In the ‘classical age’ of science fiction, most American writers seemed to be limited or even minimal statists (Heinlien, Piper, “Doc” Smith and so on).
Most writers tended to support a strong military defence – but not very much more government (indeed they were hostile to welfare statism).
These days science fiction writing seems to have changed. A minority of writers (such as L. Neil Smith) are actual anarchist (real anarchists – not people who do not like the word ‘government’ but still want a collective power to control everything), but most other writers are welfare state – interventionists writing ‘feminist science fiction’, ‘environmental science fiction’, ‘psychological science fiction’ or even straight science fiction – but with the normal statist slant of main stream literature.
Perhaps the problem started when science fiction began to be ‘taken seriously’ (studied at universities, taught in writing classes and so on). Or perhaps the general statism of our culture just flows in everywhere eventually.
However, whatever the cause the old classical view of science fiction (fairly strict limited statism – tending towards minimal statism) is gone and has been replaced by a few anarchist writers and a mainstream of welfare statists.
This is even getting into fantasy writing. Again I am not referring to modern British writers (I do not expect much from writers beloved by the B.B.C. – such as Mr Pullman), but even best selling American fantasy writers seem to be coloured by statism.
For example Mr Jordan (of the highly successful ten book Wheel of Time series) seems to assume that good government involves all sorts of interventions (hence his hero, oddly enough called Rand, keeps ordering people about in their economic life), and there are the normal signs of mainstream literature – wealthy businessmen are dodgy, the utopian society of the ‘Age of Legends’ was an interventionist welfare-state and so on.
Actually modern fantasy writing in Britain started out as broadly anti-statist. Tolkien (for all his Catholic distaste for people who were obsessed with money making) was no statist – and neither was C.S. Lewis. And the American fantasy writers followed them in the their belief that a good government was one which protected the nation against other powers and did not do many other things.
In short there was similar political outlook among the fantasy writers and the science fiction writers.
This reflected itself in role-playing (when this grow up), the format of most role playing was an individual or group of individuals opposing evil (evil being defined as forces, human or other, who came to rob-kill-control). External invaders, internal corruption, tyrannical government – it was all basically the same thing (force attacking people).
People who were socialists in ‘real life’ never thought of setting up welfare states in fantasy or science fiction games – because that was not the nature of things (and games did have an effect on “real life” beliefs over time).
Sadly this all seems to be ending.
Gone, my ass. When I read sci-fi, who do I read? Heinlein, Victor Koman, Iain M. Banks, David Brin, Orson Scott Card, Greg Bear… the good ones are still the anti-statists, or the ones who don’t much care about states bcause of having something better to write about.
Oh, and ther never was an age without statist sci-fi, it was just all “rocket command” BS and communism analogies and it all dated rather harshly.
Julian,
Banks? I’m pretty sure he’s a socialist.
socialist-anarchist… the categories break down in the sci-fi he writes, because it’s set in a future so distant that “scarcity” – the prime cause of economic activity – basically no longer exists. Want to rule a planet? Sure, pick one, there are tons of spare. Don’t like it? We’ll build you one to suit. You want to actually rule people? Well there’s no way you can force them to come live on your planet, but we’ll ask around and I’m sure we’ll find somebody.
Interestingly in one of his recent novels there was a short burst of genuine scarcity (a music concert under very unique circumstances) and people immediately reinvent money to deal with it.
On the fantasy side, I have to toss in a mention of the (also best-selling) Terry Goodkind, who is a flat-out Objectivist. (I’ve seen quotes from him in literature put out by the Ayn Rand Institute.)
His “Sword of Truth” novel _Faith of the Fallen_ reads like he’s channelling _Atlas Shrugged_. It’s about a war against a fantasy version of a totalitarian socialist state. There’s even an extended concrete demonstration of the way free markets act for the benefit of everyone. Statist fantasy this ain’t.
I’d tend to agree that early sci-fi (let’s face it, really science fantasy ) was “rocket command BS” (nice description, Mr. Morrison).
I don’t read the genre any more and in fact haven’t read anything but some old stuff – Heinlein, Van Vogt, Piper for the last 25 years. I just got on to other interests, though I do have a soft spot in my heart for that era of romance.
However, ano one who’s actually experienced anarchy would favor it. Such a society is truly dog-eat-dog. It’s not a society dedicated to respecting the rights of the individual, but rather a society ruled by the strong. Two quick and dissociative examples: life in post-Soviet Russia and life in the 21st Century, where my country is disrespecting international judgement in its efforts to commit armed robbery.
The function of government properly is to protect the commonweal, maintain peace and order, make sure the milk doesn’t sour before you buy it and ensure you don’t drive through red lights. Other duties as the imaginative may create.
