Welcome!! Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. Let's get started by telling a brief Blurb about Forbidden Conversations.
GENRE
Forbidden Conversations is social and political criticism.
BLURB
Forbidden Conversations is the record of a series of conversations over eight
days between three friends on topics which Americans are actively prevented
from discussing, except perhaps in private, behind closed doors. An example is
gun control. The prevention of these discussions is destructive both to
American society and to the future of our democracy.
The conversations are
rendered as dialogues. Dialogues are not plays. They are an ancient and
venerable technique for exploring controversial or difficult subjects, and have
been used to great effect by well-known philosophers and scientists, such as
Plato and Galileo.
Though the topics of the conversations recorded are
themselves quite controversial, the fact that they are now in readers' hands is
due to something even more controversial: one of the participants of these
conversations died in an effort to bring them to the reading public. Whether
that death and its accompanying violence were worth it, we will leave to the
reader to decide.
Does sound very interesting, that is for sure. Now just a few questions for you.
What lead you to write Forbidden
Conversations?
The discovery that crucial topics
like gun control cannot be discussed openly, rationally, calmly, and in public
in the U.S. We came to this discovery
slowly. The suppression of debate in the
U.S. was slow, taking many years, so its increase was not easily noticeable.
Tell us about the characters in Forbidden Conversations. Are
they based on real people?
There are three
main characters in Forbidden
Conversations: Raquel, Shannon, Sophia. In
the first draft of FC, the three were
modeled on Simplicio, Salviati, Sagredo – the three characters
from Galileo’s famous book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems which argued that the Earth goes around the
sun, rather than the reverse. Raquel was
supposed to be Simplicio, Shannon, Salviati, and Sophie, Sagredo. Simplicio defends the old and wrong
Earth-centered view of the solar system; Salviati defends the (then) new and
correct sun centered view, and Sagredo is a more or less neutral discussant
who, in Galileo’s book, becomes swayed by Salviati’s arguments. But, we realized that Galileo’s
characters, who were engaged in a scientific debate, didn’t translate well into
modern political and cultural discussions.
So, as we continued to work, Raquel morphed into an intelligent and
robust Christian who’s beliefs about Jesus and Christianity are decidedly not
mainstream. Shannon is a thoughtful firebrand,
an atheist, and a revolutionary. And
Sophia is a wise and moderating influence on them both. There are two
more characters who are based on real people.
The book starts off with a recounting of an event that happened in real
life. In Casper, Wyoming back in the early
1980s, there were two gentlemen discussing the then hot issue of breaking up
the U.S.’s large oil companies. They
really did get in a fight with several “oil men,” who were intent on shutting
the two up. In the book, the two
gentlemen are murdered by the oil men, but in real life, the two gentlemen
escaped more or less unharmed.
What is your background before writing Forbidden Conversations?
Tara is a paranormal romance
author who has published several novels.
She’s also a health and safety inspector at a local metal fabrication
factory. She has degrees in science and
math. Eric is a professor of philosophy
who teaches philosophy, mathematics, and computer science.
What do you hope readers take with them after reading Forbidden Conversations?
Immodestly, we hope to reinvigorate
informed debate in the U.S. on the issues pressing in on us as a country. More modestly, we hope to have a positive and
informative impact on our readers.
What was the hardest part of writing your book?
Working together. Specifically, working out the characters of
Sophia, Shannon, and Raquel was difficult.
Also, Tara and Eric are very different kinds of writers. Tara is a fiction writer, primarily, and Eric
is a non-fiction, academic writer. We did
know that there was a difference, but we didn’t know at the time that the difference
between these two kinds of writing is huge.
It took us a while to bridge the gap.
The task would’ve been much harder except for the fact that this was our
second collaboration. Our first was writing
an essay together entitled “The Allure of the Serial Killer,” which came out in
Serial Killers and Philosophy, edited
by In Sara Waller and published by John Wiley.
Now Eric please tell us something about you and how we can connect with you.
Eric Dietrich is
a professor of philosophy at Binghamton University. Before studying philosophy,
he was a concert pianist and mountain climber. He has a bachelor's degree in
mathematics from the University of Wyoming, and a doctorate in philosophy from
the University of Arizona. Between those two degrees, he worked for a
Nasa/Defense Department contractor in their artificial intelligence unit. His
most-read paper is "There is no progress in philosophy." He is the
co-author of
Sisyphus’s Boulder: Consciousness
and the Limits of the Knowable, a book on consciousness's resistance to
scientific explanation. With Tara
Fox Hall, he wrote "The Allure of the Serial Killer," which came out
in the book
Serial Killers. He is also the founder and editor of the
Journal of Experimental and Theoretical
Artificial Intelligence.
Wonderful, Now Tara let's hear about you and how we can contact you as well.
Tara Fox Hall is
a safety and health inspector at a metal fabrication shop. She received her bachelor's degree in
mathematics and chemistry from Binghamton University.
