Tea at Trianon: A Podcast Powderkeg

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

A Podcast Powderkeg

From Upstream Reviews:

Many readers of this site are likely all too familiar with horrific deeds perpetrated by some of the organization’s most prominent members and affiliates. The parade of soul-sickening evil committed by the likes of Breen, Bradley, Kramer et al is sadly too voluminous to list here, but an exhaustive five-part report from 2015 titled Safe Space as Rape Room: Science Fiction Culture and Childhood’s End can be found can be found at Castalia House’s website. It’s long, but detailed, and I highly recommend a look.
If you read through that report, one might notice a disturbing dissonance in how SFWA dispenses what it sees as justice. Vox Day used a SFWA-associated twitter account to racially denigrate a fellow member author, and was investigated and expelled in less than sixty days. The same SFWA, with a history of criminally sexual horrors committed by some of its most influential members stretching back sixty years, never found time to formally denounce anyone’s actions, strip anyone of any titles, or revoke any memberships.
Ed Kramer was not only an active member during John Scalzi’s presidency, Kramer had been arrested (2011), tried (2012) and convicted (2013) after being found in a hotel room with a 14-year old boy. Kramer’s membership only ended in 2014 because payment of his membership fees lapsed. A search of SFWA’s website provides precisely zero statements, not even so much as a milquetoast corporate-speak press release, addressing or condemning the crimes and misdeeds of these individuals.
It’s a horrible chapter in the history of the institution. I can understand not wanting to put it front and center. But the group came within a hairsbreadth of cancelling Mercedes Lackey this year for a minor verbal misstep during a panel - these monsters left countless ruined young lives in their wake, with Breen and Kramer seemingly unrepentant (upon his release to house arrest in 2014, Kramer was back to excitedly promoting himself online, apparently without a shred of remorse or self-awareness).
Too many in the sci-fi community at large strangely seem to all too willing to dismiss these past misdeeds simply because they’re old, or those involved are dead, or to brush it off because it occurred “outside of the organization”, when these are crimes and sins that should be faced unflinchingly. As things stand, accountability seems to have been in short supply, and good leadership should welcome open analysis and criticism. (Read more.)