(Note: The below post is a reprinting of a paper I wrote for an Ethics class that is part of my Master’s degree in Communications and Leadership. It examines the issue from the ethical perspective of dialogic communication.)
Sad Puppies 2015: Dialogic Failure
Jonathan R. Lightfoot
Gonzaga University
This paper will examine the recent media brawl over the selection of the 2015 Hugo Awards. It will examine the process through the filters of Walter Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm and the concept of ethical dialogic communication.
The Hugo Awards are given each year to honor the best in the field of science fiction for 16-plus various categories. Two groups of writers are debating the role and future of the Hugos. As writers they deal with narratives and create narratives. Fisher’s paradigm says that people are essentially storytellers and create meaning through narrative (Griffin, Ledbetter & Sparks, 2014).
In the case of the Hugos, the two groups created competing narratives that came into conflict. This paper will examine that narrative conflict and analyze it for the presence or absence of dialogically ethical deliberation. I will use the following definition of dialogic ethics in this paper:
Dialogic ethics listens to what is before one, attends to the historical moment, and seeks to negotiate new possibilities. Dialogic ethics is a conceptual form of marketplace engagement, ever attentive to conversational partners and their ground, the historical moment, and the emerging “possible” that takes place in the between of human meeting (Arnett, Fritz & Bell, 2008).
The first section will present the issue. The second section will show that the discussion was dialogically unethical. The third section will discuss the impact this lack of dialogic communication had on the decision-making process. Finally, proposals will be suggested for how the advocates might create an ethical dialogic deliberation.
The Issue: Competing Narratives
The Sad Puppies narrative mirrors Albert Hirschman’s theory of Exit and Voice (Stewart, 1997). In his theory Hirschman explains how organizations lose their audience: People exit when they feel they have no influence left, people speak up and use voice when they feel they can have an impact. Sad Puppies claims the Hugos are experiencing exit, because they are losing contact with the greater part of the Science Fiction community. Sad Puppies is encouraging people not to exit, but use voice, come back and participate in the Hugo selection process.
The Sad Puppies narrative also explains why the Hugos are experiencing exit: The winners have encouraged message fiction over fun reading. The identity credentials of the author and the author’s characters take precedence over the quality of the work itself (Correia, 2015; Hoyt, 2015).
The other narrative, which I shall call “TruFans”, portrays the Sad Puppies as against diversity, and gaming the system by getting “people who aren’t SF fans, who don’t read SF,” to sign up to vote (Hickey, 2015). In the same post the author described the Sad Puppies as “mostly Mormon, almost exclusively white right-wing males, and regarded by most SF fans as hacks.”
The Conversation: Dialogically Ethical or Unethical
The dialogue in this case was most profoundly non dialogic, thus unethical. Freire notes the importance of naming in dialogic ethics; that those denied the right to speak must reclaim their voice (Arnett, 2008). The following examples will show how the voice of the Sad Puppies narrative was denied.
If you do a Google search for “Sad Puppies” you will end up with 9 out of the top 10 being major media outlets that write stories that repeat the “TruFans” narrative. One such article was published in Entertainment Weekly (Biedenharn, 2015b). Without contacting anyone representing the Sad Puppies campaign, the writer described them as “misogynist groups” lobbying “to nominate only white males for the science fiction book awards,” and urging their followers to “cast votes against female writers and writers of color.”
The one bright spot, according to EW, was that “Some sane voters allowed well-deserving writers to pull through.” They then mentioned Annie Bellet’s Goodnight Stars was nominated, “despite having a non-white, female protagonist”, failing to mention – possibly not even knowing — that this work they were lauding was one that the Sad Puppies slate supported, one of many by women and people of color on the Puppy slate.
Entertainment Weekly was forced to print a correction that included the list of women and people of color promoted by Sad Puppies. When printing the correction, Entertainment Weekly noted that it “published an unfair and inaccurate depiction of the Sad Puppies voting slate” by “misinterpreting reports in other news publications.” (Biedenharn, 2015a). This shows that EW was part of a series of misrepresentations by news publications.
When the Wall Street Journal chimed in, “TruFan” David Gerrold, one of the co-hosts for the 2015 Hugo Awards, said it would be ironic if any of the puppies won, because they would receive their award from him, a gay man, and his cohost, Tananarive Due, a black woman, thus perpetuating the narrative that the Sad Puppies are homophobic and racist (Rapoport, 2015).
The EW correction and posts by Puppy supporters were not able to stop the crazy postings of social media. While Hickey said the puppies were mostly Mormon, many in social media picked this up as all the Puppies were “White Heterosexual Mormon Males,” including Sarah A. Hoyt and Cedar Sanderson – to the humorous consternation of their respective husbands.
