He’s a writer, sort of. He’s mainly an indignant Christian. Here’s a sample: he starts off furious that historians use “CE” rather than “AD”, which is solely intended to insult the Christian religion
, and segues into fulminating rage against all that modern stuff — you know, sodomites and leftists.
We must pry their hands from the levers of power, slap their megaphone from our ear, remove their boot from the neck of our economy, drive the swine from the public trough, remove the leprous private parts from their plundering the soul of innocence.
The Sexual Revolution, and no fault divorce, has done infinite harm to the public weal, and ruined countless private lives, including those in my immediate family and immediate circle of friends. Femininity, motherhood, fidelity, charity, chastity, honor, honesty, monogamy and family, all these things were demeaned and repudiated in the name of freedom. Freedom did not result, but slavery. Those chains must be broken. The feminist movement has grown into a corrupt parody of itself.
We want our men back. We want our women back. We want masculinity for the men and femininity for the women. The man-haters have no more arguments to make and nothing more to say.
How have we come to the pass where to indulged in unspeakable sexual perversion is a constitutionally protected right which overrides the rights of the faithful not to participate in the celebration of an abomination their religion, as well as common decency, condemns: but to use the word ‘pervert’ is to be shunned by the elite, subject to harassment and lawsuit, and in our neighboring countries, to jail?
Leftists have proven themselves unfit for positions of command and trust in our society. Even my little corner, the science fiction field, has been overrun by the termites that enter the moldy walls once the sunlight of truth is absent.
Now that you have a hint of the level of lunacy John C. Wright regularly dispenses, you might be in the mood to read Scott Lynch’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Lying Crazypants Liars Who Lie”. It’s a thing of beauty.
Look, John C. Wright is, in all modesty, a tediously pious moralizer, one of the most tediously pious moralizers shitting indigestible paragraphs today. Wright has rarely met a sentence to which he didn’t want to add twenty-three words and just a soupcon of plausibly-deniable Blood Libel. The most striking feature of John C. Wright’s religiosity is that it is indistinguishable from a professional troll’s deliberate attempt to discredit John C. Wright’s religiosity. Even an atheist can spot the thinness of Wright’s “Christian” ethos, smeared atop the fluff like the molecule-thin film of petrochemical butter on movie popcorn. Wright confuses concrete-dry levelness of tone with actual decency and civility, just as he confuses the Christianity of Christ with a viciously masturbatory conviction that God is his bigger, meaner cellmate who is going to pound every other inmate in the ass SO HARD in the showers, they won’t even believe it.
So true.
Now you can go read one of his books
This really reminds me of Catholic school, way back in the ’60s. The nuns used to speak like this, as if the only thing they ever had in their heads were vicious, virulent revenge fantasies, to be carried out, if not by them, then by their bloodthirsty god. Righteously, of course – this wasn’t their wish, oh no, it was god’s wish, oh my yes. It was all violence, all the time, always coated in hyperbole.
And there we are, where we always end up – it’s the fault of the women. If only we corruptible Eves could be properly corralled once more, why everything would be right with the world. Oh, and that god person.
This comment was written in 2016 CE.
I’ve heard xians given the same complaint regarding even the contraction… xian.
but, nobody here needs reminding that the core feature of xianity that appeals to authoritarian types is the ability to garner the spoils of playing a victim, while still being a bully.
Ichthyic @ 2:
Yeah, that happened here once upon a time. When I pointed out that Xtian originated with Christians themselves, that did not stop the offended person from insisting it was insult, a slur when used by non-xtians. Didn’t matter that I pointed out that a number of prominent Xtians used the contraction either (C.S. Lewis and so on).
Well, at least he got this bit, (referring to Christinanity), right:
Is it just me, or does Wright seem like his persona and writing style were lifted directly from Ignatius Reilly? There really ought to be an term for prose so purple it’s beyond the ability of mere mortals to read it. Ultraviolet prose?
It’s a pity. I LOVED his Golden Age-trilogy. I tried another of his books but yeah, the misogyny got too much. And then I found out about, well, all of this. Really loved those though, not going to lie.
Only a smidge heavy-handed with that one.
..if the intended target was Catholic priests, you mean?
