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Steven Brust is a swell fellow
Aug. 3rd, 2006 08:08 amI like the writings of Steven Brust. They are complex, internally consistent (inasmuch as so many books, spanning a vast period of years, and set in, mostly, one place can be). They have whimsy, charm, good food, skullduggery, love, magic, sorcery, friendships, hates, people who get along on nothing more than mutual respect and those who hate each other with a cordial formality. They even poke fun at the politics of universities, writers and book reviews.
What's not to like?
Ok, his most written about hero is a mob assassin. I'll grant the moral ambiguity of that, and how it might cause some people pause.
I've also met him, once, many years ago, at the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. He seemed a likeable, someone to share a bottle, and pipe and sociable evening with.
This past week, in light of the mess in Delaware of which I wrote a few days ago, there has been a discussion in Making Light, (Why Barack Obama Can kiss my ass). As is typical of long discussion threads at Making Light, it has wandered all over the map, orbiting the ideas that 1: What happened to the Dobrich family is wrong, and 2: that politicians, such as Obama, shouldn't be giving speeches which give support, and ammunition, to those who would behave as those who are oppressing the Dobrichs are (and no, Obama didn't make the speech in question in response to the situation in Delaware, he made it before this came to widespread light, but the way he expressed some otherwise laudable sentiments, was counterproductive to religious tolerance) as well as shooting off into tangents about chocolate and cats.
But a long, heated (and at times abstruse) conversation about the conflict between science and "religion" came up. Brust believes that the two are not merely in conflict, but are antithetical.
Much heat, and some light, has been shed, but he's managed to remain calm,. polite and even witty. None of which really justifies this post, until he did this, across several comments.
Brust: I am not saying you don't simultaneously embrace religion and science; I am saying you are incorrect to do so.
Person x: Let me paraphrase to make sure I have this right: It is incorrect to believe in both science and God. Is that right?
Because if it is, you've got a lot of bloody nerve, sir. Who precisely are you to tell people what to believe, again?
BrustUm...someone who believes strongly in his opinion, and simultaneously considers that opinion important enough to argue for in the context of this discussion. Who are you?
[insert more heated interogatories, and some, typical, words of passing insult; not atypical for internet argument, nor of the sort one who takes part in such should take too much offense at, some of which is Brust's doing]
Person x Someone who sees your opinion as flatly contradictory to her experience and to the experiences of many other people.
Brust: Indeed. I would even say most other people. I nevertheless hold the opinion. This is not the only minority opinion I hold. I have become used to it.
My opinion concerns your beliefs. You take your beliefs seriously, and when I say, "You are holding in your mind two contradictory ideas," you quite naturally take it personally.
But let me lay down some assertions:
1. Science and idealism (the belief in a non-material world) are contradictory.
2. It will become vital over the next period to understand, scientifically, everything we can about society in order to have a chance to change it.
3. This discussion--what were the conditions under which a Jewish family was driven from their home, and what does it mean socially, and what is to be done about it--centers around exactly these issues: a scientific understanding of how society functions, and the objective role of idealist thought in this period.
Given those assertions (at this moment, I am not attempting to justify them, I merely state that I believe them), how am I to procede? If you are suggesting that I refrain from arguing forcefully for my positions on these critical questions for fear of insulting someone, I must respectfully decline.
And then we come to the best part, best because not only is it a pleasant rhetorical flourish, a breath of; snarky, calm and bandinage in what could get ugly fast, but something I actually believe, from past observation, to be a sincere sentiment, and which manages to deflate (at least for me) all the heat which was swelling in the background.
Person x: The closest I'm getting are things about contradictions in society and the idea that a scientific explaination for a given phenomenon precludes a godly one--and since the latter, at least, is quite wrong, that can't be it.
Brust: Ahhh...substance. How pleasant. May I request that, next time, you state that you disagree with my reasoning, or even say that I'm a total fucking idiot to believe what I believe, rather than assert that I've never addressed the issue? I thank you. My blood pressure thanks you.
What's not to like?
Ok, his most written about hero is a mob assassin. I'll grant the moral ambiguity of that, and how it might cause some people pause.
I've also met him, once, many years ago, at the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. He seemed a likeable, someone to share a bottle, and pipe and sociable evening with.
This past week, in light of the mess in Delaware of which I wrote a few days ago, there has been a discussion in Making Light, (Why Barack Obama Can kiss my ass). As is typical of long discussion threads at Making Light, it has wandered all over the map, orbiting the ideas that 1: What happened to the Dobrich family is wrong, and 2: that politicians, such as Obama, shouldn't be giving speeches which give support, and ammunition, to those who would behave as those who are oppressing the Dobrichs are (and no, Obama didn't make the speech in question in response to the situation in Delaware, he made it before this came to widespread light, but the way he expressed some otherwise laudable sentiments, was counterproductive to religious tolerance) as well as shooting off into tangents about chocolate and cats.
But a long, heated (and at times abstruse) conversation about the conflict between science and "religion" came up. Brust believes that the two are not merely in conflict, but are antithetical.
Much heat, and some light, has been shed, but he's managed to remain calm,. polite and even witty. None of which really justifies this post, until he did this, across several comments.
Brust: I am not saying you don't simultaneously embrace religion and science; I am saying you are incorrect to do so.
Person x: Let me paraphrase to make sure I have this right: It is incorrect to believe in both science and God. Is that right?
Because if it is, you've got a lot of bloody nerve, sir. Who precisely are you to tell people what to believe, again?
BrustUm...someone who believes strongly in his opinion, and simultaneously considers that opinion important enough to argue for in the context of this discussion. Who are you?
[insert more heated interogatories, and some, typical, words of passing insult; not atypical for internet argument, nor of the sort one who takes part in such should take too much offense at, some of which is Brust's doing]
Person x Someone who sees your opinion as flatly contradictory to her experience and to the experiences of many other people.
Brust: Indeed. I would even say most other people. I nevertheless hold the opinion. This is not the only minority opinion I hold. I have become used to it.
My opinion concerns your beliefs. You take your beliefs seriously, and when I say, "You are holding in your mind two contradictory ideas," you quite naturally take it personally.
But let me lay down some assertions:
1. Science and idealism (the belief in a non-material world) are contradictory.
2. It will become vital over the next period to understand, scientifically, everything we can about society in order to have a chance to change it.
3. This discussion--what were the conditions under which a Jewish family was driven from their home, and what does it mean socially, and what is to be done about it--centers around exactly these issues: a scientific understanding of how society functions, and the objective role of idealist thought in this period.
Given those assertions (at this moment, I am not attempting to justify them, I merely state that I believe them), how am I to procede? If you are suggesting that I refrain from arguing forcefully for my positions on these critical questions for fear of insulting someone, I must respectfully decline.
And then we come to the best part, best because not only is it a pleasant rhetorical flourish, a breath of; snarky, calm and bandinage in what could get ugly fast, but something I actually believe, from past observation, to be a sincere sentiment, and which manages to deflate (at least for me) all the heat which was swelling in the background.
Person x: The closest I'm getting are things about contradictions in society and the idea that a scientific explaination for a given phenomenon precludes a godly one--and since the latter, at least, is quite wrong, that can't be it.
Brust: Ahhh...substance. How pleasant. May I request that, next time, you state that you disagree with my reasoning, or even say that I'm a total fucking idiot to believe what I believe, rather than assert that I've never addressed the issue? I thank you. My blood pressure thanks you.
