handful_ofdust (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
handful_ofdust) wrote2011-02-01 02:17 pm
handful_ofdust) wrote2011-02-01 02:17 pm
Interesting Discussion
...going on over here (http://samsykes.com/2011/01/the-chosen-jerk-jam-session-with-n-k-jemisin/). I guess I’ll just never be comfortable with the idea that we should proactively shit on a particular type of narrative trope because it’s inherently evil, and thus the people who like it (who are obviously too effin’ dumb to figure that out) are bad and should feel bad, anymore than I like any other type of received wisdom. Thankfully, though, I also don’t think I’ve been guilty of this; most of my characters are anti-heroes at best who don't think of themselves as automatically qualified to “save” much of much, plus the fact that there’s an overall lack of authority figures of any sort in my world(s) who aren’t assholes, on some level.
I mean, “[Anasazi]” is sort of a Chosen One story turned inside out--ie, this slot could have been filled by anyone, it became yours through horrible bad luck, and now everything you know and love will be destroyed because of it/you. But then again, I do write horror, so perhaps for me, the relevant trope is “Chosen Monster” instead.;)
I mean, “[Anasazi]” is sort of a Chosen One story turned inside out--ie, this slot could have been filled by anyone, it became yours through horrible bad luck, and now everything you know and love will be destroyed because of it/you. But then again, I do write horror, so perhaps for me, the relevant trope is “Chosen Monster” instead.;)
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But I don't believe in condemning a trope in and of itself, either. It's what you do with it. I love stories where the hero is built up and then torn down. I know one of my first experiences with this was reading Dune Messiah in my early teens, and I loved that razor-blade line between jihad on one side and the golden path on the other, with the human side of Paul emerging from the narrow crack between them by a triumph of will. It's worth delving into the Chosen One trope if you can tell that story afterwards. But we all know which was the popular one between Dune and Dune Messiah. There is the love of the Chosen One in genre fiction, as there is a role for both Superman and Dexter.
There is the well-established trend, and I don't think it's a bad one, to go against five hundred years of protestant elitism. The idea (and I'm pretty sure it's always been lifted from Revelation) that there are "God's Elect" and that there are people who deserve, by right of divine selection, to rule the world, has not done western civilization much good. I think it is because it eliminates, by divine-rinso-whiteness the sin of the individual, so the collective sin has no bearing on them as individuals. So the sense of collective responsibility for collective actions disappears, and "sins of omission" are not considered. Looking at this in the context of the English Civil War, it's obviously a popular power-grab at the right of kings, but the people need to establish by what justification they do claim divine right. Representative democracy, in my opinion, is one of the more elaborate justifications, and not necessarily a bad one.
But, I would argue, this background elitism leads to a culture that has an out-of-sight-out-of-mind attitude towards garbage, poverty in other places caused by its own prosperity, violence in other places caused by its enforcement of peace. It is the very crux of privilege to ignore consequence, and in that way, being Chosen by Calvinist predestination or by Baptist rebirth don't look all that different politically.
I'm a little enheartened by current events in Egypt, to draw out by analogy. Many of the arab states' leadership has been "chosen" by their allegiances, been "client states" if you will. At one time, the Soviet Union also had kingmaker privilege, but those days are over. Perhaps Sudan shows that China is beginning to have this level of influence. But I digress...
I notice there is an attempt to quickly fasten on the Chosen One in these political situations by the dominant puritan culture. Will it be El-Baradai? Who can we put in place of our good friend of so many years, Mr. Mubarak? Will it be General X or Statesman Y? Notice how we're already sizing up "our guy" and placing bets (with a heavy thumb of threat of force on the political scales). God forbid we allow the rabble to choose their own leadership! We make things worse by using elite status to select Chosen Ones to cooperate with.
So yes, invoking Ursula LeGuin in saying that all SF is analogy, I think "Chosen One" narratives are part of the dominant culture's puritan past and contribute to its inability to see its shadow and take responsibility for its actions as a collective whole. This has real consequences, because we are, above all, a story-making species and stories matter.
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Yeah, we lie to ourselves, like we lie to others, but sometimes we also tell the truth in advance. Stories help with that, too.
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True about motivations, but as I was coincidentally just saying to someone today, we don't often get ownership of the "you" that we have to live with, unless we want to live a really sheltered life where we don't run into conflicts with anyone else's beliefs or expectations, or get to know many people, and trying to explain your motivations is a bit of a wank-job anyway. Unless it goes to court, I think it's generally optional and the option is best honoured in the breach than the observance. All I know is that any sentence that begins "I am" is ultimately false. Of that I am certain. ;)
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It took a while for me to understand that what she DID mean is that you don't get ownership over what's in people's heads, and that space between that and your own head is illusory. There is no space, because there is no point that will ever touch and there never will be.
A bit of a homemade existentialist, really.
So, by her rules, if you want ownership over that you in someone else's head, you need to treat it like the work of art that it is. It's a performance art, and until you want to take on that responsibility, you'll never be able to simply be yourself.
If you don't want to take responsibility for it, you need to let go of other people's ability to harm you with it.
Or maybe it makes more sense in Zen koan: Look and tell me the colour of your own eye.
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(Or, for a different example, one of our customers at work, who holds that any errors resulting from her typos are *our* fault, because we should have realized that she meant to write "1" and not "11" - after all, why would she want 11 of something?)
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I guess what I’m saying is that it might be more accurate, and more effective, to attack the trope (if you’re going to) as lazy storytelling rather than as crypto-fascism.
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Damn.