Postmodern Blasphemies: Superversive Agrees
Only posting a link and a mess of quotes!
A follow up to a previous post, Superversive and his commenters have an intelligent discussion of the issue of postmodern nihilism in fantasy: http://superversive.livejournal.com/94056.html
Here is a money quote from superversive:
When Tolkien began writing LOTR, he was forty-five, had survived the hell of the trenches in the First World War, and knew that the second war was coming. As the article itself points out, he knew far more about war, suffering, and the dark side of human nature, by experience, than all the ‘edgy’ fools combined who are pissing on his grave today. If you think LOTR was the product of anybody’s childhood, or that it was meant for children, you are not only fooling yourself, but displaying yourself as a colossal fool to others.
Meanwhile, you are equating ‘appeal to an adult audience’ with nihilism, torture porn, and books whose so-called heroes are more squalid and disgusting in their behaviour, more ethically bankrupt and morally abandoned, than the worst villains of fantasy a generation ago. It used to be the constant complaint of the literati that fantasy lacked depth of characterization — that the villains were as one-dimensional as Snidely Whiplash. It does not help matters at all to do as Moorcock, Miéville and their kind do now, and make Snidely Whiplash the hero.
And another, this one from fpb:
people who think ‘inspiring, rather than depressing’ equals ‘escapist claptrap for the kiddies’.
If you think about it, this is a very convenient attitude. If the world is a moral shithole, then there is not much demand for you to do more than the bare minimum. If morality is possible, on the other hand, then there is no excuse for you behaving like a swine.
A comment I applaud from kateelliott
I feel that new gritty/torture porn (if you will) is written to be read and enjoyed by people who themselves live fairly quiet, pleasant lives. “Edgy” stuff rarely strikes me as edgy. I’ve seen it all before; there is so much worse going on in the real world to real people in ways that have real consequences that the attempt to raise that aversion stimulus in my brain fails…
And an interesting comment on Robert E Howard, by starshipcat (I would write an essay on this topic had I the time) :
Howard was drawing on the notion of the Noble Savage, which goes at least back to the Enlightenment and Rousseau. The idea that there’s a certain purity in the state of nature, rather than it being entirely “nasty, brutish and short” as Hobbes regarded it.
Thus, in Howard’s stories, the barbarian peoples like Conan’s Cimmerians can be seen as a reservoir of uncorrupted virtue who will renew the world when civilization inevitably becomes corrupt and falls. Of course those of their descendants who settle down and become civilized will inevitably fall into corruption, but not all of their descendants will go down that path. Some will maintain their pure and noble barbarian traditions in their wild homelands, keeping the flame of virtue alive.
And marycatelli sums up the whole discussion nicely:
There is nothing more childish than a deep desire to appear very adult.
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.
