Books

[Grefter]

Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. - What Shale said.  Yeah that was awesome.

[Shale]

Following up on Nextwave hype, I started reading Transmetropolitan yesterday and am currently in issue 28. In many ways, it makes Nextwave look sedate and restrained. And that is awesome.

Edit: volume 30 now, halfway through. The Lonely City arc freaking ruled.

Edit again: "I hate Nazi sex midgets" may be the single best line anyone has ever written.

[Grefter]

Yeah I also am reading it as well, it is pretty sexy.

[Shale]

....and finished. That was really damned good, aside from the occasional "Warren Ellis turns Spider into his mouthpiece for a 22-page rant" chapter.

[Grefter]

Meh, I will take the 22 page Author avatar over 11 pages of him beating Fred Christ with a chair.  Fucking tired of that plot by the end.  But yeah it has been fun.  I dunno if I would say overall it is a really great comic (Action Kung Fu Journalist go! is over the top, but fun.), not like say Watchmen, or probably not even Hellboy, but eh it is different and I will like it just for that.  Much better than The Authority though, it being all Ellis the whole time helps immensely of course.

[Shale]

Oh, yeah, it's definitely not worth taking seriously; that's why the author-rant chapters annoyed me. Gag violence like the Chair Leg Of Truth you can just laugh at, skim, and move on, and there's stuff like the Editor Ex Machina near the end that's objectively worse storytelling but works with the overall flow anyway ("I will get a large pillowcase, and tell them to fill it with drugs."), but the religion and transhumanism chapters is Ellis presenting his actual views on what he considers an important real-life issue, which didn't fit in at all with the general tone of the thing. Plus I've got a soft spot for refuge-in-audacity stuff, this is not news.

[Grefter]

Deus Ex Editor bothered me less than the brain damage thing.  It should have been a good setup wince they introduced the Information pollen thing early and slipped it under the radar (which is a recurring point of good writing in the series, it handles Chekhov's gun with extreme subtlety), but the whole thing was just a bit meh and having the ending while fitting to Spider I guess is just kind of pointless I felt.  Would have just been better to not have it and have more screen time of him shooting MIBs or something.  Probably helps that I really liked Mitch Royce though with the Des Ex Editor bit being a nice cap stone to the character.

Edit - Note I liked the chair leg of truth, I just wish it wasn't Fred Christ.

[Shale]

Oh, Royce's character was great, and I can tell you from experience that what he was talking about really is how a good editor sees his job, so I loved how he behaved in that chapter. It was only when I looked over the plot of that chapter again that I started thinking "wait, he just has a magic editor button that makes the whole last arc go away, that's rubbish."

[Grefter]

Well yeah that kind of was blah, but that is the exact same thing I am saying with the Information Pollen thing as well, just Deus Ex Editor has at least some character development outside of "Spider is a bit of a tool and WHAO SPIDER DOES AWESOME".

Anyway, continuing on with the Gonzo Journalism splurge.

Going Postal, by Mark Ames - This was finally in at Borders so I could pick it up.  19 pages in and it is already absolutely enthralling.  The path and situation of a Rage Murder Spree carefully researched and reconstructed to show the social situation the murderer was in to try and understand what would make them do it, ultimately placing the blame (fairly justifiabley) on the shoulder of Ronald Reagan and the venomous disgusting economic environment he created.  A really good read.  I will dig up the link to the excerpt of it in the Exile archives when I finish the book I think.

[Taishyr]

Midnight Tides: A solid continuation... except there's all of one character I know from this.

This book could almost fit as a prequel to the entire set thus far, which is impressive. Either that or between books 3 and 4.

[Cotigo]

Judith Butler - Gender Trouble.

I'm not going to go into what is said in the book, interesting though it is.  I will instead say this.

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU WRITE A BOOK ABOUT GENDER AND SEXUALITY WHILE COMPLETELY IGNORING THE BIOLOGY BEHIND IT?  I mean holy FUCK.  I get why feminist theory tries to avoid the idea that Biology is the sole determiner of a person's disposition, but Jesus CHRIST.   How can you write a book full of ideas that presuppose that the mind--and thus all this psychological and developmental bullshit you're talking about--is some sort of entity wholly detached from the body?  Hell, even detached from the biological brain.  Human beings are not clean slates that can be influenced entirely by societal influences god damn it. 

Holy crap.  This is what pisses me off about most sociology, the complete refusal in some areas to acknowledge the part that Biology plays in development.  It's still a very interesting book with very interesting ideas but just holy crap asdfkl;ajsdf;alsjdfnnotarticulateenoughrightnowtofullyconveywhythisannoysmesomuchasdfahjkuliyffcc aathygjrgddfasdfsoyougetthisinsteada;sdkljfas;dlkfj

[Grefter]

Judith Butler has been around discussing it long enough that she has already covered biology behind it in another book.  Also in Sociology circles Gender is a social construct and a disposition, not a physical attribute.  Sex is when they are referring to male and female, masculine and feminine are seperate entities.

