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content warning for non-graphic ethics discussion of Really Bad Things.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and figure I’ll put some thoughts down. People seem to use two main ethical approaches to orienting themselves to those who do really bad things. I mean things like might include rape, murder, all the way to war crimes. The philosophical crux seems to be whether such people are theoretically redeemable (in a secular and/or possibly religious sense).

One view holds that some actions are “beyond redemption,” at least in a worldly/social sense. In this view, if you commit certain really bad actions, you are irredeemable for life (if not beyond), and people should treat you as such. YouTuber Steve Shives is in this camp, as he explains well in his interesting video on Garak in Deep Space Nine. He likes Garak as a character, but notes that if this were real life, Garak would not be morally redeemable because, regardless of his personal moral development, he has committed acts too heinous. For reference, Shives notes that the Cardassians in DS9, including Garak, are coded as Nazis. Basically, he’s saying Nazis—and, by extension, others who do really bad things—can’t be redeemed, i.e. it would be immoral to consider them/treat them as redeemable. It would be giving a pass to their heinousness.



[EDIT: reworking this paragraph in response to selenak's very legitimate point that I totally mischaracterized Christianity.] This view—though atheist Shives might cringe at this—seems philosophically close to Christianity, in the sense that it posits some people deserve to go to hell. Selenak rightly reminds me that Christianity is based on the idea that everyone can repent and be forgiven anything; in that sense, no one is beyond redemption, which sounds like the opposite of the view Shives is expressing. Solid point. I was thinking (a) of the Calvinist strain that infests American secular thinking, which holds that everyone deserves damnation, but more broadly (b) of the metaphor of existence after damnation: the person who didn't repent and, therefore, is now stuck in hell for eternity, regardless of what potential they might theoretically have for learning better/repenting given longer life/reincarnation/purgatory. An attitude of "you can't be redeemed" is what I think of as "secular damnation" in that, metaphorically, it treats the person as if they were damned in the eyes of the human judge, maybe not for eternity but for their life on Earth. I do think that view is related to certain Christian mindsets (and not just Christian), though it's fair to note that Christianity is also founded on the idea of radical redemption for all through Christ. It's complicated.

The other view holds that people are constantly in flux (at least potentially) and that anyone could theoretically be redeemed if they change enough to become a truly better person. In this view, people should be treated more according to who they are in the present (which could include actions to atone for the past). Under this view, Garak is certainly potentially redeemable. It’s a question of how much he changes, including what he might do to try to be accountable for former heinous acts. And I’d like to amplify a point made in some of the comments on Shives’ video: redemption is not the same as forgiveness. Both words have many meanings, but I’m with those commenters who see redemption as more internal to the self while forgiveness is something someone gives you (though you can give it to yourself too).Read more... )
labingi: (Default)
Oh world, I was going to embed this excellent video for y'all, but between my watching it and looking it up just now, it apparently got tossed (is that still a term?) from YouTube for copyright infringement, which is absurd: it's commentary; it's protected. Anyway, I can only link to her post about the dispute.

This is the comment I made on Jessie’s (now effectively censored) video. (Yeah, I bombed YouTube with a whole essay. I know Jessie has better things to do than read it, but I addressed it to her anyway, as it’s a response to her arguments and observations.)

The Comment

This video is amazing: research, argument, production, emotional range are all fantastic, and I think you correctly diagnose the cowardice of season 2 of SNW. Your video clarified for me why I found this season “meh.” I’ll offer a somewhat different take below, and please know that while I may not always agree with every point you make, I always respect and admire your work. (tl;dr: allegory is a limited and insufficient tool.) Read more... )
labingi: (Default)
Yep, I’m going to gripe about Strange New Worlds S2, ep. 5 (the Spock one), so if that’s going to kill your buzz, please feel free to skip.

The (Mostly) Good
To begin with (virtually spoiler free), this episode had a couple of very good things:

1) Amanda. New Trek Amanda has been written very well in general, and this may be the best Amanda episode in all Star Trek. I love how she is now being treated like full, complex person.

