheists like Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers, (unlike Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens), shun debate with potentially competent opponents, and in the way gamma bloggers like Scalzi habitually attempt to attack people and arguments without so much as identifying them or even providing links to the arguments they are attacking.

This is why men should never permit those who are inclined towards sensitivity-driven discourse a foothold in their families and organizations.  The Rabbit People instinct is to attempt to surround themselves with other rabbits as fast as possible and drive out the scary heterotopics.  This is why you'll often see rabbits at HUS begging for crackdowns on other commenters, while the rabbits at Whatever harbor genuine affection for the aptly-named Mallet of Loving Correction.  Although they claim to value dialogue and seek discourse, nothing could be further from the truth.  They actually want to dictate their mindless consensus and have it accepted uncritically by everyone; they fear intellectual competition.

And it is why I provide sensitivity-driven discourse no respect whatsoever. I don't care if you were raped every day of the year and twice on Mondays by the family cat, after which your father killed you with a knife and danced on your grave. Your personal victimization, assuming it genuinely existed in the first place, grants you neither moral authority nor intellectual credibility, much less any form of veto on what others are permitted to think, say, or feel.  Alpha Game and Vox Popoli will always be strongholds of heterotopic discourse; think of them collectively as the Wild Hunt for Rabbit People.

Why you suck with women

Badger explains it for the STEM guys in the comments:

I think this is a big reason STEM guys are predisposed to be extremely bad with women. They (we TBH) live in a logically-scaffolded world where words, phrases and ideas have very concrete and stable meanings from day to day and environment to environment. It seems that is just not at all the way most women's worlds work, and we resent the guys who are good with women because we see them as having no cognitive integrity, having nothing of which we value. It's also a reason Game can be so dramatically effective for STEM-type guys - once you make them realize how different it is, and train them to swim in that emotional swamp, they can become very good at it because they are by definition very skilled and disciplined.

The key phrase is "nothing of which we value".  Despite the differing contexts, this is no different than the mistake that the Marxians make with the labor theory of value.  All value is subjective.  This is both a logically deduced and empirically observed fact.

Women don't value cognitive integrity.  Nor do most men.  So, it is not only self-defeating, it is illogical to behave in a manner assuming they do.  (See what I did there, STEM guy?  Stings a little, doesn't it. BAZINGA!) The point is that it is not only a complete waste of time to expect women to appreciate cognitive integrity, let alone be attracted to it, it is foolish to expect it from them.

Furthermore, and this is vital, their perspective is entirely legitimate in terms of human action. Moral integrity is a moral issue, cognitive integrity is not. While one may wish to utilize cognitive integrity as a display of dominance, (after all, it is child's play to make someone look a fool when they are willing to openly contradict themselves on the basis of their current emotional state), one should not feel bound to it when communicating with anyone, male or female, who neither respects nor values it.

The dark pleasures of pig shit

The authoress of 50 Shades of Grey takes exception to the label of Mommy Porn.  A modicum of hilarity ensues:

“The difference between the way male and female fantasy is explored – it’s interesting. Look at male fantasies: Lord of the Rings, Batman, The Avengers. It’s lauded. Anything written by a woman, like Twilight, my huge inspiration, is derided. All female fantasy is derided. It’s an insight into how misogynist the world is.

“Take the phrase 'mommy porn’. It’s one of the most misogynist things I’ve ever heard in my life. It is derogatory!” She bangs the table for emphasis. “How dare they? It’s just a book, for god’s sake. A love story in which people have sex – and they do do that.

The difference between The Lord of the Rings and Twilight is that the former is a literary masterpiece of the English language and the latter is a ludicrous travesty.  The reason so much female fantasy is derided is because so much of is blatantly derivative and the very little of it that isn't sucks.  Very few female writers pursue excellence, and most of those who do are rejected by female readers.

Tanith Lee is one of the most beautiful wordsmiths in SF/F.  Her Secret Books of Paradys are fantastic.  Theresa Edgerton's novels have more magic in every chapter than there is in all of JK Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, and EL James combined.  But do women read them?  No, most of them don't.  They'd rather read complete drivel of the sort that James writes.  Or worse, Catherine Asaro's award-winning Strong Independent Women in Space novels.  That's fine, so long as it doesn't scare the children, horses, or literate people.  I'm not saying such readers should be taken out and shot or anything, but expecting respect for wallowing naked in literary pig shit and deriving sexual pleasure from the experience is a little rich.

James's attempt to pretend she is not a pornographer is downright risible.  It's like listening to Steven Hirsch angrily shout: How dare they? "Jenna Bangs the Universe" is just a film, for god's sake!  A love story in which people have sex!"

