Category: For Discussion

Fiction and A Conflict Centered World View

Jess MahlerLeave a comment

I don’t know as much as I’d like to, but I’ve noticed something. Conflict centered stories became the ‘one twue way’ around the same time that nationalism was at its height and white supremacy was being taught as ‘science’ in most colleges and universities.

This is me combining a bit of knowledge to come up with a lot of ideas. ‘Essay’ I was told in school means ‘I think.’ This is a bit of what I think, backed by what facts I have, on a topic far more complicated and in-depth than I have the personal resources to explore.

Conflict and…

Christianity

Most of the folks involved in the creation of the ‘all stories are conflict’ myth were Christian. (I know of one who wasn’t. I think.) When you stop to think about it, that culture and ideas show through. Christian culture and worldview are also conflict-centered.

The Christian worldview revolves around four conflicts:
God vs Devil
Devil vs. Good Christians
Good Christians vs. Bad Unbelievers
Good Christians vs. Themselves

While some churches have moved away from talk of the Devil and toned down the ‘Bad Unbelievers’ rhetoric, many haven’t. And those churches which have, have often doubled down on the internal conflict — especially in this age of rising atheism and people leaving the Churches. The party line is that lacking a sense of connection to God is not a sign of a problem in your worldview/beliefs/actions, but rather a personal test to be overcome through greater commitment and belief.

Conflict is so central to Christianity that it is part of the most sacred prayer.
“And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”
Every day observant Christians acknowledge that conflict (internal and external) is central to their lives and ask God’s protection from it.

Contrary to what many Christians believe, this is not a common worldview. I don’t know as much as I’d like about other religious traditions, but I do know enough to know that. The only other religions I know that have anything like this are closely related to Christianity and also have a ‘Devil’ figure (also rare in world traditions) — Islam and Zoroastrianism. Other religions may acknowledge that conflict is a part of life and can be part of spiritual growth, but nowhere near so central a thing.

White Supremacy

This is where I get into stuff I don’t know as well as I’d like. My understanding is that Christianity had a huge influence on the development of White Supremacy. White supremacy also has a conflict-centered world which posits white people as under assault (literal and spiritual) from nonwhite people. The so-called ‘White man’s burden’ is a well-known example of this: white men going out to bring the other races to enlightenment — forcibly if necessary.

Of course, conflict-centered stories ideally figure not ‘just’ a protagonist, but a hero. A hero who in concept reflects all the virtues white supremacy ascribes to the White Man going forth to conquer the world.

The generic ‘hero’ of Anglo cultures is a big, buff, white man strong enough to defeat scores of mooks single-handedly. The hero is the hero because he, like the White man, brings peace and prosperity (or at least a happy ending).

Don’t believe me? Take a look at the early comic book heroes — the ones created around the same time that conflict-centered writing was becoming the end-all, be-all of English literature.

Our idea of heroes has evolved since then, but still, the White Savior looms over all, cape flapping in the breeze.

Imperialism

Western Imperialism comes from Rome. Every Empire of Europe for 2000 years has claimed to be Rome’s successor or the ‘new’ Rome. The label has been given to the US as well, and frequently. ‘Fascist’ comes from the Roman ‘fasces’ — a bundle of sticks with an ax sticking out. It’s been a symbol of government power for well over 2000 years. You can see that bundle on government seals across the ‘Western’ world, invoking the authority of ancient Rome.

The very word “Imperialism” comes from Rome — from “imperare”: “to command.” One might say that imperialism is the belief in the right of empire to command.

The history of Western thought is contained in the unholy alliance Constantine forged: Roman Imperialism given the imprimatur of Christian sanctity. “God is with us!” cried the Catholic armies of the Holy Roman Empire during the 30 Years’ War. Their Protestant enemies responded with similar claims of divine favor. Together they watered the fields of Central Europe with blood for decades.

In the Americas, Catholic Spain and Protestant England exported Roman Imperialism and Christian sanctity to a so-called ‘New World.’

