Hierarchies

[mrissa]

I really, really, really don't like it when people have to find some way in which they are above you in the hierarchy they've set up in their heads, but they have picked a method of developing hierarchy that makes that difficult for them.

Like -- oh, to take a totally random example -- when you have a middle-aged person who is really not comfortable with a younger person being published before she is and then has to go on and on about how short stories don't count. For most of an hour, in close quarters from which no escape was likely.

It's partly that she stayed on the nice side of being smacked down, but partly -- honestly, I just refuse to get into that kind of one-upsmanship. Because lines like, "Well, I was talking to New York Times best-selling author Steven Brust the other day, and he said it totally counts as real writing to write short stories people want to publish, so there," while true, are just not helpful. Everybody feels a little sticky after that. Anyone who needs to feel bigger than someone, by all means, feel bigger than me. I can take it. I just don't enjoy it. So I sat there and made neutral noises and apparently convinced her that not all respect for one's elders is dead among the youth of today -- once again I was "such a nice girl" and "so artistic! I'm sure you'll go far." But I felt pretty bad for her, to be at that point in her life and not have any more independent sense of self and purpose than that.

Comments

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Who who?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Unpublished Traveling Con-Goer #476.

[redbird]

Needing to believe she's "above" you somehow is her problem. Inflicting it on you at that length is just rude; that you can take it doesn't mean you should have to dropped on your head.

Also, I admire your patience and self-restraint: I'd probably have burst out with something like "Have you ever heard of O. Henry?"

[redbird]

That should be "have it dropped on your head."

Sorry.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But the thing about O. Henry is: I'm not him. (Nor do I want to be.) Nor am I Ted Chiang (nor do I want to be), nor Judith Merril, nor...well, you get the point. Pointing out an indisputably "real" short story writer merely makes me an uppity kid with too high an opinion of her own published work. It didn't take patience to avoid that.

[roane.livejournal.com]

At the risk of forming a hierarchy, I suppose that's moderately better than the person who would be SO much better/more successful/better looking, etc. than you are, except they just don't have time to write. ;)

But not much better. :P

[callunav.livejournal.com]

I really, really, really don't like it when people have to find some way in which they are above you in the hierarchy they've set up in their heads, but they have picked a method of developing hierarchy that makes that difficult for them.

Yeah, there's really just not a lot to like, there.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

A strategy I use (sometimes) in similar situations is to simply play their game. After all, they are playing for a prize that doesn't affect me at all. So what the heck.

(Wide eyed) "You have a book published? That's so cool! What's it about? How long did it take you to write it? Do you like the cover art? Are you happy with the font the publisher chose? Which character was the most autobiographical? Can I be in your next book?"

Okay, maybe not quite that. But still.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

She didn't have a book published, and had said so early on, or it would have been an entirely different situation. So coming in with, "You have a book published?" would have been obvious snark.

(I don't really want to get into "novels vs. short stories" as some total ordering, but at least if one has published a novel vs. published short stories, that's what the comparison is. In this situation it was nothing vs. short stories.)

[athenais.livejournal.com]

And you just know that short stories would totally count if she'd sold any.

[katallen.livejournal.com]

Well no... then it turns into whether the market was any good, whether the editor in charge has *good taste*, etc etc

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

Amen. Not that I know much on the publishing front, but I often have to deal with this similar asshattery in the world of academia, where my fellow students attempt to one up me in ways that affect me in absolutely no way.

Oi, some people.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

The one that really annoys me, on those grounds, is the people who see everything so much in terms of hierarchy that it's not possible to talk about anything one does at any level that might legitimately claim the level of "well" without being perceived as putting people who don't do that down; people who really seem to want to poison anyone taking any satisfaction in an earned skill.

[howl-at-the-sun.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon (which I just found!) Here:

Pnael 1, Calvin: When a person pauses in mid-sentence to choose a word, that's the best time to jump in and change the subject!

Panel 2, Cavlin: It's like an incerception in football! You grab the other guy's diea and run the opposite way with it!

Panel 3, Calvin: The more sentences you complete, the higher your score! The idea is to block the other guy's thoughts and express your own! That's how you win!

Panel 4, Hobbes: Conversations aren't contests!
Panel 4, Calvin: OK, a point for you, but I'm still ahead.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Call in the Handicapper General.

[howl-at-the-sun.livejournal.com]

One thing I remember distinctly about MiniCon was that when I talked to people, there was none of that. There was a decided .. lack of elitism, willingness to listen, respect for aspirations.. something.

I remember it even more clearly because when I went to another convention -- Conjecture -- it was still Decidedly fun, but there was a clear divide between Fans and Authors. People were nice, but they lectured more than talked, if that makes sense? Happy and friendly answering questions, but not asking any of their own, etc.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have that experience of Minicon and Minneapolis fandom, too. As long as you don't come around acting like you know everything there is to know about everything, no one else really does, either. It started that way with skzbrust when he was the very first pro I met when I was in college, and it's been that way ever since. I'm sure it happens elsewhere, too, but I'm glad it happens here.

The group that drives me just mad is people who aren't authors but also very clearly aren't fans and have a certain amount of contempt for fans. These people are invariably convinced that something has made them "better than" fans -- being in a writers' group, having a degree in creative writing, having attended a workshop, having a really great novel idea they will someday write...having no self-awareness whatsoever....

And then various people around them don't act like they recognize the obvious superiority, so they have to talk louder about it.

Wheeee.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

You totally won that round.

I mean, you *would* have won that round, if anyone had been keeping score. You weren't keeping score. You get extra points for that.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am far superior to all those people who are hung up on hierarchy.

Heh.

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

I had stuff I wrote in my late teens issued throughout the USAF. It wasn't art but I never got any sense of "Oh what a smart boy you are" maybe it's just a fiction thing?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Quite probably. I get much less of it from the work-for-hire stuff -- although there it was sort of a "you're not big enough to carry the manuscript box, are you sure you wrote the books in it?" vibe, so that might be part of it.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

I'm really sorry I missed that one. I, being middle aged, would not have had the restrictions you put on yourself.

Oh... I didn't get to tell you and I'm not going into the details here, but I got to talk to the person I was looking for and.... squeeeeee! *g*

I just got home and off planes. When I have more of a brain I will email you and Stella.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Eeeeeee!

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

You spoke to Steven Brust. About real stuff.

I have to hate you now.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Please don't do that.

I mean, yah, brilliant and versatile author, and we could all go on for ages, but -- also a person who eats and sleeps and converses and should be treated like a human being.

[laurel]

Oh, ew. I hate that too.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

Is it something going around?

People. Sometimes I just---

Argh.

I have notice though, as you said, we don't seem to get any of that at Minicon, which makes me happy. Every pro I've ever talked with at Minicon has been encouraging and pleasant.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Yeck. :-/

I had the weirdness of giving advice to a couple of people, one of whom was probably twice my age. Then my generalized respect for elders inconveniently tries to kick in and tell me I shouldn't be acting like I know more than they do.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Even if you do know more than they do. Yah. It's a problematic mode.

[palinade.livejournal.com]

Urgh, that's awful.

I hate the novel vs. short story debate.

I also hate the how-many-"famous"-people-I-can-insert-into-conversation-so-I-look-important dognponyshow, too.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And it's very clear in this case that I would have "won" that dognpony show if I'd cared to play. But it would have felt really nasty and unpleasant; it was not worth doing.