“Two of my favorite things…when the dog bites, when the bee stings…

The other day, Matt Staggs at Enter the Octopus asked “So, is Orson Scott Card off your reading lists, or what?”

Matt explains that while Card has been popular, he’s also been popular for arguing (stridently) against gay marriage, puts down american intellectuals and has ‘argued for insurrection’. He then asks his readers to comment.

Later on the same day, IO9 posted a poll. A poll that covered an awfully familair subject:

“Would you boycott science fiction writers because of their politics”? They then go on to mention Card specifically by name (hey, wasn’t that supposed to be a general question?)

I wonder if Matt would be flattered by the statement ‘great minds think alike’…?

The formatting of Matt’s question could be seen as presupposing an answer – a mild form of push polling, if you will – but it doesn’t hold a candle to IO9’s manipulation: the only available option for those who would like to say ‘in this particular case, yes I do avoid buying Card’s books’ makes anyone who selects it look like an idiot.

Despite this overt manipulation, the responses on both sites are interesting, if not instructive:

36 people took the time to comment over at Matt’s place:

7 (19%) comments were essentially off-topic

4 (11%) people said that they would continue to read Card (with one making sure we all understood that he would only do so if the book itself was worth reading)

5 (13%) commentors made categorical ‘no I will not read him’ statements and

19 (53%) said “no, won’t read him – but it’s all moot since his writing (insert deragatory word of your choice here) anyways.”

Over at that other website, the post received 173 comments: most of the comments were tangentially involved but it looked like folks were essentially saying – don’t read him anyway/stopped reading him anyway, or I’d read him if it were worthwhile to do so. Strident responses run the gamut from ‘if you let an author’s politics inlfluence your reading’ to ‘I get to choose where to spend my money’.

Meanwhile, the poll results are running 43% f(943 votes) or ‘author’s views are irrelevant’ and 42% (938) for “I can’t support someone who espouses hateful views – statistically a dead heat.

Considering that I just voted twice today (they’re not blocking multiple votes from the same IP), those results are kind of moot.

What I found most interesting about it was that the MOST responses came in for “doesn’t matter, I don’t read him anyway” or “if I read him, I’d buy his books at 2nd hand stores”.

There’s some interesting descriptive terms in them thar comments; if you’re in need of a good epithet, you might want to head on over to Matt’s site.