Worldcon Expels Editor

[J-Sun]

I figure I should note at the outset that I review for Tangent but, as people who've seen my posts over the years will know, that doesn't have anything to do with my posting this.

A paragraph late in the second link describes it better than I can, but some intro context may be needed here: Dave Truesdale, the editor of Tangent, was invited to moderate a panel on "The State of Short Fiction" at the Worldcon which he did, with opening remarks decrying the effect of a narrow political orthodoxy on, y'know, the state of short fiction. One could easily argue that his approach was not designed to smooth feathers but it would be kind of contrary to the point to take such an approach. He certainly wasn't throwing bombs and, after some initial "grandsitting" from Clarke and aside from lingering antipathy from Williams, it basically got down to a constructive discussion. Truesdale was then summarily expelled from the Worldcon. James Cambias, even reacting to partial (in both senses of that word) third-hand reports was able to cut to the heart of the matter: "I will note that on a purely tactical level, expelling someone who complains that there's an insular clique within science fiction which is trying to silence dissenting voices doesn't really disprove what he's saying."

The audio of the panel and some discussion of the event is here:

2016 Worldcon panel on the "State of Short Fiction"

This prompted one of my favorite authors, John Shirley, a guy who put the "punk" in cyberpunk, to dare to speak truth to the zealots. Note that I don't remotely agree with every word in it, but I wholeheartedly agree with its overall point. This is what liberalism really looks like, folks.

Why Conservatives are a Necessary Component of a Vital Society

I'm curious if any (okay, that's naive - more like "how many") people think this expulsion is a good thing for fandom and freedom of speech and society at large and, if so, why?

I'm also curious if there are any folks out there who recognize any merit in what Shirley says or would in any conservative who made a similar pitch for the value of liberals.

 

[MWagner]

I'd like to say I'm surprised that an author was ejected from a convention for using the term "clutching at pearls." But nothing really surprises me any more when it comes to the hysteria surrounding anything to do with gender or race, or the radical polarization of American culture wars. And anyone who has been paying attention has long ago come to terms with the fact that modern progressives place very little value on freedom of expression or thought, and when progressive radicals gain any kind of authority they employ it with ruthless brutality to silence dissent.

The essential problem is that the progressive left has allowed a single principle to override all other values or considerations: It is a moral imperative to recognize, without question and without debate, the distress of anyone deemed weak or oppressed, and then to silence whoever the distressed person says is the source of that distress. In fact - and this is where it gets kinda sinister - actual distress is not necessary to justify silencing dissenting voices. All that's necessary is for someone to deem that distress could potentially result from speech, and it will be silenced. Security trumps freedom. Whole social issues are deemed taboo - they shalt not be discussed in a rational manner.

However, Shirley doesn't seem to really get it either. His blog simply reiterates the mindlessly manichean outlook that's at the heart of this whole mess - that people are either Democrats or Republican, they're either left or right, and that these two identities are engaged in a relentless tug-of-war. It's all part of what Jonathan Haidt calls the Righteous Mind at work. Shirley doesn't seem to really understand genuine liberalism, or how it differs from the authoritarian, identity-politics left. It has nothing to do with left/right or Democrat/Republican. Genuine liberalism sees the widest diversity of opinions expressed in open dialog as a transcending value.

The saddest thing about the zealots who have wrested control of many cultural institutions is they've turned their backs on the very values they employed (or rather their parents and grandparents employed) to get a seat the table. Now, whenever they have any sort of majority or power, they throw out anyone who tries to challenge the new orthodoxy. It's the new religion. And like the old religion, true liberals are going to need to stand up to it, and risk the kind of social censure that Truesdale suffered at Worldcon.

 

[J-Sun]

However, Shirley doesn't seem to really get it either. His blog simply reiterates the mindlessly manichean outlook that's at the heart of this whole mess - that people are either Democrats or Republican, they're either left or right, and that these two identities are engaged in a relentless tug-of-war. It's all part of what Jonathan Haidt calls the Righteous Mind at work. Shirley doesn't seem to really understand genuine liberalism, or how it differs from the authoritarian, identity-politics left. It has nothing to do with left/right or Democrat/Republican. Genuine liberalism sees the widest diversity of opinions expressed in open dialog as a transcending value.

