This year, Young Adult Library Service Association (Y.A.L.S.A.) handed out the Margaret A. Edwards Award to Orson Scott Card this year, specifically mentioning his books Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow. The award immediately started controversy. Card is a right-wing bigot. He’s anti-homosexual, anti-liberal, and generally intolerant.
The committee that awarded the prize says they were unaware of Card’s views. I wonder how qualified this group really is, if they give awards without even knowing a smidgen about the recipient. Card’s writing are many and well-known, and have thrown around the web for years. This controversy should not have come as a surprise to them. They should have been ready for it, even if they thought the award deserved. These are librarians for Pete’s sake! They should be able to put together a little bit of information about an author! That they didn’t makes me believe they are lazy or clueless. Even I Google my subjects a little bit before I put up my crap!
According to Y.A.L.S.A., the Margaret A. Edwards Award is given for the following reasons:
The Margaret A. Edwards Award, established in 1988, honors an author, as well as a specific body of his or her work, that have been popular over a period of time. The annual award is administered by YALSA and sponsored by School Library Journal magazine. It recognizes an author’s work in helping adolescents become aware of themselves and addressing questions about their role and importance in relationships, society, and in the world.
Supposedly, personal views of the author are not part of the criteria. I can understand that sentiment somewhat, but in this case I think it’s hogwash.
The Edwards Award is for lifetime contribution. It is not for specific works alone, though they give emphasis to specific works. If the award is for lifetime contribution, I think the committee should be examining his lifetime work. While perhaps his intolerant writings may not outweigh any positive impact Ender’s Game may have had on youth, those published works should still be considered. In my view, the voluminous crap spewed from the tip of Card’s pen by sheer weight of ink alone ought to disqualify him for the award.
In addition, the morality espoused by Orson Card in the very works cited by Y.A.L.S.A. is horrid. John Kessel wrote a very good polemic on the morality in Ender’s Game. There’s a reason the books are popular among picked-on boys, which are a significant chunk of teen-aged S.F. fans. When I first read the book in my teens, it fed right into my desire to be something I was not. I was shy and scared. I wanted to be confident and ruthless. Card wrote that it was perfectly fine to lash out at one’s tormentors. In some ways, I agree. But the moral problem is deeper. Kessel quotes:
The power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can’t kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you.
Card’s ultimate goal is to present the philosophy that one’s intentions or motives are what is important in judging the good/evil, not the actions or results. So long as one does things for pure reasons, moral judgment stands in the actor’s favor.
So while that may guide a young person in addressing questions about his or her place in the world, I think it guides them to the wrong place. The award should have been given to someone else.
Photo Morality taken by Flickr user joel duggan, used under a Creative Commons By-Nc-Nd 2.0 license.
I was unaware that the award was for sharing your own set of beliefs. I am against same sex relationships, abortion, and think that allowing them is immoral at best. I suppose in your eyes that makes me a bigot, however, I hold my beliefs regardless. Your posting this shows your own intolerance so perhaps you should pick yourself up a copy or two of his work and see if they won’t help you find yourself.
I own and have read nearly every book Orson Card wrote until around 2000, including his fictional of one of Joseph Smith’s wives.