14 Comments to 'But What About the Jews?'
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But What About the Jews?
Posted By avi
Reading blogs like Lauren’s, one comes to realize how hard it is for certain segments of our society to make it in certain fields. Speculative fiction is certainly no exception, due to tradition, tastes, or perhaps a dose of autism lack of human affect in certain markets. And women aren’t the only minorities (well, they’re a majority, but who’s counting?) to be affected. I was recently forwarded an email about an award for writers who are Asian-American. Israel, I always point out, is in Asia. But it does no good. You see, I don’t *look* Asian.
The problem, being a male of Ashkenazi descent, is that it’s the hardest of all for us to break into entertainment, creative writing and whatnot. "Oh, poor Jew," you say. It’s too bad that 108% of the writers of the Daily Show are Jewish men, or that 212% of entertainers on TV are Jewish (even the ones who have goy names). Most American writers are Jews (see this list). Is Stephen King? Larry certainly is.
But that’s exactly the problem, I say. With the vast over-representation of talented Jews, how’s a poor new Jew to get a break? I mean, how many rejections have I received by sympathetic editors who admit, "it’s damn good, but the fact is we have too many good male Jews in the business already. You’ll have to wait." (well, none, but don’t let that spoil a good story…). If the "Lake Woebegone" rule is in effect (see Google hiring practices), then that means I have to be better than the average of all male Jews in the business already. That’s just too hard.
I guess what I’m saying is that there’s only one way to solve the problem. We can’t do it by offering special awards to attract minorities to a given field. We can’t do it by having everyone send in their stories on a certain day, say Yom Kippur for the Jews (let’s see someone write a rejection then!), or not sending stories at all, thereby forcing markets to cater even more strongly to the niche.
No, the only way to be fair to everyone is true round-robin. Editors should pick stories in a fixed order, regardless of the gender, race, ethnicity, or audience. I call it, the Santa Claus rule. You can only exclude someone for being naughty, except in erotica, where it’s preferred.
So let’s go alphabetically, from house to house. We can start with the letter A…
Jun 23rd, 2006
What exactly do you mean when you say: “Speculative fiction is certainly no exception, due to tradition, tastes, or perhaps a dose of autism in certain markets.”
Well, I’m being a bit tongue-in-cheek, of course. I’d figured ‘Aspergers’ would have been more accurate than ‘Autism,’ but I wasn’t sure everyone would know what it is.
The key is that there are markets for science fiction that publish stories with a notable lack of human affect. Sometimes it’s intentional, for effect. But it often seems that what matters to those markets is just the science content, the "cool idea," whereas most of literature concerns itself with the broader human drama. Sometimes sex is used as a surrogate for interpersonal connections. Sometimes characters simply act like robots.
In the context of Lauren’s post, this, I think, is what turns mainstream readers off to SF. Not that all SF is necessarily like that by any means. Stuff like Lauren writes or I write tries to push the other way, while still being true to SF roots (I hope).
“The key is that there are markets for science fiction that publish stories with a notable lack of human affect. But it often seems that what matters to those markets is just the science content, the “cool idea,” whereas most of literature concerns itself with the broader human drama.”
I understand what you are trying to say. However, as an autistic person myself and as a parent of an autistic child, I notice that this use of autism as an adjective out of context is a little bit disturbing (and it seems to be a trend in the media as well) because it tends to objectify the person who happens to have autism. Sort of like the phrase “He/she jewed me”. You know what I mean?
Let’s take Star Trek or Star Wars as examples. Both series were full of human drama. You know who attends conferences on these series? A heck of a lot of people with HFA and Asperger’s. Your analogy (and others) is false and tends to perpetrate very uninformed myths about the neurological manifestation of autism.
Well, I’ve been to some of those conferences. I actually think it’s an over-generalization to say that so many people there have HFA or Asperger’s, more than in, say, the average science lab or even on the street of a major city. Some conference goers are just eccentric or shy. But people at these conferences, IMO, are also more likely to express their personalities, strange or otherwise, than on the street or in a science lab. And let’s face it, people are strange and very few of us have the interpersonal skills of a politician or actor (I certainly don’t).
So I don’t think liking Star Trek proves anything either way. I’m loathe to single out any one author or story for an example, but I’ll admit that some of my favorites, Asimov and Clarke, while master storytellers with epics full of fun and drama, had a notable lack of deep emotional connection among their characters, little character description at all, let alone subtle multi-level dialog. In fact, the character I felt most strongly in Clarke’s Robot novels was, of course, the robot, who had no human emotion. It’s not uncommon (though not at all a prerequisite) for Hard SF (which Star Trek and Star Wars are not) to lack subtle emotional interplay between characters, which is fine, because as a teenager, I might not have caught much of it anyway.
But for clarity of the symptoms of Autism (though it’s a broad class of developmental disorders), I turn to some Autism advocacy websites, such as http://www.cureautismnow.org and note that a reasonable condensation of several of the symptoms listed would be issues with "affect."