Thanks for your post. I think you're being harsh on Shirley, though. I agree that he adopts a bipolar framework in the piece and it may even derive from how he actually sees things but it could just as easily derive from a pragmatic simplification for the purposes of the essay - we do have a two party system with the conservative element being (mis)identified with one and the liberal (mis)identified with the other. But his point isn't to change most people's frameworks but to get them to merely change how they behave within that framework. Baby steps. And I think he's precisely not reiterating a Manichean outlook - he's arguing the exact opposite - that even in a dualism one element need not be seen as "evil" by the other. That's precisely why he brings up the yin-yang thing (Taoist, or whatever, rather than Manichean). And I think his last sentence is on the same point as yours: he sees strength in alloys, by which he means a (relative) diversity of opinions and certainly open dialog. I mean, I grant that he could have aimed higher or cast a bigger net or been more nuanced but I think the blunt dual approach to try to reach people who have problems with duality was probably a good approach.

The saddest thing about the zealots who have wrested control of many cultural institutions is they've turned their backs on the very values they employed (or rather their parents and grandparents employed) to get a seat the table. Now, whenever they have any sort of majority or power, they throw out anyone who tries to challenge the new orthodoxy. It's the new religion. And like the old religion, true liberals are going to need to stand up to it, and risk the kind of social censure that Truesdale suffered at Worldcon.

Yes, indeed.

 

[Old_Man_Steve2016]

This was a pretty interesting forum. I don't see what all the whining is about. When did the guy get expelled? All I heard up to 2343 was a lot of cross talk and one guy who sounded like a Brietbart reporter.
The snowflake guy can make money off his expulsion, if he goes on Breitbart or Amazing Atheist and complains. People (and the Koch Brothers) will throw money at him like there's no tomorrow.

Unless WorldCon has some sort of monopolistic control over Science Fiction short story distribution, then there's no real censorship. There's no real oppression. Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly publish fiction all the time and they're conservative. It just gets mislabeled as non-fiction. So, where's the censorship?

 

[Toby Frost]

In don't think we need conservatives so much as moderates.

For one thing, it was probably a bad idea to say "This panel is about the state of short SF, so let's talk about political correctness". I think it should be obvious that that aspect of the issue would immediately dominate the discussion. Further, where is the evidence for any of this? Very little evidence beyond "it seems to me" or "I know this guy" is being adduced by either side.

For what it's worth, I think that if weird and novel ideas are to be discussed in SF, short fiction might well be the place to do it. For one things, it might well be easier for the reader and writer: it might hit harder, too. A short story that's solely "What if this thing happened?" might not be enough to carry a novel. Short work might be a better place for cutting-edge writing, but it probably depends on the specific work.

There are a few people who shout very loudly in SFF (or more accurately, SFF fandom), and this might be where the perceived feeling comes from that political correctness or a right-wing reaction to it is running amok. We need to learn to be harsher with the Vox Days and Requires Hates of this world. The answer should be "No, your opinion is crazy, you express it like a crazy person and you're not worth our time". This would probably be easier to say if we reserved that sort of attack for genuine nutcases and not for people with whom we just disagree.

But to be clear, I certainly would not have excluded him for any of this. The worst I would think would be "This guy is irrelevant". Short of inciting or committing a criminal offence, I find it quite hard to think of circumstances where I would exclude someone.

 

[MWagner]

Short of inciting or committing a criminal offence, I find it quite hard to think of circumstances where I would exclude someone.

That's really what it comes down to.

It is remarkable that in this era that pays so much lip service to diversity, we see such intolerance for diversity of thought. It's easy to be tolerant of superficial diversity like race and gender. Real diversity means acknowledging that your fellow citizens have different values, and that in a liberal democracy people are always going to disagree about important things, but you still have to get along with them.

 

[galanx]

Guy is asked to moderate a panel on short fiction, hijacks it for a ten-minute rant on his political pet peeve.

 

[J-Sun]

Guy is asked to moderate a panel on short fiction, hijacks it for a ten-minute rant on his political pet peeve.

That's one way to put it. Another way is "Guy is asked to moderate a panel on short fiction. As moderator, introduces a topic on the state of short fiction. Is interrupted for six minutes, resulting in its taking ten minutes to to get his four-minute intro in edgewise."

But even if your characterization is accurate, I still ask: is expulsion from the convention justified? Is the worldcon doing a "good thing here for fandom and freedom of speech and society at large and, if so, why?"

 

[Dave]

...is expulsion from the convention justified?

In order to answer that question then we would need to have more information. We need to know how WorldCon chooses panel moderators. What is the precise job description? Are there rules and guidelines that he broke or ignored? What does the WorldCon constitution say?

What we really want to know is, did they just get rid of him because they didn't like what he said, or did they get rid of him because that wasn't the job he was meant to be doing? The former reflects badly on WorldCon while the latter is just normal practice in any club.

Was this position voluntary or was he paid? I ask that because I am always loath to criticise volunteers. They are often doing a job that no one else wants to do for little recognition. So, was he "asked" to do them a favour, or was he interviewed and selected? If it was the latter then surely the interviewers must share the blame.

