Have you ever put a book down because the main character was being stupid? I have - more than once. It's the sort of thing where I am going along, and then I see the main character make some decision that will bring on a lot of trouble, and I don't understand why he/she is doing it, and I can't put together any kind of mental logic for the character that will cause it to make sense. If it's the first time the character has done this, I won't throw the book across the room. But if it's too important to the plot, or if I've seen it happen more than once, I will. At very least, I'll set the thing down, at the risk of never picking it back up again.
So what is it that gives me this reaction? Well, I'll tell you now, it's not just characters with a low level of intelligence. I have been thinking about this for a while, and despite the fact that I enjoy intellectually sharp characters, I don't require them to continue reading. At one point I even asked myself in adversarial fashion, "What, Juliette, are you really looking for characters who are exactly at your level of intelligence and can't make mistakes?"
I'm not. What I'm looking for is a character whose level of intelligence I can predict reliably.
I'm okay with characters who have knowledge I don't have. Particle physicists are allowed to be particle physicists. But I do expect their mental resources to coexist with a predictable level of general common sense, and for those mental resources to be affected by the physical stresses of their surroundings. If a woman who has studied for years in a magic school suddenly makes a stupid beginner mistake with her magic, I would really like to know why. Does she have a knife in her leg? That could be a good reason. Has she been startled? That's possible. If she's sitting in a place of calm, though, and I can't see any reason for the mistake, I'm going to be skeptical.
I recently read Watership Down by Richard Adams. It's a story about rabbits - real rabbits. And one of the things that I find wonderful and brilliant about it is that the rabbits are not hyper-intelligent. They think things through the way rabbits think things through. Only one of them comes up with really innovative ideas, like having a couple of the smaller, weaker members float across a brook on a piece of board. The others are not capable of this, and in fact can't comprehend it even when they see it happening. A quote: "Frith and Inlé, they're sitting on the water! Why don't they sink?"
This is not frustrating. It is delightful.
One of the things I enjoy most when I'm writing is to make characters whose reactions wouldn't be what we'd predict from our own experience, but which make complete sense within their own worldviews and levels of intelligence. For example, my servant caste character, Aloran, is highly trained and believes firmly in the vocation of service, which is to say that he believes in selflessness and in putting his mistress' concerns before his own. He and his mistress have a number of interactions where she shows consideration for him - and though he's grateful for her consideration, he also thinks that it is at times inappropriate, as when she puts herself in danger of reprisal for defending him. In the situation, he internally urges her to stand her ground against her abusive husband. However, when the interaction is over he realizes that her bravery is going to have horrible consequences - and he bows to her and says, "I beg you, please don't consider me again." It isn't what we'd do, it's what he would do - and because we know him, we can see that it is what he would do.
To my mind, this is one of the most important things you can do for a story - actually think through your characters' level of intelligence, their experience, their knowledge, and their motivations. If your character is well-grounded, you can get away with all kinds of things. The unexpected isn't frustrating, it's delightful - because you've done the work to make sure that it grows naturally out of your character's established mentality and their character. In fact, this is more important than the needs of the plot. If the plot needs something and your character isn't providing it naturally, don't force him/her. Go back and change the character so that person will provide it naturally. Give that person higher intelligence. Or if necessary, lower intelligence. Or change circumstances so an intelligent person is under enormous stress. Make sure that the character's actions fit with his/her backstory and general attitudes, or at very least show us the reasoning that makes this particular decision understandable.
It's something to think about.
#SFWApro
Monday, June 24, 2013
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Why your world needs History (and probably already has it)
I have a secret way to learn history.
History is important - maybe your history teacher told you that when you were back in school, learning lists of dates and names and wondering "Why, oh why, am I doing this???" When I was learning history in school, I was motivated by my desire to do well and to know what I needed to know. But there was another way I learned history. I learned it by going places.
I went to France. I saw old stones, old cathedrals. I went to a museum about lacemaking that forever changed the way I see those dresses that the pre-Revolution nobility used to wear. They were wearing months and years of women's whole lives.
I went to Washington, D.C. I looked at the Capitol, and the monuments, and saw what this nation considers important. I went to Mount Vernon and discovered how George Washington lived, and also how his whole lifestyle depended on the work of slaves.
I know I'm lucky to have visited these places. Not everyone has opportunities like this. But doing this has given me an idea about History that I never got in school.