Someone needs to explain to the woman, presumably in short sentences consisting of monosyllabic words, that the reason her work is denigrated as Mommy Porn is not because it is schlock female fantasy, but because it is pornography for middle-aged women.  As evidence, I would point to the fact that Twilight is rightly viewed with contempt as the literary equivalent of teenybopper tunes, but it is seldom referred to as Mommy Porn.

"Sexism" is a literary necessity

What passes for "sexism" in the eyes of the equalitarians is absolutely necessary in the historical genre, even in the historical fantasy genre.  Somehow, Dan Wohl manages to completely miss the vital role that verisimilitude plays in historical fiction at The Mary Sue.

I think Game of Thrones is quite successful when it comes to portraying interesting, complicated female characters, and a good many of them, especially in its second season. You could even say that it’s impressive that George R. R. Martin, not to mention the actresses who play them, have managed to make characters like Lady Catelyn, Arya, Daenerys, and the awesome Brienne of Tarth as compelling as they are considering they’re members of a fictional society that is designed to minimize women’s power over the world and themselves. Plenty of less talented people have designed such societies and ended up with female characters that are accordingly marginalized.

What I question is the purpose of creating an imaginary civilization to be this way in the first place. I agree with Becky Chambers when she says that if female characters are pushed to the sidelines in a video game, “‘that’s just how it is in that world’ is not good enough.” I’d say “that’s just how it was in the real historical setting this is based on” is not good enough either—and I don’t see much beyond that when it comes to most sexism in fantasy.

In my opinion this applies to all historical fantasy, including that which turns the “history” dial up a lot higher than Game of Thrones does.

Being the author of a newly published epic fantasy that relies quite heavily on Roman history, (for those AG readers who don't read VP, my new novel, A THRONE OF BONES is now available on Amazon, so do feel free to support AG by picking up a copy), I have given this matter a bit more thought than most.

In Selenoth, human women have even less power over the world and themselves than they do in Westeros.  This is because in Roman society, women had one primary role, which was to produce heirs for the noble families and soldiers for the legions.  And they benefited greatly from being kept to that role, since Rome became vastly wealthy and featured lifespans that were not again witnessed until the last 50 years of the modern scientific era.

By contrast, elven women have considerable autonomy and their societies are demographically dying as a result.  Their long lives and powerful magic help mitigate this, to a degree, but the historical trend is readily apparent to Man and Elf alike.

The problem with what Wohl advocates is that by putting modern views on sexual roles and intersexual relations into the minds, mouths, and worse, structures of an imaginary historical society, it destroys the very structural foundations that make the society historical and the dramatic storylines credible - in some cases, even possible.  It's problem similar to the one faced by secular writers, who wish to simultaneously eliminate religion from their fictional medieval societies, and yet retain the dramatic conflict created by the divine right of kings.  However, it is more severe because the sexual aspect touches upon the most concrete basis of every society: its ability to sustain itself through the propagation of its members.

The "sexism" of which Wohl and many of his commenters complain isn't cultural, it is simply the logical and inevitable consequences of biological and martial imperatives.  It can't possibly be cultural, because the division of male and female roles has been observed in nearly every historical culture; modern equalitarianism is not only a myth, it is a myth made barely credible only by the combination the illusion of societal wealth, technological advancement, and the imposition of relentless propaganda from an early age.  Even so, the imperatives of reality puncture that myth as soon as one stops to consider it.

Take "the awesome Brienne of Tarth", who I found to be simultaneously one of the saddest and most ridiculous characters in A Song of Ice and Fire.  Setting aside the sheer absurdity of her existence; any woman that big would be so slow that the Kingslayer could chop her into bits wielding his sword with his left foot, never mind his left hand.  (We have to excuse Martin this common blunder; he's clearly no athlete and has probably never flattened a female black belt or even punched one in the face.)  Now suppose that Cersei was cut from the Brienne mode.  Let's make just one simple change in favor of the modern equalitarian perspective.  Instead of being a conniving bitch working within the confines of a traditional female role, she's grown up to be a Strong, Independent Warrior Woman every bit as skilled with the sword as her twin and every bit as uninterested in propagating the species in the customary manner.

First, she doesn't marry Robert.  So, no alliance between Baratheon and Lannister.  With two childless children, Tywin's dynastic ambitions now rest on... Tyrion the Dwarf.  He is now concerned with finding an heir for his House, not seating his grandchildren on the throne.  We also lose all of the plot lines related to Cersei's children, so the sadistic relationship between Prince Joffrey and Sansa Stark is gone, as well as the protective one between Sandor Clegane and Sansa.  So too is the entire storyline in Dorne as well as the Dornese machinations with regards to Tommen.

