Lionel Shriver is brilliant! Shame on Penguin Random House. Being a bookworm from a very young age, I fear for what kind of books will be out there in the future, and if they will be worth reading anymore.
I guess these book companies are going to learn that the hard way. When no one wants to buy their poor-quality, but politically correct books, they will call the readers bigots and racists, and get the government to pass a book tax to force everyone to pay for the politically correct books to continue to be written. The Left is out of control on a crash course with destruction.
Unfortunately I know a few people who do buy books specifically because of the demographic of the author, and then make a great show of how righteous they are because of it. Whether the book is any good or even enjoyable to read seems to be of hardly any relevance to some people, so long as they can flounce around loudly asking people who their favourite gay/Hispanic/disabled/insert identity category here author is. When it comes to most of the books I enjoy I haven't a clue about the author's sexuality, state of health, skin colour or any of that - I go for the book because the plot sound interesting, I'm not particularly interested in the life story of the writer.
So the publishers will be looking for absolutely everything except the ability to write good books. That sounds to me like a successful business plan, although not one I personally would have adopted.
Its always racist people who are the first to scream racism. She's right, ignore them. I say turn it around and point out their racism. And also, the Nazis burned books that didn't aggree with them, like those people conplaining about her.
"I'm not against diversity, I'm against quotas." Brilliant! I absolutely LOVE that statement! I'm also curious, What is the "rule" when a writer/filmmaker, etc, tells a story from the point of view of a dog, or any other animal for that matter? Do we now have to have animals tell these stories? Where exactly is the line, where exactly does it end and who exactly is qualified to make that decision for everyone else?
To me, each of these would-be tyrants perfectly matches the famous quote from "Terminator," describing its character: "It can't be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear."
Woody Allen, rumoured to have done??!! He married his step daughter for Gods sack. There is something seriously wrong with that guy. She sure threw out a bad example.
As an Australian, I'm embarrassed the a great mind, like Lionel Shriver, had to suffer this sort of nonsense & at the same time grateful she has come ack & in doing so, demonstrated to the militant left just how better people, better minds, conduct themselves as truly members of society. All of us could stand to learn from her behaviour in this instance. Thanks Andrew Bolt for this interview & thank you Lionel Shriver for rising above this nonsense, coming back to Australia & having the courage to speak out against it.
Excellent post, SNA. I'm always reminded of Abigail Adam's letter to husband John in 1776 when she summed up her thesis: "you know that every man would be a tyrant if he could." And we see how this lust includes women as well.
4:00 "People are constantly coming up with rules we have to obey but these people have no authority and we don't have to obey those rules." Lionel Shriver --- That was a really cool sentence and the bit that follows is awesome too. On top of that she was so logical. So glad that people like this still exist in the English speaking world. It gives me hope about the future of liberty.
Woman asks a male fiction writer."How do you write women so well"...Writer.."I think of a man then I take away reason and accountability" Second only to the Fight Club line..." We are a generation of men raised by women"
Yasmin is a Muslim woman of color. What gives her the right to tell anyone who isn't also a Muslim woman of color what to do? (See how that works both ways?)
The identity politics attacks on writers takes book burning to a whole new level. They would not even allow thoughtful, insightful books to be written.
Identity and religion cannot be separated, Someone who religiously adheres to an identity will never even hear what is said by others but accept every word from one of their own religion.
She's so right about cancel culture. This isn't a million miles away from what happened under Stalin, where any artist who didn't follow the official line was not allowed to work. It's also being forced by a tiny fraction of the population who are active on social media but who are completely unrepresentative of the general population. Why politicians and the media seem to think these idiots are worthy of listening to and obeying is one of the mysteries of our age. Almost every day it seems that there is a story that someone does or says something that 'causes outrage on social media'. But when you actually look into it it's obvious that there is a tiny percentage of outrage and a much larger percentage of, 'you cannot be serious!' and people making fun of the perpetually offended moblet.
