2015 Hugo Award

Interested parties can read my previous article on politicizing the 2015 Hugo Award here.

The winners of the 2015 Hugo Award were announced recently, but the most noteworthy thing about it from a news perspective is who didn't get an award.  Five categories were issued "No Award," which means nobody won for Best Novella, Best Short Story, Best Related Work, Best Editor Short Form, and Best Editor Long Form.

Those paying attention to the controversy surrounding this year's Hugo will note the polarization of media coverage.  Leftists claim that the Puppies' efforts to stack the ballots is an attempt by white men to eliminate diversity in science fiction.  Conservatives say that their intent is to reclaim the award to represent quality of story over politics.  The Puppies are fighting to keep from being discriminated against for political views that have nothing to do with the fiction they write.  The lack of overlap between leftist and conservative claims is noteworthy.

It's ludicrous to have to point this out, but the Puppies' slate of 2015 ballots included not just white men, but women and people of color. Unfortunately, identity politics has poisoned our common culture to the extent that we have to count things like this to debunk a claim of "lack of diversity".  Note also that when 2015 Puppies leader Brad Torgersen's family photo was posted online, a journalist covering the Hugos called Mrs. Torgersen, who happens to be black, a "shield"; that is, implying that Brad Torgersen married her because she was black, and hence would shield him from accusations of racism.  Disgusting, yes.  And par for the course.  Now that we get to paint everyone with an extremist brush by claiming that Vox Day speaks for all Puppies, it's reasonable to say that Arthur Chu speaks for everyone on the anti-Puppy side.  It's an ugly game, but as long as it goes, I'll play by the rules.

Next year's Hugo Award promises similar controversy, though the Puppies' leader will be Kate Paulk.  I am reasonably certain that Kate Paulk is a woman (and will likely be called a shield of some kind, also).

Considering the slate of Puppy authors, the claim that the Puppies are sexist racists out to reclaim science fiction for old white men has been proven false.  Why, then, does it still get traction?  Either its adherents haven't bothered to educate themselves on the facts, or they have educated themselves and decided that the facts need to be sacrificed on the altar of politics (a frequent occurrence).  It's not as though the books on the Puppies' slate promulgated conservative political views: it's that some of the Puppy authors happened to be conservatives.

This needs to be emphasized, because it goes to the heart of the problem: the Hugos no longer represent the quality of science fiction, but the perceived quality of certain science fiction authors.  The Hugo Award is now a political litmus test, and if you're a conservative (or liked by conservatives or associated with a conservative) you don't rate.

How can you game a system that has already been gamed?  How can you cheat if the rules are already stacked against you?

Leftists are claiming victory now because they've kept the conservative Puppy riff-raff out through No Awarding their slate.  This means, for example, that the extremely talented editor Toni Weisskopf didn't receive a deserved award because angry influential leftists don't like her, not because her work was shoddy.  It wasn't.  It isn't.  It never is.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I met Ms. Weisskopf a couple of times when I worked on video projects with her late husband, the great Hank Reinhardt.)

Conservatives are claiming victory because they've proven that the Hugos are driven by politics over quality.  The No Awards prove it.  The disgusting celebration of so many No Awards this year slams the point home.

What's next?

Now that we know beyond any shadow of doubt that the Hugo Award is a political litmus test, it must no longer be seen as a measure of quality.  It's a marketing tool for protected authors.  It's a dot whack on a cover that will help the right people sell books.  It's a leftist victory stamp.  It should be ignored.

I admire the Puppies' efforts to fight on, to push back against the inevitable politicization of the Hugo Award in 2016, but they have to remember O'Sullivan's First Law: "All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing."  O'Sullivan has yet to be proven wrong on this point.  Journalism, entertainment media, education: the left owns these things and they will not let them go without a big, bloody fight.

Good luck.

Hugos, Puppies, and Politics

Other than journalists, nobody likes what’s been going on with the Hugo Awards.  Even though my fiction lies mostly within the realm of horror, I’m a fan of science fiction, and like many of you, I just want to read good genre books and not deal with the political angst behind them.  It’s extremely likely that what’s happened to science fiction is going to start happening to horror (if it hasn’t already), and I don’t want to end up as the last line in a Niemöller quote.  So I will address this.

This is going to get political.  If it offends you, ask yourself why, and then feel free to discuss it with me. 