I lived in a classically anarchistic society during my military service in Viet Nam. I had a weapon in my hands or at my side at all times and had to be prepared at a moment’s notice to defend my life. And to squash the protests before they emerge: I said “classically” anarchist. When there are wolves waiting for you at any moment, you’re in anarchy.
I don’t think it’s at all about the cultural view changing the ground rules of sci-fi. Social intervention has been a technique of government 3,000 years ago.
To bemoan changing concepts of sci-fi (feminist sci-fi? – lol) is to short-change the maturation of western society. Even in “Dune” with its islamo-symbolic society, women are considered more than breeding factories.
Despite noting the trend you mention, it seems to me just a strand, and it can’t really be applied to the hard science-fiction writers at ll. Fantasy writing is ubiquitous and generally bloody awful, but SF is alive and iconoclastic as ever. If you are talking about British writers, read Alistair Reynolds, whose future contains believable social development, hard SF technology, amusing dialogue and characters, and an extraordinary power to draw the reader into vivid other worlds.
I don’t think there’s much evidence in Iain Banks’s writing that he’s a socialist, even if he may be vaguely of the left.
Fellow Scott Ken McLeod appears to be a dyed-in-the-wool old Labourite, agreed.
As for the US, most serious SF writers are not the products of the interzone school of left-liberal thought. They reflect a vigorously independent tradition of American prose: Jack McDevitt, Greg Bear, Neal Stephenson … it’s a long list.
I’ve been reading science fiction since the days of Amazing, and the quality and breadth of vision displayed by many of today’s writers leaves a lot of the Golden Age icons looking pretty limited.
There’s always that old saying, “If you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself.” Maybe there’s some potential sci-fi writers in blogville. If somebody has some but not all of the necessary talents (or time), then a partner could fill the void. If enough blogger-authors hit the big time, maybe they could pool their resources togeher into a little science fact and send the first manned private-sector mission to Mars.
Although Ken McLeod certainly has a background of the left, and may still hold some left wing ideas, he is a member of the same Libertarian Alliance that birthed Samizdata. That proves little, as anyone can join, but if you seek a more significant stamp of Libertarian approval he has been favourably reviewed here by Chris Tame of the same organisation in the journal Free Life.
Mr McLeod delights in portraying strange political alliances and surprising political evolutions, which may have misled the previous commenter.
Oops. By “previous commenter” I meant Dave Farell. Alan Henderson slipped in between his post and mine.
Natalie, you mortified me again. I had no idea about the libertarian McIntosh bit. I was relying on the passages in which characters reminisce about the good old days of pub revolutionary socialism (Kinnockian?).
That explains why I enjoy the novels despite getting irritated.
I must be getting too narrow …
McLeod!
I’m overworked, I tell you!
The impulse toward freedom is still the driving force of heroic fiction of all kinds — and of course, the speculative genres are the bastions of heroic fiction.
I’m a fantasist myself. The main difficulty I see in “liberating” fantasy and science fiction from their current, fairly statist mindset is that any attempt to do so is labeled “polemic,” no matter how delicately done — and believe me, I do it delicately — whereas the perpetuation of the prevailing assumptions is considered simply normal fictioneering.
Just have to keep trying, I guess.
There are lots of authors with a frontier/freedom slant. I’m surprised no one named Jerry Pournell, Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Anne McCaffrey (ever read the Freedom’s Landing series?), James Hogan, Bob Forward, Vernor Vinge, Peter Hamliton (UK recovering from socialists and saved by a Brit Capitalist who moved offshore), S Andrew Swann (anarchist)
In addition to all those named above.
Farrell! With two Rs!
I’m overworked, too.
Dale, with all due respect, Bob Forward and James Hogan may know their science, but they are very pedestrian writers. Vernor Vinge is, granted, capable of some remarkable (and epic) work. Hamilton is prolix and way, way too long-winded. Pournelle I never liked much, a comic-book militarist by and large, but his sometime writing partner Niven has done good work in the past — the Ringworld series in particular — but both have in any case fallen off badly in the past few years. Anne McCaffrey works in a genre I don’t have a lot of time for.
For Forward and Pournelle substitute the excellent hard SF visionary Stephen Baxter, whose far-future and near-future scenarios ring true and are always fascinating (his novel about an entrepreneur who pioneers cutprice space flight to the planets is being echoed in the real world by a South African-born entrepreneur focusing on a cheap rocket delivery system — an idea whose time may have come in the wake of Columbia).
I encountered an avid and enthralled reader of Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights fantasy
just yesterday. She is Russian and eleven, mind you, but it can’t be all that pernicious, surely?
One has to consider what is required for a new writer to get a book published in America. There is an enormous liberal/feminist/statist/internationalist bias among editors who chose which books to publish.
