Sci said:
I'd say it is. A bias, mind you, isn't necessarily a bad thing, either -- it's simply a point of view. But when you're, for instance, writing from the point of view which holds that homosexuality is a morally neutral thing, then that's certainly one particular bias. It's a good bias, I would argue, but a bias nonetheless.
Maybe we're using two different meanings of the word bias. The one that comes to my mind first is the pejorative sense, also the first applicable definition in my dictionary:
2. a particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.
Obviously, since liberalism is opposed to prejudice, the notion of a 'liberal bias' comes off as something of an oxymoron. If liberal rejection of conversative stances sometimes seem so speedy that it comes across as prejudice, it's only because conversatism, by its very Arcadian nature, deploys a limited number of arguments repeatedly and innovates only infrequently, such that most arguments will have been encountered, considered and dismissed many times previously. Not prejudging, then, but postjudging.
On the other hand, if you mean bias to mean partiality generally and not neccesarily a jaundiced perspective, a proclivity, then I would agree.
So while I think it's fair to say that overall, Trek's politics tends to be more liberal, I also think it's fair to point out that there are elements of conservatism that are represented in Trek, too. So it's nice to have, in terms of authors, more of an ideological balance. I'm not saying that Trek books should start espousing a fundamentally conservative viewpoint, mind you -- but it's nice to present more than one political POV both in the books and amongst the authors.
Frankly, I'm quite happy with the mostly liberal viewpoint we have now, which I think fits the universe nicely. I don't see that we should start going off looking for libertarian, or fascist, or anarchist Trek fiction, in the name of a misunderstood notion of inclusivity. Being inclusive doesn't mean accepting all things; it's maximizing what can be incorporated, while still rejecting overt exclusionary schemes. And the Moore quote, I feel, supports what I've been saying about how Carey's works felt, to me anyway, to present only a singular viewpoint. You certainly wouldn't argue that the current roster of authors, whatever their real life affiliations, don't present a variety of perspectives in their novels, from liberals like Troi to militarist Klingons to capitalist Ferengi to crypto-facsists like Section 31. Yes, one ideology will typically prevail or be casted in the best light, but it's part of the Trek universe's philosophical underpinnings that optimism and outreach succeed, and doesn't make the writers' attempts to present a multiplicity of viewpoints futile or hypocritical.
There was no Bill O'Reilly comic book, to the best of my knowledge. There
was, however, a extremist conservative Sean Hannity comic called
Liberality For All, which was
absolutely hysterical.
Hannity, O'Reilly--same diff'.
Ethros said:
So from what I see here, I find it interesting and odd that a female author would have such views on the male-female dynamic, one might say even "anti-feminism" by the sounds of it... Again I haven't read any of her works, so I'm only going by what I'm reading here, but would be a fair assessment to make?
Eee... I've never actually met Carey, so I'm extremely uncomfortably doing anything like accusing her of mysogyny simply from reading some of her fiction. What I will say, and I believe true, is that her characters present a quite narrow behavioural spectrum which is put forward as being 'correct', and that it correlates strongly with a very traditional notion of masculinity.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