No one cares about the nature of unmarried cat lady Cersei's unusual closeness with her twin anymore, so Jaimie needn't bother throwing Bran Stark from the window.  The conflict between Lannister and Stark doesn't ever erupt; in fact, since no one thinks Jamie's bastard is Robert's heir, no one poisons Jon Arryn, Ned Stark never goes south to King's Landing to serve as Robert's Hand, and neither King Robert nor Jamie and Cersei's incestuous escapades ever come within a hundred miles of Winterfell.

Notice how just changing a single woman from a medieval mother to a modern warrior woman would totally eviscerate the entire series and eliminate its raison d'etre.  Cersei would have to be one astonishingly compelling warrior woman to provide a storyline capable of compensating for all of the intertwining storylines that her equalitarian independence requires sacrificing.  And this specific example serves as a sound analogy for what attempting to remove the historical roles from women will do to most of the drama presently found in literature.

Do you want massive battles between civilized cultures?  Then most women had better be at home raising large families capable of providing the men for the armies and the societal wealth to support them.  Do you want dynastic conflict?  Then you need mothers married to powerful men producing those dynasties.  Do you seek the dramatic tension of forbidden love?  Then someone had better possess the authority to credibly forbid it.

The assertion may seem a little extreme at first, but if you contemplate the matter, it should rapidly become obvious that the insertion of modern equalitarianism into quasi-medieval fantasy is less credible and more dramatically devastating than giving the occasional knight an M16A4 assault rifle.  The assault rifle is merely ridiculous whereas the equalitarianism undermines the logical basis for the vast majority of most historical conflict.  And while there are ways to work around these issues, (the knight with the assault rifle is a time traveler, strong independent warrior women drop large litters of children by the roadside that are gathered by good-hearted monks and mature in six months), the point is that if they are not addressed in an intellectually competent matter - and they usually aren't - the result is doomed to be an incoherent, illogical mess that will have to be very well-written to even pass for mediocre.

One commenter, seemingly reasonable, states: "The way I see it – if I’m supposed to suspend my disbelief enough to believe in dragons, then I’m pretty sure it can extend to equal positions for female characters."

That sounds superficially credible, but it really isn't.  The absence of dragons is not significant to our lives today.  If they appeared tomorrow in their conventional fantasy form, most of our lives would be little different.  Intersexual relations are central, on the other hand, hence the interest in this and other Game blogs.  The difference can be seen in the way in which those inferior writers who blithely ignore the unavoidable consequences of "equal positions for female characters" refuse to address them in anything approaching a sensible way.  If an author wants warrior women and sizable societies, why not have her women simply drop children like puppies who can fend for themselves after a month?  Because that small change from observable biological norms would too severely violate the necessary suspension of disbelief, even for readers who are observably stupid enough to fail to realize that a medieval-era society featuring strong, independent, and equal women is unsustainable and would be wiped out in less than three generations.

Do you support women working?

Then, it logically follows that you also support more domestic violence.  It is Science:

Intimate partner violence is two times more likely to occur in two income households, compared to those where only one partner works, according to a new study.... The study found that more than 60 percent of women in two-income couples reported victimization, while only 30 percent of women reported victimization in cases when only the male partner was employed.

Why do you hate women?  Why?  Naturally, the researchers sail off into airy theories of female empowerment through work and concomitant male insecurity, but the fact of the matter is that if society wants to reduce domestic violence, female employment should be discouraged.

At this point, one has to seriously wonder about the sanity of anyone who actively supports encouraging women to pursue careers rather than family life.  In addition to being less likely to marry, breed, or be happy, a career will also cause a woman to die earlier, get divorced, get cheated on, have fatter, fewer, and less healthy children, and make her twice as likely to experience domestic violence.

I have the impression these statistics about the downside of female employment are seldom cited by high school guidance counselors.

Two different languages

Badger works through the difference between the male version of the "normal" man and the female version.  Ironically, the difference is actually greater than one typically sees between different languages like English and Italian:

Long story short, a “normal” guy is “an alpha who will play the beta game when I want him to.” A dude who is not deficient in some category she deems essential to her life path...Remember that despite being the ostensible “choosers” of the sexual marketplace, women view the men who pursue them as a mirror to their own value – it’s a compliment when a high-value man makes moves on you (even though he may be only angling for sex), it’s a scary proposition when a wimpy beta guy thinks you’re a good match for him because he may be right.

The lesson is this: don't be normal.  Be better than normal.  Be more of a bastard than normal.  Almost anything is better than nice and normal.  Remember, if a woman laments that she can't meet a "nice, normal guy", that is probably about the only thing you can be certain that she doesn't actually want.

Steel on target!

One has to admire an author who understands her audience so well: His to Dominate 01 - Spanked by the Billionaire by Ava Joy.

I can't help but notice the book isn't called Treated Well by the Nice Man, the first in the hot-and-heaving romance series, A Series of Mutually Respectful Relationships.