In Canada they tried having stores stock only books with female authors the books stayed on the shelves. I and millions of others found the second-hand book stores after reading two of these books. The authors were completely clueless about things men are quite familiar with.
A person is to be judged by their character and their actions. No matter who they are. Anything else, especially identity politics, is disgusting, old fashioned bigotry. Plain and simple.
Jack London narrated "The Iron Heel" in the voice of a young woman living in the distant past, and it was thoroughly delightful. The body of London's work would not be complete without the exposition of this unique facet of his incomparable talent. Identity politics is a Procrustean bed that resorts to considerable violence in the interest of imposing equality where it need not exist. Lionel Shriver is brilliant. I must read some of her books!
George RR Martin has written books from the perspective a fat old king, young dragon princess, undead beings, young warriors etc . It's not appropriation. It's called TALENT. We used to celebrate that ability
Identity politics would have us stringing up Kafka for wronging insects by “assuming he knows what it’s like to have an exoskeleton.” Everywhere morons would be burning every copy of “Metamorphosis” as harmful to bug rights.
It is ethnic demarcation. It's akin to the old trade union stance of no plurality of skills in the workplace. It's intent was to increase employment and thus Union membership, but often caused company insolvency and less jobs. Identity politics will undoubtedly kill itself off in a similar way.
Its a false equality. To say its fair where there is no winner and there is no looser. To say that it is good if bad is equal to good, then there is no good and bad. False equality is not about fairness. It is "mix to confuse", babel... Gin,
I've been part of the old working class left for years, but I have little in common with the current leftist globalists, climate alarmists, and identitarians (if there is such a a word). I could see this latter beginning when in I was in University more than 20 years ago. Many feminists in University believed that language is deterministic but I would argue that the context in which a word is used influences meaning and can even subvert meaning (e.g. sarcasm). I was told, for example, that the use of the term 'girl' is demeaning to all women of whatever age and in whatever culture (even when consenting women call each other girls). It was at this point that I became vehemently opposed to dogma of all kinds - including feminism and Marxism. Since then the situation has become much, much worse and identity politics highlights the growing gap between reality and our representation of it through language. Criticism of literary empathy (putting oneself in another's shoes) is a criticism of a very important human attribute. In principle, this is a criticism of all attempts to write fiction as pointless and impossible - unless I write only about myself. Identity politics is, perhaps, the ultimate expression of liberal individualism and as Lionel Shriver points out, places us in separate boxes where meaningful communication (and mutual empathy) become problematic. This is mainly a middle class preoccupation: working class people (in general) will be baffled by it. Greeting from Scotland.
Obviously Random House/ Penguin have not taken any notice of Hollywood's recent disastrous foray into identity politics over good films: Captain Marvel; the female Ghostbusters; female Ocean's ##; lesbian Batman series; X Whamyn Dark Pheonix; the upcoming Terminator film featuring the Androgyne 2000; and many more expensive flops. SJWs don't watch films. A few years ago I chose the self-publishing route. I don't make much money, but I don't have someone censoring my views (through characters) either. I also won't have the pleasure of seeing the majority of the print run in "The Works" either.
My dad was from England and I frequently use Anglo-Saxon terminology. I have also observed individuals, obviously not of British origin, co-opting my ethnic heritage, rather colorfully too. I should deeply resent this mis-appropriation but I don’t, because it enriches the international lexicon.
Identity politics is in fact more racist and condescending than so-called ‘rightwing’ politics. It stereotypes people according to things they have no control over, in particular their race/skin colour, gender, sexual orientation, socio-économique status. This lady is correct.
I know exactly when this nonsense began. Suddenly 'culture' was the important word. Any country that had a cruel custom was excused because it was their "culture". I knew when I commented about how ridiculously absurd & cruel a certain custom in a country was & I was shouted down because it was their culture - that this was a dangerous road to somewhere. Now I know where.
