Now here's something I can easily boycott...

[shadowkat]

Well, I now finally know why everyone on Face Book wants me to boycott Hobby Lobby. Thank you shipperx who posted a lengthy recital of the Supreme Court ruling and Ruth Bader Ginesberg's dissent. Also, how great is Ruth? Best Supreme Court Justice on that panel.

Never heard of Hobby Lobby. So it's not all that hard to boycott. Love being told to boycott companies that I did not know existed. Now I can go on ignoring their existence.
Just wish I could boycott the five male justices on the Supreme Court. Who are once again giving Catholicism and religious rights a bad rap. As if it needed any help in that department. We really need to stop taking away or infringing on other rights in the name of religious rights. Last time I checked, someone's right to their religious beliefs did not take precedence over everything or give you the right to hurt people.
Gun ownership and manufacture and the right to own and fire guns at other living things is against my religious beliefs. Can we do away with guns please?

I loved the Daily Kos, which said...

Oh sorry, but paying for war violates my spiritual beliefs...you know, Thou Shall Not Kill" - so send me back $3 trillion.

Nailed it.

On the boycotting bit? I'm not sure it always works. It might. I don't believe in boycotting writers. Movie studios, yes. Publishing Companies? Depends. Corporations? Definitely but again, depends. They employ a lot of innocent people who are struggling to make ends meet. How would you feel if someone boycotted your company and you ended up getting laid-off as a result? It could happen.

But writers, artists, entertainers - smacks of censorship somehow and that makes me uneasy. Should we silence them because we don't like or despise something they did ages ago or recently, which we heard about through the media? To what degree do we even know it is true? Having done the criminal law bit - I can tell you that indictments and criminal convictions and confessions don't necessarily make it true. Lot's of gray area that very few people know about. You sort of have to have done criminal law to know whereof I speak.

Also art isn't always a reflection of the person's bad deeds. People are more than their actions, after all. We aren't defined solely by one or several deeds. Isolated or otherwise. A lot of people don't appear to understand this? Or so I've found? I guess I do because I worked in the Kansas Defender Project for a bit, and had to defend people who had robbed and murdered others. One guy that we were defending was this amazing artist, he was also a psychopath and in solitary confinement, think Hannibal Lector. We were defending his right to humane treatment, because everyone deserves to be treated humanely regardless of their crimes - anything else falls under vengeance. These people were complicated. One guy, the armed bank robber, was actually rather kind and had found ways to help others - including writing a pamphlet for drug abuse, and forming a drug rehabilitation support group while in prison. (Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary is a lot like the Prison in Orange is the New Black.)

And there are writers, philosophers, etc who historically did bad things, yet still added a great deal to our culture:

Socrates hated women and was a misogynist. Yet at the same time a brilliant philosopher.
Plato believed women had no souls.
Ghod only knows what Sophocles did.
TS Eliot was a sexist jerk (horrible to his wife) and anti-semitic. But an amazing poet.
Alfred Hitchcock...well, he was sexist and not nice to women, yet had a loving relationship with his wife and a brilliant director.
Flannery O'Connor - racist, but a great story teller

I admittedly haven't really read anything by Orson Scott Card, Walter Breen, Marion Zimmer Bradley (Sharra's Exile was about it, and I can't seem to make it through Mists of Avalon) or Anne Perry (not a fan of her writing - did try, after I saw Heavenly Creatures, partly out of curiousity. You can't tell it's the same woman.) But what they've done has little affect on my desire to read them. Actually, I've made a concerted effort to ignore these reports. I can't do anything about them. How does knowing this information help me or the world in any way? Does it stop others from doing this? Does it heal those who were hurt? Does it change how I view their novels? No, not really. Too late in the game to have much effect, I suspect. Also, being human, it's possible their books are helpful in other ways. I hear Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is an anti-war book? And you really can't tell he's a homophobic bigot when reading it? Same deal with Mists of Avalon. Should a writer's actions done outside their writing life affect how we view their work and to what degree? How much do we need to know about the artist? How much should we? And do we really need to know anything at all?

Corporations - I get boycotting. That makes sense. Although not sure how useful it is. Artists and Writers not so much.

Comments

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Hm, I guess boycotting cooperations who do vile things is a no brainer, although it is often hard to do with the big ones that work with mirror brands and so on.

I agree, that it is more difficile with authors. I don't think, we should exclude any knowledge from our brain, because the person who found it was a horrible person. But that doesn't mean we should not argue or give them a pass.