History is present all around us, right now.
When I'm in France, or on the East Coast of the US, I can feel the depth of history around me in the buildings that preserve those old times. I can see buildings that have housed family after family for hundreds of years. When I'm in California I see less of it, but there's still some there. The Missions are there. Even more enduring than the buildings, though, are the names. Malibu, from Ventureño, for example. Or Aptos, the town right near where I grew up. The names give evidence of the deeper history that wars, cultural assimilation and "progress" sensibilities have tried to erase. And if you look closer, and escape the beaten path, you can find a lot more than you bargain for. Like the Welsh cemetery at Black Diamond Mine, or the Chinese town of Locke on the Sacramento River delta.
The worlds you create need to wear their own history.
How old are the oldest buildings you see? How old are the newest? There's a reason why Hiccup in How to Train Your Dragon tells us that the village is old but all the buildings are new. It tells us something vital about the place. Did all the building happen during one short period of time, or is it ongoing? Do old buildings have value? Are they preserved (Japanese Buddhist temples for example), rebuilt in the same form (Shinto shrines, e.g.), or razed and replaced with something else?
What kinds of names do the places have here? Was there an ancient history of people who spoke other languages? Do we see a dead language (like Latin) underlying things, or the language of a displaced people (like Aztecs)?
What conflicts have there been in these people's history? Were there wars and revolutions that changed everyone's lives? How did those changes happen? Are there still traces of the conflict remaining in old traditional enmities, or cultural differences between different areas (like how the Civil War's footprints remain in the Northern and Southern states)?
One of the things I always liked about Middle Earth was the way Tolkien left ruins around, deliberately, not just "Oh, look, here are some picturesque ruins!" but the kind of ruins that gave you a sense that there was a previous history to this land. A long history, that if you wanted to, you could find and track.
If you plant historical things, put them there for a reason. Multiple layers is fine, but inconsistency is not.
Also, build history into your cultures. History builds some groups of people up, and it casts some down, but even those who lose a lot don't lose everything. Here's an example to give you a sense of what I mean. When I was creating the Varin caste system, I knew that the system itself had been created around 400 years before story time, and the previous history erased maybe 70 years after that. But I also knew that there were some groups whose solidarity existed before the caste system was overlaid upon them. One of those groups was the personal servants to royalty, who became the personal servants to nobility when the noble caste was created. The symbol of their identity endured across that change, but took a different form, going from a mark on the clothing to a mark on the person (tattoo). The idea of secrecy was core to their identity for much longer than 400 years, and it affects everything about the way they think, speak, and behave. The other group was the one who became the undercaste. Part of the reason (though not all) why they were cast down was because they had a different religion from the rest of the population. The trappings of their previous status were erased, but their religion endured, along with its imagery, its beliefs, and its sense of tight solidarity. Ask a random Varini on the street what fire makes them think of, and they will say "teeth" or "punishment" (or possibly "the surface"). Ask an undercaste member, and they will say "paradise."
If you don't plan your history, it may plan itself for you. Your subconscious will often layer an idea of a community's history into its depiction without you even realizing it. It's worth taking a deliberate look at a certain point in the process, to make sure that you haven't inadvertently layered in an inconsistent history, or worse, an unwanted piece of Earth history.
It's something to think about.
#SFWApro
History is important - maybe your history teacher told you that when you were back in school, learning lists of dates and names and wondering "Why, oh why, am I doing this???" When I was learning history in school, I was motivated by my desire to do well and to know what I needed to know. But there was another way I learned history. I learned it by going places.
I went to France. I saw old stones, old cathedrals. I went to a museum about lacemaking that forever changed the way I see those dresses that the pre-Revolution nobility used to wear. They were wearing months and years of women's whole lives.
I went to Washington, D.C. I looked at the Capitol, and the monuments, and saw what this nation considers important. I went to Mount Vernon and discovered how George Washington lived, and also how his whole lifestyle depended on the work of slaves.
I know I'm lucky to have visited these places. Not everyone has opportunities like this. But doing this has given me an idea about History that I never got in school.
History is present all around us, right now.
