I broke that promise about the middle of last week; around Wednesday or Thursday I picked up Book II and started revising it. I had some ideas I wanted to get down before I forgot, and thought if I could get through the few revisions I knew I wanted to make, I could give the finished work a read through on the trip we have planned for this weekend. That process has been a bit surreal; the novel, mostly built from content I wrote between 2013 and 2015, centers primarily around a college town ripped apart by racial violence after a wealthy narcissist stokes the flames of anti-intellectualism, xenophobia, and white supremacy to advance her own political agenda.
It was hard for me to say too much about the events in Charlottesville while working on the book this past weekend, because the actions of the protagonists in the book conflict with the values around which many people have rallied. Many posts in my Facebook feed have preached that hate and violence are wrong. Quotes from Mahatma Gandhi, Maya Angelou, and others have expressed this sentiment, as have writings by Christian leaders and polyamorous college professors (I'm happy to have a fairly diverse range of philosophical connections through my social network). There have also been many people who have said that these things are simply not American.
Being action-filled, cathartic fantasy like its predecessor, Rise of Azraea, Book II, doesn't really reflect those values, and I find it difficult to reconcile the actions I see as justified in a fantasy setting with the morality expected of me in the real world. When the villains push, the heroes push back - and they aren't especially nice about it.
Azraea walked behind one of the armored men, dropped her blade into her hand, and ducked as she passed behind him, slashing the unprotected ligaments behind his knees. She’d seen enough corpses to know what that would do. He screamed and toppled to the ground, his armor clattering against the cobblestone. The ruckus grabbed everyone’s attention. The second armored man turned to see Azraea, but she was already in his face – literally. His armor and padding protected him well from the front, but guards, even offbrand rent-a-cops like these didn’t wear enclosed helmets. Azraea grabbed his face with her free hand and cast the fireball spell she’d been relentlessly practicing since they left Defiance. He screamed and started to fight back, but his brain cooked quickly as the temperature in his skull rapidly climbed. He was effectively dead well before his head burst into flames.Azraea's not a hateful person, it's really not in her nature, but when she sees a pregnant woman being beaten in the streets by Nationalists with hired thugs backing them up, she doesn't try to talk it out with them, she doesn't try to explain to them why it's wrong to beat unarmed people to death; she kills three of the men and spares the fourth to spread the word.
It was easy for me to believe in pacifism as a child because I was never in any real danger, nor was I responsible for anyone who was. As I grew older, the latter part changed; I made friends that were victims of racial threats and sexual violence, giving me a very personal stake in such issues despite the privilege of my birth, and I also came to an understanding that, as an American citizen, I have a civic responsibility to protect my fellow Americans, and that, as a person, I have a moral responsibility to protect my fellow human beings.
Of course, how those responsibilities are interpreted varies quite a lot from person to person. Police brutality, terrorism, and war crimes are all the proof that there is a slippery slope between heroism and villainy when you resort to violence, and because of that I try to resist the temptation to share in jokes about punching Nazis or advocating the execution of domestic terrorists. I prefer to do "libtard SJW" things like write about injustices in society and vote against the election of individuals that would use their position to normalize oppression.
Still, despite knowing that violence is a terrible thing, I write fantasy novels where violence is gratuitous and swift, and in the real world, when someone quotes Martin Luther King Jr., saying that violence "doesn't solve any problems" and that it simply "multiplies evil and violence in the universe", I feel unconvinced. Pacifism doesn't have a great track record when it comes to problem-solving either; unlike violence, it requires participation from both parties in a conflict, and when one side refrains from violence, the other has little incentive to do so.
Of course, the original quote begins by specifying that "violence never really deals with the basic evil of the situation", and I do agree with that. Violence doesn't end racism, misogyny, or greed. It doesn't solve the core problems of the human race. At the same time, though, I also have to agree with the sentiment expressed in Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Although the book emphasizes the horrors of war and the tragic consequences of violence, it's pretty pragmatic about it:
"My mother said violence never solves anything."
"So?" Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. "I'm sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that."Heinlein's snark may be lost on those without a pretty good background in ancient history (Carthage was eradicated in the third, very one-sided Punic War, which certain Roman politicians started with no real provocation) but the broad saying that violence "doesn't solve any problems" probably wouldn't ring true with even casual historians. True, we're still contending with racism and white supremacists waving the the confederate battle flag and the swastika - violence clearly did not solve the racial hatred and paranoid delusions of personal persecution that underlie those sentiments - but it's also true that slavery is illegal in the United States, and that Jewish Americans are not being systematically exterminated in concentration camps.
People have been quick to condemn President Trump's response to the events in Charlottesville. Going by my friends online, I'm supposed to be angry that he called for us "all to come together" rather than outright condemn the white supremacists in his base. I'm supposed to be angry that he blamed hate on "many sides" rather than recognize the alt-right protesters as the driving force behind the violence. I'm supposed to be angry that, rather than be in a raging temper, he was simply, "very, very sad".
Trump's response was lukewarm and spineless, but didn't we basically write that script for him?
This isn't a blog post that ends with a moral or a bottom line. I had one, but I deleted it, because I remain unsure on which side of this I fall. Mostly I wish that the real world had the simplistic morality of fiction, where archaeologists and super soldiers punch Nazis, and happy endings involve dead dragons.
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James N. McDonald is a "liberal academic" born and raised in Missouri and residing in Tennessee. He holds one degree in history, two degrees in psychology, but loves writing fiction. His first, completed novel, The Rise of Azraea, Book I, is a high fantasy story with elements of comic fantasy and satire targeting present day, real world issues such as economic inequity, and sexual and racial discrimination. It is currently available on Amazon.
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