Imperialism cannot exist without conflict, because imperialism requires the borders and powers of empire to be ever-expanding. We measure the greatness of an empire by the /furthest extent/ of its borders. An empire’s collapse begins the moment it stops expanding. To pull back, to dig in and hold is to admit weakness, the ultimate sin of empire.

… Stories

Here is where knowledge fails and I’m in realms of speculation. The facts as we know them:

During the early 20th century, Britain was the Empire the sun never set on and the US was celebrating ‘Manifest Destiny’, supported and buttressed by Christian evangelism and white supremacy. And an idea arose in the heart of English literary philosophy. The idea that all stories are conflict-centered, and plots are defined by their central conflict. Out of this idea came the claim that all stories /must have/ a singular protagonist and an antagonist opposing the protagonist. The antagonist acts as a foil for the protagonist’s hero-dom to be displayed against.

(Antagonist, by the way, is unrelated to ‘protagonist.’ It originated in battle or sport, not literature.)

Outside of English literature, stories that did not fit the 3 or 5-act conflict-centered straight jacket continued as before. Say what you with about Dostoevsky, but his stories did not center on conflict. Nor, I am told, did most other Russian novelists. In East Asia, the many variations on 4-act structure (best known in the US by the Japanese version, ki-sho-ten-ketsu) continued. It was first introduced to English-language audiences through anime and manga. (Hayao Miyazaki is a master of the form.) Hakawati continue to be told and celebrated in Western Asia. And thousands more story-forms I could not learn in a very long lifetime. Contrary to the old saw there are not 7 plots, there are millions.

Stories that don’t center conflict have survived in English literature, but only on the margins. On the one hand, you have Jack Kerouac and other beat/post-modern/literary/etc authors who ‘experiment’ with the limits of the genre. They wrote in ways (it is implied) more mundane writers can’t. On the other hand, you have slice-of-life stories. These were long ago relegated to the ‘chick lit’ section of the store, less respected even than romance, which at least has a ‘proper’ genre and place on the shelves.

But in schools and workshops and writers groups around the country, these are ignored. “You need conflict” writers are told. As if a story suddenly stops being a story because there aren’t enough heroes and villains in it.

A chance of timing? The relatively new popularity of English novels and short stories may have led to a new consideration of literary theory right at the time these conflict-centered worldviews believed they had succeeded in subduing the world.

Maybe I’m missing something. (I’m probably missing a lot of some things.)

But I think — I /feel/ — there is a connection here. Even if I don’t have the words to frame the connection — or even the necessary questions.

In the meantime, I hope I got you thinking.

(As always, credit and thanks to Kim Yoon Mi and her giant-ass essay on story structure. Thanks also to Marcia X for long threads and treasured conversations on the history of White supremacy and colonialism.)

bell hooks and Being a Respectful Eavesdropper

Jess MahlerLeave a comment

My biggest personal takeaway from bell hooks’ Outlaw Culture (and I emphasize /personal/ takeaway — I’ve got a LOT of political takeaways I’m still processing) is the idea of being an invited ‘eavesdropper’. I’ve long felt, reading work by hooks and Davis and other womanist thinkers, a bit uncomfortable. It was clear they weren’t speaking to me. That I, as a white person, am not part of the audience they address. It felt like I was intruding, actually. Like I didn’t belong here.

So it was almost as if hooks /was/ speaking to me — or at least, my concerns — when she said in Outlaw Culture that she is writing for a Black audience, and views white people who read who her work as eavesdroppers. Welcome ones, but eavesdroppers. (I believe this was in chapter three, during the interview with Marie-France Alderman. Unfortunately, audiobooks are difficult to cite and nearly impossible to look up a reference in.)

For the first time, I have permission to enter and engage with hooks’ work, and perhaps the work of other Black writers addressing Black audiences.

But what does it mean to be an invited eavesdropper?

What Is an Eavesdropper?