When I'm in France, or on the East Coast of the US, I can feel the depth of history around me in the buildings that preserve those old times. I can see buildings that have housed family after family for hundreds of years. When I'm in California I see less of it, but there's still some there. The Missions are there. Even more enduring than the buildings, though, are the names. Malibu, from Ventureño, for example. Or Aptos, the town right near where I grew up. The names give evidence of the deeper history that wars, cultural assimilation and "progress" sensibilities have tried to erase. And if you look closer, and escape the beaten path, you can find a lot more than you bargain for. Like the Welsh cemetery at Black Diamond Mine, or the Chinese town of Locke on the Sacramento River delta.
The worlds you create need to wear their own history.
How old are the oldest buildings you see? How old are the newest? There's a reason why Hiccup in How to Train Your Dragon tells us that the village is old but all the buildings are new. It tells us something vital about the place. Did all the building happen during one short period of time, or is it ongoing? Do old buildings have value? Are they preserved (Japanese Buddhist temples for example), rebuilt in the same form (Shinto shrines, e.g.), or razed and replaced with something else?
What kinds of names do the places have here? Was there an ancient history of people who spoke other languages? Do we see a dead language (like Latin) underlying things, or the language of a displaced people (like Aztecs)?
What conflicts have there been in these people's history? Were there wars and revolutions that changed everyone's lives? How did those changes happen? Are there still traces of the conflict remaining in old traditional enmities, or cultural differences between different areas (like how the Civil War's footprints remain in the Northern and Southern states)?
One of the things I always liked about Middle Earth was the way Tolkien left ruins around, deliberately, not just "Oh, look, here are some picturesque ruins!" but the kind of ruins that gave you a sense that there was a previous history to this land. A long history, that if you wanted to, you could find and track.
If you plant historical things, put them there for a reason. Multiple layers is fine, but inconsistency is not.
Also, build history into your cultures. History builds some groups of people up, and it casts some down, but even those who lose a lot don't lose everything. Here's an example to give you a sense of what I mean. When I was creating the Varin caste system, I knew that the system itself had been created around 400 years before story time, and the previous history erased maybe 70 years after that. But I also knew that there were some groups whose solidarity existed before the caste system was overlaid upon them. One of those groups was the personal servants to royalty, who became the personal servants to nobility when the noble caste was created. The symbol of their identity endured across that change, but took a different form, going from a mark on the clothing to a mark on the person (tattoo). The idea of secrecy was core to their identity for much longer than 400 years, and it affects everything about the way they think, speak, and behave. The other group was the one who became the undercaste. Part of the reason (though not all) why they were cast down was because they had a different religion from the rest of the population. The trappings of their previous status were erased, but their religion endured, along with its imagery, its beliefs, and its sense of tight solidarity. Ask a random Varini on the street what fire makes them think of, and they will say "teeth" or "punishment" (or possibly "the surface"). Ask an undercaste member, and they will say "paradise."
If you don't plan your history, it may plan itself for you. Your subconscious will often layer an idea of a community's history into its depiction without you even realizing it. It's worth taking a deliberate look at a certain point in the process, to make sure that you haven't inadvertently layered in an inconsistent history, or worse, an unwanted piece of Earth history.
It's something to think about.
#SFWApro
Worldbuilding Hangout Update - August schedule
Summer is upon us!
As is usual for me in summer, I am traveling a lot and have my kids home from school, which means that for the next several weeks I won't be in good shape to hold my usual worldbuilding hangouts.
However.
After more than a year of holding the hangouts in slapdash, unofficial manner, I have decided to try making them more Official. Starting with August, I shall be posting a list of the month's hangout topics in advance, so that people can anticipate them and (perhaps) be able to plan to attend.
Here are the planned hangout topics for August 2013:
August 8th: Pets
August 15th: Religion Part 2
August 22nd: No hangout
August 29th: Schools and Education
All hangouts happen on Google+, on Thursdays at 11:00am Pacific Time. I look forward to resuming them and talking with you, because I love all the ideas we have together!
If you have topic suggestions, feel free to suggest them in the comments and I will try to fit them into my schedule for September.
I look forward to talking with you again soon!
As is usual for me in summer, I am traveling a lot and have my kids home from school, which means that for the next several weeks I won't be in good shape to hold my usual worldbuilding hangouts.
However.
After more than a year of holding the hangouts in slapdash, unofficial manner, I have decided to try making them more Official. Starting with August, I shall be posting a list of the month's hangout topics in advance, so that people can anticipate them and (perhaps) be able to plan to attend.
