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Thursday, March 5th, 2009 06:43 pm
more on racefail
I've found, lost, saved, lost, and finally sat down with this link again, so for full context, Seeking Avalon: Timeline is where it all began with the epic Racefail that began with reaction to criticism of a book by Elizabeth Bear. For anyone who has been MIA to LJ and possibly most of the fandom-related internet for the last two to three months, that was the beginning.
[ETA: Correction: it began with Bear lecturing people on how to write POC. Thank you to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cesperanza for the fix.]
Rydra-Wong's massive link list has the posts she's linked.
At some point, I think everyone thought that there would be an end to this particular string of slowly unwinding disasters*, and everyone was wrong. It's March, and this post by Elizabeth Bear thinks it is supposed to be the end.
There is an analogy regarding opening a feather pillow, tossing the feathers to the wind, and then going to find each one to make the pillow whole that I have tried to google, but none of the ones I read quite had the context I remember best. After opening the pillow and tossing the feathers, you do not get to go and snatch them back from everyone they fell on and say, lo, the pillow is fixed, look upon it with awe, and also, forget I tore the fucking pillow up. You see why I wanted the original, because I am butchering what was a really good analogy.
[ETA: The actual feather analogy contributed bykassrachel here who states it's a Hasidic folktale.
A man went about the community telling malicious lies about the rabbi. Later, he realized the wrong he had done, and began to feel remorse. He went to the rabbi and begged his forgiveness, saying he would do anything he could to make amends. The rabbi told the man, "Take a feather pillow, cut it open, and scatter the feathers to the winds." The man thought this was a strange request, but it was a simple enough task, and he did it gladly. When he returned to tell the rabbi that he had done it, the rabbi said, "Now, go and gather the feathers. Because you can no more make amends for the damage your words have done than you can recollect the feathers you scattered."]
To say, with any kind of assumption of authority, this ends now, isn't simply saying "I am tired of this and wish to forget the entire experience", though honestly, that's irritating in itself. It's an attempt to state "And you shouldn't think of it anymore either," with the idea behind it that at any point, you had control of what you unleashed, and for that matter, should have control of it. This is a common misinterpretation of what language actually does. As it is not feathers, and words never, ever come back the same way.
( this got very long )
An amazing response to Bear's post: Sees Fire bybossymarmalade.
[ETA: Correction: it began with Bear lecturing people on how to write POC. Thank you to
cesperanza for the fix.]Rydra-Wong's massive link list has the posts she's linked.
At some point, I think everyone thought that there would be an end to this particular string of slowly unwinding disasters*, and everyone was wrong. It's March, and this post by Elizabeth Bear thinks it is supposed to be the end.
There is an analogy regarding opening a feather pillow, tossing the feathers to the wind, and then going to find each one to make the pillow whole that I have tried to google, but none of the ones I read quite had the context I remember best. After opening the pillow and tossing the feathers, you do not get to go and snatch them back from everyone they fell on and say, lo, the pillow is fixed, look upon it with awe, and also, forget I tore the fucking pillow up. You see why I wanted the original, because I am butchering what was a really good analogy.
[ETA: The actual feather analogy contributed by
kassrachel here who states it's a Hasidic folktale.A man went about the community telling malicious lies about the rabbi. Later, he realized the wrong he had done, and began to feel remorse. He went to the rabbi and begged his forgiveness, saying he would do anything he could to make amends. The rabbi told the man, "Take a feather pillow, cut it open, and scatter the feathers to the winds." The man thought this was a strange request, but it was a simple enough task, and he did it gladly. When he returned to tell the rabbi that he had done it, the rabbi said, "Now, go and gather the feathers. Because you can no more make amends for the damage your words have done than you can recollect the feathers you scattered."]
To say, with any kind of assumption of authority, this ends now, isn't simply saying "I am tired of this and wish to forget the entire experience", though honestly, that's irritating in itself. It's an attempt to state "And you shouldn't think of it anymore either," with the idea behind it that at any point, you had control of what you unleashed, and for that matter, should have control of it. This is a common misinterpretation of what language actually does. As it is not feathers, and words never, ever come back the same way.
( this got very long )
An amazing response to Bear's post: Sees Fire by
bossymarmalade.
