From: eschneid@sparc8.tamu.edu (Erich R Schneider)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Is SF imaginative? (somewhat long)
Date: 22 Jan 93 15:12:11
Organization: Texas A&M University
	<1joah2$134@agate.berkeley.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: sparc8.cs.tamu.edu
In-reply-to: curtis@cs.berkeley.edu's message of 22 Jan 1993 08:16:34 GMT

In article <1joah2$134@agate.berkeley.edu> curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
>In article <ESCHNEID.93Jan21172816@sparc8.tamu.edu> eschneid@sparc8.tamu.edu (Erich R Schneider) writes:
>>
>>However, a certain subset of modern literature can be seen to be
>>questioning the current cultural norms, rather than reinforcing them.
>>Rather than confirming that what everyone sees as "right" is in fact
>>so, these more radical works challenge our notions of "rightness".
>>Much modern literature, of course, acts in the usual way to reinforce
>>current norms.
>
>You are considerable free with your dichotomies.  I admire this.
>It indicates cojones.

I thank you for praising my metaphorical masculinity in public. However, I
hope you won't be too disappointed if I disclaim any attempt to create two
huge bins, labeled "confrontational" and "saps of the Old Order", and 
proceed to toss every SF volume in the Library of Congress into one or
the other. 

>It'd interest me, though, to see how you classify the following works;
>and why.  

Again, "classify" I won't try to do very much but I'll try to identify
general trends.

>Paul Park's _Soldiers of Paradise_
>Gene Wolfe's _Book of the New Sun_
>Mark Helprin's _A Winter's Tale_
>and Ian McDonald's _Desolation Road_.

Never read 'em. Sorry.

>Michael Swanwick's _Stations of the Tide_

It's been a while with this one. But I recall that a great deal of the
book dealt with various "magical" activities, especially ones
catalyzed by sex, and that our viewpoint character's scientistic
rationalism is challenged.  So in some sense it speaks against our
culture's rejection of "superstitious" magic and its attitude towards
sexuality. Then again, it might just be indulging in a bit of what a
previous poster called "Hefnerism". I'd have to reread it to give a
more cogent argument.

>Lucius Shepard's _Life During Wartime_

Very much an attack on our current "Corporate-Government War Machine", as
some might put it. When was this originally written? It has more relevance,
I think, if one can viscerally identify with the US's military adventures
in Central America, which seem to be tapering off a bit.

>Iain Banks' _Consider Phlebas_

An interesting puzzle, here. "State of the Art" and _The Player of
Games_ are very much direct attacks on the sacred cows of capitalism
as preached in the United States. But in _CP_, Banks shows the bad
side of the socialist, relativistic Culture as well (the Eaters), and
thus shows that he knows that the most effective way to argue against
what's wrong with our current culture is not merely inverting it and
setting the inversion up as "good" and the current culture "evil".
Another book which skates this line fairly well, from a feminist
angle, is Elisabeth Vonarburg's _The Silent City_. (_The Player of
Games_ I think makes a good "companion" volume to _Consider Phlebas_
in that with the two volumes we get opposing perspectives on the
question of the Culture. I must admit the Culture novels caused a not
insignificant shift in my own thinking.)

>Do they reinforce our Eurocentric, patrimonial, mammonistic,
>homophobic, and (of course) profoundly decadent Social Norms?  Or do
>they boldly step out into this literary chasm, where No Man hath Gone
>Before, and Subvert the Dominant Paradigm?

I wouldn't call our dominant social norms "profoundly decadent". Not a
while ago our leaders were pounding the pulpit denouncing decadence in
American culture. That aside, I'd say the three works I talked about
do in some sense attempt to "subvert the dominant paradigm".
--
Erich Schneider  eschneid@cs.tamu.edu

"The Hierophant is Disguised and Confused."