Here are the planned hangout topics for August 2013:
August 8th: Pets
August 15th: Religion Part 2
August 22nd: No hangout
August 29th: Schools and Education
All hangouts happen on Google+, on Thursdays at 11:00am Pacific Time. I look forward to resuming them and talking with you, because I love all the ideas we have together!
If you have topic suggestions, feel free to suggest them in the comments and I will try to fit them into my schedule for September.
I look forward to talking with you again soon!
Monday, June 17, 2013
TTYU Retro: "Hook the reader with your opening," they say - but precisely whom are you hooking?
We all know that choosing the right entry point to a story can be difficult. Where to start? How can we begin in a place that is so compelling that readers won't be able to put the story down until they're into it?
No doubt you've heard people tell you about starting with tension, starting with action (but not necessarily physical action), picking an event that leads directly or indirectly into the main conflict (I've written about this myself!).
Today I'd like to suggest that you think about something else: your audience.
If you think about it, there are a lot of possible hooks you could use. A lot of jumping-in points where you might be able to balance the back-story against the front-story. You'll want to pick a place that appeals to the audience you have in mind. By this I mean specifically the audience appropriate for your genre.
It's a question of setting your reader's expectations. As your reader takes on the opening of your book, you want her, or him, to be given a good sense of what kind of book she or he will be reading. Are you writing a fantasy book that has magic in it? Then including that magic somewhere in your opening is going to be valuable. Are you writing a book that has science fictional technology or exploration going on in it? Include that, or at least reference it. Is it an erotica book? You might want to make sure people get that idea.
When I write it out like this, it seems terribly straightforward, but really it's something to look out for. Think about it this way: one of the most important things that editors will be trying to decide about a book they're considering is which market they'll be trying to sell it to. If they can't decide, that makes it much less likely that they'll decide to purchase the book. If they start the book expecting one thing, and then discover another, that can't help.
What if your protagonist gets caught having sex with someone they're not supposed to, and that ends up a primary basis for character motivation - but your story is not primarily about sex or sexual issues? In that case, you probably shouldn't open with the single instance of in flagrante, because readers will expect the sex focus to continue, and will do one of two things: either put the book down (bad), or read on and be disappointed (also bad). Keeping the character's shame more of a mystery to be discovered by the reader will allow you as an author to keep the focus where it needs to be (on the opening of the main conflict) and keep people curious, but not mislead them as to the kind of story they will be reading.
Of course, I don't intend to say that a book will not be able to appeal to people across genres. That's not the point. I'm talking about the question of core audience, and about not misleading your readers. It was brought to my attention while I was revising For Love, For Power that the opening might - might! - feel a little like YA. The book is not YA, however. As I went through critique and revisions, I kept on the lookout for cues that might indicate the book is YA. Things like the age of the protagonist (17) are unavoidable. But were other things I could do to refine my focus at the start and set expectations most appropriately.
Who do you imagine will read your book? What do you think would appeal to them the most? What kind of opening would hook them - and hook them in a way that will successfully transition them into the full story you have in mind?
It's something to think about.
#SFWApro
No doubt you've heard people tell you about starting with tension, starting with action (but not necessarily physical action), picking an event that leads directly or indirectly into the main conflict (I've written about this myself!).
Today I'd like to suggest that you think about something else: your audience.
If you think about it, there are a lot of possible hooks you could use. A lot of jumping-in points where you might be able to balance the back-story against the front-story. You'll want to pick a place that appeals to the audience you have in mind. By this I mean specifically the audience appropriate for your genre.
It's a question of setting your reader's expectations. As your reader takes on the opening of your book, you want her, or him, to be given a good sense of what kind of book she or he will be reading. Are you writing a fantasy book that has magic in it? Then including that magic somewhere in your opening is going to be valuable. Are you writing a book that has science fictional technology or exploration going on in it? Include that, or at least reference it. Is it an erotica book? You might want to make sure people get that idea.
When I write it out like this, it seems terribly straightforward, but really it's something to look out for. Think about it this way: one of the most important things that editors will be trying to decide about a book they're considering is which market they'll be trying to sell it to. If they can't decide, that makes it much less likely that they'll decide to purchase the book. If they start the book expecting one thing, and then discover another, that can't help.