Impact of Unethical Dialogic Communication on the Process
The Puppies narrative sought to empower the voice of the greater community. Instead they found themselves having to defend themselves against the accusations of bigotry in the “TruFan” narrative. Puppy author Tom Knighton made this statement:
Look, I’m going to make this clear. Bigotry is stupid. Racism is beyond stupid. All we have ever wanted is people and works to be judged based on quality, both the quality of the person and the quality of the work. Anyone who opposes a work because the author is black, or a woman, or gay, or a socialist is a moron. Anyone who dislikes a work because the author is white, or male, or straight, or a conservative/libertarian is just as much of a moron (Knighton, 2015).
Dialogic communication is based on learning about the other. “Learning through engagement with the Other, with that which or whom we do not know, reshapes us. As we learn from difference, transformation and change reshape us”(Arnett, et. al, 2008, p 83). The lack of it leads to objectification of the Other, and refusal to learn about the Other.
In a post after the slate was announced, but before the voting was tallied, Abigail Nussbaum discussed why she felt it was ethical to vote no award rather than letting Sad Puppy nominees win. In her post she wrestles with what sort of message her vote will send. Notice that the award decision, which is supposed to be based on the quality of the work, now matters because of the message it sends (Nussbaum, 2015). People are telling, not listening.
Many people announced in social media that they would be voting no to all Sad Puppy nominees without reading any of them. The quest of the puppies to have their voice heard, and considered, would not be allowed by these people (Yiannopoulis, 2015).
Or take this quote from an attendee at the WorldCon:
“We smacked the Sad Puppies with a rolled-up newspaper,” said a woman on the shuttle bus between hotels at WorldCon in Spokane, Wash., on Sunday night. “It’s the only way to teach them” (Robinson, 2015).
In the same NPR article it says the Sad Puppies may have lost the Hugos, but they haven’t “lost the conversation,” thus seeing the conversation as a debate to be won, instead of a means for understanding. There is no intention to learn from the Other.
Even the Hugo ceremony was used to deride the Sad Puppies. In one instance the organizers presented a skit where the Grim Reaper showed up with his scythe – to reap the Sad Puppies (Wallace, 2015). Cheers were heard every time Sad Puppies lost to “no award.” This was a mocking of the Other, of the Puppies, by what should have been an impartial leadership.
How to Make the Conversation Dialogic
In order for the conversation to be dialogic, at least one side, preferably both, has to be interested in learning.
Take for example the people who refused to read any work nominated by the Puppies. The dialogic thing to have done would have been to say “Okay, they got these nominees on the ballot via a method I don’t care about. They claim they are valid works that couldn’t have gotten here any other way. Let me read them and see what quality they are. Do they compare well to the works I usually expect to see on the ballot? Or are they truly substandard, and thus shouldn’t have made the ballot? Let me listen and see for myself if I see merit in their claim.”
Another important element that could have added dialogic ethics to the conversation was civility. As Arnett, et. al., note:
… it is possible to engage in conflict and keep civility at the forefront. Gandhi did so with his satyagraha campaigns based on dialogic foundations that brought Indian independence from the British. He resisted the use of duragraha, or stubborn persistence. Gandhi was criticized for making friends with his enemies. Martin Luther King, Jr. received similar complaints about his own method of conflict engagement. In short, the concerns about civility are both real and hardly new (p 92).
But civility is a hard thing to exercise. Brad Torgersen, coordinator of the 2015 Sad Puppies campaign, wrote a blog about lessons learned from running the campaign. Among those: no matter how nice you are, you will have haters; if you dare apologize for anything the opposition will declare you guilty; the opposition-friendly media will lie about you; there is an honest opposition – not all the opposition are enemies (Torgersen 2015). Except for that last point, all of them are reasons why dialogic communication is hard to achieve.
But it also offers the way forward. Whatever you do, however you are treated by the other side, do not demonize them, do not accuse them falsely, and make sure what is said about them is true. Listen.
Another piece of advice the Puppies could follow is trying to understand the Other in the “TruFans”: Why are they so set on the representations of the Puppies as seeking to drive diversity out of science fiction, when half of the Puppies themselves would be driven out of science fiction if they were really driving out diversity? Why do they see themselves as the exclusive defenders of science fiction? This attempt to understand could be a way back toward dialogic conversation.
Conclusion
The Sad Puppies Campaign for the Hugo Awards was a clash of competing narratives. The Sad Puppies narrative was that of the outsider claiming voice and a stake in science fiction. The “TruFans” narrative was that of those defending the integrity of an institution against unethical outsiders attempting to game it. From the very beginning one side declared the other unethical, and thus not worthy of dialogue. This made establishing dialogue difficult, virtually impossible. The narrative of the “TruFans” consistently misrepresented the members and goals of the Sad Puppies.