One thing I can do is to go to my man shed put on planet rock and tinker with my historic motorcycles, and weld and turn and mill, and forget the lunacy that is this world
So by their argument there should be no such thing as fiction? If I'm a bloke who wants to write about a character from a bloke's perspective, technically I can't because, I don't really know what it's like to be a non existent bloke? Wouldn't want to offend non existent bloke's too, would we (?).
I have written a little bit of unpublished fiction. I've written from the perspective of every character, male, female, young and old. I think it forced me to think about life from different people's perspectives. I think that's called empathy. I would love to go to a writer's festival, but they're all peppered with nut cases like Clementine Ford and Yasmin Horrible Mcgoo.
As a European you have a group Identity and get this , we as European's have group interests and should have loyalty towards our group . I can assure you Muslims , Indians , Chinese etc have an in group preference and will swamp our culture , areas , countries etc to insert their culture and interests .When they have the numbers they elect their politicians using our system , who then implement policies that work for their group thus displacing other groups .
The attack on imagination has 2 points, it also brings into focus transgender, gender fluidity. If writers aren't allowed to imagine, then ook at the transgender, gender fluid mindset, beliefs - ideology. The two must be in violation - Appropriation of an actual, real man's or woman's experience. Look, a transgender cannot menstruate, get pregnant, experience menopause, or any other biological woman's issues. That goes for a Man Too, we cannot truly say someone is a man when they do not go through Men issues too.
She's great. And not once did I hear her play the victim card.
Ann Gent True indeed. Only the left will throw the race, gender or victim card. That is the only comeback or argument they have.
Good on ya girl.
We need more to speak out about this authoritarian crap.
Lionel Shriver is brilliant! Shame on Penguin Random House. Being a bookworm from a very young age, I fear for what kind of books will be out there in the future, and if they will be worth reading anymore.
Might end up like Sky News!
People who buy books don't care about who wrote it, people who care about the race and sexual orientation of the author, don't buy books.
I guess these book companies are going to learn that the hard way. When no one wants to buy their poor-quality, but politically correct books, they will call the readers bigots and racists, and get the government to pass a book tax to force everyone to pay for the politically correct books to continue to be written. The Left is out of control on a crash course with destruction.
Unfortunately I know a few people who do buy books specifically because of the demographic of the author, and then make a great show of how righteous they are because of it. Whether the book is any good or even enjoyable to read seems to be of hardly any relevance to some people, so long as they can flounce around loudly asking people who their favourite gay/Hispanic/disabled/insert identity category here author is. When it comes to most of the books I enjoy I haven't a clue about the author's sexuality, state of health, skin colour or any of that - I go for the book because the plot sound interesting, I'm not particularly interested in the life story of the writer.
Amen to that!🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
Wow this is just so patently false.
Correct, Yasmin and her ilk have zero authority over us!
Four Toes but they very think they deserve authority over us.
@resigned liberal Correct self censorship!
Wow, this lady is brilliant! It's so nice to hear such rugged common sense.
Yes, keeping us all in little boxes - the ones they define, and no others.
So the publishers will be looking for absolutely everything except the ability to write good books. That sounds to me like a successful business plan, although not one I personally would have adopted.
You and I should start our own company. When all others flop, we will rise! We'll be rich enough to own a boat on a yacht on a ship!
Lovely, intelligent lady!! Excellent interview as usual. What would we do without these valiant souls!?
To teach Penguin-Random House a lesson let’s just keep buying and reading good books. They’ll go broke in no time.
Racism, sexism, *and* identity politics are all forms of collectivism.
The solution is individualism.
It starts early, like in elementary school, and it keeps building.
This lady is a heroine.
Its always racist people who are the first to scream racism. She's right, ignore them. I say turn it around and point out their racism. And also, the Nazis burned books that didn't aggree with them, like those people conplaining about her.
Racists are obsessed with race.
Shes really brave to speak up. This topic can cost you dearly $$$
Make Orwell fiction again.😆
"I'm not against diversity, I'm against quotas." Brilliant! I absolutely LOVE that statement!