What if your protagonist gets caught having sex with someone they're not supposed to, and that ends up a primary basis for character motivation - but your story is not primarily about sex or sexual issues? In that case, you probably shouldn't open with the single instance of in flagrante, because readers will expect the sex focus to continue, and will do one of two things: either put the book down (bad), or read on and be disappointed (also bad). Keeping the character's shame more of a mystery to be discovered by the reader will allow you as an author to keep the focus where it needs to be (on the opening of the main conflict) and keep people curious, but not mislead them as to the kind of story they will be reading.
Of course, I don't intend to say that a book will not be able to appeal to people across genres. That's not the point. I'm talking about the question of core audience, and about not misleading your readers. It was brought to my attention while I was revising For Love, For Power that the opening might - might! - feel a little like YA. The book is not YA, however. As I went through critique and revisions, I kept on the lookout for cues that might indicate the book is YA. Things like the age of the protagonist (17) are unavoidable. But were other things I could do to refine my focus at the start and set expectations most appropriately.
Who do you imagine will read your book? What do you think would appeal to them the most? What kind of opening would hook them - and hook them in a way that will successfully transition them into the full story you have in mind?
It's something to think about.
#SFWApro
Thursday, June 13, 2013
A time for Action
So, something happened today in the land of SFWA. It involved hate speech. If you want to know exactly what it was, here is the article that brought it to my attention:
http://amalelmohtar.com/2013/06/13/calling-for-the-expulsion-of-theodore-beale-from-sfwa/
If you are not a member of SFWA, and you don't want to be exposed to some really nasty racist and misogynist vitriol, don't click through.
We've been talking in the SFWA community about how it's time to leave the biases of the past behind, and call out those who are still hateful. But in this case, I think Amal is right. It's time for action.
Why? Because this man hasn't just been hateful and threatening. With one little hashtag at the end of his post, he deliberately assumed the mantle of the SFWA organization and transmitted poison in our name. Not only that, but he is a person who clearly revels in public shaming as long as he's getting the attention he wants.
I spent two days this week writing a post about how careful we should be not to assume the mantle of authority when we ask people to listen to our arguments - so I could encourage people to think, and to realize how easy this is to do accidentally. Today's example is an excellent demonstration of the old, classically racist, misogynistic and hateful form of that phenomenon, and one of the reasons why we should be working so hard to expunge even its accidental echoes from our own speech. Membership in a powerful group, be it a voluntary one like SFWA or an accidental one like a racial or sexual preference group, allows a person to claim to speak for that group.
If you are a member of SFWA, please read Amal's post. And this, from Carrie Cuinn. And this, from Jamie Todd Rubin. And follow it up with a visit to John Scalzi's Whatever, where he is matching donations to the Carl Brandon Society.
This man has abused the terms of his membership, not just the sensibilities of his fellows. He won't be deprived of a voice (he has his own blog, which I will not link to here); he just won't be able to claim to speak with our voice.
SFWA is about the future. Time to leave the past behind.
http://amalelmohtar.com/2013/06/13/calling-for-the-expulsion-of-theodore-beale-from-sfwa/
If you are not a member of SFWA, and you don't want to be exposed to some really nasty racist and misogynist vitriol, don't click through.
We've been talking in the SFWA community about how it's time to leave the biases of the past behind, and call out those who are still hateful. But in this case, I think Amal is right. It's time for action.
Why? Because this man hasn't just been hateful and threatening. With one little hashtag at the end of his post, he deliberately assumed the mantle of the SFWA organization and transmitted poison in our name. Not only that, but he is a person who clearly revels in public shaming as long as he's getting the attention he wants.
I spent two days this week writing a post about how careful we should be not to assume the mantle of authority when we ask people to listen to our arguments - so I could encourage people to think, and to realize how easy this is to do accidentally. Today's example is an excellent demonstration of the old, classically racist, misogynistic and hateful form of that phenomenon, and one of the reasons why we should be working so hard to expunge even its accidental echoes from our own speech. Membership in a powerful group, be it a voluntary one like SFWA or an accidental one like a racial or sexual preference group, allows a person to claim to speak for that group.
If you are a member of SFWA, please read Amal's post. And this, from Carrie Cuinn. And this, from Jamie Todd Rubin. And follow it up with a visit to John Scalzi's Whatever, where he is matching donations to the Carl Brandon Society.
This man has abused the terms of his membership, not just the sensibilities of his fellows. He won't be deprived of a voice (he has his own blog, which I will not link to here); he just won't be able to claim to speak with our voice.
