![\"Solaris\"](\"http:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/solaris.jpg\")
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Over at his blog, a guy named Eric Raymond has posted an article about why Hard Science Fiction is inherently Libertarian and why Left-Wing political agendas in science fiction are irrelevant. From what I’ve seen, he’s really wrong<\/a>.<\/p>\n First off, he discounts Bruce Sterling and, by implication, Kim Stanley Robinson, two tremendously influential SF writers. Both of them have decidedly complex but Left-sympathetic political leanings (at least insofar as I’ve derived from their writing \u2014 I don’t know either, though I’ve met and corresponded a bit with Chairman Bruce).<\/p>\n Secondly, he discounts the relevance of dystopian and apocalyptic science fiction which was the core subgenre in 70s SF cinema. Those movies had a decidedly Hippie perspective, from Planet of the Apes’ warnings about theocracy and unquestioned authority to Silent Running’s indictment of the failure of government to properly protect the environment. To be sure, there are Libertarian themes as well; they tend toward the anti-authoritarian from every direction, but Eric’s kind of ignoring that.<\/p>\n But the biggest evidence that I’ve seen is the extraordinary Lefty leanings of the Shock: games I’ve played. Social class is extremely common as an Issue and economic inequality almost always factors into the various other issues in some way; sometimes it’s proles selling advertising space in their own brains to feed their kids, or sometimes it’s the wealthy buying their way out of responsibility. It’s not that Shock: can’t<\/span> be used to tell stories about Libertarianism and the Rugged Individual; it’s that the players I’ve played with \u2014 often strangers at conventions \u2014 tend to frown on its myths more than they frown on the myths of Socialism.<\/p>\n I wish Chairman Bruce<\/a> would comment on it more than he has, though. Particularly by writing some SF that contradicts what he’s said. I have no doubt he can do it and do it well. I could do with some good Pinko, Cooperation-Makes-Us-Great SF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over at his blog, a guy named Eric Raymond has posted an article about why Hard Science Fiction is inherently Libertarian and why Left-Wing political agendas in science fiction are irrelevant. From what I’ve seen, he’s really wrong. First off, he discounts Bruce Sterling and, by implication, Kim Stanley Robinson, two tremendously influential SF writers. … Continue reading “It Turns Out Shock: Fans Are Wrong.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}