I can claim that Plato was a smart man in many ways, concerning women he was simply a total jerk. Also authors can be boycotted by not paying for their work, which does not mean, not reading it.

The thing with authors like MZB is, she writes novels for entertainment. When I read a novel, I want to loose myself in it. I want to feel for the characters and learn to get to know their world. It's like taking a walk in someone else's head. And I don't want to take a walk in a rapists head.
So while I would not refuse to learn from someone, no matter what they had done, I will absolutely refuse to pay jerks (mute in the case of MZB, since she is dead) and I simply don't want to be entertained by them. It's too intimate an act for me.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

The thing with authors like MZB is, she writes novels for entertainment.

So, you'd rather read someone like Plato who hated women and whose philosophical works furthered his agenda, than a writer like Marion Zimmer Bradley who wrote fantasy novels about women's suffering and struggle, because it was alleged that she was a pedophile?

I don't know if you've read her? I've actually read one, and tried another - not a fan of the writer. But her books don't further pedophilia or molestation or rape in any way that I could see.

It's not like reading Mein Kampf - which is filled with propaganda.

Writers who write for entertainment - are also telling a story. The story often has zip to do with their actions in life. And in some cases can provide insight into how they think and why they think that way. It gives you the chance to understand how this person thinks, their perspective, without being hammered by propaganda.

Also, Louise Erdritch's husband, Michael Dorris, was alleged to have been a pedophile and abused his children and others. He committed suicide. But before then - he wrote a really good book entitled "Yellow Raft on Blue River" about the Native Americans. No where in that book did I pick up on pedophila, nor did my mother who also read it. And his wife who has written award winning novels, the most recent "Round House", also does not show these signs. And those books have healed people and told fascinating stories.

That's not to say I think you should go off and read Marion Zimmer Bradley, who I'm not a fan of. I could not make it past the first 50 pages of Mists of Avalon either time I attempted to read it. But I also would be careful about boycotting a writer based on what you read about them on the internet.

[rahirah]

The MZB/Walter Breen thing is not some random unfounded rumor on the internet. It's been an open secret in old-school California SF convention fandom for decades. It's just gotten a lot of internet traction lately because Tor published a gushing MZB tribute for her birthday which didn't mention anything of her more dubious history, and MZB's daughter has recently gone public about her abusive childhood. I had been dimly aware that Breen was a creep for years, but I didn't realize the extent of it till recently.

To be clear, MZB was not accused of pedophilia, her husband Walter Breen was. She herself was 'only' accused of being physically and emotionally abusive to her children. There are reams of court testimony available regarding Breen, including testimony from MZB herself, that is quite frankly sickening. By her own admission, MZB knew all about her husband's activities and simply looked the other way. In addition to the court testimony, there are many, many eyewitness accounts from other fans in their social circle of Breen abusing children, including one incident where he masturbated a three-year old girl with a pencil eraser in front of multiple witnesses. Google "Breen boondoggle" if you care to investigate further.

While it's possible MZB's children are lying about her abusive behavior towards them, the utter cold-blooded indifference towards Breen's victims displayed in her court testimony inclines me to think that they are not.

All this is not to say I would condemn anyone for continuing to read her books, but neither would I condemn anyone for not wishing to read her any longer. For what it's worth, all proceeds from her literary estate currently benefit her surviving female partner (not sure if they were domestic partners or what), who was also complicit in covering up for Breen.

ETA: FWIW, MZB did write at least one book about older man/boy relationships -- it's one of her early novels, set in a circus and featuring trapeze artists, I believe. Some people also feel that the character of Dyan Ardais in her Darkover novels is a sympathetic portrayal of a sexual predator.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Which is still stuff I'm reading on the internet. I mean - you may not have read it - but I'm reading it on the net. And we're getting it all second-hand. I worked as a defense attorney - I question anything provided second-hand.

You can read MZB without giving anyone any money.

And to be clear - not condemning anyone. Just questioning - which is different.

[rahirah]

I know. But it's not simply a question of money. It's one thing when an artist is long dead, and any victims they might have had are long dead likewise. There are still victims of MZB and her husband alive and hurting. I read her stuff long ago, and I suspect it would not stand up to a re-read; even if this stuff had never come out, I would most likely never read a book of hers again, just because I'm not interested any longer.

But since it has come out, just knowing her old paperbacks are sitting in my closet makes me feel icky.

