I present the following as a rant against materialism, and being a rant, its arguments are not confined to logic or completion. However, the thoughts are honest and deserving of some reflection.

I am a member of the Feist-fans emailing list, as I like Raymond E. Feists book, particularly his early work. His first book, Magician, was a masterpiece of fantasy storytelling. It disregarded all normal rules for plot and organization, and instead focused on the people involved in the story while providing two exciting fantasy worlds. Another notable book by Feist was "Prince of the Blood", a book involving the great Empire of Kesh, and the problems that arise from self-interested individuals in world where everyone needs to work together if they want to lead any kind of good life.

On Mr. Feist though, he has many opinions and characteristics that I dislike, and since he has a public email address, I have told him so. He doesn't get too happy when it happens, and his last rebuttal was pretty good, and so I apologized. But when I did, Mr. Feist thought it would be a good time to through some more shit in my face:

"Raymond E. Feist"  to feistfans-l 
 show details  8/11/06  


On Aug 11, 2006, at 9:36 AM, Brian Schimpf wrote:

> My apologies Mr. Feist.  I appreciate a good, honest reply to sincere
> criticism.  I'm just frustrated with the "I will because I can"
> philosophy I put up with in my own life.


It's very easy to be idealistic with someone else's money.  I'm a
serious football fan and get very tired of fans yowling, "They should
have spent the money to sign that free agent!  He would have made a
difference."  I won't bother to pick apart all the various flaws in
that logic, but suffice it to say it gets tedious listening to folks
tell other people how they should conduct themselves.

My work is books.  Everything else is whatever it is.  I've had two
computer games based on my work, one considered pretty good (Betrayal
at Krondor) and one considered so-so (Return to Krondor).  I had
input but the final product was way out of my hands.

Ya, someone offers me a cool million for film rights, they can cast
Jack Black as Pug for all I care.

What got me in that reply was that he thought he could pick apart the various flaws in "the logic" of somebody expressing their opinion on the entertainment that they watch! Yeah, there are some really inherent flaws in expressing an opinion. He may have been suggesting that all specific instances of people expressing their opinion that he has dealt with could be picked apart, but since he was vague and dismissive in a general sense, he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt from me.

And in the same sentence, he ends his criticism of other people's actions with "it get tedious listening to folks tell other people how they should conduct themselves"! Oh really Mr. Feist? Does that apply to all people, or are joyless die hard writers like yourself exempt from such generalizations? But, I did not reply, and let it go. Despite my anger toward his anti-freedom of speech stance, I do enjoy his work, and so I didn't unsubscribe myself from his mailing list. Not then anyways.

Now, an author expressing his view on his mailing list isn't something that would cause me to write out a long rant such as this, but when some one's unchallenged opinions that go against freedom of expressions start to be expected of other people, I start to get pissed off. I present the following emails unedited:

>--- Jason Green  wrote:
>
>> They say that print is dead, and while most if not
>> all on this list would
>> dispute that, it still has to make you wonder...
>>
>> Ray, if you were a young author just starting out,
>> would you approach your
>> craft differently?  Not in terms of how you write,
>> but perhaps in terms of
>> what you write for?  Would you focus more on
>> screenplays, or tv shows, or
>> something else?  What if you were a guy approaching
>> writing in 2025?  2050?
>>
>>
>> I know writing is a tonic of sorts for you, so
>> obviously your fingers would
>> still be beating on a keyboard, but would your
>> medium be different?
>>
>> For the rest of us, a tangent on the same topic -
>> what is the future of the
>> printed word?  Will it evolve to capture a new
>> generation of tech-savvy
>> readers, or will it continue to try and rip those
>> tech savvy kids from their
>> world and plunge them into ours?
>>
>> Fire away!
>>
>> -Jason
>> 
>
>L starkand   to feistfans-l 
> show details  10:06 am (4 hours ago)  
>
>Whatever medium he can make a million dollars or more
>per year, I imagine. Like anybody else who works for a
>living, Ray does it for the money. Loving what you do
>is a bonus.
>
>Larry Starkand

The follow was the reply I wrote directly after I had read these emails. Keep in mind that I did not send the following to the email list, despite my anger.

There are plenty of people who's motivation for working for a living is not money. Look at teachers who work at religious institutions; they sometimes choice to work at places where they will be making half the salary of comparable public teaching jobs. They work where and how they do because they think they ought to, not for the money. Mr. Feists insistence on making sure every one of his fans knows that he is only writing for our money doesn't change that.

I have caused trouble before with controversial comments, but I'm sick of hearing this nonsense because somebodies favorite author happens to be of the opinion. I love Feists early work, and like much of his later work, but I'm not going to keep quiet because of that. The last time I caused a ruckus, Feist made a comment (after I had apologized for making certain assumptions about his financial situation) to the effect of "people shouldn't criticize what NFL owners do because its THEIR money". At the time I had just rilled everyone up and didn't feel like causing more trouble, but it bothered me that nobody else voiced a disagreement. Actually, I'll talk and criticize whatever I find lacking in the world, whether or not it involves someone else's money. In fact, I think I'll defend my right to criticize, and give it a snappy name like freedom of speech. What do you think of that Mr. Feist? Is that good enough for you, or are you going to bitch about it?

I am sick of seeing other people's opinions seemingly get monopolized by someone they view as above them. I'm sure that this is just another part of the grander problem of the public's nonthinking nature. In 1966, just before the bombing of north Vietnam, Americans where split 50/50 on whether or not we should go through with the bombings. After we started bombing, 85 percent thought we should be bombing and 15 percent held on to their anti-war stance. If you want to fact check this, I suggest reading the book "Presidents and Public Opinion" by John Mueller, I got this information from pages 70-74. The book "Lies my Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen talks in depth about this phenomenon in chapter 12. People, especially in America, change their opinion depending on what perceived authority figures tell them to change it to, and the emails from the Feistfan's emailing list is a perfect example of this.