For example, the outstandingly successful Red October was rejected by all of the mainstream houses, and was ultimately published by The Naval Institute Press! The New York houses felt that nobody would want to read a book about *gasp* war!
Most of the SF that makes it to the TV tends to be heavily statist, although there are exceptions.
Just for fun sometime, ask a trekkie to name 2 regular characters out of the complete lineup of _all_ the Treks, who does not, arguably, draw a government paycheck. To really cap this, insist that both of them be considered good guys.
You guys have got to be kidding.
Go to http://www.baen.com and look at the works of Flint, Ringo, Freer and the Drake/Stirling team [for FREE!]. You will find a gamut of social/political ideas ranging from considerably jaundiced views of the state to the ‘better than any other available alternative” viewpoint. Even the works of David Weber, whose characters are all firmly members of the “establishment’ professes a significant amount of skepticism about the State and its works.
Libertarian thought is beginning to permeate SF, in a lot of other places than the fine works of L. Niel Smith [got ’em all, of course]
Cheer up, we are in a new age of great SF [the “Kevlar Age”, I think]
Emery S. Almasy
MAJOR, Armor [ret]
P.S. Still got my 1963 paperback edition of ‘Starship Troopers’ after 7 overseas deployments
I’ve just posted my response, which was too long to put here. The short version: bushwah.
I would like to add a few things, though. I always judged E. E. Smith to be rather authoritarian, rather than libertarian.
Also, I don’t much like L. Neil Smith as a novelist. His style is too, forgive the expression, anarchic. He’s a fine polemicist, and generally his essays are great reading, but his novels are just all over the place. (I’ve read The Probability Broach, Pallas, Forge of the Elders, and couldn’t get through Bretta Martyn. Of those, Elders was the best.)
That’s it. Flame at will. 🙂
Love the site, I disagree with this post though, sorry.
Classic SF — Doesn’t get anymore classic than Issac Asimov’s Foundation (circa 1950’s). The premise of the book is that through the expert application of “psycho-history” the future can be planned and shaped. I’m not sure how much more statist you can get than an omiscient expert class planning the future for the masses.
Wheel of Time — I can’t see the statist angle here. Rand has arguments with the “High Lords” about their idiotic confiscatory tax schemes as well. Of course since most of the territory controlled by Rand, the hero of the works, is in a state of war, you might cut him some slack.
8D
I fully accept that I did not list all the limited-minimal state writers of the classical period of science fiction and fantasy.
I also accept that there were always statist writers.
And I further accept that there are some antistatist writers now.
It is just that my impression (which may be wrong -hopefully is wrong) is that there is a trend to statism (as a reflection of our general culture?) and that most of what nonwelfarestatist writing there is seems to be anarchist. I short there is a crack up of the old basically defence only government view of classic science fiction and fantasy.
Indeed in the “old days” people did not seem to need to think in an antiwelfarestatist way – that was just the way things were written (it felt natural).
On Mr Pullman – yes, I confess, I base my dislike of him on B.B.C. Radio 4 adaptations and his interviews. I dislike both the radio plays and the interviews so much that I can not bring myself to read his work.
I know this means that I should not have mentioned him.
On Mr Jordan – it may well be that I am allowing my perception to be coloured by my irritation that the tenth book in his “Wheel of Time” series does not seem to push the story on very far.
I’ve read Pullman’s “dark materials” series. I can see why the Lew Rockwell bunch dislike it – it has very little fondness indeed for anything christian. But it is good writing, and I say that rarely. Dark, often unpleasant, and ending in a cruelly pyrrhic victory, but readable despite that. And it is about as unstatist as any not-particularly-political book gets. All the governmental types range from unscrupulous to callous to preoccupied, and all the heroes have very little “respect for authority”.
Does anyone know anything about the political views of Arthur C. Clarke? I’m guessing that he’s largely statist, but “Beyond the Fall of Night” was highly anti-collectivist. In general, he seemed to show much less politics in his stories than did Heinlein or Asimov. Still, I vaguely recall some of his short stories seemed fairly statist.
As for Asimov, I seem to recall that many of the elements of success of the first foundation were because of their free-market, technology-driven economy. Statist, certainly, but not communist.
Nobody’s mentioned Philip K Dick — the most anti-statist SF writer of all, indeed a proponent of the conspiracy theory of government. A bit mad, but his work’s all the better for it. Try AScanner Darkly for a dazzling satire of state control.
If you were to look at liberal views in British sf and a sympathetic view of the state’s role, Stephen Baxter and Paul McAuley would seem to fit the bill.
John Brunner and David Wingrove are also good examples.
However, it strikes me that science fiction is a very diverse field and looking at it through a statist/libertarian is counterproductive.
