namelessfly wrote:runsforcelery wrote:One reason that it did is that Duckk knows I was accused of anti-Semitism in a letter to Baen shortly after HotQ came out precisely because the letter-writer reasoned that I had deliberately implied that the Mesans were Jews, based on the name of their planet and their excision of the New Testament. The real reason for the planet name, of course, was to demonstrate how religious fanatics (of any stripe, though I admit it's a tad hard to find a religious fanatic Methodist . . . except where our casserole recipes are concerned, perhaps) can pervert and steal from the histories of any other religion, as well as their own. And, of course, however terrible we think the Honorverse Masadans are, they don't see it that way.
I trust that my readers at large --- as well as everyone who knows me personally --- realizes just how ridiculous that charge actually was, but I suspect Duckk's a bit protective of me.
IIRC correctly, I had merely used the identification of the Masadans as Jewish as a sarcastic comment in response to other forum members using the Graysons as a metaphor for how backwards and evil Christains are. As Weber illustrated so eloquently with the scene of Admiral Corvorsair (spelling?) having dinner with Admiral Yanakov, there were compelling reasons why Grayson society imposed such severe restrictions on it's women. Given the demographic realities resulting from the ecological trap the planet was, the Grayson colony would not have survived if social conventions that compelled women to devote themselves to being wives and mothers. As I have pointed out in various posts, the extremely high fetal and infant mortality rate on Grayson makes it far more difficult than people realize to maintain a positive, population growth rate. The short story OBLIGATED SERVICE reveals that infertility is big problem on Grayson (exposure to heavey metals causes sterility, who would have thunk it). Given this reality, the societal expectations that the women who are FERTILE and who can find husbands who can SUPPORT them and are also FERTILE should devote their lives to having babies rather than careers was perfectly reasonable. The primary evil was not respecting the critical role that Grayson women played as wives mothers. The two dinner scenes with Yanakov then Protector Benjamin revealed that Grayson culture was in fact not as mysogynistic as Manticorans presumed. Grayson's rapid, cultural revolution in response to the new opportunities enabled by modern technology and medical care confirms that Grayson was far more enlightened than it appeared.
Nameless, in case there's any confusion, no one --- least of all me --- is accusing you of accusing me of anti-Semitism, and I don't see anything anti-Semitic in any of your posts which I've read, either. Like certain other areas of life and society these days, this can be something of a minefield, though. It's far, far, far too easy to end up labeled "anti-Whatever," when, in fact, you are none of the above.
My Dad was a pretty hard left Chicago-born and raised Democrat for his entire life, which led to some interesting table discussions, and also taught me the virtue of always assuming your opponent in a debate or in a political campaign is (a) human, (b) sincere, and (d) reasonably intelligent even if he does have the ineffably bad judgment to disagree with you.
But I remember him, one day a few years before his death, sitting at my dining room table with this saddened and bemused expression wondering what had happened to his country not because of anything anyone on the right had done but because a local newspaper columnist (with whom, by the way, my dad differed pretty profoundly philosophically) was being hounded by the PC police for an honestly expressed opinion which was neither racist nor misogynist yet was being attacked as both. It works both ways and from both sides of the intolerance divide, too. I was angry when Guns and Ammo magazine (which I read) dropped Dick Metcalf, one of its longest running columnists for daring to suggest that even constitutionally guaranteed rights might, perhaps, be subject to a degree of regulation. I happen to be pretty darn rabid about the 2nd Amendment, and I don't agree with one of Metcalf's fundamental arguments --that the language of the 2nd Amendment, by referring to a "well regulated militia," specifically endorses regulation of gun ownership and use by private citizens. It's pretty evident to me that "well regulated" in this instance is referring to the nature of the militia organization and its state of training, legal powers, and limitations, etc. But just because I don't agree with every jot and tittle of what he wrote doesn't mean he didn't perform a valuable service by writing it, for God's sake! If we can't even debate the ideas --- even stupid ideas (which, BTW, I'm not saying his was, even if I have reservations about his logic) --- how the hell are we ever going to reach consensus (or at least majority agreement) on anything?Oops. Rant off.
[steps off soap box scratching head and wondering where it came from in the first place. walks off whistling with hands in pockets.