I got started on his series of books about deep time adventures and was intrigued for a way through. Then, when the sole female character was introduced – and was a cardboard cut-out – I got a bit worried. In fact, a cardboard cut-out even among other cardboard cut-outs (I was thinking “hey, it’s milsf, that’s par for the course…”) Her role, of course, is to be beautiful and to give the main 2 characters, a couple manly men, something to fight over. Because, like women since time immemorial she was going to go with the one who killed the other, or something. Anyway…. The books weren’t bad until I think it was the third, which had 3/4 of the book devoted to one fight scene. There’s a book that analyzes the engagement at Jutland down to the strike of each shell that hit anything; Wright’s book has a similar flair. Which is to say, it’s dead boring. For milsf to have a 100-page-long fight scene that’s dead boring is… problematic.
Tl;dr: He’s better than John Ringo. He’s not as good as David Weber. That’s as much faint praise as I’m willing to dole out.
But that’s not really saying much. Stross, Scalzi, and Sanford/Ctein are doing much more interesting stuff so there’s no need to support religious wads who write things like:
to indulged in unspeakable sexual perversion is a constitutionally protected right
I dunno what’s “unspeakable” but then I’m perverted as all get-out, myself. I’ve gone out in public without a hat, for example.
I recently had the misfortune of attempting to read one of his sci-fi novels.
It was recommended by the local librarian.
Not only was it one of the rare books I actually HAD to put down simply because it was so tedious, misogynistic, boring, insipid, and unoriginal…
I even felt motivated to go back and bore the librarian for 30 minutes about why it was so bad, and why her recommendation stank. I can’t recall ever having done anything like that before.
it was that bad.
Obligatory OH JOHN RINGO NO reference.
I read through all that but what threw me off the most was the repeated infantilization of his own wife. I mean given what kind of cave troll we’re talking about here it’s not THAT surprising in retrospect but it’s still really really jarring to hear someone demeaning their own spouse like that. And even more so that she stays with him. My mind is full of fuck…
…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8OWNspU_yE
furious that historians use “CE” rather than “AD”, which is solely intended to “insult the Christian religion”
much like Trump’s, OReilley’s, et FauxNoize outrage that “Happy Holidays” is an insult to banish Jesus from Christmas.
Once again, one word “inclusion” (as opposed to “exclusion”).
same with adopting CommonEra as opposed to >b>AnnoDominea for numbering the years.
I guess its too hard to explain CE’s origin (zero) point, when AD gots it right there in its acronym. Guess it’s too hard to be axd kwestions. duh.
Sadly, it’s written by someone who ENJOYS reading and buying Ringo books, I guess mostly for the shock value.
what it tells is that no matter what, anyone who says they like Ringo’s stuff has got… issues; even the ones that criticize it while… liking it.
Not to mention that C.E. may have originally stood for “Christian Era” (dating back to 1657 according to the OED) not “Common Era” (earliest use seems to be early 1700s).
Ah, yes. Who doesn’t long for the days when spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri?
Does this guy want to transform his country into Saudi Arabia?
Wasn’t he the guy that flipped out other a cartoon that implied that two characters were Gay?
@10 Ichthyic:
As a librarian you have my sincere apologies for what happened to you. Had I been the librarian in question I would have steered you well clear of John Ringo’s oeuvre, except as examples of how not to write. I hate that man’s books with a fiery passion.
I’ve noticed that people who aren’t very open or imaginative in most of the rest of their life tend not to be open and imaginative in their writing. Their characters are almost always missing that certain spark, as well.
@19 gijoel
Yes, I think he went off then about how the fans celebrated the implications of a relationship from Legend of Korra. Haven’t actually watched LoK, but as a geek girl, I’ve heard a hell of a lot of good things about it, and watched the videos of fans actually breaking down in tears and screams in happiness for the implied relationship.
At least I think that’s what it was about. I try not to pay too close attention to Wright.
The writers confirmed that Korra and Asami were together in tweets as well. (The first two seasons of LoK are weak but the third picks up and it finally finds its stride in the fourth.) But yeah that was Wright. That was the first time I’d heard of him and after reading his screed my loathe was instant.
@21 lakitha tolbert
Yeah, that was it. He wrote an “Open Letter” to the creators, in which he said:
Leaving everything else aside, I feel like John C. Wright has a very incomplete understanding of both anatomy and human sexuality. I’ve watched the final episode of LoK over and over again (and cry every time) and there’s a distinct lack of phallic idols in the Korra/Asami relationship.
@19 gijoel
Wright was also one of the names involved in the situation regarding the 2015 Hugo Awards*: not a primary organizer to my knowledge, but ready to defend why he deserved to be on one category’s ballot three times (and nominated for six separate works). He got to lose to ‘No Award Given’ three times (and may have ranked below ‘No Award’ across the board: I’d have to find where the ballot stats are).