I'm also curious, What is the "rule" when a writer/filmmaker, etc, tells a story from the point of view of a dog, or any other animal for that matter? Do we now have to have animals tell these stories?
Where exactly is the line, where exactly does it end and who exactly is qualified to make that decision for everyone else?
To me, each of these would-be tyrants perfectly matches the famous quote from "Terminator," describing its character: "It can't be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear."
I’m glad you came back , pizzing off Leftists is what life’s all about 😁
Totally agree - thank you for standing up for sanity in this increasingly unhinged world.
Well done Lionel Shriver, you're a bloody legend and I love your work. I agree and I'm far from white. Creative freedom's important.
The PC movement is bringing in the most potent and effortless form of repression and Fascism ever. Well done...
Those who have talent write, those who don't criticize. It's how they vent their envy.
Woody Allen, rumoured to have done??!! He married his step daughter for Gods sack. There is something seriously wrong with that guy. She sure threw out a bad example.
As an Australian, I'm embarrassed the a great mind, like Lionel Shriver, had to suffer this sort of nonsense & at the same time grateful she has come ack & in doing so, demonstrated to the militant left just how better people, better minds, conduct themselves as truly members of society. All of us could stand to learn from her behaviour in this instance. Thanks Andrew Bolt for this interview & thank you Lionel Shriver for rising above this nonsense, coming back to Australia & having the courage to speak out against it.
Well said
She hit the nail on the head,they have no authority.
Identity politics started with stereotypes in university.
Excellent post, SNA. I'm always reminded of Abigail Adam's letter to husband John in 1776 when she summed up her thesis: "you know that every man would be a tyrant if he could." And we see how this lust includes women as well.
Wow - this woman is brilliant!
Congrats Andrew. One of your UA-cam clip was selected by American Conservative University podcast. Keep up the good work.
4:00 "People are constantly coming up with rules we have to obey but these people have no authority and we don't have to obey those rules." Lionel Shriver --- That was a really cool sentence and the bit that follows is awesome too. On top of that she was so logical. So glad that people like this still exist in the English speaking world. It gives me hope about the future of liberty.
Good for her. These rule setters have NO authority. Two fingers up to them and on our merry way we go!
After loosing all hope in females, this specimen shows up!
kashnigahbaruda we exist, we are often shouted down but the lunatics, but we still keep standing our ground.
After losing all hope in men, I continue losing hope with this comment
I’m just kidding, I’m losing hope in humanity all together
Thanks Lionel, your always welcome, we'll even buy you a beer!
Woman asks a male fiction writer."How do you write women so well"...Writer.."I think of a man then I take away reason and accountability" Second only to the Fight Club line..." We are a generation of men raised by women"
So you can write about another person with sympathy......NO NO NO.
Yasmin is a Muslim woman of color. What gives her the right to tell anyone who isn't also a Muslim woman of color what to do? (See how that works both ways?)
Shriver's trying to get writers to stop cowing to SJWs. I applaud her!
Great interview.
Basically, identity politics is saying, I don't care how great or good you are, you will be judged by what group you are allocated.
The identity politics attacks on writers takes book burning to a whole new level. They would not even allow thoughtful, insightful books to be written.
You cannot make a lesser individual greater than their aptitude allows.......
Where is the double thumbs up button?
Who said! “Those who are easily offended are easily led”?
The question is why the majority was silent for a long time ?
Identity and religion cannot be separated, Someone who religiously adheres to an identity will never even hear what is said by others but accept every word from one of their own religion.
It's easy to stereotype women working in the humanities as fuzzy-brained, but here is one who thinks and communicates more clearly than a lot of men.
I love this
I totally adore this lady.
She's so right about cancel culture. This isn't a million miles away from what happened under Stalin, where any artist who didn't follow the official line was not allowed to work. It's also being forced by a tiny fraction of the population who are active on social media but who are completely unrepresentative of the general population. Why politicians and the media seem to think these idiots are worthy of listening to and obeying is one of the mysteries of our age.