Yet another ETA: And I'm wrong, apparently her daughter did accuse her of sexual assault as well.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Dang it. You replied and edited before I got a chance to clarify and edit my response. So not fair! ;-)

I get the avoiding. And I haven't immersed myself in the information the way you have. Mainly because why would you want to? How does this help?
See, that's something else I'm questioning why this need to rip back layers on author's lives and read about what they've done?

I tend to like to read books not knowing anything about the writer.
And I've learned reading about writers of tv shows and movies does little for my enjoyment of the text. Once the story is out there - it's a story. (OR a better way of explaining it? I prefer the Watsonian to the Doylist interpretation of the text. I don't think Doylist helps all that much.)

Now there are writers whose agenda is present in their books and icky that way. American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis made me feel icky. I got rid of it. And so did the book by Rick Warren - Purpose Drive Life. And Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan novels which are alarmingly racist. Not to mention Mein Kampf. I'm not condeming anyone for reading them. But I avoid them. And then there's anything written by the popular Gillian Flynn...ew.

But MZB? eh. I can't see it in her books. The books don't further that.
And the victims aren't still suffering at her hands, nor does my reading her books hurt them - they don't know I'm reading them. Also the books are about other things. I'm not saying you shouldn't feel icky. I'm just saying I don't. That said, I can't say I want to read her books either - outside of being curious as to what all hubbub about this particular book, Mists of Avalon, itself is about, positive or negative. I've always been bewildered. It's not that good a book. It bewilders me in the same way Lord of Light did.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I read Marion Zimmer Bradley, but not extensively. I read "The mists of Avalon" when I was 9 years old up to page 900 or so. I hated it. It was the first book I did not finish (my determination to read every book to its end was what got me so far).

I was clearly far too young for the book but at the time I was really pissed at her. I had really been looking forward to King Arthur from the women's side and it turned out that everything cool was missing and it was just about sex. It was kind of hammering home what all the kids stuff already perpetuated, that if it was for girls it was stupid.

I have a more differented view on this today, but I still think it is a superboring book that has no literrary value to me.

I have also read propaganda. And I think you need to, to be able to crittically analyze the propaganda you are confronted with every day. Those are books I read to learn about their tricks and I do keep my distance to those books.

I could also do that with MZB, but when I read for entertainment, I don't want to be so guarded. I just wan't to let the author take me to their world and run with it.

I agree that you should not jump on someone you heard a rumor about, but like Barb wrote the MZB/Breen thing really is past that stage.

Mind you, I am not calling for a ban, I think no one is. I don't think banning books is a good idea, ever, but I decide what I read, for entertainment or for learning. And I feel I can learn far more from other books and her actions sicken me too much to let her entertain me.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Well, you made it further than I did with Mists of Avalon and I tried to read it at the age of 19, 25, and 47.

Still can't make it past the first 50 pages. It's not the sex. Actually, sex never bothered me in books - I prefer it to violence, I'm funny that way. Although I don't really remember what I preferred at 9 - that was well ...a long long long time ago. Over 30 years.

At any rate, there's no sex in those first 50 pages that I can remember, or if it's there - it is rather non-memorable. No, her writing style just doesn't work for me - it's very preachy. And I didn't like anyone in the first 50 pages. I honestly don't think this novel was written for entertainment nor was it perceived as entertainment when it was first published in 1983. It was perceived as a feminist text, a retelling of the Arthurian Legends from a feminist perspective. People made a big deal about it in Women's Studies programs. I was pressured to read it in the 1980s by various people, because I was writing a thesis on Welsh Mythology, specifically the Mabiniogi and the Mother Goddess. Actually the emphasis was the Mother Goddess. And of course "Mists of Avalon" fit perfectly with my thesis and studies from their perspective. But I preferred the Arthurian tales in the Mabiniogi, which were more feminist, and I also preferred Mary Stewart's take on the legends. That was in the 1980s.

Now about 25 years later, a friend has asked me to try read it again. When I told her that I lost mine (turns out I didn't, it was hiding beneath my bed), she loaned me hers. Which sat on my night stand for the past 12 months - pretty much undisturbed. Once again I made it to page 50 and no further.

I'm having the same problems with Mists of Avalon that I am with Lord of Light. A friend loaned me a book that they loved to pieces and it's proceeded to sit on my night stand forever without me really reading it - I stare at it, it stares back. At least I made it to page 150 of Lord of Light. That's something, I suppose.

