A single note of defiance
This is just a short note to the world at large: be it known that I have purchased, despite the extreme poverty that my recent voyage across the world imposed on my budget, THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF MIND-BLOWING SF (Mike Ashley, editor).
Since I am a Null-A trained Houyhnhnm from planet Vulcan, I am (of course!) a being of pure logic unmoved by any passions or emotions, but from time to time one simply must make a gesture, no matter how small, to oppose the Dark Lord, even if that gesture is only symbolic.
In this case, the book is one that holds for me only mild interest, despite the fact that some of the contributors include giants in the SF field, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, Gregory Benford, Robert Silverberg and Michael Swanwick.
No, my interest in the book was piqued only because of a pseudocontroversy that was ginned up over the race and sex of the authors in the table of contents. Because the editor did not include a token female, he was excoriated by the unwitting servants of the Dark Lord.
Not only was the editor threatened with boycotts and reduced to the status of an unperson, any authors or editors who spoke in his defense, no matter how mildly, were also boycotted. Much of the ire seemed to be over the cover blurb and title, which (as best I can tell) is boilerplate boosterism, no more meaningful than Stan Lee of Marvel Comics assuring potential buyers in blazing all-capital letters that this issue is the best battle issue ever!
What was the cause of so much vexation, we might wonder?
It is to be remembered that, in our parent’s generation, the Dark Lord vexed the Earth with bogus theories of scientific racism, eugenics, and breeding which allegedly came from Darwin’s theory of the origin of species. The argument ran that the race to come after us, the superman, would be bred out of superior bloodlines such as the Teutonic, and this master-race would dominate and destroy the lesser breeds, such as the Slavic. With bitter bloodshed the advocates of this scientific racism were overthrown, and their works set to naught.
Vowing this evil should never take root among us again, laws to assure the civil rights of minorities were enacted, and new customs and manners adopted to show respect and honor to those who had for so long been oppressed. Thereupon in our generation the Dark Lord sent into the world the opposite evil to the first one, so that those opposing that first obvious evil would fall into the second.
The new argument runs that racism consists not of the desire to dominate and destroy other breeds, but in subtle and psychological (and hence invisible and undetectable) desire to exclude and marginalize others based on their race, in order to maintain the current power structure of the evil world-system: the female sex is considered, for the purposes of this argument, to be another race, and a non-word was coined "sexism" to refer to misogyny, but also to imply that not just misogyny but any acknowledgment or awareness of any differences between the sexes is based on the same psychopathology as race-prejudice.
This means everyone and anyone (but usually Republicans) and including bewildered, innocent bystanders without anything even remotely approaching a hint of race-hatred or misogyny can be accused of racism and sexism.
The only way to avoid the accusation is to practice tokenism, and to get the statistically correct mix of sexes and races in every workplace, circle of friends, social club, and publication. Of course, tokenism is also a form of racism, since it selects according to race, so that anyone seeking to avoid the accusation has to practice tokenism without letting it be known that he is. The stance is therefore innately and inherently false and hypocritical: it consists of paying close attention to race and sex rather than merit while maintaining the pretense that no one is paying attention to race and sex.
(A new and toxic variation of the argument has recently arisen claiming that NOT paying attention to race and sex is actually a manifestation of a subtle and psychological (and hence invisible and undetectable) desire to exclude and marginalize others based on their race, in order to maintain the current power structure of the evil world-system. By this new argument, anyone who is not a racist on the grounds that he ignores race and judges men on the content of their character is actually a racist after all.)
You may have noticed that this new argument is not only ahistorical and nonfactual but illogical, since it defines both a thing and its opposite as being the same thing. This is because the partisans following this new argument have set aside any concern about being factually correct: they merely want to be "politically" correct, which is to say, to repeat the slogans, contradictory or not, issued by the miniature version of the Ministry of Truth which they have grown into their cerebral cortexes. Facts are optional.
At the same time in world history, formal logic ceased to be taught in schools, and academia (with nary a dissenting voice) wholeheartedly embraced theories of irrationalism, that is, the proposition that reality was to be grasped and shaped by the willpower, by the passions and emotions, not to be understood by ratiocination. An entire generation obediently put out the lights in their minds and fed ever more fuelthe dark and roaring furnaces of their passions. Hence, the simple paradox of this new argument (where racism can both be and not be racism at the same time) could neither be detected nor discussed. Indeed, all rationality was now dismissed (again) as part of an attempt to oppress the powerless and maintain the evil world-system.
Those of you who do not think Politically Correctness is as dangerous and morbid as every other form of deliberate embrace of unreality, I direct your attention to those preliminary reports which indicate the shooter in the Fort Hood massacre was known to be a sympathizer with the Jihad, but was not reported because all feared to be accused of discrimination.
It is, of course, an insult to a science fiction writer, male or female, to buy his work based on his sex rather than on the merit of the work. Being a professional, I (of course) would be happy to accept such an insult and make the sale, but it would not satisfy what those who hunger and thirst for justice actually seek.
(For those of you confused by the pronoun use in the previous paragraph, I refer you to the dictionary, or to your Strunk and White.)
In this case Mike Ashley failed to get the statistically correct mix of races and sexes and other minorities. While I am not certain, I suspect every author in the table of contents is either a Classical Liberal, a Moderate Liberal, a Left-leaning Liberal or a far-Left Liberal: but unfortunately this fact will not save poor Mr. Ashley from the scorn of Liberals, because it is the skin color, and not the political loyalties, of the contributors that makes a difference.
While I am not certain, I believe at least one of the contributors is Irish; I think at least one is a Jew. But that does not matter, since the word "race" no longer defines a racial or linguistic or ethnic group, it defines a victim-group, and apparently the Irish and the Jews have not suffered enough tribulations, famines, and genocides to be considered authentic victim-groups in the eyes of the Self-Anointed Enlightened. On the other hand, Spaniards are considered a "race", so I am not clear what logic, if any, governs their thought-process.
I am not sure, but I think Mr. Ashley issued the proper Soviet-style self-condemnation and apology, but I believe the Forces of Smug Selfrighteousness are still angry at him, because they are, of course, implacable, and anger is all they have left once logic is dismissed as a tool of cognition.
I realize that the deceived mind-slaves of the Dark Lord seem numberless and unstoppable. Nonetheless, we must recall two things: first, a sincere desire for justice, and a perfectly admirable detestation for race-hatred motivates them, or at one time did. Second, today of all days we must recall, how even the proudest towers of that hideous strength can fall.
While I (in my own small way) can do nothing against this rising tide of barbarians and their illogical & feverish emotionalism, I can make this one small gesture of defiance. The lights are going out all over the world; I will light this one small candle rather than curse the darkness. I bought the book merely because they condemned it. I suggest everyone who reads these words do the same.
POSTSCRIPT: In this allegedly mammoth book of allegedly mind-blowing SF, there is NOT ONE STORY by A.E. van Vogt, Cordwainer Smith or Charles L. Harness, who are mind-blowing in the mindblowingest possible terms, if the word "mindblowerrrific" is to have any meaning!!!
Unfortunately, there is a not an organized pseudo-religion ready, willing and able to gin up false controversy about truly mindblowing authorsbeing excluded and marginalized by "Blowists" (that sinister form of discrimination which opposes mindblowingishness and supports mundanism), so I doubt irate promindblowingism readers like me will threaten authors and editors with boycotts over this matter.
However, just in the spirit of the times, I will vow never again to buy a single science fiction book by economist John Maynard Keynes, who had the effrontery to disagree with me on the issues of bimetallism, fractional reserve banking, and on the possibility of economic calculation in a socialist commonwealth.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