An invited eavesdropper is a very odd thing. Because eavesdropping, in its basic conception, is a violation. When hooks first referred to white readers as ‘eavesdroppers’ I had one moment of ‘Yes! That is what I’ve been feeling like’ and a second moment of ‘Oh… that’s not good, is it?’

hooks put that second thought to rest quickly enough. Probably intentionally, given her awareness of the many white people who did and do read her work. But that idea of violation still needs to be addressed. Or — not violation, but what is being violated:

Privacy.

An eavesdropper is someone who violates /privacy/, and who takes away the safety privacy creates, from the people eavesdropped on.

In saying that white readers are eavesdroppers, hooks is laying a firm boundary — we (white people) do not belong here. She chooses to allow us, but we do not belong. And our presence is a hindrance to the safety and security of the conversation she and other Black people are trying to have.

This may sound strange to white people who only know hooks as someone who has written on racism and sexism. We are used to being the audience when it comes to racism. After all, we’re the ones who /are/ racist, right?

But that’s not what hooks is about. hooks isn’t talking about white people being racist. She takes living in a white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist society as a given (and always the three are linked for her). hooks is talking about how racism affects Black families, how Black people can respond to racism, the intersection of internalized (Black) racism and sexism, the way Black men are harmed by sexism.

Conversations that — I’ll agree with hooks — we (white people) don’t belong in. Those are intra-community conversations, /not/ inter-community. The difference is important and far too often neglected.

Still, hooks welcomes us — as eavesdroppers.

Can I Be a Respectful Eavesdropper?

I have a lot of thoughts here, but I’m having trouble finding words for them. The heading captures the main idea pretty well — if I am going to be eavesdropping on conversations not meant for me, even with invitation, how can I do it respectfully?

I don’t have a complete answer, but I’ve figured a few things out.

1) Recognize lack of context —

Because I am not hooks’ intended audience, I am missing context. Her audience is a community she is part of and she addresses her audience — other Black Americans — assuming certain knowledge, cultural context, and history that I don’t have and probably never will have.

I need to recognize this lack of context and the way it will make it harder for me to understand some of what hooks says. It will be easier for me to misunderstand or accidentally ascribe incorrect interpretations. I need to do more work to understand than the folks hooks is speaking to, and if I don’t or can’t do that work, then I need to accept that I may never understand.

2) Don’t insert myself between hooks and her audience

I have no business telling Black folks what hooks says, means, intends, etc. If they care, they can listen themselves, if they don’t care it’s not my business. If someone /asks/, that’s one thing, I can answer to the best of my ability, acknowledge where I recognize a lack of understanding, and direct them to where in hooks’ work I learned something. But it is sure as hell not my place to be going around ‘educating’ Black folks about hooks (or any other Black thinkers).

2a) What about educating other white folks?

Good question. I’m of two minds. On the one hand, educating other white folks about racism (and sexism and all the other stuff hooks talks about) is a major way we can help fight back against white supremacy. On the other hand, there’s that whole ‘lack of context’ thing and the risk of sharing wrong or misleading answers

Obviously, I’ve decided I’m okay discussing some of hooks’ work and my reaction to it, but you’ll notice I’m talking about how I engage with/respond to hooks work in one area that affects/addresses me.

I’m figuring this shit out.

3) Intra- vs inter-community

Any engagement I have with hooks work is by definition inter-community, when hooks was writing intra (within) her own community. I’ve mentioned this before. There are times and places that intra-community discussions must and should move into inter-community forums. And there are times they shouldn’t. I can assume, given hooks’ acceptance of ‘eavesdroppers’ that she anticipates and accepts her own work will end up as part of inter-community conversations.

But I think understanding the way intra- and inter-community conversations differ and the harm that can be done by carelessly dragging intra-community discussions inter-community — /especially/ the harm that can be done by an outsider doing that dragging — needs to happen before an eavesdropper has any business /responding/ to hooks writing.

Engage with it personally? Sure. Share reactions to it? Usually. Respond to it? ie, critique it? Nope. I’m nowhere near a place I can do that respectfully. And neither are the vast majority of white folks.

