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Hello! Sorry if this is a bit random but I have a question- is Orson Scott Card really a bad person? I don't know WHY people hate him so much so I would greatly appreciate if someone explained to me why he's so widely hated and why he has such a bad rep. I don't want to support someone who is an awful person and is disliked for a good reason, thanks!
Posts: 1 | Registered: May 2020
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Why ask here? You could just read up on his controversies and the things that created his reputation and general blacklisting, then decide if these acts reach a threshold you personally qualify as making him not worth supporting. They're not hard to find listed and his views should be painfully clear by now.
The debate over him here is essentially as dead as the forum -- outside of a few stubborn oddballs that this place liked to attract, general open support of him ultimately didn't survive an era where he regularly released articles loaded full of frequently breathtakingly bad takes that undercut arguments in support of his better nature and sometimes grossly embarrassed people who had been making appeals towards judging him much less severely and pejoratively, only to watch the credibility of their goodwill get erased in a steady supply of statements or political commentary by him which can most charitably be described as "coming off really, reaaaally bad." Or great, I guess, if you're a fan of modern fox news style conservative polemic and mockery. Most people here eventually (and sometimes sorrowfully) would reach a point of various personal acknowledgments about not being able to support him anymore after a certain threshold of his apparently falling into reliably hard right style rhetoric and invective. Reception of him will now just fall into normal American political tribal lines. Like trump and hate liberals and gay people being allowed to marry? You're probably going to like him and think he Tells It Like It Is! Don't like trump and support gay people's right to marry? You're probably gonna hate him!
So there's not much left to say I guess. Thanks for stopping by
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I haven't posted here for years, and just stopped by because I saw OSC interviewed by Ben Shapiro last Sunday..
I am a retired psychologist, and would share an idea that might be foreign to you. The condemnation that Samprimary mentions above is basically projection. The old saying is, "We see the world not as it is but as we are." Those on the left seem surprisingly deaf to that principle. That is, they are alwys accusing others of bad takes and hateful behavior. They engage in polemics and mockery, all the while accusing the Right of exactly what they do.
If you spend any time reading the Walk Away stuff,you discover that people formerly on the left, like Dave Rubin, woke up to some flavor of that principle. Rubin (and several other Walk Away people) comment on how surprisingly open and accepting the more conservative people are. Dave, a gay guy married to another man who apparently is named Dave, is good friends with Ben Shapiro, an orthodox Jew. Another good case in point is Ben Shapiro who shows great respect for OSC in the interview. Toward the end OSC reveals he is not a conservative, and has a lot of liberal ideas. Ben is quiet and respectful. Samprimary seems deaf to OSC's fairly liberal ideas.
But on the left there is this rage and hatred. Cancel anyone who disagrees! I know it is ironic, but the people claiming the other side is full of hate is the side that is full of hate. That plays both ways, but it is much louder on the left.
If you like his writing, you can enjoy that. Perhaps you can someday, not right now, but maybe some day, take the red pill.
Posts: 121 | Registered: Jul 2006
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By the way, the original Walk Away example might be David Horowitz, raised a red diaper baby by communist parents, grew up going to communist summer camps. In 1984 he reveals he had voted for Ronald Reagan.
His transformation story is in his book, Radical Son, and he mentioned how shocked he was at how he was treated by people on the right, including icon William F Buckley. He found them accepting, open minded, willing to dialog, and respectful of his right to be a far leftist.
Leftism is a failure. It always has been. Only by ignoring history and facts are people able to continue to believe in it. Here's a quote: "Those who left the Party before me were traitors. Those who left after me were fools." People wake up at different times. Some are sleeping still.
Posts: 121 | Registered: Jul 2006
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Can right wing people never use the phrase "take the red pill" again? It comes from 2 trans women and im sorry but you're hard core projecting on thus. I had a right wing ex friend get angry at me for having subsidized rent and I made the mistake of being too patient about her racist points of view that were outmoded when they first started. Never again. Conservative rhetoric ruins society.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Tom and Syn both are foolish and shallow, illustrating on Tom's part PROJECTION: he accuses others of being shallow because he is. He can't document any fact, so he retreats to labeling. Pretty characteristic of leftist language: never deal in facts, only in wild accusation.
Can either of them deal with the Walk Away material? Can they parse someone like Dave Rubin? This is the original interview where Dave realized that Leftism is factually and morally bankrupt, and started his movement to the Right: https://youtu.be/IFqVNPwsLNo
c.f.: https://youtu.be/5daNMXer2UQ to address "systemic racism" which has a lot of heat and little light behind it.
Can either question the premise that only capitalism has lifted billions of people out of poverty?
Tom, those are some facts from a shallowly informed person. Read the UCLA study, read Radical Son, and listen to Rubin. Please enlighten me.