[Cotigo]

I was well aware of the latter; this does not mean that a discussion of gender that excludes sex entirely should not be criticized for that.  It's the same sort of semantics BS that makes it hard for me to take other detached-from-physical-world theories (thinking Sapir-Whorf hypothesis territory here) seriously.  At least at first, anyway, because the justification behind those types of theories only makes sense after reading into it more...  In any case, I guess I will have to read more Butler to see how she ties biology into her argument.  Should be interesting, even if it doesn't make me less skeptical.

[Grefter]

From memory in my Feminism units she fairly consistently came off as one of the level headed figures in the field.

One of the things I found helpful when going into stuff is that while you acknowledge that the biology plays a part in it, but remember that it shows up in scientific studies as an incredibly minor (if even significant) in most areas when studies are done on a purely biological standpoint and untainted from external bias.  You need to examine things from an entirely detached from the physical world because labelling, social constructs and all the big central themes that come up in Feminism tend to be things that are actually entirely detached from the physical world.  What is Feminine and what is Masculine is an entirely man made thing.

[Cotigo]

Hm, I suppose; I still find it hard to believe that biology doesn't play much of a role given how hormonal im/balances can effect various aspects of a person's personality, but then again I can't recall having read anything that examines how things like that extend to the construction of identity and so forth so you probably have a point.  I'd be tempted to bring up evolutionary biology and instincts into it, too, but the closest example I can think of that would relate is the Pit of Dispair/Monkey Torture experiment I came across which... doesn't support that argument at all.

Probably just one of those issues that will make more sense the more I read up on it.

[Grefter]

Yeah with regards to evolutionary biology, well what do you think is going to have a greater overall effect on a persons day to day life.  The Hunter Gatherer society with basic needs that needed to be met for survival or the last 6000 years of social norms we have built up since the dawn of civilization.  Edit - Not to say it wasn't an influence, it is the basis for a large part of the norms, but it is the norms holding us in place, not the biology behind it at this point.

Ultimately all Feminist rhetoric should boil down to is that even with minor differences between the sexes/genders none are large enough to disqualify anyone from having potential to do anything or performing at tasks at acceptable levels compared to others of the opposite sex/gender.  There could be some room for deconstructing the concept of gender and blurring the lines and whatnot but meh, it ultimately acheives little beyond loosening up Sexuality somewhat, when you have equality between the genders the need to do that is decreased a lot.

[Cotigo]

Ultimately all Feminist rhetoric should boil down to is that even with minor differences between the sexes/genders none are large enough to disqualify anyone from having potential to do anything or performing at tasks at acceptable levels compared to others of the opposite sex/gender.  There could be some room for deconstructing the concept of gender and blurring the lines and whatnot but meh, it ultimately acheives little beyond loosening up Sexuality somewhat, when you have equality between the genders the need to do that is decreased a lot.

Well, yeah, but as to the former... that doesn't mean that there AREN'T differences, which seems to be claimed in some theory and is mainly what I take issue with.  That's falling into the Moralistic fallacy (I think that's what it's called), that leads to the idea that just because we ought to treat everyone equally means that there aren't biological differences between us.  Though this fallacy is a fair deal better than its opposite it's still a faulty logic.  Still, biology might not play as much of a role I'm inclined to believe it does so yeah.

[Hunter Sopko]

Speaking of the subject, I think I'll mention an author that I've liked for a while. If anyone's heard of her/read her books, maybe you can chime in too.

Elizabeth Moon's been one of my favorite Sci-Fi authors for a while now. It's actually rather on the hard sci-fi side for the adventure type. Interesting stuff. The main characters are always women, and I would almost call it Feminist sci-fi except for one thing... the male characters are incredibly competent.

Hell, all the characters are, to a fault. You get the idea why, due to the demands of actually using a ship in outer space, especially in battle. Yet, they're flawed, make bad calls, etc. The pivotal characters on the good side are always women, and the villains are also balanced well between men and women so there isn't much RAR MEN ARE EVIL. I like to call it empowered sci-fi more than feminist sci-fi, since she's incredibly fair on both sexes, but it's easy to see the slant she's taking.

There are 6-7 books, which start with the Herris Serrano trilogy. All interwoven, a lot of cause and effect. The structure is very well done, as are the characters. Her writing really picks up after the third book, where she starts on a new main character. Recurring characters abound too, and there is more actual character development than you can shake a stick at. Characters are the right ages too! None of this 19 year old Captain stuff! Herris Serrano, the main character of the first trilogy, is a 40 year old Naval Captain. Esmay Suiza, the second main character after Herris' trilogy, is a 34 year old Naval Sergeant.

Oh, the books also teach you never to trust old women. But who would trust OK anyway?

[Cotigo]

Niu?

[Grefter]

Niu.

And sounds like a decent piece of Feminist literature.  Empowered is ~= Feminism again.