Both books are high in mythology and allegory, both reinvent a mythological story in a new way - both I should eat up like candy. But honestly? I find them incredibly dull, not all that innovative, sort of silly, far too much ritual and description of environment. Neither writer can write dialogue to save their lives. And my mind just wanders. I remain bewildered that my friends, who loaned me these books , adore them to pieces. And somewhat at a loss as to what to do about it. Do I continue to try and read the book? Or just push it to one side? Mists is easier - I've returned it, but I'm not sure I should throw out my version - because what if she asks about it? Shouldn't I give it another chance? Maybe I just haven't tried hard enough? Maybe I'm not in the right mood? And now of course there's all this crap about MZB's actions on the internet...most of which I'm not entirely sure of - and seems to be reported by fans and media outlets. (I'm too much of a lawyer to take what non-lawyers, journalists, and laymen say about this at face value. I know how easy it is to manipulate facts and testimony. And how easy "victims" can bend the truth years and years after something happened to suit their own purpose. Truth is in some cases we may never know what happened. )

So, you see - I'm coming at the MZB thing from a completely different perspective than you are.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

"Also art isn't always a reflection of the person's bad deeds. People are more than their actions, after all. We aren't defined solely by one or several deeds. Isolated or otherwise. A lot of people don't appear to understand this? Or so I've found? I guess I do because I worked in the Kansas Defender Project for a bit, and had to defend people who had robbed and murdered others. One guy that we were defending was this amazing artist, he was also a psychopath and in solitary confinement, think Hannibal Lector. We were defending his right to humane treatment, because everyone deserves to be treated humanely regardless of their crimes - anything else falls under vengeance. These people were complicated. One guy, the armed bank robber, was actually rather kind and had found ways to help others - including writing a pamphlet for drug abuse, and forming a drug rehabilitation support group while in prison."

Thank you for writing this. While I do hold views very similar to this about people -- that, ultimately, people are complicated, and one can't define a person entirely by one action (or even set of actions) -- I also don't have the personal experience to back this up. And while reading about people can help to a degree...I think it's a bit different actually having experience, or (I suppose) knowing someone who has experience.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You're welcome and thank you.

If my experience has taught me anything - it is that you can't define people by one action or a group of actions, no matter how much you may want to. It's easier that way of course. But here's the thing? People are capable of change. They don't stay stagnant. And you don't always know why they do what they've done - nor do you know if you would do the same thing if you were literally in their shoes.

My criminal defense professor used to say before every lecture - "there but for the grace of god go I." And my Granny often stated, in far less religious terms, "you never know a person unless you walk a mile in their moccassins."

It's so easy to judge other people - but I think understanding people is far harder and requires a bit more effort and skill. And art, stories, etc can help that. Also stories can be healing and informative.

I get wanting to boycott a work like Mein Kamp or say pedophile porn/erotica - or a video game called Rape Play (which does exist and is revolting and has been banned in the US, thank ghod.) But not a work that can be informative and doesn't necessarily further propaganda or an agenda. I think there is a difference.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

Right, this makes sense.

I'm not a religious person, but I think one of the things I feel most essentially is that it's important to believe that "bad people" can be good -- or that it's not a matter of people being fundamentally evil or all-one-thing. I think that's close to the core of what I believe/want to believe about people. It's part of why I'm attracted to morally ambiguous characters, I think -- there are some truly villainous characters and unambiguously heroic characters I love deeply, but I'm attracted to those ones who can go either way, and hopefully end up on the good side.

All the same, I've lived a somewhat sheltered life in some respects. And there are people I know, including several close relatives...who are dangerous enough, for one reason or another, for it to be important to stay away from them, and to write them off as a matter of self-defense. It's complicated, where those lines should be drawn. But I ultimately like to think that needing to cut someone out of one's life need not mean condemning them in a broader sense. In their shoes, I could be them, maybe.

And I agree about the art vs. propaganda problem...or, I think I do. It's difficult. I think for me, art is something that can be intrinsically good and worthwhile -- without the artist being a good person in every respect. And indeed, if an artist produces a work of art that genuinely is moving and instructive about the world, in a non-propagandistic way, then that is something that can even do something to redeem the artist...even if they are awful in other ways. Which is not to say that it justifies the artist's other behaviour...but I don't know if I can say that the bad can fully taint the good (nor the good fully wash away the bad).

At the same time, I don't condemn people for not wanting to read works from the artists.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

The thing about Card is that he actively takes part in and funds political campaigns for homophobia, so that any money of yours that goes to him might be used to actively promote harm to LGBT people.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

This is why I simply do not want to give this guy money. (Although I have read two of his books before I heard about it). He actively funds bigoted causes. He doesn't need my money.

