Earlier today, Mark wrote about a boycott of the Ender’s Game movie; called for on the basis of Orson Scott Card’s public statements opposing gay marriage. Unlike Mark, I really enjoyed Ender’s Game and read it several times; later, I read John Kessel’s brilliant essay about it and realized some of the ways in which it brilliantly — and troublingly — snuck in a message of justifiable pre-emptive violence.
I’ve been concerned and upset about Card’s views on homosexuality since his “Hypocrites of Homosexuality” came out in 1990. But I won’t be signing onto the boycott call for the Ender’s Game movie, for the same reason I didn’t sign onto the call for a boycott of the Superman comic Card was tapped to write. A Steven Brust essay changed my thinking on this:
So, then, the question immediately stops being, “is it morally wrong to try to convince DC to blacklist Scott Card.” It becomes, “Is it a good tactic to try to convince DC to blacklist Scott Card.” In the previous discussion, Emma pointed out, quite correctly, that it’s an ineffective way to create change. I agree, but there’s more. Just like in a good work of fiction, what we need to examine are consequences. And the consequences of creating a blacklist are simple: it opens the door for it’s use against us. And, frankly, we’re a lot more vulnerable than they are; they have the entire power of the massive machine of capital and the State; we have only what we can pull in with our voices.
Later, Brust posted an anaecdote where he quoted Oscar Brand: “We on the left do not blacklist.”
Update: In the comments, Bill Morgenthien points out that a boycott isn’t the same thing, precisely, as a blacklist. That’s very true, and it’s an important distinction.