That said, I’m not blind to the fact that I’ve offended you by using "Autistic" as an over-generalization, an adjective, and a place-holder for a common idea, which I did. I do know what you mean about the "jewed" comment, and though I think the differences between these use cases are real and substantial, I won’t argue the point. So my answer to you is: fair enough. I’m happy to use "lacking affect" in place of Autistic from now on. I’ll leave the old version in strikeout to make the change clear.
Thanks Avi for your comments. One additional comment and a point of enlightenment to a world you may not know exists out there. Organizations such as Cure Autism Now is responsible for perpetuating the stereotypes of autistics and look to eliminate them through genetic research. I would direct you to a few “Pro-Autistic” websites written by autistics and parents of autistics:
http://www.neurodiversity.com/main.html
http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/
http://autismdiva.blogspot.com/2005/08/kanner-autism-102.html
And below is a blog by a woman with severe Kanner Autism (the most severe form of the spectrum)
http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/
Lastly, here is the Adult Autistic Picture Project website with pictures of Autistics and brief bio’s about themselves. I think you’ll find a lot of SF fans.
” Some conference goers are just eccentric or shy.”
By the way, high functioning autistics like myself are often characterized as eccentric. We don’t mind being called eccentric, because we are.
However, what I was trying to get across is that using autism as an adjective to describe the lack of human drama in hardcore SF is actually inaccurate if the point of using it was to equate autism with the lack of empathy, or the lack of a human “connectedness” or interest in the “human drama”.
Cure Autism Now is referencing the DSM-IV (the psychiatric bible of established criteria for diagnosing disorders). Cure Autism Now is all about eliminating us (autistics) as people so to us it is like quoting Mein Kampf. None of these organizations have autistics on their boards, nor do they consult with adult autistics. They are about eliminating us and “scaring for dollars”. Some of the others are Autism Speaks, National Autism Association and others.
I know all of this doesn’t have anything to do with what your blog is about and I’m sorry to be monopolizing your comments area with a subject off topic. However, I like to spread the message to people whenever the subject arises. Especially to someone who seems open minded like yourself.
By the way, a great documentary called “Normal People Scare Me” might enlighten you with exactly what I mean when I say “lacking affect” has no business either in describing autistics, which the Cure Autism Now folks like to use. The documentary is produced by Taylor Cross, a 17 year old with HFA. He interviews about a dozen people all along the spectrum, some of whom could pass for neurotypical, like myself.
Well, Alexander’s Daddy, I can sympathize with you wanting to be accepted as you are and wanting to avoid labels and generalizations.
As for characterizing people who do research to cure autism as wanting to "eliminate you" and comparing such work to Hitler, that’s way over the top. Unless you can show me that these groups want to kill even a single person with autism or somehow force sterilization, steal property, impose slave labor and indefinite imprisonment, you’re frankly talking out your ass.
There is no reasonable comparison to Nazi atrocities. So your frequent references to anti-semitism and Hitler just don’t fly. I don’t know of anyone wants to kill, let alone hates, people with autism — the worst I’ve ever heard of is someone either not understanding the disorder, or genuinely wanting people with autism to be more like everyone else. You may think that’s wrong or misguided, but it’s certainly not malicious.
If there comes a day when there is a therapy that could "cure" autism in an already developed person and you choose to not accept that cure, I’d stand by your decision as a consenting adult. But to condemn people who are working to help those parents and children who do want a cure, I ask you who is trying to impose their world view on whom? At the very least, scientists should understand what causes autism and how it works as part of understanding the entire human condition.
I don’t really mind that you came to my site via a search for anyone daring to use the word "autistic" in a blog. If you want to be the HFA superhero, righting the wrongs of bad perception, by all means. But there’s no way in hell I’m going to let stand the notion that science should just do nothing, or that people who feel they have a disorder should just accept it if it causes them pain. I mean, we already have pro-anorexia groups, and I’ve seen up close the kind of damage that disorder brings. I’m no fan of big pharma or many aspects of modern medicine, but your brand of fundamentalism is not going to fly with me.
I’m sorry I made you angry, I hope the following below can help you understand what I am talking about…
[Important Editorial Note: to see Alexander's full comment, click here
I would post Alexander's Daddy's full comment, but it runs over 2700 words and I feel it is inflammatory (not to me, but to others) and largely off point. He gives me a half-dozen anecdotal examples of mothers killing their autistic children as evidence that these groups (e.g., Cure Autism Now, doctors and scientists) want to kill autistics.
He goes on to make some lengthy points about IVF and child-selection. Well, if you believe that all abortion is murder, then sex-selection or any other kind of designer baby using fertilized embryos is certainly also murder. But the fact that individual parents might want to select out autistic children still does not rise to the level of a plot by these groups, except to the extent they might or might not advocate for parent's rights to make that choice, which is part of a much larger movement with much larger issues, loosely called "Pro Choice."
The one point he makes that I will concede is that some mental institutions (perhaps even now) have treated many forms of mental illness with disregard to the humanity of the patient and best medical and scientific practice. People have been institutionalized and given crackpot "cures." So forced imprisonment, on some sense, does exist. But this is hardly unique or focused on Autism. The same can be said of Depression, Schizophrenia, Anorexia, and various forms of severe mental disability, which I think "AD" may be lumping in with Autism. The fact that scientists do study Autism today only goes to counter the past mistakes with false cures and will hopefully lead to an option for individual parents that is far better than the ones above.