The effect of this vilifying of Sad Puppies by “TruFans” was a disintegration of any form of listening and learning in the exchange, and a hardening of positions on both sides. The conversation became something to win, not a means of understanding.
I explored one way the “TruFans” could have shown dialogic ethics in their reading and voting on the final Hugo ballot. A way for them was possible; but it required them to seek to understand the Other in the Sad Puppies.
I suggested civility as a means for inserting dialogic ethics, similar to that which Gandhi showed in his struggle with the British. He even made friends with his enemies. Brad Torgersen in his reflection on the campaign showed that he understood this idea when he talked of “honest opposition.”
Finally I suggested the Puppies could seek to understand the Other of the “TruFans”: why do they need to see the Puppies as against diversity, and why do they need to see themselves as the exclusive defenders of science fiction.
A thorough exploration of the social media would show that all three of these ways were attempted in some minor way. Unfortunately, the media reporting those exchanges was overwhelmed by the tsunami of anti-dialogic rhetoric.
References
Arnett, R. C., Fritz, J. M. H., & Bell, L. M. (2008). Communication ethics literacy: Dialogue and difference. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Biedenharn, Isabella (2015a, April 6) Correction: Hugo Award voting campaign sparks controversy. Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved from http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/06/hugo-award-nominations-sad-puppies.
Biedenharn, Isabella (2015b, April 6) Hugo Award nominations fall victim to misogynistic, racist voting campaign. Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved from https://archive.is/0NH1i
Correia, Larry (2015, January 26) Sad Puppies 3 the ensaddening. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/01/26/sad-puppies-3-the-ensaddening/
Griffith, Em, Ledbetter, Andrew, & Sparks, Glen (2014). Narrative paradigm of Walter Fisher. In A Look at Communication, 9th Ed. (pp. 303-313). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Hickey, Andrew (2015, April 4) So what’s happening with the Hugos [Web blog post] Retrieved from http://andrewhickey.info/2015/04/04/so-whats-happening-with-the-hugos/
Hoyt, Sarah (2015, January 27) Puppy sadness has a cure [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://accordingtohoyt.com/2015/01/27/puppy-sadness-has-a-cure/
Knighton, Tom (2015 July 3) On villainy [Web log post] Retrieved from http://accordingtohoyt.com/2015/07/03/on-villainy-by-tom-knighton/
Nussbaum, Abigail (2015 April 10). The 2015 Hugo Awards: Why I am voting no award in the best fan writer category [Web log post] Retrieved from http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-2015-hugo-awards-why-i-am-voting-no.html
Rapoport, Michael (2015 May 15) The culture wars invade science fiction. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-culture-wars-invade-science-fiction-1431707195
Robinson, Tasha (2015 August 26) How the sad puppies won by losing. National Public Radio. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2015/08/26/434644645/how-the-sad-puppies-won-by-losing
Stewart, L. P. (1997). Facilitating connections: Issues of gender, culture, and diversity. In Makau, J. M., & Arnett, R. C. (Eds.) Communication ethics in an age of diversity (pp. 110-125). University of Illinois Press.
Torgersen, Brad (2015 August 25) Emmanuel Goldstein is leaving the building [Web log post] Retrieved from https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/08/25/emmanuel-goldstein/
Wallace, Amy (2015 August 23). Who won science fictions Hugo Awards and why it matters. Wired. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/2015/08/won-science-fictions-hugo-awards-matters/
Yiannopoulis, Yinn (2015 August 23). Set phasers to kill SJWs burn down the Hugo Awards to prove how tolerant and welcoming they are. Breitbart. Retrieved from http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/23/set-phasers-to-kill-sjws-burn-down-the-hugo-awards-to-prove-how-tolerant-and-welcoming-they-are/
At The Rainbow 
Jonathan, I found this extremely interesting. I think your analysis is structurally sound. And I agree that without an honest dialogue, there’s no resolution to this problem.
There were two posts I probably would’ve added, if they’d have been out at the time you wrote this paper…those were a post by George RR Martin about the history of the Hugo Awards (GRRM was quite fair and reasonable) and a post by Eric Flint, also about the history of the Hugo Awards. Both men seemed to think the SPs were perhaps a silly or nonsensical enterprise, but they actually listened and engaged with fans who thought differently than themselves and tried to answer questions.
Both Flint and GRRM understood that Vox Day’s Rabid Puppies were not anything close to the Sad Puppies. And they also seemed to understand that there were people out there like me — somewhere in the middle of the mess, with friends on both sides who firmly believed they were right and the other side was plain, flat wrong.