The other point I would make is that all clubs and organisations have their own rules and restrictions that you sign up to when you join. There can be quite severe penalties in the small print for breaking their petty rules, and kangaroo courts that rule but give you no means to redress.

This argument over the freedom of what @MWagner calls "diversity of thought" is much wider than this example and, I think, going to become an even bigger issue. We've spoken about it in other threads but banning people from expressing a view does not make that view go away. If not addressed then the view gains further ground and is given more Oxygen. People need to be allowed to express their fears and hates, their politically incorrectness, then they can be educated why they are wrong. Trying to bury the ideas creates a feeling of not being listened to and ultimately to anger and violence. We used to tolerate far more extreme political views than we do today.

 

[J-Sun]

In order to answer that question then we would need to have more information. We need to know how WorldCon chooses panel moderators. What is the precise job description? Are there rules and guidelines that he broke or ignored? What does the WorldCon constitution say?

What we really want to know is, did they just get rid of him because they didn't like what he said, or did they get rid of him because that wasn't the job he was meant to be doing? The former reflects badly on WorldCon while the latter is just normal practice in any club.

Was this position voluntary or was he paid? I ask that because I am always loath to criticise volunteers. They are often doing a job that no one else wants to do for little recognition. So, was he "asked" to do them a favour, or was he interviewed and selected? If it was the latter then surely the interviewers must share the blame.

The other point I would make is that all clubs and organisations have their own rules and restrictions that you sign up to when you join. There can be quite severe penalties in the small print for breaking their petty rules, and kangaroo courts that rule but give you no means to redress.

Good questions. There are no rigidly specified principles of selection. Someone at the Worldcon knew him to be the editor of a short fiction review zine, which makes him a logical candidate so they asked him. As far whether he was paid, rather the reverse: he paid them their membership fee of $185 and volunteered his time and energy to moderate this panel. His money, even pro rata, was not refunded. It is a rule of Worldcon that both sides in any dispute are to be given their fair hearing. It is also a rule that Worldcon can amend their rules at any time. So, basically, there are no Worldcon rules but what they decree at the moment and they decreed he was to be expelled. "Kangaroo court" would probably be a step up as there seems to have been no violation of rules and no court at all, but a summary judgment based on someone's bare complaint of unhappiness. Some people may be misunderstanding what being expelled means: not that he was "relieved of panel moderation duties" but that he, a nominee for a Hugo for editing best fanzine (the sixth nomination since 1997), was expelled from the very convention at which he was nominated. Had Tangent won, he'd have been unable to give his acceptance speech.

In terms of the "job description" (and some people wanting to try to discount this issue by accusing him of being "off-topic" or "hijacking" the panel), I wanted to quote (with permission) this piece from an email from Dave Truesdale because, while I tried to make the point in passing, this makes it much more effectively:

Moderators often set the stage for a panel with opening remarks. "The State of Short Fiction" could mean anything. Usually (and sometimes boringly), the panel mentions new authors, or trends the panelists are seeing (space opera stories, near future sociological fiction stories, a plethora of dystopian stories, zombie stories, etc. etc.--you get the picture). So trends are always popular to speak about and they can come in many forms. I chose a different trend, that being that because of PC in the SF culture at large that writers are being intimidated into not writing _really_ risky stuff these days for fear of being called racist, sexist, or whatever, and so (as even Gordon Van Gelder said on the panel) writers are having an "aversion" to taking real risks like they did in the past.

Which leads into the main point:

This argument over the freedom of what @MWagner calls "diversity of thought" is much wider than this example and, I think, going to become an even bigger issue. We've spoken about it in other threads but banning people from expressing a view does not make that view go away. If not addressed then the view gains further ground and is given more Oxygen. People need to be allowed to express their fears and hates, their politically incorrectness, then they can be educated why they are wrong. Trying to bury the ideas creates a feeling of not being listened to and ultimately to anger and violence. We used to tolerate far more extreme political views than we do today.

Agreed. It's this larger topic which makes this specific incident more important even than the apparent fundamental bankruptcy of the Worldcon. That's why I asked about "fandom, freedom of speech, and society at large." I find this sort of thing bad for art and bad for society.

By the way, there's an interesting thread in which an author apparently wasn't expelled from a gathering but was excoriated for saying dangerous things much like what you say:

Worse: the left's embrace of gotcha hypersensitivity inevitably invites backlash. Donald Trump appeals to people who have had it up to their eyeballs with being told what they can and cannot say. Pushing back against a mainstream culture of speak-no-evil suppression, they lash out in defiance, and then what they say is pretty appalling.

That thread (and the author's speech) is worth a read.