2) The aliens. Though they loosely fall under the “super-evolved energy being” trope, they are different from every other ST alien I can recall, and that’s a quite a trick after almost 60 years of media. They’re benevolent but also narrowminded and just culturally different in their communication patterns. Well done.

I have only one complaint, which is the universalization of the “friendship doesn’t matter” trope. Alien as these beings are, they 100% agree with us (21st century US, for ex.) and our heroes (23rd century) that friendship doesn’t matter much, thereby presenting this not as a cultural quirk but a universal law. As a friendship bonder, this sets my teeth on edge exactly as I imagine the “bury your queers” trope does queer people’s: (not exact quote) “We’re friends, but I want something...” (wait for it) “...more.” Okay, I’ll stop now.

3) Bonus good: Pike. He was a minor character in this, but he came through for Spock as a supportive friend and it spoke well of his character.

4) Bonus good: Excellent acting throughout. This includes Chapel, who is bringing her A game.

5) Bonus good: A lot of the jokes, in and of themselves, were funny.
Spoilers and griping follow.Read more... )
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I've found myself reluctant to post recently, probably a mix of tiredness and trying to minimize eye strain. (I just got Lasek, the immediate result of which is that I now don't have glasses that work properly.) I've also been reflecting on what this kind of online presence is for, what I'm doing here (or anywhere online). I don't have an answer, so in the spirit of not wholly disappearing, here's a summary of some stuff:

Quick Self-Plug: Blog Post on Degrowth in Spec Fic
My intro to degrowth for speculative fiction writers is up at WriteHive.

Severance
My partner and I just bulldozed through season 1 of Severance. It's a very good sci-fi workplace dystopia, certainly deeper than I comprehended on a first viewing. It's a bit sad that we do dystopia so well and not much else. But this show really diagnoses a lot of our problems and the importance of relationships in maintaining our humanity (and not basically being consigned to hell). Highly recommended.

Strange New Worlds, Season 2, up to ep. 4, no real spoilers
I enjoyed season 1 overall, though not as much as I'd hoped. Thus far, I'm enjoying it a bit more. I'm glad this show is episodic because if one episode falls flat for me, the next may be fantastic. I love the new engineer (Pelia?), and La'an continues to get the best episodes. I continue to find NuTrek Spock painful--and I don't mean "bad"; I mean emotionally painful for me, though I often enjoy his dialogue when he's a side character and not the focus of a plotline.

On Reading
I'm finding myself a little afraid of reading lately, partly because I don't currently have a pair of reading glasses that work well, so it's a chore. But deeper than that, I'm both in search of a new story to invest in and reluctant to devote the mental energy to one. I guess I'm looking for the "sure thing," and there isn't one for me. For years, I've been running at rate of falling in love with a written story maybe once every five years, which creates a vicious circle of sparse reading to avoid disappointment. This is "for fun" reading; I've done lots of degrowth master's reading, which is useful but not cathartic.

Reading reluctance and degrowth come together, however, in my enduring belief that we need a better advanced search tool for fiction, an idea I wrote about in library school 15 years ago, didn't get a good grade on, and still believe in. It's degrowthy because the tool I'm imagining would be low tech by current standards and crowdsourced, fitting with degrowth principles of decommercialization and autonomy. Might put out feelers about it.
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Recent prestige TV shows seem to follow two different theories of writing. One I’d describe as character driven: the writers construct characters and figure out how they’d react under certain circumstances. Examples of this kind of writing are Andor, The House of the Dragon, and The Last of Us. The other I’d describe as theme or message driven: the writers determine what theme(s) or social message(s) they want to present and construct characters and situations to deliver them. Examples of this kind are The Rings of Power and much of New Star Trek and pieces of Boba Fett and Obi Wan Kenobi.