SFWA is about the future. Time to leave the past behind.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
When they ask you to listen - a post about parents, children, and privilege
Did your parents ever tell you to listen?
When they did that, did it mean "hear me," or "understand me," or "obey me"?
In my memories of childhood, I have been asked to listen a lot of times. Sometimes it has only meant "hear me." Sometimes it has meant "understand me." And yes, often it has meant "obey me." I hear myself using the same expression with my kids, and I am constantly asking myself if I should be doing things differently. But still, my job as parent is to establish the rules for appropriate behavior.* Why do I have to do this? Because I want to have a kind of peace in my house, and I want to prepare my kids to behave appropriately* in situations outside the home.
*Appropriate behavior is culturally defined.
Actually, that's not a footnote. Appropriate behavior is culturally defined. It differs from one family to another, and from one cultural group to another, and from one country to another.
But let's remember the listening, for a second. When a parent tells a child to listen, do they give reasons why listening is the right thing to do? What kind?
1. Listen to me because I'm your mom/dad and I say so.
2. Listen to me because I'm telling you what the world is like and there will be consequences outside the home if you don't.
3. Listen to me because we are family and you should be sensitive to my needs as I should be to yours.
I use all three of these, but I hate to use number one. Number one is a power move. Do you recognize it from your own experience? How did you feel about it when you heard it? I really don't know anybody who likes number one.
I'm not that big a fan of number two either. Whenever I use number two, I find myself apologizing for the world. Something like this: I hate to say this, kids, but the world isn't fair sometimes, and so you should be aware of that.
I prefer to take a more number-three-like approach to the world, and say things like "Kids, you should know what swear words are, but you should also know that people in the world can be very upset by the sound of them, even if they aren't the targets, and bad things could happen. So please don't get in the habit."
My point here is that in the third situation, persuasion relies on evoking solidarity with a person rather than with exercising power over that person.
Now I'm going to look at this as a metaphor for privilege. You must know one thing first, however: I'm absolutely not trying to suggest that oppressed minorities are children. (If it comes to that, I believe that children themselves are human beings who should be listened to and respected.) I'm going to be putting persons of privilege into both the parent and child positions, because I believe we can learn something from the metaphorical comparison.
A parent is the representative of a larger culture. Parents are constantly saying, "this is what this means," "this is how we behave in X situation," "Now you have to do Y because it's the right thing to do." A parent also has the privilege to run the show. But which parent is infallible? Who does not make mistakes?
As a parent, I can tell you that I've made plenty of errors. And not a few of those have arisen from a failure to listen and understand my children's point of view. Much as we try, we can't fully know our children's minds. We can't guess at the richness of their contribution to our understanding of the world. Why else would there be so many coffee table books about children's wisdom? But still, it's so easy just to say "I know how the world works." It's so easy to talk over children, or to rewrite what they say into messages that conform to our preexisting understanding. Because we know better.
This is bias.
Think about it. Yes, we know a lot about the world, but we were children once - did our parents really know better every time? Just because we've now been in the world a few years more doesn't mean we've begun to grasp all of it. We don't know what goes on in our neighbors' houses, much less in another country, at any given time. When did we start to know everything? We never really did - we're just put in the position of having to represent our culture and teach our children what to do, and how to live. We have to have authority. But authority can come from power and from solidarity both. To me, teaching my children honestly means talking about all the things I don't know, and still have to learn. To talk about how sometimes I do things that upset people, without realizing it, and how I deal with it afterward. That uncertainty is something they will have to deal with, too.
It's hard to say "I don't know," sometimes. Maybe that's why some people find it so hard to realize that when it comes to privilege, there are a lot of things they don't know - that they just don't see, because of their privileged position. The world looks different from a different pair of eyes. That, and every person's circumstances are slightly different, so that no person's experience entirely matches the norm - those are important things to remember, too.
It's not right to try to take the parental position with another adult. I'm sure most people out there would readily agree with that. Plenty of people resent their bosses for being too parental. Plenty of people still struggle with actual parent relationships as adults.
Here's where the trap lies, in my view. The privilege situation is too much like the parental situation, because a very similar power dynamic is already there. Just as a child grows up hearing different versions of the same adult narrative of the way things are, minorities are surrounded by the narratives of the privileged.