Given the renaissance of hard sf over the last 20 years, I would argue that science fiction is in a far healthier state now and far more enjoyable in terms of the ideas and science that it explores.
This fellow seems to be under the misinterpretation that statisim is negative influence in sci-fi. To use an authorial reference, Niven (Larry) covers both sides of this with his “kings-free-park” and with the “state” in such series as smoke ring (and I think rammer). Thus they’ve been DONE, their classical works and few find the need to belabor the point. They were stories aimed, I think the speaker has forgotten this, at on your way to the future “don’t forget the little guy”.
If anyone wants to find out one of the reasons for this see-saw (It is an oscillation not a trend, this is well documented in introductory sociology texts for those with eyes and literacy to take it.), see Nivens “Otherness”, he does a thoughtful analysis on dogmas which underlie the beliefs the speaker purports. He does not purport to see where this is going, but a logical extension of his work, after careful reading of historical trends in sociology, doesn’t leave one many doubts.
It all comes down to love and war, lovely dovey romantic periods where the popular culture is more impressed with the individual (Usually the same culture that screams the loudest over think-of-the-down-trodden and other group-thinking endeavors.) , war in the periods of upheaval left by those periods of less-than-reason and we’re left in a state of conservatism. But don’t take my word for it look to occidental history for prime examples: The Renaissance (romantic), The Victorian era (conservative), The great experiment(romantic), World Wars (conservative), Flower Power(romantic), Decade of the revolution(conservative), and the naught’s are lining up to be a truly choice piece of drug-dulled ignorant surfs as we’ve come to expect. The fact someone pines for the loss of great-causes in sci-fi and political essays-as-fiction is hardly surprising, nor is it surprising that the authors we all read who are still publishing, having been born of a more conservative era start writing tales with some basis in reality. Of course I’m also the child of one of the conservative era’s so it is MY interpretation that these authors are coming into their own. Generation gaps are a harsh mistresses but we’ve taken them before, and we’ll survive the inevitable backlash into wouldn’t-it-be-nice’s instead of our heady what-if’s.
Finally, anarchy is not the high mark in a society! It’s popular right now because Rebellion-against-perceived-authority sells and just as shallow for it breaks down at the first drop of personal ambition, and the only way to eliminate personal ambition is with drugs or with a state so pick your poison Totalitarianism or a Brave New World.
If the irony of that doesn’t catch you some ponder this, the reason we, the sci-fi reading public, read sci-fi is to get something fresh, and original in our literature. The naive fiction of past decades doesn’t sell anymore because it’s out of date, we know things aren’t as simple as all that, just about every cult leader we’ve heard about has proven it in blood more oft’ than not. Recent history even proves Americans have picked up on the fact that there’s a world outside their borders; which needs a little attention.
Surely we can acknowledge that there is a lot more room to pursue what-if’s if you don’t have to worry about your neighbors eating you. All I ask is people stop whining that reality is inconvenient to your social views. If evolutionary realities inconvenience you so, then sign the waver of fantasy where fundamental evolutionary rules no longer apply and that those same social views have no basis in reality, we’ll consider the genre safe from your delusions.
One day someone’s going to fail to disappoint me with their inferiority and I won’t know what to do… until then, I am at once your equal and your most humble servant, signing off.
How much statism is the author’s sociopolitical perspective and how much is just the traditional way to write a story? How does this relate to the real world?
In the real world, great events are not accomplished by an individual (which one person single handedly won WW2?). It is more difficult then to write grand stories of global or galactic scope and still develop individual characters who are attractive to the reader (Although, part of the attraction of the genre is using the imagination to “fill-in” the gaps suggested by the author).
Would we find it interesting to read a book that kept jumping around from character to character, each one performing one small part of the adventure? Or, do we prefer to read a book where one individual saves the world – and the other six billion are casual bystanders?
The temptation for both writer and reader is to focus on one individual who plays all the parts. Does this reflect our limited understanding of human (or alien) social dynamics?
And / or, does this predilection toward a “champion mentality” reflect our historical and psychological need for a caretaker? If this is the case, does this discussion represent the start of a new movement? One where we recognize that we have a collective responsibility and authority to effect changes in the real world?
Karen Michalson’s Enemy Glory is very much an individualistic, anti-big government, pro-free market fantasy. It was a Prometheus finalist – an honor normally reserved for science fiction. Her most sympathetic country (Threle) has such a limited government that towns don’t even bother to name themselves – they are just collections of merchants. Her least sympathetic country is more socialist. I haven’t read her newest, Hecate’s Glory, but I want to, and I expect it will have more
of the same philosophy. Libertarian fantasy writers
exist, you just have to look for them.