All signs point to there being some incredibly minor differences in the ways male and female brains can handle different tasks on average.  They are just that though, minor differences that are on average.  They ultimately mean little and most tests you run into that will show some large significant result in the difference between male and female performance in say different subjects in high school (Common classical thing being the different capabilities in females and males in Language and Spatial stuff) which is pretty much going to be so steeped in social norms it is nigh impossible to show a biological causal relationship.

That is the huge thing really.  The social norms are almost as impossible a variable to remove from an experiment as the sex is.  Although I suppose that could be an interesting experiment to see what kind of effect the gender that the subject identifies with has on test results on average.  I can imagine it now.  Thousands upon thousands of trannies doing spatial maths in the name of science.  Edit - Of course the lack of evidence doesn't disprove a biological effect, but I doubt there is some kind of "Not being in the kitchen making some pie" gene associated with the Y chromosome.

[Cotigo]

Well, part of what makes makes me inclined to think there is some biological process that affects our construction of gender norms is this:  For the innumerous, diverse societies that existed in the pre-globalized (and thus, I would imagine, before social mores and norms became nigh-universal in the first world) world, I don't think there are any maternalistic societies.  Now, I fully realize that this could be due to a number of reasons (the most likely of which is that because women are basically out of commission for at least 7 months for pregnancy, prehistoric tribes had to rely on men to fight off threats if a majority of women were pregnant, and that had an effect on the development of social norms and...

I think I just answered my own dillema; perhaps hunter-gatherer societies developed off of this basis so there WAS an initial biological basis for it but had nothing to do with hormonally or evolutionary influenced dispositions but instead just arose on the basis of how early tribes worked and now has no basis in the modern day because the majority of us aren't trying to scare off lions and tigers and bears to survive and pregnancy isn't nearly so much of a handicap as it was back then and run on sentences.

[Sierra]

Soppy: I've read a little Elizabeth Moon. One with Esmay Suiza, but it was many many years ago and damned if I can remember the name. There was some kind of judicial hearing early on and the main plot was about those berserker people trying to take over the ship.

Moon's M.O. seems to be military fiction, above all. From the book I read, there was a great emphasis on detailing the lifestyle and routine of people living and working in a military environment. I got the same impression from what little I read of The Deed of Paksennarion before getting bored of it. Granted, the fact that men and women go about their work together without anyone making an issue of it or even contemplating the possibility of innate differences in suitability conveys the ideal of respectable feminism far better than beating the reader with sermons ever could.

[Grefter]

Well, part of what makes makes me inclined to think there is some biological process that affects our construction of gender norms is this:  For the innumerous, diverse societies that existed in the pre-globalized (and thus, I would imagine, before social mores and norms became nigh-universal in the first world) world, I don't think there are any maternalistic societies.  Now, I fully realize that this could be due to a number of reasons (the most likely of which is that because women are basically out of commission for at least 7 months for pregnancy, prehistoric tribes had to rely on men to fight off threats if a majority of women were pregnant, and that had an effect on the development of social norms and...

I think I just answered my own dillema; perhaps hunter-gatherer societies developed off of this basis so there WAS an initial biological basis for it but had nothing to do with hormonally or evolutionary influenced dispositions but instead just arose on the basis of how early tribes worked and now has no basis in the modern day because the majority of us aren't trying to scare off lions and tigers and bears to survive and pregnancy isn't nearly so much of a handicap as it was back then and run on sentences.

Got it in one.

Granted, the fact that men and women go about their work together without anyone making an issue of it or even contemplating the possibility of innate differences in suitability conveys the ideal of respectable feminism far better than beating the reader with sermons ever could.

And again, like I have been saying for years whenever it comes up, this is what actual Feminism is about.  Society has developped a masochistic aversion to it the same way it has for Unionism.  OH MY GOD THERE IS THIS POSITIVE THING IN SOCIETY KILL IT.

[Idun]

Finished reading Henry Ossawa Tanner: American Artist by Marcia M. Mathews.

It's for my research paper; I'll open Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Spiritual Biography by Marcus Bruce. I could go on for ages about my commentary on the former book, but I'll save that for my professor.

[Hunter Sopko]

Soppy: I've read a little Elizabeth Moon. One with Esmay Suiza, but it was many many years ago and damned if I can remember the name. There was some kind of judicial hearing early on and the main plot was about those berserker people trying to take over the ship.

Moon's M.O. seems to be military fiction, above all. From the book I read, there was a great emphasis on detailing the lifestyle and routine of people living and working in a military environment. I got the same impression from what little I read of The Deed of Paksennarion before getting bored of it. Granted, the fact that men and women go about their work together without anyone making an issue of it or even contemplating the possibility of innate differences in suitability conveys the ideal of respectable feminism far better than beating the reader with sermons ever could.

Yeah, that was Once a Hero, the first book with Esmay Suiza as a main character. First one I read too. I really thought I'd understand the first part of the book much better after I read the book with the Xavier incident in it... it's not much, and Suiza is in maybe about a chapter. You understand why the Bloodhorde attack the ship though.