 

[Brian G Turner]

freedom of speech

If I were running an event where people had travelled long distances and paid good money to hear authors speak - and someone else decided to hijack that for *any* political cause, I would reconsider whether that person should continue to be involved with that event.

I don't care whether they are paid are volunteer - if someone is asked to provide a service for others, and they refuse to do it and instead force their own personal agenda, they are neither doing their job nor providing the service they were asked to deliver.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

From what I have read it looks like he meant to cause a disruption and then use the recording afterward to garner sympathy. If not, why did he secretly record the others without their permission? There is something very underhanded about that.

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

Personally I agree with the spirit of what went on (diversity of views, bemoaning the state of the industry re that and so on) but you have to question both the venue for raising this and also recent history in regards the Sad Puppies, Rabid Puppies and so forth. Now I have no idea whether MWagner self-affiliates with either of those groups but both those groups, to differing degrees, have targeted the Worldcon precisely on those issues and gone on the offensive (in both senses of the word) so it's understandable that the organisers were hyper-sensitive to people playing that particular political card in fear of it spiralling out of control.

And I mean that from both sides. There have been unpleasant posturing from both extremes to that argument and you have to question whether the Worldcon wanted that level of heat. That said I've been to a few Worldcons now and what people also have to remember is that this is a convention run by fans for fans. Because of that you get lots of well-meaning amateurs pitching forth as volunteers and organisers. Professional is not a word I would use to describe the process. Now that can be charming and deficiencies are glossed over and people forget the terrible panels where 2/3rds of the panellists don't turn up, turn up ill-prepared (or drunk!) and ramble off-topic to amazing degrees. Hellfire, I once watched a "panel" where they basically played a boardgame in front of us and we shouted suggestions. Not exactly cutting edge debate!

Anyway I am digressing myself. End of the day the panellist was removed by the organisers because they felt he was causing a disturbance. Call that heavy-handed, call it imposed-censorship but it's something those particular organisers felt was the right thing to do (from their viewpoint). Luckily, there's a whole new group of fan organisers, new locations and another crack at the whip at the next Worldcon if MWagner wants to hold forth on these questions.

One thing though, title the panel appropriately so that the audience know what they're in for - "The State of Short Fiction" doesn't scream anti-conservative bias to me. Call your panel "How conservatism has been sidelined in Short Fiction" or something punchier to draw both the crowd you want and also those people who are willing to engage with you. This sounded like neither happened and the crowd reacted badly to a perceived highjack by calling for the authorities.

 

[J-Sun]

Ah, the sweet breath of reason. I disagree with what you say about "the next Worldcon" and being so casual about the behavior of this Worldcon (I sure wouldn't cough up $185 bucks to support people who could kick me out when I say things in a civil way that they disagree with and don't give me money back, even if it's technically a different set of people) but I get where you're coming from and respect it. And I do think it's an excellent suggestion to have clearer ground rules and better labeling of the panels. That may be one of these logistical things where they print up program guides and all that paraphernalia before the precise topic is necessarily known, plus a too-restrictive topic might cramp the free flow of the discussion but, still, it's a good point as to how things might have been perceived to have gone awry.

One thing though - you say "MWagner" but, as far as I know, he's an innocent poster here and the guy in question is Dave Truesdale. And while I don't know precisely where he stands on the Sad Puppies (probably sympathetic but unaligned, though I can't say for sure) I'm sure he's no Rabid.

 

[MWagner]

Now I have no idea whether MWagner self-affiliates with either of those groups but both those groups, to differing degrees, have targeted the Worldcon precisely on those issues and gone on the offensive (in both senses of the word) so it's understandable that the organisers were hyper-sensitive to people playing that particular political card in fear of it spiralling out of control.

I'm a proponent of free speech and diversity of opinions. I believe that the more voices and outlooks at the table, the better the outcome, and that the only speech that should be restricted is outright calls to violence. I have no particular sympathy for dogmatic conservative or leftist views, and self-identify as a liberal (in the traditional sense of the word, not the bizarro meaning the word has taken on in modern American politics). I oppose identity politics because it's a fundamentally illiberal credo that's unlikely to achieve anything worthwhile in art or politics.

It is disheartening that in these polarized times, anyone defending a conservative's exercise of free speech is presumed to be conservative himself.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

At every convention I've ever attended or participated on the panels (and that would include a couple of Worldcons) there was always a description written up for each panel and distributed in one form or another (usually in the program book). Does anyone here know that was not the case at the Worldcon in question?

 

[The Big Peat]

Has anything come forth from Worldcon on why they have done this?

On the surface of it, it stinks. I can see why they might wish he'd done otherwise but expulsion seems harsh and over the top.

However, if he did record what was said without the knowledge or permission of the others present, that's pretty poor and possibly reason for expulsion in itself.