Her writing credits include nonfiction, horror, suspense,
erotica, and contemporary and historical paranormal romance. She is the author
of the paranormal action-adventure Lash series and the vampire romantic
suspense Promise Me series. She also coauthored (with Eric Dietrich) the essay
“The Allure of the Serial Killer,” published in
Serial Killers - Philosophy for Everyone: Being and Killing
(Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). She divides her free time unequally between
writing novels and short stories, chain-sawing firewood, caring for stray
animals, sewing cat and dog beds for donation to animal shelters, and target
practice.
Tara's Facebook Page:
Awesome! Now how about a little excerpt to leave our readers with?
Raquel: At what age is suicide
okay? I don't know. But you need to be an adult, maybe even an
old adult. And you need to be already
dying -- the doctors have to have done as much as they can, and you have to
have lived a life that you are proud of, then maybe suicide is okay.
Shannon: But that is too strict
if that is the only condition under which suicide is allowed. Don't you think living wills should also be
honored? If we are giving the right to die to terminally sick older people, we
should also give it to those who are healthy, but are anticipating the worst.
Raquel: No. Again, only if you are already going to die,
then, perhaps you can morally commit suicide.
Actually, I'm not really sure even in this case.
Shannon: But does it make sense
that you have the right to choose death if you’re incapacitated and can't
implement your decision, but you don't have that right if you’re even remotely
healthy – talk about a catch-22!
Raquel: No, you're right about
that. I think that imminent painful
death in old age is the only reason death can be a choice, but, yes, you have
to be able to implement your decision.
Still, I have my doubts.
Shannon: Then you’re saying
death isn’t an allowable choice unless it is painful and immediately around the
corner. That makes it not a choice at
all, just a more quickly reached destination.
Raquel: That’s right. Taking it
a step further, I'm worried about who gets to make the decision. A teenager whose girlfriend or boyfriend has
broken up with him might think she or he's facing imminent painful death and
then commit suicide. That is wrong. Someone with professional expertise has be
involved. Perhaps suicides should only
be allowed in hospitals.
Shannon: I thought you wanted smaller government involvement in our
lives. Now you’re arguing for government
involvement in our most private and personal decisions.
Raquel: And I thought you wanted larger government involvement in our
lives -- to protect us. Now you are
arguing for a hands-off approach to those about to make an irrevocable
uninformed decision.
Shannon: Uninformed only according to you Christian people. But, yeah, I see your point: Our views are
not only mutually but internally contradictory.
At this moment, Sophia shows up, carrying a cup of coffee.
Sophia: Hi, you two. What are
you talking about?
Shannon: My father has been
diagnosed with Alzheimer's. We are
discussing whether suicide is a good option for him or not. I say suicide is a good option; Raquel thinks
it is an immoral option.
Sophia: Really. Sounds like an
important conversation. But are you two whispering?
Raquel: Whispering? No, why
would we whisper?
Sophia: Don’t you watch the news? Two guys in Wyoming were in a bar
discussing breaking up the oil companies and were later found murdered. The local police suspect that their murder
might have something to do with their having that conversation.
Raquel: I don't think anyone is going to murder us for discussing
suicide.
Sophia: Don't be too sure. These
are "interesting" times. And a
conversation involving the plusses of suicide might be forbidden.
Shannon: Sophia, please join us. I think we’re safe here. We would certainly value your insight.
Sophia: I’m honored. Shannon, I
missed your side of the conversation about suicide. What do you think?
Shannon: I think suicide is my
right. I find Raquel’s view that suicide
is usually wrong and therefore not allowed an infringement on my rights. Raquel, suicide's a freedom we should have
just by virtue of being the conscious animals we are. We should all have the
freedom to die, just like the other freedoms we enjoy. In fact, in some sense, suicide is our first
freedom. This is because the individual
is sacred.
Sophia: You sound like the
famous philosopher Ayn Rand, who said her philosophy was ". . . the
concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose
of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as
his only absolute."
Shannon: That evokes a nice
sentiment, but I don't agree with it. I
would put it this way: All humans should strive to be heroic, their flourishing
is the central purpose of their lives, but no one who is sane and rational can
be happy when others around him are suffering, so the flourishing of all of
life, our own included, is our noblest activity, and there are no absolutes.
Sophia: Very nice, Shannon.
Raquel: I see now why you are so
pro-suicide. There's nothing in that
statement about respecting the dictates of God.
Shannon: You don't respect the
dictates of God, Raquel. If I give you a
gun will you go kill a homosexual for Him, just as He commanded in Leviticus
18:22, and 20:13? I don't think so.
Appeals to God and what God wants are so small-minded. The Bible contains some very nasty stuff
which I find both blatantly immoral and personally offensive.
Sophia: I think we had better stop for the day. Tempers are beginning to rise. Let's adjourn and agree to return to this
"forbidden" conversation when we meet again. Say tomorrow, at this location at this same
time.
Raquel: Agreed.
Shannon: Tomorrow, then.
Welcome Robert! I can't wait to hear about your book. In fact I can't wait to read it!
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