I have been on both sides of this - as most of us are, due to the fact that privilege cuts in many intersecting directions. Race. Gender. Gender identity. Wealth. In-groups and out-groups for every context simultaneously.
So, say I'm in an argument, a persuasive discussion, or even just a regular conversation. Of course, I want people to listen to my point of view, and consider my worldview on its own merits. But if I'm in the privileged position in a conversation, I have to realize some things. First of all, that I'd better be listening extra hard for things that don't fit my usual narratives, and my understanding of how the world works. Second, that I don't want to fall into the trap that parents often fall into with children, of subconsciously "correcting" what they hear to fit those narratives. And third, that when I say "listen," that message comes alongside all the power of my community. Too often it carries the parental power connotation, "obey," whether I want it to or not.
The last thing I want to do is say to anyone, "listen to me because I'm in power." And I don't want to say "listen to me because this is the way the world works," since my knowledge of the world is clearly limited to what I can see from my structural position. I want to go more for number three, "listen to me because we are fellow human beings and this is as much as I know, but I want to be sensitive to your needs as much as you are to mine."
But even that last option is fraught in privilege situations, because how can I measure my own sensitivity? I can't safely assume that I'm equalizing my footing with another adult across a privilege borderline, because I can't erase history, and there's a high likelihood that there is still more I'm not seeing, much less understanding.
So yes, I'll express my view. But as much as I can, I want to make sure that I'm listening, rather than telling others to listen. I want to be the child - and to encourage others to assume the child position more often - because children are learners. Why should we not aspire to take the child's position relative to a culture we don't know? Why should we not realize that other cultures are all around us, experiencing our same reality simultaneously, yet in totally different ways?
We struggle through our relationships with our parents, and with our children. We do our best, day after day, because we realize that the relationship isn't going away. This might be a good way to think about privilege as well. It isn't going away. We should expect struggle. And we should do our best to listen outside our comfortable narratives, because nobody knows everything.
Thanks for listening. I know this is an imperfect post, but it's a distillation of my feelings on a number of topics I've discussed recently. Thanks also to all of you from whom I am learning every day.
When they did that, did it mean "hear me," or "understand me," or "obey me"?
In my memories of childhood, I have been asked to listen a lot of times. Sometimes it has only meant "hear me." Sometimes it has meant "understand me." And yes, often it has meant "obey me." I hear myself using the same expression with my kids, and I am constantly asking myself if I should be doing things differently. But still, my job as parent is to establish the rules for appropriate behavior.* Why do I have to do this? Because I want to have a kind of peace in my house, and I want to prepare my kids to behave appropriately* in situations outside the home.
*Appropriate behavior is culturally defined.
Actually, that's not a footnote. Appropriate behavior is culturally defined. It differs from one family to another, and from one cultural group to another, and from one country to another.
But let's remember the listening, for a second. When a parent tells a child to listen, do they give reasons why listening is the right thing to do? What kind?
1. Listen to me because I'm your mom/dad and I say so.
2. Listen to me because I'm telling you what the world is like and there will be consequences outside the home if you don't.
3. Listen to me because we are family and you should be sensitive to my needs as I should be to yours.
I use all three of these, but I hate to use number one. Number one is a power move. Do you recognize it from your own experience? How did you feel about it when you heard it? I really don't know anybody who likes number one.
I'm not that big a fan of number two either. Whenever I use number two, I find myself apologizing for the world. Something like this: I hate to say this, kids, but the world isn't fair sometimes, and so you should be aware of that.
I prefer to take a more number-three-like approach to the world, and say things like "Kids, you should know what swear words are, but you should also know that people in the world can be very upset by the sound of them, even if they aren't the targets, and bad things could happen. So please don't get in the habit."
My point here is that in the third situation, persuasion relies on evoking solidarity with a person rather than with exercising power over that person.
Now I'm going to look at this as a metaphor for privilege. You must know one thing first, however: I'm absolutely not trying to suggest that oppressed minorities are children. (If it comes to that, I believe that children themselves are human beings who should be listened to and respected.) I'm going to be putting persons of privilege into both the parent and child positions, because I believe we can learn something from the metaphorical comparison.
A parent is the representative of a larger culture. Parents are constantly saying, "this is what this means," "this is how we behave in X situation," "Now you have to do Y because it's the right thing to do." A parent also has the privilege to run the show. But which parent is infallible? Who does not make mistakes?