* Basically two groups (Google Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies, but I think PZ has mentioned them here) put up similar lists of ‘things to nominate’. When those lists made it nearly verbatim onto the ballot, sometimes blocking out whole categories, much of the rest of science fiction fandom was quite annoyed that their favorites weren’t on the ballot, and various Puppies didn’t quite get that it wasn’t just the Social Justice Warriors hating good old fashioned adventure.
How kind of Wright to remind us that even the most spittle-spraying, hatemongering caricature of a villain can be outdone by reality.
Also, I was planning on reading Lynch’s books, but with my shitty memory and lack of patience for rereading the same book multiple times, I hate starting fantasy epics while they’re still being written. I guess I’ll be trying them out in a few decades when that series is done. Too bad the dude doesn’t write more blog posts, though. I’d love to have more smackdown-happy liberal authors’ blogs to follow.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Marcus Ranum (#9)
Well, if the perversions were ever articulated, one might see just how petty and unshocking they actually are and start questioning the basis of the uproar over them. Also, one might find oneself becoming aroused.
I suspect the only reason the word ‘martyrbation’ isn’t in the dictionary yet is that Wright is demanding too much money for the use of his picture next to the definition.
I’m willing to let him have “AD” if he’ll meet me half-way. If he’ll just stand back and not complain if we convert the civil calendar to reckon dates in AUC. One only hopes that he enjoys doing the required conversion every time he needs to date something or read a date on anything he didn’t write.
and may have ranked below ‘No Award’ across the board: I’d have to find where the ballot stats are
Yes, he did. Every Puppy nominee outside of the Dramatic Presentation categories finished below “No Award”.
The “in modesty” reference in the Lynch’s comment comes from a ongoing running-gag about Wright’s own “I am, in all modesty, a skilled author, one of the finest writing today” sentence, which is, all in modesty, complete bollocks.
After the Legend of Korra comments, he also advocated violence against gays, and once he had some backlash, quickly re-edited his comments:
“In any case, I have never heard of a group of women descended on a lesbian couple and beating them to death with axhandles and tire-irons, but that is the instinctive reaction of men towards fags.”
As a result, I am staying away from his books not only for his literary failings but for him being a disgusting person.
Talking about running gags: On File770 one of the most enduring gags is a prominent Rabid Puppy Editor claiming he’s the best editor out there, being nominated in the Hugos, and then publishing is own e-book with two Chapter Fives. You cannot make up these things…
I will probably never forgive Mr. Wright for making me read so much of his overwritten dreck so I could, with a clear conscience, leave him off my Hugo ballot. Unfortunately, I had already read “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus” before it got disqualified. There is SF written sixty years ago (well, certainly fifty. Not looking up anything at this hour, or trying to think) that is fresher than Wright.
At least Lionel Fanthorpe knew he wasn’t writing deathless prose.
Caine
Of course it is. Back in the good old days when men could still rape and beat their wives who had no chance of getting out of that hellhole, men didn’t have to worry about having to treat women like people.
Sure, the women and children in those relationships used to be unhappy and mistreated, but the important thing is, the men weren’t. Now he’s at risk of being left and therefore becoming unhappy. That’s some grave injustice.
“We must pry their hands from the levers of power, slap their megaphone from our ear, remove their boot from the neck of our economy, drive the swine from the public trough, remove the leprous private parts from their plundering the soul of innocence.”
Who was it who said “the best cure for a mixed metaphor is to draw a picture of it”? In this case I think John C Wright would produce a magnificent album cover!
I came across the name of this guy in the course of that whole Sad Puppies/ Rabid Puppies business this year. Christ, what an asshole.
I guess we ought no tell this poor dear about the Holocene calendar lest he need to summon his fainting couch. Holocene calendar for the win! Get started on the Y9K problem early!
What always annoys me about guys like this and the equally loathsome Andrew Schlafly who get worked up about the AD/ CE thing is that the guys who invented the BC/AD system knew it was inaccurate (due to ambiguities in consular numbering and whatnot) and said as much in their writings describing it. Complaining that we no longer say “in the year of Our Lord” when the early Christians would have never used it (it was invented much later), it was never accurate in the first place, and he was never most people on Earth’s “Lord” anyway is just going out of one’s way to be offended about something.
Unfortunately I knew about him before I read the post. He thinks he’s a better writer than he actually is. He’s a poor man’s Jerry Pournelle, just like Vox Day is a poor man’s Ayn Rand.