"AD" then goes on to describe the atrocities of Hitler again to focus specifically on the persecution of people with autism by Nazis, which also does not bolster his case in proving that the current groups of scientists and concerned parents that want to cure autism are doing anything like Hitler. The link is callous and defamatory.
So I'll say this to wrap up. AD, if you want to post all of your extraneous information, feel free to do so on your own website. I'll even host a link to it if people want to judge for themselves. But you're now spamming my comments and enough's enough. ]
Thanks Avi. I don’t agree with your characterization, but I appreciate the opportunity to speak on your blog and I’m grateful you took the time to investigate some of what I am talking about. Perhaps if I can open some eyes and hearts, we can stop the abuse.
Take care.
Thanks Avi and Alexander’s Daddy for the fascinating discussion of Autism. Instead of working, I’ve spent all morning trolling through the websites Alexander’s Daddy highlighted. Brilliant, enlightening stuff.
I think, Avi, you’re probably right that people should have the choice to “cure” autism if and when a cure becomes possible, but I don’t think we should lose sight of the fact that the choice comes with some fairly unpleasant baggage. By way of comparison, it’s fairly well-known in the African American community that the darker one’s skin the lower one’s prospects. Very dark skinned people certainly have the freedom to “choose” to lighten their skin in order to increase their acceptability in white-dominated society. But would we applaud the trend? I know I don’t. Every time a black celebrity, like Beyonce Knowles, appears in print with her face lightened (whether by bleach, make up, or photoshop) it makes me cringe. On the other hand, who am I to tell Beyonce, or any one else for that matter, that they should limit their horizons for the sake of advancing the prospects of their race.
Choice? Yes, I support it. But understanding and tolerance of difference is just as important.
Lauren, for me, even the IVF sex-selection stuff is morally questionable. And I agree that anytime a person radically changes themselves, it raises concerns. As a question of rights, it’s easy — anyone of sound mind and consenting age should have the right to change themselves as they decide, as long as they know the facts and they’re not hurting anyone. Gray areas come in when "sound mind" begins to wane, as may be the case for a certain bleached-white pop star, or when harm gets very vague. But I have to trust the individual, as I would in choices of fertility where I might also have concerns.
What "AD" was arguing for, from my understanding, was beyond mere acceptance of the case where someone doesn’t want to be forced or even encouraged to cure the autism. He was attacking the very people who want to offer parents and adults with autism their freedom of choice. That said, since we don’t yet have a cure (or even a cause), we do need to accept people as they are and not demonize. The two ideas (acceptance and working for a cure) aren’t incompatible in my mind.
Afterthought: I’m also going to be a little critical of your analogy, Lauren. While I’d agree that people with autism can be and often are indistinguishable from "neuro-typicals" in any way that counts, raising an autistic child may be a challenge many parents aren’t equipped to handle. Being an autstic adult may also pose far greater challenges than being both "black" and "blacker." If overcoming racism is as simple as bleaching one’s skin, then perhaps the analogy is fair. But bleaching one’s skin, to me, is the equivalent of putitng a sign around the neck of an autistic person that says "I’m not autistic." If anything, it can draw more attention than it diverts. And I’m sure Michael Jackson would agree that he’s still the subject of racism.
Avi: AD’s invocation of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” in reference to those who are seeking to cure autism was certainly “over the top” as you said in your excellent reply. We must never be silent when Nazi atrocities are trivialized by false comparisons.
The terms “Nazi” and “fascist” and Holocaust analogies should be reserved for those who, like Hitler and Mussolini (and perhaps Stalin and a few others) who *actually* round up and kill millions of innocents because of their religion or race.
Several years ago, when Rush Limbaugh used the term “feminazis” to describe extreme feminists I sent him a few critical emails. When he continued to use that epithet, I cancelled my subscription to his newsletter and stopped listening to his radio program.
The only exception I make is for the “Soup Nazi” episode on “Seinfeld”. Somehow I can’t get angry with Larry David no matter what he writes or which misguided political causes he and his wife support. I guess when someone is that brilliant at comedy and satire you just have to cut him some slack.
Yeah, I only have an issue when Nazi is used as a point of rhetoric, not humor, and only when it’s a false point. Mel Brooks is off the hook too.
OTOH, I have used the term Fascist in a general sense in rhetoric. I don’t have as much problem with it because Fascism has come to mean a whole group of authoritarian tendencies.
I’m glad you realized Rush was an idiot on at least one issue. That’s a start.
There you go again - trivializing the word “idiot”. An idiot is a person of subnormal intelligence. I think you are intelligent enough to accept that other intelligent people may differ with you on political and moral issues. Rush may be many negative things, but his intellect is certainly not subnormal. Also, he is bound to get some “hard time” due to his recent Viagra prescription :^)
For comments on Autism, please jump to the following new blog post: The Right and The Responsibility