Almost every day it seems that there is a story that someone does or says something that 'causes outrage on social media'. But when you actually look into it it's obvious that there is a tiny percentage of outrage and a much larger percentage of, 'you cannot be serious!' and people making fun of the perpetually offended moblet.
In Canada they tried having stores stock only books with female authors the books stayed on the shelves. I and millions of others found the second-hand book stores after reading two of these books. The authors were completely clueless about things men are quite familiar with.
People will still have to by and read what they put out. What goes around will come around eventually.
Amazing some free speech is still allowed in OZ.
I am anti-"diversity." Can anyone name one good thing this "diversity" has done?
A person is to be judged by their character and their actions. No matter who they are. Anything else, especially identity politics, is disgusting, old fashioned bigotry. Plain and simple.
Jack London narrated "The Iron Heel" in the voice of a young woman living in the distant past, and it was thoroughly delightful. The body of London's work would not be complete without the exposition of this unique facet of his incomparable talent. Identity politics is a Procrustean bed that resorts to considerable violence in the interest of imposing equality where it need not exist. Lionel Shriver is brilliant. I must read some of her books!
She's a great author and, listening to her, she is a great character too.
If the Australian news are mirror image of the Australian nation, I would like to become Astralain myself, if it's possible of course.
I like his lady. Talks intelligent but plain old fashioned common sense
George RR Martin has written books from the perspective a fat old king, young dragon princess, undead beings, young warriors etc . It's not appropriation. It's called TALENT. We used to celebrate that ability
You know what also can be quite ugly at times? Being a German in Germany.
Well there goes science fiction - unless, I suppose, written from the point of view of an illegal alien lol...
It's simple, if you think the book will offend you don't read it.
We LOVE BOLT in America!!!
While I don't always agree with Andrew, he at least asks the hard questions and gets people think.
This is a modern take on the historical book burning...brutal censorship!
Yep, a lot of the ways we look at the world are ugly.
Identity politics would have us stringing up Kafka for wronging insects by “assuming he knows what it’s like to have an exoskeleton.” Everywhere morons would be burning every copy of “Metamorphosis” as harmful to bug rights.
strong woman and absolutely right.
You madam is a class act!
It is ethnic demarcation. It's akin to the old trade union stance of no plurality of skills in the workplace. It's intent was to increase employment and thus Union membership, but often caused company insolvency and less jobs. Identity politics will undoubtedly kill itself off in a similar way.
Its a false equality.
To say its fair where there is no winner and there is no looser.
To say that it is good if bad is equal to good, then there is no good and bad.
False equality is not about fairness.
It is "mix to confuse", babel...
Gin,
I've been part of the old working class left for years, but I have little in common with the current leftist globalists, climate alarmists, and identitarians (if there is such a a word). I could see this latter beginning when in I was in University more than 20 years ago. Many feminists in University believed that language is deterministic but I would argue that the context in which a word is used influences meaning and can even subvert meaning (e.g. sarcasm). I was told, for example, that the use of the term 'girl' is demeaning to all women of whatever age and in whatever culture (even when consenting women call each other girls). It was at this point that I became vehemently opposed to dogma of all kinds - including feminism and Marxism. Since then the situation has become much, much worse and identity politics highlights the growing gap between reality and our representation of it through language. Criticism of literary empathy (putting oneself in another's shoes) is a criticism of a very important human attribute. In principle, this is a criticism of all attempts to write fiction as pointless and impossible - unless I write only about myself. Identity politics is, perhaps, the ultimate expression of liberal individualism and as Lionel Shriver points out, places us in separate boxes where meaningful communication (and mutual empathy) become problematic. This is mainly a middle class preoccupation: working class people (in general) will be baffled by it. Greeting from Scotland.
Rob Campbell - Cheers, mate! Stay strong. Stay sane.