I lost at least one friend over the mess. Way too much drama. (And that friend, BTW, was one you’d describe as a “TruFan.”) So for these two writers (Flint and GRRM) to understand that there weren’t two sides, but at least _four_ — the Sad Puppies, the Rabid Puppies of Vox Day, the unaligned (but saddened by all the fighting), and the “TruFan” as you called ’em — was a huge step forward toward an honest dialogue, I thought.
As one of the unaligned, I kept thinking, “We only have a limited amount of time and energy to make a difference in this world. How much energy is this diverting from our real purpose as writers, editors, and creative people?”
And yet, the Sad Puppies had some good points about how books should be enjoyable. If the book has a message but is still enjoyable, that is fine with most of the SPs I’ve talked with. It’s when the book is _not_ enjoyable, plus the message hits you over the head again and again, where my SP friends get highly annoyed.
Plus, despite being unaligned, I was truly disgusted when the editor categories at the Hugos were No Awarded. Editors have so few awards as it is; to have excellent editors in both categories passed over because of people trying to make a point bothered me greatly. (Yes, I understood the whole “Australian Rules” system and that this can conceivably happen during any year. But I’m also honest enough to understand that the “TruFan” folks you discussed actually decided to do their own gaming of the system in order to shut out those editors for what appears to me, as an unaligned person, to be no good reason whatsoever.)
Down the line, I hope we can somehow come together as SF&F writers, editors, publishers, and fans again. We have more in common with one another than not. I hope we’ll remember that before the community has another award ceremony like that one — because as bad as this Hugo Awards season was in many respects, if next year does the same thing, it’s going to be (as the late, great, Poul Anderson put it in his Dominic Flandry series) “all Hell out for noon.”
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Barb, thank you for that wonderful analysis, and voice as an “unaligned” party. In one sense it is so sad that we have to be in one of the parties.
And I think letting everyone that wants it to have a voice, and listen to everyone else’s voice, is an important part of this process.
A reply I got elsewhere on the paper was that I had miss/ignored the Rabid Puppies portion of the situation. Which is true. I know it skews the focus somewhat, but there are limits to how much can fit into 6-8 pages 😉
The reason I follow up on your Rabid Puppies insertion, is that I think they were definitely as bad as some of the TruFans in wanting to deny other people a voice. One of my biggest concerns in the whole fiasco — besides the way it was wasting energy and dividing the SF community — was that the whole situation was making “moderate” people in the Sad Puppies (and other parties, for that matter), less willing to listen to the other sides.
From what I can see of the next year trend, the leaders of the Sad Puppies are moving toward more central, inclusive positioning, but also loaded for bear against dirty tricks. It could be very interesting. With WorldCon actually in Kansas City — my current “home town” I will actually attend a Con for the first time. Hoping to see a good time, and the right kind of fireworks.
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Thanks, Jonathan.
I understood why you didn’t put the RPs in there. They dominate the conversation, for one — and the paper needed to be tightly focused (which, in my opinion, it was).
There are a few other authors since that time, like Mary Robinette Kowal and Jim C. Hines, who’ve reached out to be inclusive (who would have probably been on the “TruFan” side). They at least want dialogue and to understand; their minds are not closed.
What bothered me most, as an unaligned person, was to see people I’ve known and admired for years close their minds and believe that _everyone_ on the other side was wrong. That happened far more often from my perspective on the “TruFan” side than the SP side. But I did see it on the SP side as well, mostly when one of their better points were not being listened to and they got frustrated.
As I have known Kate Paulk and Jason Cordova for years, among others, I know they are good people, hard working, good writers, and certainly like diversity. The hardest time I had was watching them be vilified, because so much of it was unfair and wrong.
And to see people like Amanda S. Green, who’s worked hard to help educate writers, be excoriated for her private political stances — really? Who cares about that, when she’s been out there as a vocal advocate for writers, helping them to learn how to handle the new digital marketplace, and teaching them there are no limits to what they can accomplish if they only _try_?
And then, there’s Cedar Sanderson — I’ve known Cedar, too, for years. A very kind-hearted woman, with a thirst for knowledge and a storyteller’s heart. How on Earth could anyone be upset with her, when she, too, is trying to help new writers?
Yes, Cedar and Amanda and Kate and even Jason have been discussed as politically conservative — but years ago, no one cared about that. And I wish we’d go back to that now.
Because a good storyteller is a good storyteller, regardless of political persuasion. And being open-minded is not dependent on political ideology, either — which is one reason I, a moderate-to-liberal Independent, get along with these people and always have.
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