MZB...well as I stated to Flake in my own post, the sexual nature of her work combined with the sexual nature of her crimes is what makes it a visceral ick. I don't want to read the sexual fantasies of a predator.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You can actually read Orson Scott Card without giving him money. I have Ender's Game - and he didn't get much if any money from me. It was dirt cheap.
Picked it up discounted.

And well, regarding MZB? I read one of her books in high school - there was almost no sex in that book. She doesn't write romance novels or erotica. She wrote sci-fi fantasy adventures. Sharra's Exile - barely had any sex in it.

And Mists of Avalon...well, I couldn't make it past the first 50 pages, because it was dry and preachy sort of like Roger Zelzany. I'm told there's sex later and often between younger women and older men, but that was true in the Arthurian Legend. It's not like you are reading a philosopher or Mein Kamp. Not that I'm telling you to read her, or anything. I'm still on the fence as to whether I want to attempt to read Mists of Avalon for a third time. MZB was never a favorite.

Heck, Edgar Rice Burroughs was racist beyond measure. Those Tarzan books, ouch. Can't say I wanted to read him - mainly because didn't like the writing style.

However, I did read Yellow Raft on Blue Water by Michale Dorris, the husband of Louise Erdritch. Found out today that he was an alleged pedophile who eventually committed suicide. (http://www.salon.com/1997/04/21/dorris/) But since he died prior to the case being tried, it was never proven, and just alleged - similar to Lewis Carroll. And Erdritch may have known about it. Read both writers - they are amazing writers. There's no sexual fantasies in these novels. And you can't tell. (See : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dorris for more on Dorris.)

There's also, Lewis Carroll, and the alleged abuse of Alice Liddell - whom the stories were told to and written for. Did he write them to seduce her?
Does knowing it change how you view Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass? It does and it doesn't for me. I have to admit after I found out about the allegations - I saw the sexual subtext in the stories that I was oblivious to before - which makes me wonder if it's better not to know this stuff? How much do we really need to know about a writer? How Doylist do we need to be - as opposed to Watsonian?

I don't know...I read today an article in Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/06/27/re-reading-feminist-author-marion-zimmer-bradley-in-the-wake-of-sexual-assault-allegations/) about re-reading Mists of Avalon after the information regarding Bradley was reported...and the writer makes a good point:

How, then, to reckon with the masterful public work and the allegedly monstrous private life? Zimmer Bradley’s contradictions raise an unnerving but important proposition. Survivors can offer tremendous insight into pain and transcendence. But so can the people who committed or facilitated depredations against them.

And while I can't say I'm a fan of Bradley's work nor would I call it masterful, I didn't see it as erotica, pedophila, or the perverted sexual fantasies either. There really isn't that much sex in it at all. I'm not defending MZB's actions nor necessarily her work, just questioning avoiding her work because of her alleged actions.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

The good news is you can actually enjoy his work without paying him any money for it. Not that I do. He's not a writer that I've ever been particularly fond of.

That said, I still wonder if the work can be divorced from the writer eventually? I think it actually can. Fanfiction to a degree has proven that. Stories get retold, until we actually begin to forget the originator of them.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

Although the news sort of glanced over it, I believe this ruling only applies to closely-held corporations, which in Hobby Lobby's case means a very large family owned business. I don't think it applies to corporations that would be listed on one of the stock exchanges as we usually think of corporations.

We've got a Hobby Lobby nearby. I wandered in one day, and wandered back out. It seems they specialize in traditional women's hobbies and crafts, a bit like Michaels, but with more emphasis on hobbies and less on the practical. I have gone in Michaels, shopped for things like a nice pair of scissors, and felt comfortable. I felt distinctly in the wrong place in Hobby Lobby. A real boycott by women against Hobby Lobby might actually do some good with that one business. But it wouldn't affect affect the ruling on closely-held corporations.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I don't think it exists in NYC. But agree the ruling is worse. As one of my cousins' noted on FB - there are 80 other corporations that this affects as well.

That ruling is nasty - it opens all sorts of nasty little avenues.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

As sk notes, this particular ruling is supposedly limited to closely held corporations (and in other ways), but there's no obvious stopping point to prevent future rulings from expanding the "right".

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Actually I think that was catcuswatcher who noted it. ;-) But thanks.

[genericmarn.livejournal.com]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is my hero.