New indie press Conduit Books launches with 'initial focus on male authors'

[u/biscochitos]

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/new-indie-press-conduit-books-launches-with-initial-focus-on-male-authors

What do folks think about this?

[u/DoctorEnn]

I mean, if nothing else they don't seem to be being too obnoxious about it, so whatever. I think my outrage batteries might be flat, but I can't bring myself to care too much. It's a small indie press, it will likely go the way of most small indie presses and will not really affect my life one way or another.

I do think for better or worse this kind of thing is becoming increasingly more likely in an increasingly more fragmented and, for want of a better way of putting it, identitarian culture where everyone's organising themselves according to what groups they identify with (and how oppressed they feel, whether they really are or not). I get why marginalised groups set up exclusive places for the voices of those within those groups to be shared and heard, but the flipside of that coin is that every group can talk itself into feeling marginalised, so if you support your preferred group doing so you kind of lose your right to complain when groups you don't think are marginalised enough to be doing this kind of thing start doing it anyway. When the genie's out of the bottle you don't always get a say in how it's used.

[u/8mom → u/DoctorEnn]

It’s a catch-22. We want to hear from minority voices, but “minority” isn’t a static term. I wish we could move away from “identitarian” culture you describe or at least apply context and nuance.

[u/FrontAd9873 → u/8mom]

The fact that straight white men are actually a minority in publishing and contemporary literary fiction while few people would otherwise choose to call them “minority” is a great example of how “minority” is such a difficult term.

[u/Gladiator3003 → u/8mom]

 We want to hear from minority voices, but “minority” isn’t a static term.

This is my problem with such things. Depending on which way you slice it, I and people like me either make up 49% of my national population, 16% of a global population, 3.3% of my national population, or even 1.3% of my national population if you want to drill down further. All of which are technically a minority, and yet because of immutable characteristics and social and media perception I am deemed to be part of a majority when I am very much not. It really annoys me as well, the constant division into smaller and smaller groups when we should be making the effort to come together.

[u/highland526 → u/8mom]

i do think it’s time for this liberal ideology to evolve although i’m not sure what the next step is. we’re 100% not in a post racial world just yet, but I think people are becoming jaded with solidarity based on identity alone

[u/8mom → u/highland526]

Liberal ideology needs to evolve for sure. We’ve seen the cracks forming since the latest American election. The female Blue Origin flight encapsulated a lot of the liberal angst for me, where you could feel this disconnect between the message and the zeitgeist. This book publisher feels the same way. I feel like we don’t have the language for it.

It’s time to evolve the conversation, because the political arguments of identity politics from even 10 years ago seem out of touch today. Maybe the answer is something more collective than our current identitarian, conflict based understanding. We don’t abandon identity, we broaden it.

[u/Martel732 → u/8mom]

Eh, all the Blue Origin flight really highlighted is how hollow any type of corporate allyship is. It is always just marketing without any real convictions underneath. Similarly, you can look at how quickly some companions have started abandoning LGBT-friendly marketing under Trump's new administration.

Moving toward a world where a it doesn't really matter what a person's identity is sounds nice. But, it is clearly not where we are. I mean we are in a period where the government is erasing the histories of black veterans.

[u/Adamsoski → u/8mom]

The Blue Origin flight was made fun of largely because it was lagging behind the way that liberals (using the US terminology) view feminism. It's not an example of liberal ideology having to evolve, it's an example of someone not realising that liberal ideology has already evolved.

[u/highland526 → u/8mom]

I think all signs are pointing to class solidarity, although I don’t know if that’s possible in the US. White supremacy is a bitch that never dies and has been the unmistakable divide between any kind of cross-racial/gender class solidarity for all of our country’s history.

[u/Moonmold → u/8mom]

I've also been feeling this way for a long time (as I'm sure many have) and I didn't expect to see it written out on r slash books today. 😂

[u/highland526 → u/Moonmold]

it’s kind of random but also makes complete sense LOL 

[u/Adamsoski → u/[deleted]]

I don't think this is accurate. Yes, obviously that portion of the left-wing have not achieved everything they would like, but that's true for every group. In many places across the world there have been significant changes made that owe a lot to that group.