As much as I may hand-wring about overaggressiveness from the Pulp Revolution crowd (I still prefer to think of myself as a moderating voice rather than a scold), I have to say that at least most of these folks conduct themselves with a level of decorum that seems to be absent in other quarters.
At the risk of sounding self-congratulatory about “my own side,” I’ve seen very little objectionable behavior from “us.” Sure, there’s some shitlording and sometimes you’ll see some bad language, it’s true. But I have yet to see anyone write off a good faith effort to engage. Dialogue and debate are welcome.
I bring this up because of an encounter Alex of Cirsova had yesterday. Summary:
(Updated – thanks for clarifying a point here, Alex)
– Dude writes a blog post about the Arthur C. Clark Award and his thoughts on the SFF genre.
– A commenter mentions Cirsova magazine’s contributions to the genre.
– Cirsova pops in to elaborate about his SFF magazine.
– Dude replies back observing that the Cirsova website has a Gamergate banner.
– Cirsova affirms this.
– Dude replies back accusing Cirsova and/or its fans of being misogynistic fascists. Unprovoked.
– Cirsova makes a graceful exit.
– Dude takes a parting shot.
– I drop a post mocking Dude’s lack of civility.
– Dude calls us self-serving Nazi pricks.
You can see the archived image here.
I think, in the long-run, this kind of thing can be good for us. The average observer, seeing this, is going to conclude that Dude is an asshole. It’s the same kind of poor behavior we see from the likes of Black Lives Matter or Occupy Wall Street, or the Trump protesters. Sorry guys – setting cop cars on fire and smashing Starbucks windows is not going to win you any prizes, nor will it ingratiate you with the public.
This, I think, is part of the reason the pendulum swung to the right this election cycle. Bad behavior is not rewarded.
I mean, who comes out looking badly here?
From where I’m standing, it’s not Cirsova.
Even if it *were* ok to punch Nazis in the face, you can’t just declare everyone who disagrees with you to be a Nazi. Eventually you’re going to punch someone and either (a) get hauled off or (b) get the shit kicked out of you.
-Bushi
PC Bushi 
Not only that, the only reason I commented was because other people leaving comments on the blog had brought us up first. It’s not like pop up on random websites to shill the zine.
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Thanks for pointing that out. Quite honestly I skimmed the post itself and the other comments.
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Some lady had mentioned us as something new and interesting that had recently emerged from the various debacles in the SFF community, so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to answer any questions folks may have had about what we were doing and what it was we were trying to accomplish (something that seemed perfectly reasonable when I first replied to the post!)
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Huh, I just realized Alex had tipped his hat but the guy interpreted it as a “fedora.”
I wasn’t before, but now I’m pissed.
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Because as we all know, only Nazis wear fedoras (sorry, Indiana Jones)..!
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I thought about replying “No… Stetson”, but I was already done.
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Do they even have Fedoras in Arkansas?
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In central and northwest Arkansas, absolutely.
You can probably even get them at Wal-Mart. ;D
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“Do they even have Fedoras in Arkansas?”
Mind. Blown.
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Cirsova handled that better than I would have.
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Yeah, he did nicely. Alex is a class act.
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When I see an angry person talking to someone in public I always observe. It’s just my nature. You can quickly tell if they are rightfully angry or just a shitty person. It’s the same thing on the internet. I personally thought some aspects of gamer gate were distasteful. But the reaction was overwhelmingly disgusting. I didn’t have a dog in the fight as video games aren’t really my thing. But I took a stance simply based on the language and outright bullsugar that was coming from ‘them’. Same thing will happen here.
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Same for me, though I’m a gamer. I was late to the scene and took a while to care enough to gather the facts. Some of the GG people were shit-throwers, but the other side’s dishonesty was just terrible.
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I love the saying, “Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.”
Academics got nothing on SF semiprozine editors and concoms.
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Haha, well said.
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I so want to use up a year’s worth of profanity in this comment just for the fun of it. However, real life gets priority, so sorry, you’ll have to make due with “crap”.
Crap….
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…very well, I’ll take it.
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Man, you take all the fun out of the internet!
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That’s part of my function as a curmudgeon..!
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I think civility is important no matter what side of an issue you stand on. Yelling names and insults changes no one’s opinion on politics, just whether you’re an extreme asshole or not.
Just like violent protestors (rioters really) are assholes. Peaceful protestors I have zero beef with even if I don’t agree with whatever reason they’re protesting.
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Agreed!
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Some people are just assholes. And assholes do they only thing they know how to do.
It’s just like the fable of the scorpion and the frog.
But with assholes.
I’ll just leave it at that.
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