What a vile, perverted mind this arsehole has.
Wright’s “Golden Age” books – written before he suffered a heart attack and mutated into a raving Christaliban out of a crippling fear of his own mortality, I think – is a prime example on how most SF, especially the Singularitarian/transhumanist dross, is just so much repackaged Xtian salvation theology.
At least I learnt a new word.
wtfpancakes wrote:
Magnificent. If this does not become a meme, there is no justice in the world.
The Sexual Revolution, and no fault divorce, has done infinite harm …
Yet neither of those annoys me nearly so much as botched verb-noun agreement by a professional author.
Something must be transfinitely wrong with my moral priorities.
newenlightenment @32:
Oh that we had the level of instant art-gratification here that Scalzi has at his place. Had you posted that there, we would already have seen at least one t-shirt-worthy response.
Ohh, I remember the ‘angry at Korra for poorly articulated reasons’ guy now.
Is he having another crack at being culturally relevant?
People, Wright is speaking in Dominionist dog-whistles here. Don’t let that pass you by; this is a concerted Theonomic effort, cf. Rushdoony, to bring theocracy to the US. These are the people who grew up on van Til, Bahnsen, etc., and are basically the Christian version of the Mullahs and Ayatollahs.
I think CE is silly too. It refers to the same epoch as AD.
A lot of us are familiar with the dog-whistles used by rethugs, racists, misogynists, Islamophobes, Dominionists, etc. It always confuses them to call them out for the meaning of the dog-whistles, rather than what they strictly say.
“But I didn’t say that”. Strictly yes, but you meant that, followed by a link to dog-whistles.
In this case, the homophobia by Wright, and the Xian exceptionalism, is transparent.
“Common Era” — common to whom? Why, to Christians of all sects. As it happens, chronology is generally delineated by religion (Hindu, Muslim, Jewish) or slightly more vaguely by culture (China, though not officially) or, of course, by revolution (France, briefly; Soviet Union for a while). Maybe we should pick a definable technological moment and campaign for a global change — steam power? Or just say the heck with it, it’s all random anyway, let’s just pick one, say Traditional Chinese, whip it into shape to account for the inconvenience of the planet’s orbit, and move on. I for one will adapt to the whims of our new timelords.
If he feels that way about “CE”, maybe we shouldn’t let him know where the word “Cretin” came from…
why yes. seems rather obvious.
maybe not to him though.
that works on so many levels.
wtfpancakes @5: Vantaprose? To refer to ultraviolet light’s colloquial name as ‘black light’, and meaning prose so awful that no particle of even base enjoyment can escape to the reader’s eye (or ear).
I first heard BCE/CE when studying ancient Biblical history over a quarter-century ago, and it was SOP for scholars back then. (Scholars of the ancient Near East are not a noticeably ‘politically correct’ bunch, btw.) If Wright wanted to shit himself about the theft of AD, he’s quite a bit late for that train.
Just goes to show…
ignorance is timeless.
This is an interesting statement. Because it is an admission that feminism is or at least was necessary and that things were not, in fact, just peachy under the exclusive rule of men. If feminism is currently “a parody of itself” then feminism must, at some point, have been a positive force and the problem must be not feminism as a concept, but rather its current execution.
Also, a major result of no fault divorce laws and other legal changes that made it easier to escape marriages that become intolerable: lower rates of domestic violence and fewer domestic murders. I suppose Wright disapproves of this outcome.
Scary to think this lunatic is out there walking free on the street.
No “sort of” about it; John C. Wright is a writer, and he apparently has some degree of talent in that craft, if one can judge by the works he produced before he Got Religion and became a walking, talking, living, breathing Public Service Announcement on the dangers of Getting Religion. “[normal person at keyboard] This is your brain. [frothing, hatemongering troll at keyboard] This is your brain on Christ. Any questions?”
And, yes, Wright is definitely in the Rabid Puppies camp. Which is not to say that the Rabid Puppies are distinguishable from the Sad Puppies in any objective manner, however much gosh-we’re-not-Rabid verbiage the SPs disgorge. But, you know, accepting arguendo that there actually is a real, non-propagandistic divide betwixt the Sads and Rabids, Wright’s a dyed-in-the-wool Rabid. I mean, the man voluntarily allows VD to edit on his manuscripts, and very much agrees with VD on a wide range of topics, okay?
In Mr. Wright’s spittle-flecked screed, we find
followed half a page later by
John C. Wright may be a writer, but he’s no editor.