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The missing backstory here is that the author _played the game_. This is the end state. You play with fire, you get burned. If you want to use graduate student
by Mizza 5y ago
The missing backstory here is that the author _played the game_. This is the end state. You play with fire, you get burned.
If you want to use graduate student/CIA-recruitment language, reduce individuals down to their demographic components, and rely on stereotypes to build a hierarchy of piety, this is what you can expect. There is a lot of incentive to play the game, for a brief time you can be king of the hill, and have NPR, the BBC, Vox and Twitter fawning over you, and maybe get a good book deal out of it. However, whenever the slightest crack appears in your facade, which it inevitably will, there will be dozens of people rushing in to knock you down and take your place. That's what you chose.
You don't have to play the game. You can establish yourself as a critical, independent thinker and become "uncancelable", because your ideas will stand on their own merit. It is not the easiest path.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoDo you have citations for this backstory you are referring to of the author "playing the game"? If you do, I'm genuinely interested in what you are referring to. If you don't, you are just casting aspersions without providing any info that would let someone evaluate your position.
- lucretian 5y agoadichie is a prominent feminist author. it reads to me as if the person you are replying to is sneering at her for that reason, framing her feminism as a comparable manipulation (aka "the game") and reveling in that.
- Mizza 5y agoHere's her talking on stage with Hilary Clinton: https://pen.org/press-clip/hillary-clinton-and-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-talk-censorship-feminism-and-pizzagate/ https://pen.org/press-clip/hillary-clinton-and-chimamanda-ng... - which I think is the best example of "playing the game" as you can get. As a counter example, you will not find a similar talk with Camille Paglia.
- cafard 5y agoI haven't read the author. Is it necessary to establish yourself as a critical, independent thinker to be a novelist? Tolstoy's ideas were often silly, but he was a tremendous novelist. As for uncancelable, what does that even mean? That the idle and excitable will quit barking at you on Twitter? If it just means you won't care, why bother with the establishment bit.