As a parent, I can tell you that I've made plenty of errors. And not a few of those have arisen from a failure to listen and understand my children's point of view. Much as we try, we can't fully know our children's minds. We can't guess at the richness of their contribution to our understanding of the world. Why else would there be so many coffee table books about children's wisdom? But still, it's so easy just to say "I know how the world works." It's so easy to talk over children, or to rewrite what they say into messages that conform to our preexisting understanding. Because we know better.
This is bias.
Think about it. Yes, we know a lot about the world, but we were children once - did our parents really know better every time? Just because we've now been in the world a few years more doesn't mean we've begun to grasp all of it. We don't know what goes on in our neighbors' houses, much less in another country, at any given time. When did we start to know everything? We never really did - we're just put in the position of having to represent our culture and teach our children what to do, and how to live. We have to have authority. But authority can come from power and from solidarity both. To me, teaching my children honestly means talking about all the things I don't know, and still have to learn. To talk about how sometimes I do things that upset people, without realizing it, and how I deal with it afterward. That uncertainty is something they will have to deal with, too.
It's hard to say "I don't know," sometimes. Maybe that's why some people find it so hard to realize that when it comes to privilege, there are a lot of things they don't know - that they just don't see, because of their privileged position. The world looks different from a different pair of eyes. That, and every person's circumstances are slightly different, so that no person's experience entirely matches the norm - those are important things to remember, too.
It's not right to try to take the parental position with another adult. I'm sure most people out there would readily agree with that. Plenty of people resent their bosses for being too parental. Plenty of people still struggle with actual parent relationships as adults.
Here's where the trap lies, in my view. The privilege situation is too much like the parental situation, because a very similar power dynamic is already there. Just as a child grows up hearing different versions of the same adult narrative of the way things are, minorities are surrounded by the narratives of the privileged.
I have been on both sides of this - as most of us are, due to the fact that privilege cuts in many intersecting directions. Race. Gender. Gender identity. Wealth. In-groups and out-groups for every context simultaneously.
So, say I'm in an argument, a persuasive discussion, or even just a regular conversation. Of course, I want people to listen to my point of view, and consider my worldview on its own merits. But if I'm in the privileged position in a conversation, I have to realize some things. First of all, that I'd better be listening extra hard for things that don't fit my usual narratives, and my understanding of how the world works. Second, that I don't want to fall into the trap that parents often fall into with children, of subconsciously "correcting" what they hear to fit those narratives. And third, that when I say "listen," that message comes alongside all the power of my community. Too often it carries the parental power connotation, "obey," whether I want it to or not.
The last thing I want to do is say to anyone, "listen to me because I'm in power." And I don't want to say "listen to me because this is the way the world works," since my knowledge of the world is clearly limited to what I can see from my structural position. I want to go more for number three, "listen to me because we are fellow human beings and this is as much as I know, but I want to be sensitive to your needs as much as you are to mine."
But even that last option is fraught in privilege situations, because how can I measure my own sensitivity? I can't safely assume that I'm equalizing my footing with another adult across a privilege borderline, because I can't erase history, and there's a high likelihood that there is still more I'm not seeing, much less understanding.
So yes, I'll express my view. But as much as I can, I want to make sure that I'm listening, rather than telling others to listen. I want to be the child - and to encourage others to assume the child position more often - because children are learners. Why should we not aspire to take the child's position relative to a culture we don't know? Why should we not realize that other cultures are all around us, experiencing our same reality simultaneously, yet in totally different ways?
We struggle through our relationships with our parents, and with our children. We do our best, day after day, because we realize that the relationship isn't going away. This might be a good way to think about privilege as well. It isn't going away. We should expect struggle. And we should do our best to listen outside our comfortable narratives, because nobody knows everything.
Thanks for listening. I know this is an imperfect post, but it's a distillation of my feelings on a number of topics I've discussed recently. Thanks also to all of you from whom I am learning every day.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Link: Nora Jemisin's Guest of Honor speech to the Continuum convention
This is an amazing speech, insightful and inspiring, and you should read it if you haven't already.
http://nkjemisin.com/2013/06/continuum-goh-speech/
Kudos to her for tackling the future of our genre in this way.
http://nkjemisin.com/2013/06/continuum-goh-speech/
Kudos to her for tackling the future of our genre in this way.
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