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Comment by rendall | Hacker News Reader

("to cape" - I'm not familiar with this usage, so I'll assume it's a typo for "to care")

Yeah, see that's the thing. I said before that it's motte and bailey with this guy, and that's reflected in his defenders.

Motte: is just historical accuracy how can you object to that? That's a good, positive thing

Bailey: GRRM is causing harm with his lying, demeaning, historical inaccuracy

Let's just have the historical accuracy alone, shall we?

Or a demonstration that GRRM is causing harm. That would be fine, too, but I suspect that's much more difficult to establish, and it's not gonna happen by continuing to demonstrate that which surprises utterly no one, that the Dothraki are fictional

As it stands, there is this back-and-forth when I ask people to demonstrate that this denigration of GRRM is justified and people start talking about buckskin and horse bridles

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The closest I could find to a statement that GRRM is causing harm is:

> The honest mistake has become an irresponsible error, perhaps a moral one.

Which was in the context of discussing that GRRM has explicitly said that the Dothraki were based off of real peoples.

The author does not say "GRRM is causing harm..." he says that GRRM is acting irresponsible and possibly immoral. It seems likely that the author believes that GRRM is causing harm, but he does not advance his argument that far.

> denigration of GRRM

This literally isn't happening.

>> denigration of GRRM

> This literally isn't happening.

I disagree with rendall's general opinion regarding this series... But there's pretty much no other way to read the last few paragraphs in this particular essay. The author came within a hair's breadth of calling Martin an "ignorant racist", and he probably didn't say so deliberately.

In general, this article is by far the preachiest in the series, and is thus the least enjoyable. "Barbarian couture" is great, though.

I would say the author provided all the evidence for you to draw such a conclusion, but never insinuated as such. The most concrete thing he ever said was that GRRM lied when he said that the 'Dothraki were an amalgam of ...'. If you were led to such a conclusion without the author even making that argument, I wouldn't say it was preachy, but impactful.

> I would say the author provided all the evidence for you to draw such a conclusion, but never insinuated as such

I respectfully and strongly disagree.

The conclusions about Martin as a person I gather from the historical evidence in the article are "Martin clearly knows little about history and obviously wanted to engage a little bit in the 'Fremen mirage' [as the author, Devereaux, himself would put it], but he's also a blowhard overstating his own knowledge and authority."

That Martin is "irresponsible", and his story "harmful", etcetera. That's all entirely what the author puts forward on the last few paragraphs... And something he didn't do in the first article in the series, and in the few other essays by him I've read. He keeps it fairly neutral, and focused on the history.

You see, the charitable interpretation in this case would be "don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence". In most of Devereaux's essays that have become popular here, he sticks to that one with reasonable consistency, but he clearly made an exception this time.

Where did you get that quote from (2nd paragraph)? I can't find it in the three articles on horse nomads.

WRT your last point, I didn't read the conclusion to say that GRRM maliciously cause harm, but through his incomplete knowledge of history and his assertion that the culture he portrayed was historically accurate was causing harm. He simply noted the deficiencies of GRRM, and the resulting consequences of such.

And to the point that you've brought up about a difference between this article and the last 2, I would counter to say that all three have had the same conclusion, that GRRM has been inaccurate with the portrayal of horse-bourne nomads, only here he has laid out the consequences that it entails. If you're fine with the predicate but have issue with the conclusion, I would suggest you make a counter to his argument, otherwise it would appear to be in bad faith to lambast his conclusion yet agree with his predicate and have no word on his argument.

The second paragraph was my interpretation, I wasn't quoting the author.

> but through his incomplete knowledge of history and his assertion that the culture he portrayed was historically accurate was causing harm.

I take it you agree with my original comment then. I didn't discuss in it whether a judgment of Martin was justified or not, merely that it exists. The person I originally replied to asserted that there wasn't.

> He simply noted the deficiencies of GRRM

I agree with this.

> the resulting consequences of such.

On this I disagree. My interpretation from the historical references given in the essay are, as I already said, that Martin was just wrong. Meanwhile, the author jumps into saying that Martin isn't just wrong, but irresponsible. That isn't supported by anything else in the essay other than the author's opinions.

> If you're fine with the predicate but have issue with the conclusion, I would suggest you make a counter to his argument

I have no issue with the conclusion or argument (the argument that the Dothraki have no basis on real cultures, anyway). I disagree with the suggestions made on Martin as a person, and not just because the jump to those have little evidence (or place, in my opinion, which is why the article comes across as preachy) in the article itself.

And I did present an alternate interpretation.

> to lambast his conclusion

I did no such thing.

> the author jumps into saying that Martin isn't just wrong, but irresponsible. That isn't supported by anything else in the essay other than the author's opinions

A succinct statement of my own position.

Acting out of ignorance when the tools are available to be less ignorant, and then doubling down on your original ignorance is irresponsible.

I don't think there is anywhere that Devereaux even implied maliciousness, just irresponsibility and moral failing.

> Acting out of ignorance when the tools are available to be less ignorant, and then doubling down on your original ignorance is irresponsible.

Disagreed. To be "irresponsible" one first needs a responsibility, and I don't think Martin has any responsibility on the matter. He has no authority, he isn't a historian or a linguist; he's a storyteller.

I repeat, the most that can be inferred of him as a person regarding his story and his comments on it (based on what's said on the matter in this article) is that he's ignorant of his own ignorance, and a blowhard (IMO).

> I don't think there is anywhere that Devereaux even implied maliciousness, just irresponsibility and moral failing.

I don't see how saying that someone has "moral failings" is not calling them "malicious". At most, it can be argued that "malicious" is a stronger word, but at that point we're arguing tone. The intent is similar.

For instance, I only used the word "malice" because that's how the saying goes. It was a little hyperbolic in context, but you can replace "malice" with "moral failing" in my previous comment if you so wish[1]; I don't think the message I was trying to send would change if so.

But that's mostly beside the point, I take it you agree with my original comment then: the article does have a negative moral judgment of Martin. The person I originally replied to asserted that there wasn't.

[1]: "don't attribute to moral failing what can be attributed to incompetence".

RE: Malice vs. Moral failing

If I am:

1. Incompetent at driving

2. Ignorant of #1

3. Go out driving, putting others lives at risk

I would argue that this is a non-malicious moral failing.

RE: Responsibility

I think all people engaging in public speech have a responsibility to be correct, inasmuch as incorrect speech is harmful. The larger the audience, the larger the responsibility. The author claims that it would have been a very small amount of research to inform GRRM about some of these inaccuracies, so making a public claim about accuracy with a large platform and not bothering to do the research is irresponsible.

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