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thought-provoked
Feb. 6th, 2007 11:08 amIt's a thought-provoking morning in the SFnal corner of the blogosphere. Which is good, because outside the blogosphere it's -5 (F) and snowing, and I am so not leaving the house. Except of course to check the mail.
John is musing about Hugo categories, with surely the most rigorous casual thoughts ever recorded for posterity on the Intarwebs.
Scott is ranting a beautiful and well-deserved rant about ideas in SF: "ideas are like cat toys for authors; they're what we play with as cutely as possible when we think people are watching." The phenomenon he's responding to is, I think, one I posted about a while back: to wit, that there are two entirely different categories of people who read SF. Different in that they want COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS from their reading. Sometimes, a writer can please both camps. Sometimes, she can't. Sometimes, he doesn't even WANT to.
And sometimes readers react to that as if it were meant--exquisitely crafted, even--as a personal affront.
SF is no longer monolithically "the literature of ideas," if it ever monolithically was. SF is being written, published, bought, and read that doesn't give a damn about science, hard or soft, or about the sort of social thought experiment that LeGuin brought to SF's table. It's SF that wants to blow things up and not have to think about it.
I'm a member of the SFBC, although I almost never buy anything (budget!), and I've seen in their flyers over the past few months more than one SF book that is defending, even glorifying, genocide.
This is genocide, of course, of evil BEMs* created specifically by the author for the purpose of deserving genocidal retribution.
Circular logic, much?
Because, see, the thing about fiction--any kind of fiction--is that the author sets the parameters. If it is inevitable and necessary for the characters in a story to commit genocide, it is inevitable and necessary because THE AUTHOR MADE IT THAT WAY. Don't forget the puppet master, folks. Don't ignore the man behind the curtain.
I have a problem with the idea of making genocide a simple, inevitable, necessary decision. Or, you know, not even a decision at all. A given. I don't deny the possibility, for the universe is infinite, that there may be, out there somewhere, a race of BEMs so inherently, biologically anathemetic to us that there will be no choice for thebrave little toaster human species except to wipe them out.
But I really, really doubt it.
And even if there is such a species and we do have to wipe them out to ensure our survival, that doesn't mean they will have deserved it. It will not be something we should be going around patting ourselves on the back about.
And although I am very very leery of yoking moral purpose and fiction together, if SF has a moral purpose, or any kind of moral responsibility, I think that moral responsibility is NOT to practice the rationalizations that will let future generations commit genocide without guilt. We have enough genocide already, thanks.
If you're gonna blow something up, you should have to think about it first.
---
*Bug-Eyed Monsters
John is musing about Hugo categories, with surely the most rigorous casual thoughts ever recorded for posterity on the Intarwebs.
Scott is ranting a beautiful and well-deserved rant about ideas in SF: "ideas are like cat toys for authors; they're what we play with as cutely as possible when we think people are watching." The phenomenon he's responding to is, I think, one I posted about a while back: to wit, that there are two entirely different categories of people who read SF. Different in that they want COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS from their reading. Sometimes, a writer can please both camps. Sometimes, she can't. Sometimes, he doesn't even WANT to.
And sometimes readers react to that as if it were meant--exquisitely crafted, even--as a personal affront.
SF is no longer monolithically "the literature of ideas," if it ever monolithically was. SF is being written, published, bought, and read that doesn't give a damn about science, hard or soft, or about the sort of social thought experiment that LeGuin brought to SF's table. It's SF that wants to blow things up and not have to think about it.
I'm a member of the SFBC, although I almost never buy anything (budget!), and I've seen in their flyers over the past few months more than one SF book that is defending, even glorifying, genocide.
This is genocide, of course, of evil BEMs* created specifically by the author for the purpose of deserving genocidal retribution.
Circular logic, much?
Because, see, the thing about fiction--any kind of fiction--is that the author sets the parameters. If it is inevitable and necessary for the characters in a story to commit genocide, it is inevitable and necessary because THE AUTHOR MADE IT THAT WAY. Don't forget the puppet master, folks. Don't ignore the man behind the curtain.
I have a problem with the idea of making genocide a simple, inevitable, necessary decision. Or, you know, not even a decision at all. A given. I don't deny the possibility, for the universe is infinite, that there may be, out there somewhere, a race of BEMs so inherently, biologically anathemetic to us that there will be no choice for the
But I really, really doubt it.
And even if there is such a species and we do have to wipe them out to ensure our survival, that doesn't mean they will have deserved it. It will not be something we should be going around patting ourselves on the back about.
And although I am very very leery of yoking moral purpose and fiction together, if SF has a moral purpose, or any kind of moral responsibility, I think that moral responsibility is NOT to practice the rationalizations that will let future generations commit genocide without guilt. We have enough genocide already, thanks.
If you're gonna blow something up, you should have to think about it first.
---
*Bug-Eyed Monsters
