Should the world really be run by men who never finished emotional high school?

[kpete]

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2012

Republicans: The World as Pulp Science Fiction

.......................


Pulp science fiction, like the Westerns of a prior generation, is a genre aimed mostly at adolescent boys. John W. Campbell, perhaps the most influential editor/publisher in SF, made this explicit. Meanwhile, just as the odd Western transcended the genre's limits and became high art--'The Searchers', 'High Noon', 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre' and others come to mind--so, too did some authors make science fiction more than it was/is at baseline. But the overall appeal was based on uncomplicated, mostly male characters, enabled by strength of ego and special talents/abilities to triumph over unambiguous evil.

There's a strong libertarian streak in pulp SF, of which Heinlein's 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' is perhaps the classic example. Again, this suits adolescent boys down to the ground: get off our backs, let us stand up for ourselves, freedom and independence will unshackle our greatness. And, as with adolescent boys much of whose freedom relies on adults paying for car insurance and food and the like, so, too, libertarians reject the necessity of common enterprise arising out of collective action, in the absence of private action, in mitigating problems or addressing unmet needs.

Which brings me to Ayn Rand, beloved of Alan Greenspan and many others, whose novels I find well written as pulp science fiction, with cardboard characters standing in for archetypes, who also appeals to adolescents: few boys never succumb, at one time or another as their personalities and egos develop, to the notion that they are Men (sic) of the Mind.

We now live in a time when Romney, Gingrich and Greenspan, and most of the right, explicitly embrace ideas that are adolescent to the core, have not developed into an adult grasp of reality, and which center on their own virtues and just rewards, and others' evils and inadequacies and the just deserts arising therefrom. It is possible, I'd hope, to be conservative, and, nonetheless, a grown up. I see no evidence of it these days.

Should the world really be run by men who never finished emotional high school?

http://profwombatsecondopinion.blogspot.com/2012/01/republicans-world-as-pulp-science.html

[Demeter]

1. Why Change Now?

Aside from maybe 50 years of Enlightenment, it has always been so.

[bemildred]

2. An interesting point.

I read vast quantities of SF in the 50s and 60s, and I am always hearing echoes of the same themes in RW drivel that certain authors (Heinlein comes immediately to mind) would ramble on about back then, pseudo-tough-guy stuff mixed in with lots of libertarian "thinking", general cluelessness and mystification of women and girls, and a lot of the same twaddle about the virtues of narcissism as crops up in L. Ron Hubbard, Ayn Rand, etc.

Greenspan does seem to have swallowed all that crap hook, line, and sinker, which told me all I needed to know about Greenspan.

[Mopar151]

7. But many of Heinlien's books have a hero who "mans up" to save the day

Becoming noble, brave, and self-sacrificing is a metaphor for growing up. And many of the virtues that make one heroic are about ability and competence over a broad spectrum - "Specialisation is for insects!".
Heinlein was an admiral before he was an authour - while Elron and Ayn Rand were basically failures at being human.

[bemildred]

8. Heinlein is not bad, I don't want to take out after Heinlein, he has his good points.

"Stranger in a Strange Land" is a very good book, seminal; and I don't want to put him in the same category as LRon or Ayn; but his characterization of women has always annoyed me (I'm a guy BTW), and his political views tend to be "spotty", and I have observed that lots of people share my view of him. He was pretty good at thinking outside the box, and I give him credit for that, but also in other ways very much a man of his time and place.

Just my 2 cents.

[riverwalker]

3. an oxymoron

"to be conservative, and, nonetheless, a grown up."

Impossible, the two are incompatible.

[supernova]

4. That is a good read

Thanks.

I've thought similar, listening to the Repubs in a detached way. They do sound like teenagers screaming "LOOK AT ME! I"M IMPORTANT" but the connection with libertarian SF that the author makes is new to me. It does fit.

As for MR saying his favorite book is by L Ron Hubbard, I have hard time believing that. I wonder if that's a canned answer to sound "hip?" -- as Repubs perceive it. And a counter part to Newtie, who wrote his own bad Sci Fi.

I've enjoyed Sci Fi throughout my life, moreso in movies and TV rather than books. But I enjoy the Star Trek vein that tells us we can create a more humane and inclusive future. One that looks out with curiosity and wonder rather than suspicion and distrust.

[nolabear]

5. I meantioned here once that Paul seemed to have read a lot of Heinlein.

I loved Heinlein until I was, oh, eighteen, but even then I knew his "comic book characters" approach to the world was absurd.

[Odin2005]

6. Most men never finished emotional high school.

Mainly because we are socialized to repress out emotions.