Let’s Set the Table

There is not one element of modern life that has not been politicized in some way or other.  Politics have infected everything from education to science to the environment to professional sports to individual entertainment choices.  That’s inarguable.  Who’s responsible for it can be debated elsewhere, but I defy you to find me one human endeavor that hasn’t been touched by politics. 

What the American Left has done is deny that their politics are politics at all; that is, they’ve attempted to normalize their point of view as a non-political viewpoint.  Leftism is, therefore, the natural state of things.  This explains why so many Leftists self-identify as independents, moderates or even apolitical despite espousing left-wing ideas, supporting left-wing causes, and voting for left-wing political candidates.  They’re not being political, they’re just doing the right thing.  Leftists have redefined politics as what other people do, not them.

This, of course, excludes those individuals and organizations that specifically identify as progressive, liberal, or left-wing. 

The American Right, vastly outnumbered in the entertainment, education, and journalistic industries, tends to conceal itself among the general public a little more than Leftists.  Outside of political environments, conservatives aren’t as explicit about their beliefs, in part because the right-wing point of view hasn’t been as successfully normalized in popular culture.  Right-wingers aren’t cool.  They’re sticks-in-the-mud who resist change, especially social change.   Who wants to be known as a fuddy-duddy?  A conservative might identify himself as an independent, but he’ll rarely call himself a moderate.  He is sensitive to the politicization of modern culture because he resists social change.   He has his political viewpoints and feels about them as strongly as the Leftist, but outside of places where conservatives gather, he tends to keep his cards closer to the vest. 

Until now.

Politics in the Hugos

Even the most casual observer will see that, over the last decade or so, the selection process of the Hugo Awards has fallen victim to the same politicization that so much else in our culture is subject to.  Hugo award nominees have been selected, in large part, on the basis of diversity of author, not the quality of the stories, or even if those stories meet the genre classification of science fiction (see: If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love). 

When discussing diversity, almost nobody means diversity of opinion, outlook, or imagination.  They mean diversity of race, skin color, gender, social status, or sexual orientation, all of which are surface qualities that inform the intellect, but don’t define it.  They’re categories useful to those who try to appeal to specific identity groups on the basis of their external differences.  If the Hugo Awards are supposed to celebrate the best stories, then the author’s melanin content, plumbing, and what he/she does with his/her plumbing don’t matter.  What matters is quality.  What matters is diversity of story, not race.

By elevating these surface aspects of diversity, the Hugos have been politicized to deliberately exclude authors based on their skin color, gender, and political viewpoint.  White men need not apply, especially conservative white men.  Or conservatives of any color and gender.  Scalzi and his allies have altered the Hugo Awards to focus on message fiction written by people who fit their definition of diversity, not quality science fiction.  As Leftists, they don’t (or can’t) acknowledge that they’re politicizing the Hugos; to them, they’re simply doing what’s right and good and proper (and keeping the riff-raff out). 

What’s amazing is that merely pointing out that the Hugos have been politicized leaves one open to attacks of politicization, as though the accusation is enough to condemn the accuser rather than the accused.  So if I point out that Book A was nominated for a Hugo because it espouses a particular viewpoint, not because it’s a good story, I’m the one politicizing the process.  Combine this with how progressives cannot or will not acknowledge that their point of view is political, and you have a very comprehensive, if utterly transparent defense: it’s the Puppies’ fault that the Hugos are a political football because they accused the Leftists of politicizing the Hugos, which is impossible because Leftists don’t practice politics.  Also known as, “I know you are, but what am I?”  Hence, the Puppies’ efforts to nominate stories based on their criteria are, de facto, illegitimate.  It’s perfectly fine to nominate only Leftist message fiction written by Leftists, but it’s gaming the system to nominate science fiction stories written by conservatives.

It may be that you like message fiction and think that science fiction needs a broader diversity of authors to maintain the genre’s relevance in the 21st century.  In which case it’s only natural that you would decry the Puppies’ efforts.  Just know that you’re also engaging in politics.  You’ve decided to redefine the Hugo Awards to celebrate a political viewpoint rather than promote quality fiction. 

The system’s already been corrupted, already been gamed, already been politicized.  It’s just that now, the other side has decided to fight back.  If this is a problem for you, be honest with yourself about why: it may be because your politics are being challenged, not that the process has become politicized.