It’s probably clear that I prefer the former style of writing. At the end of the day, I don’t know what storytelling is about if it’s not about the human experience. Messages only matter because they are part of the human experience. I’ve never really understood the point of placing message ahead of character. In my opinion, that ultimately just blunts the message. (This is approximately what I argued in my long-ago essay on why Buffy Season 7 didn’t work for me.)

I’m not saying having messages is bad or trying to make a backdoor argument about messages being “too woke.” Andor has the message “fight fascism,” and that’s a good one. Buffy S7 has the message “spread the female empowerment,” and that’s good too. It’s about how whether the messages will end up feeling like an insightful illustration of human experience or a simplistic bludgeon. Spoilers follow for Picard, potentially all seasons and warning for disorganized, Covid-induced ramblingRead more... )
labingi: (Default)
Warnings: Spoilers and ranting

For the record: Much of this season of Picard S3 is good so far. I’m not going to discuss those things here or only tangentially.

Disclaimer: The following is a rant. I don’t mean any of it to personally attack anyone involved in ST: Picard. Writing and producing TV is incredibly hard. The pressures are many. I wouldn’t want to be in their place. I’m just talking about the product, not the process, intent, or underlying talent of the creators. Fundamentally, my critiques are aimed at our cultural assumptions, which are bigger than any one person.Read more... )
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Warnings: This is a rant about NuTrek Vulcans. If that's going to be a bummer, you may wish to stop here. Light SPOILERS (a couple of details) for SNW through season 1, ep. 7 and a tiny bit beyond.

I feel torn between not wanting to spew negativity and wanting to get something off my chest. Chest has won. I hope this has a germ of a useful cultural point. This is, of course, my own perspective; many others don't feel the same way and that's fine.

I like Strange New Worlds. I've mostly enjoyed it; I'm glad it exists. I think it's the best of the NuTrek shows—but I cannot stand the NuTrek Vulcans—or actually the Vulcans on any series dating back to Enterprise. But I'm going to focus on NuTrek.

The problem with the NuVulcans, as I see it, is the writers approaching science fiction from an ethnocentric perspective. They seem not to know how to write (or see the value in writing) a culture other than their own. Thus, they write Vulcans as us, our culture. The Vulcans are arguably the most intriguing culture Star Trek ever created. Over the lifetime of Nimoy Spock, they are fleshed out across decades of writing, not always brilliant or consistent, but amounting to a civilization both instantly recognizable and subtle, relatable but extremely culturally alien. NuTrek has thrown most of that away. A few examples:Read more... )
labingi: (Default)
I'm going to do a "the good/bad/okay" take on this episode, of course, reflecting my own taste. For context, my hopes for this series have been (are) really high, which may explain why this first episode disappointed me a little—but not a lot. My hopes are still high, and I think this will be an enjoyable series.

Spoilers for the pilot episode and background Discovery stuff referenced.Read more... )
labingi: (ivan)
I just finished season 1 of Foundation, and it's inspired meta in me. Rather like with ST: Discovery season 4, Foundation left me feeling like I was watching (at least) two shows: one that was spectacularly good science fiction and one that okay-ish. I'm bursting to write a gushing fannish essay about the good show, but I'm going to make that my reward for starting out with the okay-ish, and to do that, alas, I need to address "wokeness." Because my discontents with Foundation land along its arguably "woke" female hero. Moreover, it's not just Foundation. Frustration with "woke" women heroes is a pattern for me, and that bothers me because I consider myself progressive. I want to have better representation in media. I want to see diversity celebrated. I agree we've had far too many white male heroes in our narratives. So why do my frustrations so often align with those of more conservative folks? I want to do a meander through some things I see going on, both in me and in our society.

Disclaimers: This essay ended up not really discussing men of color. There's much to say; it just ended up being a bit too much to tackle in one essay. This essay is also very much about my personal response as a viewer; others' will vary.

