{"id":8741,"date":"2014-03-14T01:09:32","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T05:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=8741"},"modified":"2014-07-24T16:53:05","modified_gmt":"2014-07-24T20:53:05","slug":"history-legitimacy-and-belonging-aka-whos-we-kemo-sabe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=8741","title":{"rendered":"History, Legitimacy and Belonging, or: Who\u2019s We, Kemo Sabe?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Girl-stars-anime\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There have been recent conversations in the science outreach and SFF communities about what level of background knowledge makes someone worthy enough to \u201cbelong\u201d. The former centered on the original Cosmos<\/em> series as part of the reaction to the just-launched reboot helmed by Neil deGrasse Tyson (unfortunately housed in FOX, several of whose subsidiaries already deleted a snippet in the pilot episode that dared to mention evolution). The latter partly continues the \u201cold white dudes\u201d discussion<\/a> but received fresh fuel from an article by the publisher of Baen<\/a> that’s the equivalent of a decapitated chicken running in circles.<\/p>\n

Briefly, side A says you cannot be a legitimate member of X unless you are intimately familiar with its sacred texts: in the case of popsci, you must have watched the original Cosmos<\/em> and worshipped Sagan as a nonpareil inspirational figure; in the case of SFF, you must have read the Leaden Age gospels with special emphasis on the holy trinity of Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein (plus a heaping side of Joseph Campbell, especially if we go anywhere near Star Wars<\/em> or fantasy epics). Side B points out that this exudes strong whiffs of parochialism by making legitimate membership contingent on the exclusive canonization of a narrow set of works — and people.<\/p>\n

This discussion inevitably brings up two other items: class\/wealth and history. The \u201cBut\u2026 but\u2026 Cosmos<\/em> inspired so many to enter science!\u201d mantra contains the implication that people can\u2019t possibly become interested in exploring the universe unless they have the wherewithal to be \u201centertained\u201d into it by high-end means: by having a TV, preferably color; by fancy school labs; and nowadays, by access to fast-WiFi Internet and its associated gizmology. Both Cosmos<\/em> series heavily promote the trope of the heroic, visionary (male) individual who can radically change a large-scale outcome. People conveniently forget that Giordano Bruno wasn’t a lone sprout in a wilderness, or that Sagan\u2019s Cosmos<\/em> was embedded in a favorable context when it first aired in 1980: a culture that was still friendly to exploration and science, just before Ronald Reagan\u2019s tenure started the US descent into rampant inequality and fundamentalist fearmongering. To non-US eyes it was patently obvious that the original Cosmos<\/em> was American to the core despite its well-intentioned feints towards internationality (at least Vangelis \u2013 full name Vang\u00e9lis Odhyss\u00e9as Papathanass\u00edou, trimmed in deference to Anglo sensibilities \u2013 supplied the rousing score,\u00a0 far more memorable than the reboot\u2019s generic swellings so far, though it’s early for a final verdict).<\/p>\n

There can be no question that it\u2019s important to know the history of whatever you delve into. If nothing else, such knowledge tempers the effusions of \u201cFirst time EVAH that X has been tackled in science\/SFF\/whathaveyou\u201d from gender bending<\/a> to \u201cduons\u201d in DNA encoding<\/a> (for which I plan a separate post: it has taken me the enormous length of two months \u2013 an aeon on the Internet \u2013 to stop being seriously pissed about it). At the same time, the purists don\u2019t do themselves favors by quoting Sagan chapter and verse but blithely asking \u201cWho?\u201d when such names as Hrdy or Margulis come up \u2013 or by preaching the gospel of Saint Heinlein while looking blank at the mention of Tiptree or Norton (who wrote SF, not just fantasy; some even aimed at adults, not adolescents of any age). Historical literacy doesn’t mean learning only whatever is \u201ccommon knowledge\u201d, congruent with one\u2019s agenda or hot-du-jour.<\/p>\n

This blinkering becomes overwhelming when we leave the US frame and delve into other cultures or eras. To give one example from the other side of the traditional divide, there has been deafening silence in SFF from those professing to be on the Side of Good on medieval\/renaissance imperialism south and east of Italy \u2013 because it would oblige people to contemplate the doings of the Ottoman Empire which, inter alia, employed the lovely custom of devshirme (child-gathering) equally beloved of those paragons of virtue and nerd-coolness, the Jedi<\/a>. Along related lines, those who say that science or SFF should not \u201cmeddle in politics\u201d don\u2019t really deserve an extended rebuttal because they\u2019re not even being disingenuous.<\/p>\n

I personally think the purists employ lax criteria and low standards. Nobody should be considered a real science fan until they\u2019ve read the pre-Socratics or a real SFF fan unless they\u2019ve read The Iliad<\/em> or Gilgamesh<\/em> \u2013 in the original. I kid, but only just. My point is that SFF existed throughout the world long before the US Leaden Era and that such concepts as atoms and multiverses were discussed (as philosophy, since technology to attempt proof was lacking) way before Giordano Bruno \u2013 who, incidentally, argued exclusively from theology, not from evidence-based research. To put it another way, I burned to become a scientist before my country had TV or my school had computers and I became enamored of SFF (as in: the folklore of many cultures, including mine, and Jules Verne\u2019s Nautilus) when I was anklebiter height and spoke zero English. Leaden Era SF was so excruciating to read at so many levels that I continued delving into the genre despite it, not because of it. I could only read it as alien anthropology \u2013 and the aliens weren\u2019t from Rigel IV. I think that recommending these works as blanket entry points into SF is a self-defeating tactic.<\/p>\n

People become inspired to enter science (or at least become permanently interested in its doings) and become immersed in SFF by countless paths, some straightforward, some less so. I don\u2019t expect the Cosmos<\/em> reboot to give rise to a surge in the ranks of science researchers: that would require a receptive cultural milieu that is currently simply not present, as the science funding levels abundantly demonstrate. Nor do I expect the SFF fandom (which is actually a system of interlocking ponds) to come to any substantial agreement over major issues. I won\u2019t prescribe but here\u2019s a thought: sci\/SFF nerds might want to consider that young-earth creationists are dictating what parts of Cosmos<\/em> get shown \u2013 something far more worrisome than the fact that some science communicators and scientists (real or potential) haven\u2019t seen the original Cosmos<\/em> nor considered it, well, earthshaking when they did.<\/p>\n

\"universe<\/a><\/p>\n

Related Posts:<\/strong><\/p>\n

SF Goes MacDonald\u2019s: Less Taste, More Gristle<\/a><\/p>\n

Being Part of Everyone\u2019s Furniture; Or: Appropriate Away!<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

To the Hard Members of the Truthy SF Club<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

A Plague on Both Your Houses \u2013 Reprise<\/a><\/p>\n

Junk DNA, Junky PR<\/a><\/p>\n

Caesars and Caesar Salads<\/a><\/p>\n

Why We May Never Get to Alpha Centauri<\/a><\/p>\n

Images:<\/strong> 1st, anim\u00e9-inspired wallpaper<\/a>; 2nd, unknown artist, Plato’s cave<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There have been recent conversations in the science outreach and SFF communities about what level of background knowledge makes someone worthy enough to \u201cbelong\u201d. The former centered on the original Cosmos series as part of the reaction to the just-launched reboot helmed by Neil deGrasse Tyson (unfortunately housed in FOX, several of whose subsidiaries already […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12,10,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biology-and-culture","category-history","category-science","category-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}