Obviously Random House/ Penguin have not taken any notice of Hollywood's recent disastrous foray into identity politics over good films: Captain Marvel; the female Ghostbusters; female Ocean's ##; lesbian Batman series; X Whamyn Dark Pheonix; the upcoming Terminator film featuring the Androgyne 2000; and many more expensive flops. SJWs don't watch films.
A few years ago I chose the self-publishing route. I don't make much money, but I don't have someone censoring my views (through characters) either. I also won't have the pleasure of seeing the majority of the print run in "The Works" either.
Intelligent, articulate whats not to like...
Yeah I do creative writing for fun, won't let anyone tell me what I can and can't write, fiction is fiction.
This is a good story, stay away from all pro left stories. Thanks Sky.
How can JK Rowling write about a boy wizard. The hypocrisy is getting absurd
Well I guess we better take Harry Potter off the shelves then
No educational background ... as a policy for its employees?
Commercial is the biggest factor for any business...get woke go broke will fix it.
Vote with your eyes everyone and exercise your right to choose
Creative writing does not come with a ID bar code , anyone can do it ......... anyone and everyone should try to do it .....
I olny got one question.
How are you prepared for a war. Think about it.
My dad was from England and I frequently use Anglo-Saxon terminology. I have also observed individuals, obviously not of British origin, co-opting my ethnic heritage, rather colorfully too. I should deeply resent this mis-appropriation but I don’t, because it enriches the international lexicon.
Yes! So much, yes!!!
What a lovely lady. Ignore the wowsers.
Yup.
How doe's disney make movies from the point of animals like lion king? they have no animals that can write or talk or direct.
Identity politics is in fact more racist and condescending than so-called ‘rightwing’ politics. It stereotypes people according to things they have no control over, in particular their race/skin colour, gender, sexual orientation, socio-économique status. This lady is correct.
I know exactly when this nonsense began. Suddenly 'culture' was the important word. Any country that had a cruel custom was excused because it was their "culture". I knew when I commented about how ridiculously absurd & cruel a certain custom in a country was & I was shouted down because it was their culture - that this was a dangerous road to somewhere. Now I know where.
One thing I can do is to go to my man shed put on planet rock and tinker with my historic motorcycles, and weld and turn and mill, and forget the lunacy that is this world
So by their argument there should be no such thing as fiction? If I'm a bloke who wants to write about a character from a bloke's perspective, technically I can't because, I don't really know what it's like to be a non existent bloke? Wouldn't want to offend non existent bloke's too, would we (?).
Just say no
I have written a little bit of unpublished fiction. I've written from the perspective of every character, male, female, young and old. I think it forced me to think about life from different people's perspectives. I think that's called empathy. I would love to go to a writer's festival, but they're all peppered with nut cases like Clementine Ford and Yasmin Horrible Mcgoo.
How is sky news over here so backwards? Yet just across the pond you’ve got Australia with the way NEWS should be done! How?!?
Keeping people in their little boxes... That's exactly what YT seems to do, when I see the number of views this video has.
As a European you have a group Identity and get this , we as European's have group interests and should have loyalty towards our group . I can assure you Muslims , Indians , Chinese etc have an in group preference and will swamp our culture , areas , countries etc to insert their culture and interests .When they have the numbers they elect their politicians using our system , who then implement policies that work for their group thus displacing other groups .
The left: Yes sir you can decide to be a woman any time you like!
Also the left: No sir you cannot possibly know what its like to be a woman!
The attack on imagination has 2 points, it also brings into focus transgender, gender fluidity.
If writers aren't allowed to imagine, then ook at the transgender, gender fluid mindset, beliefs - ideology. The two must be in violation - Appropriation of an actual, real man's or woman's experience.
Look, a transgender cannot menstruate, get pregnant, experience menopause, or any other biological woman's issues. That goes for a Man Too, we cannot truly say someone is a man when they do not go through Men issues too.
You can say what you want to say and i will listen, but do i have to agree with what you say, NO.