(Major spoilers for Discovery and Babylon 5, minor spoilers for Foundation, Star Trek: TOS, possibly others)Read more... )
labingi: (Default)
Because our society has turned so negative, I want to open with some statements of affirmation. I'm glad to have new Star Trek. I'm happy to see Picard again and Seven, Guinan, Brent Spiner, and even Q (not a fav of mine), and I like the characters and cast of Picard. I thought the second and third episodes were quite good. Jurati is getting some good chances to shine this season. A lot of people are working very hard on this series just to give us entertainment, and it is somewhat entertaining, and that's a gift (even if we pay a bit to watch it).

All that said, I don't think it's a strong season. I want to focus on one reason why: it's not doing intelligent social science fiction (and ST has always been fundamentally social SF). This is not just a Picard issue, by the way; it's widespread in TV SF today, but I'll focus on Picard here.

(SPOILERS follow for S2 of Picard up to "Monsters" and very light spoilers for S1 and Disco)Read more... )
labingi: (Default)
(Spoilers for what's aired so far…)

I have not been shy about the fact that I don't like Discovery much, but I'm pleased to say I've liked S4 quite a bit, more than anything Discovery has delivered since some of the Pike-centric episodes. Read more... )
labingi: (Default)
This is ramble (okay, rant) about why I may be responding as I am to Wonder Woman: 1984 (liked it okay) and Discovery, especially S3 (kind of hate it). I am socially on the left but increasingly find my responses to pop culture out of step with some of the more prominent left-leaning responses. To wit, Wonder Woman is being panned and most of the left-tube seems fairly strongly pro-Discovery. So why am I out of step? Rambles and spoilers below. Read more... )
labingi: (r2dvd)
Though I am not overall a fan of Discovery, I do wholeheartedly give S2 credit for reintroducing Pike's Enterprise into the ST universe and ultimately getting it greenlighted for its own spinoff. Thanks to COVID, Strange New Worlds is progressing slowly, so I may be jumping the gun by a few years, but I find myself hoping that the end of that series, or maybe a post-series special/movie, will devote some time to Pike's life on Talos IV. I think this has some great potential to be excellent Star Trek, excellent sci-fi, and excellent human drama, and I'm going to ramble on about it.

Spoilers follow for ST:O's "The Cage" and "The Menagerie" and light spoilers for the Taelons in Earth: Final ConflictRead more... )
labingi: (Default)
It's been a great pleasure to watch Star Trek: Picard. My feelings about its ups and downs (mostly ups) are very well summed up by [personal profile] selenak here, so I won't do a general review here. Instead, I want to post some thoughts on dear underdeveloped Elnor, who I hope will get more to do in season 2.

Elnor really is underdeveloped. His relationship with Picard, which is his emotional center, is much more "tell" than "show," despite a lengthy flashback when he's first introduced. I can't say he's one of the series' standout characters, but I do think he may be conceptually the most interesting for me.

Elnor is an example of one of the things I yearn for most in science fiction, one of the key reasons SF&F are useful genres for me: an exploration of a truly different cultural perspective, a truly different stance toward life. light spoilers )
labingi: (r2dvd)
It's been a long time since I've laughed so hard I thought I would choke. Now that I've set your expectations way too high, this "Crazy Kirk Speech" tickled me because it's all original (not parody), but out of context...

Links

Jan. 2nd, 2012 10:45 pm
labingi: (inu)
[livejournal.com profile] ewans_gal_4ever put me onto YouTube's Epic Rap Battles of History videos. She recommended:

Kirk vs. Columbus, which I greatly enjoyed.

I also quite liked:

Einstein vs. Stephen Hawking
Mr. T vs. Mr. Rogers

For Mirage of Blaze fans, a pretty picture of Nagahide by Jillia.

And a Naoetora video.

For Gungrave fans (I know 1 or 2 of you exist), an excellent Harry and Brandon vid.
labingi: (r2dvd)
Jumping on the bandwagon to give my thoughts on Star Trek. So many people have said so much good and interesting stuff that I'm just going to make three observations: one negative, one positive/negative, and one positive--but it's very positive. And as I prepare to launch into a long stream of complaint, let me state for the record: I liked it.

Probably spoilery New Trek thoughts )

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