The Privilege of SF

[coalescent]

The latest New York Review of Science Fiction (#202, June 2005) is a 'Special Edges and Over Them Issue!' and contains a number of articles that relate, directly or indirectly, to positioning and categorisation of various types of fantastic fiction. The one that particularly intrigued me is 'Traitor to Both Sides' by Karl Schroeder, author of Ventus, Permanence, and other books I should probably have read. The summary:

Science fiction is disreputable [...] SF writers tend to want to solve this problem of disreputability. There are two ways to do this: court literary respectability or court scientific accuracy. I think that both are bad strategies, because the old dichotomy of science vs. the humanities no longer holds true. In fact, sf fits the emerging picture of twenty-first century thought much better than the entrenched academic cultures of either big science or literary studies. The roots of our bad reputation lie in the ideas of another century.

Schroeder then runs through what he sees as these outdated ideas. On the side of Literature, he cites Virginia Woolf, and her contention that 'emotion must come first' in literary art. He then looks at how scientists, or in general people who value objectivity over subjectivity, traditionally react:

Part of my own interest in any argument lies not in whether it's true but in why its advocates want it to be true. What aesthetic extremists such as Woolf are defending--what motivates them to take a side in the war--is a desire to assert the value and dignity of individual, subjective human experience. Many people see science not as something that gives but as something that takes away. It takes away people's right to believe in beautiful and meaningful narratives that illuminate their place in the world--replacing them with mechanical processes. And there is some truth in this, so a stand must be made. Unfortunately, in literature, this stand is represented by the now-entrenched notion that literature is about subjectivity: 'the proper study of Mankind is Man'. I don't think Woolf would have approved of such a simplification of the art. Nevertheless, her stand against the oversimplified techniques of literary realism has been used over the years as ammunition for oversimplified humanism: the realm of the spirit is infinite, while the study of the physical world is finite. The revelation of character is the only means to revealing Spirit.

[...]

By contrast, many in the scientific and engineering communities share an essentially Platonist view of the world: there are appearances, and there is the Truth. And only the True can really be valuable. This idea is so self-evident within this community that it is rarely articulated directly; revealing this valuable Truth is, in fact, what science is all about.

The next thing Schroeder has to do to build his thesis is to demolish these two positions, and show how they are outdated. He does so entertainingly. Against Platonist scientists he cites, of course, quantum mechanics, arguing that its implication that science, although it seeks and can find privileged results, is not itself a privileged or unique process, and is not quantifiably different from other avenues of human activity, has not been fully accepted. His argument against literature is a stroke of either genius or insanity:

On the side of literary art, cognitive science has developed to the point where we can determine whether the very notion of character used in literature is valid. Literary artists have been saddled with pseudoscientific notions of human nature for centuries [...] Cognitive science is making quick strides in determining how people think; as it proceeds, a wider and wider gulf is appearing between its findings and the model of personality used in mainstream literature. For instance, while 90% of human thought is unconscious, there is no subconscious--no realm of seething animal passions waiting to burst out in irrational action. The unconscious mind is as rational and alert as the conscious mind; it creates and executes elaborate plans all the time. But the actions of this unconscious do not necessarily shed light on the 'true nature' of the person, if there is such a thing.

I think we can accept that Schroeder has done his research in this area. I have no idea whether this particular conclusion is valid--and even if it is there's an obvious, if weaselly, counterargument, which is to say that Literature is about the experience of being human, not the truth--but as a piece of rhetoric I love it.

So what's his conclusion?

To me, this means writing about the spirituality of the physical and the physicality of the spiritual. Exploring how character and meaning are mechanisms of the physical world and exploring how this physical world is just another story we tell ourselves. Not picking sides; betraying both, in fact, on the way to something new. [...] If I had one manifesto-like commandment for my fellow sf writers, it would simply be: stop picking sides. If you write sf, you're already in the fertile no-man's-land between the cultures. Follow the path you've already chosen. And don't look back.

