Oh, the Hypocrisy!!!!!

I’m periodically looking in at the blogs & sites of those who organized the boycott against Dark Horse Comics for proposing to republish John Norman’s Chronicles of Gor in omnibus editions, including Greg Morrow’s All New! All Different! Howling Curmudgeons Two-Fisted Comics Commentary and Criticism board, where, in late September, I’d posted a three-part explanation of why the attacks on the Gor series & John Norman were misguided & wrong, only to have them sneeringly dismissed by Morrow on James Nicoll’s blog, although not addressed substantively in the least.

Of course, when someone has just demonstrated -- however politely -- that you don’t know how to read sophisticated literature, that you couldn’t tell a metaphor from a cabbage, & that you've consequently just blatantly & self-righteously defamed an innocent man, I suppose the only thing left to do is to then insult the person who had the temerity to point out the irredeemable shortcomings of your analysis. The inescapable consequence of doing that, though, is that it only makes abundantly clear the sheer depth of your ethical shortcomings when you're unwilling to rectify, much less acknowledge, the wrongs you’ve committed.

I don’t take this personally, however, especially after reading the “farewell message” Jason Fliegel, one of the remaining Curmudgeons, posted on the site yesterday on behalf of Mike Chary, now one of the “Curmudgeons Emeritus.” Apparently, about three months ago, Chary tried logging into the site only to discover that, as Morrow explained in an email afterwards, he “had been kicked off because [he] argued too much.”

Isn’t that what curmudgeons are supposed to do?

Apparently not, if the curmudgeon you argue with too forcefully & successfully is Greg Morrow.

According to Chary’s farewell, his forced departure occurred just as the Phillies were gaining traction, so I looked into the archives & found the July 2, 2007 announcement of his "departure" by Greg Morrow:

It is with regret that I announce that Mike Chary has become a Curmudgeons emeritus.

The other Curmudgeons wish Mike the best of success in his future pursuits.

One of the commentators asked whether Chary had left “to spend more time with his family” or whether he was “also unwilling to continue in the face of recent events involving sock puppetry and hypocrisy.”

It really is a shame to think that anyone would treat a long-time friend as badly as it now appears that Greg Morrow has, but it certainly makes it much easier to understand how Morrow could therefore have treated me -- a stranger, although one only by a single degree of separation from him -- so shabbily, too. I’d sincerely hoped, especially after reading Mike Chary’s July responses to Morrow on the What Would Tarl Cabot Do thread, in which Chary had demonstrated a fair degree of open-mindedness concerning the Gor novels, coupled with an insightful wariness of Morrow’s self-righteous censoriousness, that Chary would respond to my September posts & that a fruitful discussion might ensue. A look at Chary’s homepage & his blog also reveal a degree of thoughtfulness that I would have greatly welcomed in such a discussion, especially given how very little of it I’ve found manifested by the regular posters to the blogs where the anti-Gor boycott was mounted, much less their proprietors.

Ah, well: I should never have gotten my hopes up.

If you want to see class in action, though, read Chary's farewell message, as well as his replies to the posters criticizing Morrow.

Meanwhile, back on Tamora Pierce’s blog, I found a post she made on January 16th concerning censorship & banned books that has to be the ne plus ultra of unwitting self-parody:

I was going to ask "why do people assume my dislike or disapproval of something means I want it censored," until I realized that in this day and age, and particularly here in my homeland of the United States, that question is naive at best and stupid at worst. Even if you're not one of those people who immediately demands that anything you disapprove of should be yanked out of public circulation, you know damned well that the first move everywhere in these United States, particularly when it comes to kids, porn, erotica, and comics, is to get it banned....

I've stated it elsewhere in this lj in a number of threads, but I want it here and in the clear, so everyone knows in no uncertain terms.

There is a lot in this world I dislike…

…I reserve the right to say I don't like something, and to say why. I reserve the right to protest it, and argue against it, and debate it intelligently with other intelligent people. I hope people will consider my arguments.

BUT.

However much I dislike something or disapprove of it, so long as I am in my right mind, I will never, EVER advocate that it be censored, destroyed, banned from schools, libraries, the media, bookstores, theaters, or anywhere else. I will never tell anyone else not to read, see, or listen to it. NEVER. (I may recommend it, but I will also tell them that in the end, the choice is theirs alone). I will never speak or write letters recommending such action....To do this would be a betrayal of the America I was raised to believe in, which I still hold within myself. It would be a betrayal of myself.

….But pornography involving consenting adults? That's up to the people who make it and the people who buy it. It's none of my business, and it shouldn't be the business of anyone who isn't interested in it for what it's there for.

If you ask me, we would all be a lot better off if people would stop assuming they have the right to dictate what other people they don't even know should be reading, watching, and hearing. We hillbillies don't like folks all the time stickin their noses in our business. Time was, if I didn't invite you into my yard, I reserved the right to shoot you. And we knew we got the same if we started tellin other folks how to live.

So please stop assuming that because I don't like it, I want it censored or banned outright. And if I start saying I do, please shoot me.

You heard the lady! Save her from her own terminal hypocrisy!!!!

File under: just too funny!