Amazing Train Wreck of an Interview

[Feud]

I'm not a big fan of Orsen Scott Card, I don't dislike him but I've
never cared much for his writing and I don't think his political
reasoning is much to be impressed with.

But, this interview with him is awesome:

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/card

Basically, the author is completely opposite from Card in about every way. She also has projected onto Card before the interview starts an idea that he is a male version of her.

So, when she actually meets him and learns that her assumptions were
wrong she promptly has a meltdown over the matter and seems to make it
a personal mission to destroy the inconvenient truth that exists in
place of her much desired fantasy.

The result is that after about question 2 the "interview" descends
into an increasingly bizarre debate in which the interviewer seems to
be about to begin frothing at the mouth in an effort to both hate him and salvage her assumptions of him, and which Card seems to be taking a considerable amount of amusement from.

Well worth the read.

[Cooper42]

Sounds fairly typical of what happens when you put two people whose politics are based on tired tropes, misjudged assumptions and general closed mindedness in a room together and try and get them to have a sensible conversation.

She clearly doesn't love those 'contradictions' as much as she suggests, and simply descends into boring liberal rhetorical nonsense whilst he spouts similarly nonsensical religious and patriotic views.

[MaximusBrood]

"One of the reasons I respect your work is that you're really, really concerned with ethics. The foundation of all ethics, for me, is always whether something hurts anyone. For that reason, it puzzles me that you would see something like homosexuality as wrong, when it patently doesn't hurt anyone."

"I'm amused that you think it doesn't hurt anyone. The homosexuals that I've known well, I have found none who were actually made happier by performing homosexual acts. Or by withdrawing, which is what they do, from the mainline of human life. The separation is there and is, in fact, celebrated within the homosexual community."

At this point I laughed, hard.
Sad, puritan, Christian, American society.

Thank you, Feud, for this great insight.

[Phelanpt]

I started to read it, but it mentions Ender's Shadow, which I haven't read yet, so I'll save it until I have.

And since we're talking about Orson Scott Card:
I've only read Ender's Game yet. Should I read Ender's Shadow next? Or is there a better reading order?

[xander]

"One of the reasons I respect your work is that you're really, really concerned with ethics. The foundation of all ethics, for me, is always whether something hurts anyone. For that reason, it puzzles me that you would see something like homosexuality as wrong, when it patently doesn't hurt anyone."

"I'm amused that you think it doesn't hurt anyone. The homosexuals that I've known well, I have found none who were actually made happier by performing homosexual acts. Or by withdrawing, which is what they do, from the mainline of human life. The separation is there and is, in fact, celebrated within the homosexual community."

At this point I laughed, hard.
Sad, puritan, Christian, American society.

Thank you, Feud, for this great insight.

Orson Scott Card is a Mormon, and thus should not be lumped in with the mainstream of American culture (which is not to say that your overall assessment is incorrect, only that you are starting from a faulty premise).

And, to the interviewer: do your fucking research! Jebus H Motherfucking Christ on a Pogo-Stick! It is a well known fact that Orson Scott Card is an extremely conservative wack-a-loon. How can you go into an interview with him and not know what you are getting into? Fans should not be allowed to be jounalists. X(

xander

[vanarbulax]

Wow that certainly was an interesting read, for someone who claim to love contradiction she was projecting like all hell.

I actually didn't find Orson Scott Card as inflamitory as he has been made out to be (especially after the stupid "boycott shadow complex" thing). At least not openly aggravating but the more I think about his comment the more I go "can he honestly believe that?". He has a naive and conspiratorial view of gay people but a lot of people do and that's nowhere near the worst I've heard. I think it's insane for an interviewer to have read a piece of fiction she considers very ironic and condemning of it's own content without actually checking the background views of the author and how much it is satire.

I haven't read Ender's Game but I was rather confused about this:

I'd hate to have it on the record that I 'like the military.' But our entry into the Korean and Vietnam wars reflect very well upon the American people. The motive was not imperialistic at all, but genuinely altruistic. We were willing to send our children off to war to protect, as we saw it -- as we were told to see it -- to protect the freedom of other nations. And like Ender, if we were lied to, we're still not responsible for the actions we took based on what we believed.

Just because you're told your fighting for a good cause, doesn't mean it is one or it justifies the horrific acts in it.

Also if you are an interviewer don't try to pyschoanalyse the interviewee for ulterior motives, the whole point is to facilitate the person being interviewed to give opinions and information on interesting questions. At lead I can agree with Orson Scott Card that old (and most) pyshcoanlaysis is humbug. Anything which from another field which is still used heavily in the humanities but have been outdated and discredited in their respective field (e.g simplistic Marxism in history and economics) is pretty much a dead idea being rehashed into increasingly absurd/meaningless statements.

Sorry I have to rant about the ridiculousness of the stuff we are being taught in extension English sometimes.

[MaximusBrood]

I started to read it, but it mentions Ender's Shadow, which I haven't read yet, so I'll save it until I have.

Don't bother. Not for the interview, anyway.
The interviewer focusses so much on her own beliefs and fandom, searching for 'common ground' with Card and finding none, that it never really is about any book.

Orson Scott Card is a Mormon, and thus should not be lumped in with the mainstream of American culture (which is not to say that your overall assessment is incorrect, only that you are starting from a faulty premise).

I stand corrected.
Honestly, I know very, very little about that same American society/culture I 'ridicule' upon reading quotes from an apparant idiot.