ElectricPaladin, I'm a little surprised that you didn't pull out this line
the very modern and trendy goal of recognizing women and people of color in history
That's a very good get - kudos! I completely missed that line. You're right, of course. Since when is seeking a better, more accurate understanding of our human history "trendy?" Well, when it's the history of women/people of color, of course. That's "trendy." The history of white men, though, that's just history, not some flash-in-the-pan "trend" in the zeitgeist.
If you had read all of what I wrote, you also would have seen where I said that recognizing people of all genders and races in history is a good thing, and an issue that needs to be addressed in real life. But it is trendy at the same time, because it has only gained broad popularity in recent years (especially on the timescale that Makeisha is operating in), and this story in particular was explicitly said to be influenced by an award-winning essay written only a couple of years ago. Would this story and its theme have been as well-received 10 years ago? 30 years ago? Or in the pre-modern eras in which Makeisha spent most of her lives? That's what I mean when I say it's trendy, and it's not meant to imply that the idea is not worth pursuing in general. But hey, what do I know? I'm just a poor, ignorant white man, right?
And thanks for the (very) thinly veiled accusations of racism. It's always nice to feel welcome in a new place.
I think it's very telling that when I criticized aspects of the story and Makeisha's choices and character development, no one went to the text to provide counter-points or different interpretations of the actual story. Instead, people assumed I was attacking the idea and philosophy behind the story. I thought it was pretty safe to point out that becoming a Viking pillager or feudal warlord just to get your name in the history books was an objectively immoral thing to do, but apparently not.
So you're right about one thing, ElectricPaladin. This thread does bear a striking resemblance to recent conversations on race in the broader world. Specifically, it reminds me of the debate surrounding the Charlie Hebdo massacre, in which people lined up to make excuses for the crimes of mass-murdering sociopaths (of color), by insisting they were goaded into it by the racism of white men.
I do think it's interesting that you think I'm accusing you of being, personally, a racist. I never said that. I don't know you. You could be white or black or Asian, a man or a woman, or even a potato uplifted to human intelligence by bizarre scientific experiments and wired into an old iMac. I have no idea. I
do think, however, that jumping to that conclusion is basically a sideways ad hominem attack. You're insinuating that I have personally attacked
you by connecting
you to a deplorable social ill. I have done nothing of the sort. I have attempted to undermine your ideas based on what I believe you were expressing. If I mischaracterized you, well, that's bound to happen in any conversation. If what I wrote caused you to see a link between your words and the words of people who are rightfully deplored, well, perhaps that's something you should examine. I can't tell you to what degree your mind has been parasitized by racist ideation - that's something only you can unpack and examine, but I'm not going to shy away from dissecting ideas that I have a problem with.
I would argue that "trendy" is a poor choice of words to describe this nascent trend, for all the reasons that myself and benjaminjb noted in our posts. If it doesn't actually reflect your beliefs, well, that's your business. I'm glad you corrected our misunderstanding. Again, however, nobody is calling you a "poor, ignorant white man." As I wrote above, for all I know, you're a potato.
I'd like to wrap up this part of the post by saying this: if your skin is too thin to deal with someone pointing out how something you said might
maybe be a bit racist without taking it as an accusation that you, personally, are a racist, then you're probably not ready to have this kind of conversation. Heat, kitchen, and all that. Racism is hard. Dealing with the ways it creeps its tentacles into your brain and perverts your thoughts is hard. As a rough guideline, however, unless someone says "you are a racist," there's at least a chance that they don't mean to attack you personally.
I also think that it's interesting that you wrote:
I think it's very telling that when I criticized aspects of the story and Makeisha's choices and character development, no one went to the text to provide counter-points or different interpretations of the actual story...
Because that's just not true. I know for a fact that
my responses have
repeatedly included references to the text and that those points have not yet been responded to. For example, I responded to R W H's comments by pointing out an explanation for Makeisha's many competencies. The same is true of many of the other posts I've read so far.
Now, onto your second-to-last point...
I thought it was pretty safe to point out that becoming a Viking pillager or feudal warlord just to get your name in the history books was an objectively immoral thing to do, but apparently not.
This is an interesting one, because I do agree with you, to a point. It does say something not entirely positive about Makeisha's personality that she was willing to indulge in a little historically-contextualized violence as part of her quest to become recognized. I do want to point out four corollaries, though.
First, if I recall correctly, it's interesting to me that Makeisha didn't start to indulge in destructive violence until much later in her quest. Her earliest violent life was as a Bavarian warlord, and although that life was certainly violent, the goal was in cultivating a new and better order. She was forging a state, and when you do that you sometimes have to crack a few heads. I'm not saying that it was excused, but I think we can all agree that it's more complicated than that. I think you can see Makeisha's increasing reliance of violence as a statement about her increasing desperation.
Second, none of Makeisha's violence really was purely destructive. Frankly, in real history, very little violence really was. Premodern raids and warfare were basically part of the economy. Historical pirates weren't the freedom-loving rogues of "Pirates of the Caribbean," they were a combination of the losers of an early war for independence, escaped slaves, and oppressed minorities (there are some
amazing stories about Jewish pirates preying on Spanish shipping following the Inquisition) looking for revenge and to enrich themselves and provide stability for their families at the cost of people they rightfully hated, which is a pretty legitimate way to go about your life, if you ask me. Anyway, the point I'm making is that it's unfair to hold historical figures to purely modern standards.
Third, I don't think Makeisha really sees the past as real - that's why she's able to kill herself in it. It's certainly interesting that Makeisha doesn't view her jaunts into the past as really part of her real life while at the same time being dedicated to achieving recognition for that past, but for me that's a paradox that drives the story, rather than undermining it.
Four - and this is the most interesting - I wonder if Makeisha would be getting the same flack if she were a man. We expect more violence from men. On Escape Pod we hear our fair share of military sci-fi stories about bold space troopers blasting away at aliens or space conquerors forging stellar empires, and in my experience thus far, most people are able to swallow their violence and domination in the story's context. That's not to say that there isn't a moral event horizon beyond which we start to lose sympathy for these characters, but I think that female characters - and Makeisha - get treated very differently.
I'm reminded of a musical I saw recently called "The Fourth Messenger." The story was basically about what might happen if the Buddha had the same life story, only in a modern context, and if the Buddha were a woman. The part where the Buddha abandons his wife and child, for example has a very different impact when the Buddha is female... but why should it? Why would we give Siddhartha a pass but not "Mama Sid?"
Anyway, to your final point, I haven't actually heard anyone saying that the violence against the French magazine was excused. What people are saying is that it's important even in the wake of this violence to examine the fact that Muslims and Arabs in general
are a shat-upon minority in France and in most of Europe, that magazines like Charlie Hebdo
do express the scorn that the majority holds for that minority, and that maybe there's a problem with this situation. Now, maybe
you are in the unfortunate position of being surrounded by morons who actually are trying to excuse the massacre, but I have been lucky enough to avoid such nonsense, and until now I hadn't been aware that it existed.