Jon Del Arroz contemplates the Culture War Grift
After you’ve been around the block awhile, you see posts of folk complaining about online movements which devolve into meaninglessness.
It’s pretty easy to spot the symptoms at this point to not involve yourself:
- Conservatives/Right Wingers are blacklisted/wronged/banned from some industry.
- The people react, supporting said right wingers.
- People want more — they want an alternative, they look for a leader.
- A few semi-celebrity grifters come in, act as leaders to either get themselves awards and/or money.
- The grifters bleat endlessly about how the art must be “apolitical”.
- The grifters fight the right wingers and wrestle control of the movement, often warning about “extremism on both sides”.
- The right wingers get ostracized/blacklisted, thus negating the purpose of the movement to beginwith.
- The grifters ride the movement until it dies.
I’m sure you can’t imagine whom he has in mind…. The key for any lasting organization or institution is to keep out the SJWs, which is something neither the grifters nor the wannabees will ever do. Sad Puppies and the Dragon Awards were doomed because they wanted to fix the enemy. The reason our projects continue moving forward – however irritatingly slowly they move – is because we refuse to embrace the apolitical or the irreligious.Life is a fundamentally spiritual exercise. And those who are playing only for themselves, or worse, for the other side, cannot be allowed on the team.