Posts: 121 | Registered: Jul 2006
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There are some very young and inexperienced-at-life people on the far left who are unrealistic in their expectations of life/the world/etc., simply through lack of knowledge and life experience. Synesthesia probably knows some people like this.
There are people in academia who have never worked outside academia, and have little understanding of what makes an economy work and how the world itself works. Sam probably knows some people like this.
There are people in rural areas who have almost no awareness of how government actually works, what goes in in academia, basic scientific knowledge, religion outside their own congregation, etc.. Because I have lived most of my life in rural NC and Virginia, I personally know a LOT of people like this.
And there are older people who may once have been in touch with the world, but gave up learning and changing and growing long ago, and watch Fox News for their understanding of current events and politics. Lynn Johnson probably knows a lot of people like this.
And there is OSC, who has holed up in his home office lo these last 35 years, only coming out for church, cons, vacations, and such, and lost out on a lot of useful and broadening human contact by not having regular/varied human contact in that time frame.
All these groups imagine terrible, unfair, and untrue things about members of these other “bubbles”. Simply through lack of experience.
And now the world is changing, and not a minute too soon for me.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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I'd like to think that OSC isn't quite as closeted as you portray. A person that is as well known as he is probably could not live a relatively anonymous life that you and I enjoy, perhaps would limit (to some degree) his interaction with folks. However, what I believe is based upon several (admittedly limited) things, first and foremost being the afterward of Empire. It resonated soundly with me and my particular philosophy of having the strength of your convictions does NOT have to be at the expense of other's equally strong beliefs. OSC is old enough to have reached an internal consensus that is based upon his faith, his rich expanse of experiences, and education. And he has a really good knack for stringing together sentences that are not only entertaining but make you think. I don't have to buy into his particular matrix of ideas and beliefs to appreciate them; its for me to decide what I believe, what resonates with me.
Posts: 1 | Registered: Jun 2020
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No one projects more than conservatives. You cannot have the 2.5 kid nuclear family WITHOUT so called leftist policies like affordable health care, affordable housing and decent pay. Its impossible. Capitalism demands there be people on the bottom whose energy and resources are stolen and given to a small amount of people on the top. It isn't a sustainable system.
People are lying when they say poverty has to exist or that it's people's fault for being poor. Poverty could be fixed in seconds. This country doesn't have to have one of the worse health care systems. Its immoral to keep insisting it has to be like this when it doesn't.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I have read so much of OSC's work, which reveals his mind, and he has influenced my own for sure over the years. If you've read his books you can figure out who he is considerably more deeply than political talking points, but focusing on who he is in how he relates to those around him. Reader/Author relationship is a much deeper experience if you open your mind to it. I don't care if he doesn't agree with everything I think about the world, at the very least, he's not censoring this forum from people who seem to be talking negatively about him, that says something on it's own about his character. No one has everything right, if you think that you do, that is the strongest signal that you can have that you are in trouble in your thinking. We are all in our own reality tunnel. We need to be more gentle with each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C72uz0XQPA
I'm very happy and grateful to have had Uncle Orson to tell me all these wonderful stories.
posted
My two cents, I have joined the forum back in 2016 when I started to read OSC again after many years. I had an extremely unpleasant experience with some of the members here who will only post anything to keep this forum dead and to avoid conversations they disapprove in terms of ideology and they seem to have already manifested themselves.
It usually starts with the user Samprimary: she will try to debunk whatever she and her group dislike. The next to come is Tom Davidson with a small post backing what she said and being sarcastic. If it does not work others from their gang will come and support them.
I left the forum some in 2017. I came back today. Sam and the gang are still here.
Posts: 1 | Registered: Jan 2021
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It usually starts with the user Samprimary: she will try to debunk whatever she and her group dislike. The next to come is Tom Davidson with a small post backing what she said and being sarcastic. If it does not work others from their gang will come and support them.
I left the forum some in 2017. I came back today. Sam and the gang are still here.
Man, NOBODY’S here. LOL I remember 20 years ago this place would see hundreds of posts a day. Now all that has mostly moved to Facebook. If you really want to talk to some like-minded OSC conservative fans, try ai-Jane.org or ornery.org.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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It usually starts with the user Samprimary: she will try to debunk whatever she and her group dislike. The next to come is Tom Davidson with a small post backing what she said and being sarcastic. If it does not work others from their gang will come and support them.
I left the forum some in 2017. I came back today. Sam and the gang are still here.
Man, NOBODY’S here. LOL I remember 20 years ago this place would see hundreds of posts a day. Now all that has mostly moved to Facebook. If you really want to talk to some like-minded OSC conservative fans, try ai-Jane.org or ornery.org.
It can't be helped. Facebook is so overrated for some reason.
Posts: 116 | Registered: Jul 2016
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