Am I Writing a Bigoted Story? – The importance of checking ourselves

Jess MahlerLeave a comment

I read a story once. It was a good story in the sense of being well written, engaging, with no major plot holes.

The author put a note in the beginning, explaining that this story was set in a fantasy version of the bronze age. This meant (of course) that there were slaves and women were not treated equal to men. That doesn’t make the author or the story sexist, it’s just a setting!

I think the author meant it. I think he had no intention of writing a sexist story. He was just (as far as he was concerned) writing a story in which sexism happened and slavery happened. He wasn’t endorsing these things, he just wanted to tell a story.

That story was Demon’s Gate by Steve White and it, more than anything else, taught me the danger of unexamined biases. And the importance of asking, “Am I creating a bigoted story?”

We, as creators, cannot afford to let our biases or our creations go unanalyzed, uncritiqued.

For instance…

A nobleman and his loyal slave discover something hinky at the palace. As they investigate they discover a group of noblewomen who are tired of being treated as, well, women. (You know, second class citizens, property of men, that kind of thing.) These women are fomenting some kind of plot against the empire. Except the (male) leader of their little cult is a demon in disguise who has tricked them into opening a gate into the demon’s realm. Once the gate is opened it will flood reality with demons who will turn the world into a literal hell on earth forever more.

The nobleman (and his loyal slave) break the cult by convincing one of the young women that the cult was wrong. The women needed to accept their place, not rebel against the status quo. This woman realizes she needs to tell the nobleman everything she can about the cult. The climax is an epic race against time to stop the women’s cult from opening the gate to the other world and a battle for the fate of mankind. The members of the cult are either killed or imprisoned. The demon is banished with the help of the one woman who is permitted to be a power in her own right (religious figure) and everyone lives happily ever after.

The premise of this story can be boiled down to “a bunch of women form a support group to try to better their lives and nearly bring about the end of the world.”

Just to highlight a few points:

1) Women trying to fight against oppression nearly destroy the world (literally)

2) Women only get the idea to fight against oppression when a man (or demon pretending to be a man) urges them to. Even in fighting against oppression, they follow the leadership of a man

3) Protagonist is a privileged slave owner who is a hero because he is fighting to preserve a corrupt, oppressive empire

The 1920s want their anti-suffragette memes back. And Dixie wants to know where the General Lee doppelganger got to.

But Realism!

There are a lot of issues with the endless calls for realism — especially in SFF! But that’s a tangent, because….

You can write stories in slave societies, in sexist societies, in elitist societies, in racist societies, and not have your story be bigoted!

David Freer does a not-horrible job of this in A Mankind Witch. By the end of the story, the Prince of the Holy Roman Empire gets some of his self-satisfied religious bigotry knocked out of him, a Nordic princess learns that putting a slave collar on a man doesn’t strip away his basic humanity, and a Berber pirate learns that there are things he cares about more than money and the next ransom. All while fighting free of a troll queen, outwitting dwarves, and solving a crime that nearly ends the fragile peace between the Northlands and the Holy Roman Empire.

Awesome story, I recommend it and the rest of the series.

Anyway, as creatives, we need to check ourselves and our work. It isn’t as simple as ‘if there is bigotry in your work it is bigoted’. Life doesn’t work that way.

We need stories that portray bigotry. We A) need to not erase bigotry from history (or current events) and B) we need to have stories celebrating people who triumph over bigotry.

Even if we didn’t need those stories, we still wouldn’t want to shut down all stories portraying bigotry – that would eliminate stories about the lived experiences of most people who have ever existed.

But we need to do the work to portray them well. We can create those stories without reinforcing the bigotry, without resurrecting bigoted ideas and tropes that should have died a century ago.

And we can damn well make our heroes people who are fighting against bigotry or learning important lessons about not being bigoted. Not bigots who are proved right by the stories we tell!

If you like fantasy in a Bronze-age setting, check out my novel Planting Life in a Dying City, about building family in the face of loss and trauma.