Having started out by saying that existing scientific and literary traditions are both outdated, Schroeder's finished up by asserting that sf is Special After All, or at least that it should be. Stirring stuff, and obviously seductive for those of us in love with the form, which is one reason I immediately distrust it. To be fair, Schroder explicitly says that he sees sf as just one of many endeavours that should happen in this no-man's-land; but even so, and as fascinating as I find the idea that most of the criteria we use to evaluate sf are obsolete, I can't quite sign up to his argument. I can't quite escape the feeling that he decided on his conclusion first, and then worked out the argument he needed to get himself there.

As a postscript, Schroeder has a blog dedicated to exploring these ideas, called Age of Embodiment (this entry explains some of his thinking). And on his main blog, he's talked a little about how he sees his ideas relate to those of the mundanes.

Comments

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

A moderately interesting read but didn't it strike you as a bunch of strawmen raised up and then knocked down with very little regard for the real world?

What SF writers wants to solve the problem of disreputability courting scientific accuracy? SF is a type of literature, not a type of science and it is bizarre to claim it as some magical synthesis of the two which, in that old chestnut, "fits the emerging picture of twenty-first century thought." Hey, wasn't SF the literature of the 20th Century as well? As for that insanity about cognitive science and character, wtf? Since he has demonstrated he knows nothing about literature now is probably the time to stop reading.

And his finally conclusion is just "SF was right all along, everyone else was wrong!." Well, that's relief. Carry on everybody.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

A moderately interesting read but didn't it strike you as a bunch of strawmen raised up and then knocked down with very little regard for the real world?

I think that's what I was getting at when I said it felt like he'd decided on his conclusion first and on his argument second.

That said...

What SF writers wants to solve the problem of disreputability courting scientific accuracy?

Depends on who they want to be seen as reputable by. You know as well as I do that the Old Guard still has a sizeable fanbase.

As for that insanity about cognitive science and character, wtf?

See, I thought immortalradical would be first off the blocks to huff about that. I was doing my best Bernard Wooley impression, too (BERNARD: five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... HUMPHREY (bursts through door): WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?)

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Depends on who they want to be seen as reputable by. You know as well as I do that the Old Guard still has a sizeable fanbase.

I was coming at from the fact that people don't think SF is disreputable because of its lack of scientific accuracy in the first place hence this is trying to solve an imaginary problem.

See, I thought immortalradical would be first off the blocks to huff about that.

Poor immortalradical, for so long the lone voice of reason in a cabal of genretards.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I was coming at from the fact that people don't think SF is disreputable because of its lack of scientific accuracy in the first place

Again, define 'people'. Schroeder's proposition is that there are two audiences sf writers try to please: the literati, and the geeks who like scientific speculation (think of all the people who complain about slipstream diluting the core of the genre. They're wrong, but there are plenty of them). The literati aren't going to complain about inaccurate science, and the hardcore aren't going to complain about the characterisation. But Schroeder's suggestion is that they shouldn't be trying to please either audience, because both are using obsolete models of what writing should be doing and how it should be doing it.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Schroeder's proposition is that there are two audiences sf writers try to please: the literati, and the geeks who like scientific speculation (think of all the people who complain about slipstream diluting the core of the genre. They're wrong, but there are plenty of them).

This just makes him more wrong. His proposition is simply bollocks. Hardly any SF writers are writing for the literari and only slightly more (the Stross/Doctorow Faction) are writing for the Slashdot tendency. And these geeks aren't interested in the science so much as the technology, particularly a subset of technology that they are familiar with. Consider Vernor Vinge: Slow Zones aren't anything to do with scienctific accuracy but because he has Usenet In Space he is revered. The people who complain about slipstream aren't complaining that the science is wrong but that it isn't about engineers in rocketships

Finally, even if Schroeder's proposition was true then "disreputability" would still be entirely the wrong word.

The literati aren't going to complain about inaccurate science, and the hardcore aren't going to complain about the characterisation.

Again this strikes me as not true and designed to invent a false dichotomy. Both sides might have less interest in certain aspects than others but that is not the same as no interest.

Schroeder's suggestion is that they shouldn't be trying to please either audience, because both are using obsolete models of what writing should be doing

This is hilarious: the literati and computer science geeks both had equally valid models of what writing should be but they have both been rendered obsolete by my even more outdated model.