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Okay, that's not what the article actually says. And I know, complaining about a stupid, lazy list on Buzzfeed is like complaining about a bad smell at a pig farm. But the subtext, especially with the mix of long-dead literary authors and a handful of contemporary ones, including some odd insertions of authors not well known outside their genre, seems to be "Psst! These are bad people, in case you didn't know!"
Let's look at the list:
#1. Orson Scott Card. Really? After the controversy and the protests over Ender's Game, who is actually unaware of Card's views on homosexuality?
#2. T.S. Eliot. Ditto. I thought pretty much everyone knew he was a raging anti-Semite.
#3. Elizabeth Moon. Seriously? She makes #3 on the list for one ill-worded blog post about Muslims? Elizabeth Moon, who was a darling of feminist SF until the Wiscon controversy? And the author of the article is just plain lying about that last line.
#4. Roald Dahl. An unpleasant person from everything I've ever read about him. I suppose it's possible some fans of Willy Wonka were unaware of him being an anti-Semite, as well.
#5. Louis-Ferdinand Celine. I confess a gap in my literary education, I've never even heard of him. But okay, so far we have a couple of SF authors who's said un-PC things, and some early 20th century authors who were anti-Semitic to some degree.
#6. John C. Wright. Yeah, he rages about a lot more than homosexuals, but he's also pretty much unknown outside of SF, and not even that well known in the genre. One wonders why the author felt he, in particularly, needed to be singled out.
#7. V.S. Naipual. Seriously, there are people unaware that he's a cranky old racist misogynist?
#8. Dr. Seuss. Sigh. Yes, he drew racial caricatures and used the term "Japs" during World War II. As did Warner Brothers and most of the rest of the country.
#9. Edith Wharton. Another rich WASP writer from the early 20th century said some not-nice things about Jews and feminism.
#10. Scott Adams. I guess some people may be unaware he's a crank. He's also a humorist and a troll - it's hard to take pretty much anything he says seriously.
#11. Kingsley Amis. The only thing less surprising than discovering an early 20th century writer was anti-Semitic is discovering he was anti-homosexuality.
#12. Martin Amis. Clearly the author of the article is very worried about people saying un-PC things about Muslim terrorists. Given how he misrepresented Elizabeth Moon, I mistrust his characterization of Martin Amis's sentiments.
#13. Ezra Pound. See: T.S. Eliot.
#14. David Mamet. "David Mamet’s well-documented “conversion” to conservativism isn’t bigotry"... but we'll characterize it as such anyway.
This is a crappy list. Why no mention of John Ringo, Larry Correia, or Brandon Sanderson (none of whom are actually bigots, to my knowledge, but are just as qualified given the criteria here). How about Margaret Mitchell or Hugh Lofting? And seriously, he left Howard Philips Lovecraft off the list?
I used to be much more sympathetic to the idea of shunning authors with reprehensible views and not supporting them by reading them or buying their books. Empty-headed, unnuanced, context-free "enemies lists" like this are one of the reasons I no longer hold with that.
Let's look at the list:
#1. Orson Scott Card. Really? After the controversy and the protests over Ender's Game, who is actually unaware of Card's views on homosexuality?
#2. T.S. Eliot. Ditto. I thought pretty much everyone knew he was a raging anti-Semite.
#3. Elizabeth Moon. Seriously? She makes #3 on the list for one ill-worded blog post about Muslims? Elizabeth Moon, who was a darling of feminist SF until the Wiscon controversy? And the author of the article is just plain lying about that last line.
#4. Roald Dahl. An unpleasant person from everything I've ever read about him. I suppose it's possible some fans of Willy Wonka were unaware of him being an anti-Semite, as well.
#5. Louis-Ferdinand Celine. I confess a gap in my literary education, I've never even heard of him. But okay, so far we have a couple of SF authors who's said un-PC things, and some early 20th century authors who were anti-Semitic to some degree.
#6. John C. Wright. Yeah, he rages about a lot more than homosexuals, but he's also pretty much unknown outside of SF, and not even that well known in the genre. One wonders why the author felt he, in particularly, needed to be singled out.
#7. V.S. Naipual. Seriously, there are people unaware that he's a cranky old racist misogynist?
#8. Dr. Seuss. Sigh. Yes, he drew racial caricatures and used the term "Japs" during World War II. As did Warner Brothers and most of the rest of the country.
#9. Edith Wharton. Another rich WASP writer from the early 20th century said some not-nice things about Jews and feminism.
#10. Scott Adams. I guess some people may be unaware he's a crank. He's also a humorist and a troll - it's hard to take pretty much anything he says seriously.
#11. Kingsley Amis. The only thing less surprising than discovering an early 20th century writer was anti-Semitic is discovering he was anti-homosexuality.
#12. Martin Amis. Clearly the author of the article is very worried about people saying un-PC things about Muslim terrorists. Given how he misrepresented Elizabeth Moon, I mistrust his characterization of Martin Amis's sentiments.
#13. Ezra Pound. See: T.S. Eliot.
#14. David Mamet. "David Mamet’s well-documented “conversion” to conservativism isn’t bigotry"... but we'll characterize it as such anyway.
This is a crappy list. Why no mention of John Ringo, Larry Correia, or Brandon Sanderson (none of whom are actually bigots, to my knowledge, but are just as qualified given the criteria here). How about Margaret Mitchell or Hugh Lofting? And seriously, he left Howard Philips Lovecraft off the list?
I used to be much more sympathetic to the idea of shunning authors with reprehensible views and not supporting them by reading them or buying their books. Empty-headed, unnuanced, context-free "enemies lists" like this are one of the reasons I no longer hold with that.
