A Scathing Review of Red Room.Com

In this comparative review of two literary or writing websites [Red Room.Com and Writers.Com], I will concentrate mainly on my incredibly disappointing experiences as a member of the "politically correct" Red Room because in contrast Writers.Com is a most stimulating breath of fresh air, with reasonable standards fairly and consistently applied to all members' writing without preference toward or favoritism to any particular political, social, religious, philosophical or other cultural point of view.

An initial warning flag to any person considering membership in Red Room's writers' website is the voluminous and pompous statement of Terms and Policies in what one can only call "Newspeak" and  turgid bureaucratic gobbledy-gook.  I could not even begin to state the basic guidelines here because trying to extract such essential ideas from their overly legalistic and repetitive purple prose would be an impossible task even for someone like me with advanced degrees in English and years of professional experience in teaching and writing. [In contrast,the only statement on Writers.Com of its membership terms runs less than one page and written in remarkedly clear prose for such documents.]

To make matters worse, amidst all this hopelessly convoluted  policy content, pervades an arrogance, "puffed-up" pride and extraordinary self-absorption unequalled in my thirty-five years of professional experience, including my extensive reading of the "worst" bureaucratic writing in both government  civil agencies and military archives [I worked one summer in the U.S. Air Force History Office in D.C.] The one memorable statement, repeated several times in Red Room's policies is  "We are sorry" after any policy statement that to many readers would quite obviously be unclear, whimsical or pridefully pronounced ex cathedra from on high.  Yes, Red Room, you are indeed "sorry" but most noticeably in the modern colloquial meaning (namely "sad" and "pathetic") of that classic word!

I only became aware of specific constraints  on Red Room writers when one of my conservative-leaning articles caught both the attention and ire of a Red Room moderator/editor named, appropriately enough, Huntington Sharp. [In retrospect, this sounds like a satirical tag name for someone who soon revealed himself as being quite dull if not dumb in applying Red Room standards fairly.] But perhaps, as we say colloquially in the midwest, he was more likely "dumb like a fox."

He superciliously informed me [when I documented with quoted examples and logical argument in my posted writing, that certain statements by several politically left writers indisputedly fell into the the categories of stereotypes and prejudice] that it was actually MY identifying of these illogical, biased views, rather than the obvious original bigotry, that they found in violation of their policy for writers to be "respectful" and "constructive" in all writing posted on the site.

In Red Room's lexicon, any words and arguments pointing out  prejudice or stereotyping by the political left are disrespectful and destructive. Perhaps it was that same mindset that blinded the left for decades to the tens of millions of people imprisoned, starved, and killed by such notorious leftists as Joseph Stalin in the former Soviet Union and Mao in the so-called People's Republic of China. If Red Room's standards had governed public discourse during those years [some evidence documents they actually did], one could have only written or spoken respectful and constructive views about these dictators and mass murderers.  So much for where Red Room policies would lead us were they to become our culture's new Orwellian definition  and rubric for free speech!

As examples under Huntington's "a__backwards" application  of this civility policy, (1) an unnamed Red Room member implying by colloquial context that the babies of conservative women (whom she demeaningly calls "girls") are roughly equivalent to "litters" in the animal kingdom , is in full compliance with Red Room's requirement to be respectful and constructive but that MY POINTING OUT the obvious bigotry of that view is what the editor Huntington actually found destructive and disrepectful, requiring that my comments be banned while the bigot's statements remained intact for all to see.

(2) Another Red Room writer describing without  sufficient qualification  fundamental Christians as generally lacking rationality (i.e., dumb) and empathy for others (i.e., having little or no conscience) and then demeaningly name-calling them "fundies" is, similarly, in full compliance with the standards of being respectful and constructive but that, again, my criticism of such obvious bigoted stereotypes was what Huntington found in violation of being respectful and constructive.  Such is the idiocy that prevails as "civility" on the Red Room.Com website.

To my relief, Red Room cancelled my membership when I challenged Huntington to logically defend this inconsistent application of their standards documented above.  Clearly, had he accepted my challenge, he would have been unable to do so in any fairly moderated forum, since his actions were about as illogical and indefensible as one could possibly imagine.

Thus, my experience with Red Room proved invaluable in expanding my awareness of the continuing prevalence of prejudice, in this case among the privileged elite who, ironically, like to tout their open-mindedness and endorsement of diversity. But with such an inconsistent record of applying its standards, one can be quite confident that what is posted on Red Room will not likely be a model of diversity and open-mindedness, especially as long as it employs and shields editors like Huntington with one-track, closed minds.