Interesting list up at Complex--not at all new, but new to me as it happens.
I haven't seen all the shows on the list, and don't remember all the shows that I did see. Some of the choices seemed questionable. The inclusion of Holly Tyler from What I Like About You may simply reflect the overblown backlash against Amanda Bynes, while Robert Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond was merely one unpleasant character on a show packed with them who, appalling as he could be, nonetheless fit in very well with the Barone family's dynamic.
Also questionable was the fact that of the only two shows to land two characters in the top twenty-five, one was Married . . . With Children, and that one of them was not an actual character, but rather a persona briefly adopted by Bud Bundy (a character the list's makers seem to rather like, dubbing him the show's second-best), which was meant to come off as being just as silly and obnoxious as it seemed. (The other character is Marcy D'Arcy, whose #12 ranking seems to me to be way too high up the list.)
However, it did not surprise me at all that where most of the featured characters from older sitcoms were supporting characters (or even just personas of supporting characters), many of the more recent characters were the leads of their own shows--with three particularly annoying characters from three particularly annoying CBS sitcoms earning well-deserved places in the top ten. Leonard Hofstadter of The Big Bang Theory made the #1 spot, Charlie Harper #5, Ted Mosby #7.
I'm taking it as evidence that I'm not the only one who thinks TV writing is getting more obnoxious by the year. Indeed, it seems astonishing that Married . . . should have got two notices, while (among others) Big Bang got only one. However, even if Sheldon Cooper and the rest went unrecognized, it is worth noting that the list contained so many characters presented as "high IQ"--Leonard (and in his more over-the-top intellectual displays, also Mosby) accompanied by Stuart Minkus of Boy Meets World, Screech Powers from Saved By the Bell, and by way of yet another persona, Steve Urkel of Family Matters.
The point bears repeating: Hollywood seems incapable of portraying intelligence without making it grate unbearably, and as the list above shows, the only thing more annoying that its presentation of "grown-up geniuses" is its handling of "child geniuses."
Is it all deliberate anti-intellectualism? Probably not. But such trite, lazy writing contributes to it all the same.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Friday, August 7, 2015
Science Fiction's Sense of Mission
It has long been unfashionable to think of fiction as having a purpose. Still, what is "fashionable" has absolutely no value for anyone trying to understand anything. (All the more so as actually trying to understand things is also unfashionable.)
Looking back over science fiction in the past year, it has seemed undeniable that from H.G. Wells to John Campbell to Horace Gold, science fiction's prime movers regarded their genre as having a special purpose, apart from other kinds of fiction--and that the genre did realize that purpose. Science fiction helped us discuss science, technology, the future. Specifically it helped accustom us to talking about these subjects, and helped develop and popularize the tools for doing so--like the thought-experiments we call "extrapolation."
Science fiction also helped bring the fantastic back into literature more generally.
Yet, having accomplished all that, science fiction also became less special, less important. Pop science has come a long way since Wells' day. So too futurology. Someone who wants to publicly speculate about what some new technology will mean, for example, does not have to write up his ideas in fictional form. He can just as easily use those old science fiction tools in a piece of nonfiction--which may be all the more effective at its job for not having to work as a story, not having to bother with plot, characters and the like (as Wells did not in Anticipations, and decreasingly did even in his novels). And those who would go beyond mundane reality in telling their stories need not dress up the fantastic in scientific jargon (the way Wells felt he had to when he began writing his scientific romances). Indeed, today fantasy seems to have trumped science fiction, with the popular market and with the critics alike.
The old mission having run its course, science fiction writers, by the 1960s, increasingly prioritized other things--things which diminished their ability to deal with science fiction's traditional concerns. The emphasis of many on Modernist and postmodernist subjectivity and irrationality in their choice of content and style were absolutely at odds with the "science" in science fiction, and edged it out over time, as science fiction increasingly abandoned its old interests to the end of becoming regular old fiction which simply happened to have science fiction's trappings.
Indeed, even getting away from the highbrow, artier end of the genre, one suspects that many of the old formulas which retain their popularity are having an effect opposite to what science fiction once did. Rather than helping us think about science, technology, and the future, the genre trades in ideas inhibiting this. The Frankenstein complex (which had even Asimov's I, Robot present us with robot rebellion). The Edisonade (epitomized by Iron Man Tony Stark). Science fiction where the "science" is really pseudoscience (as Carl Sagan complained about The X-Files). There are plenty of reasons for all this, like the ease of fitting such material into a superficially character-centered dramatic narrative, the appeal of the sensational, and so forth. But really these ideas are lingering on past their time and cluttering and confusing things.
One way of looking at this may be to think that science fiction ran its course and, over the last half century, became increasingly decadent--reaching the condition that Paul Kincaid famously criticized a few years ago, recycling old ideas, more or less nostalgically, or playing the game ironically, or even being just fantasy (or even mundane) fiction passed off as sf. Certainly I have tended to that view in many of my writings on the subject. However, one might also imagine that the stage has been set for "science fiction 2.0"--for science fiction to set aside its old tasks (and old devices), and take on some new task, using speculative science to look at the world in a new way (or perhaps even an old way we've simply forgotten). In today's cultural climate it is hard to picture anyone actually doing anything like that--writers and editors and critics too leery of such seriousness. Yet, it seems to me that that possibility does exist.
Looking back over science fiction in the past year, it has seemed undeniable that from H.G. Wells to John Campbell to Horace Gold, science fiction's prime movers regarded their genre as having a special purpose, apart from other kinds of fiction--and that the genre did realize that purpose. Science fiction helped us discuss science, technology, the future. Specifically it helped accustom us to talking about these subjects, and helped develop and popularize the tools for doing so--like the thought-experiments we call "extrapolation."
Science fiction also helped bring the fantastic back into literature more generally.
Yet, having accomplished all that, science fiction also became less special, less important. Pop science has come a long way since Wells' day. So too futurology. Someone who wants to publicly speculate about what some new technology will mean, for example, does not have to write up his ideas in fictional form. He can just as easily use those old science fiction tools in a piece of nonfiction--which may be all the more effective at its job for not having to work as a story, not having to bother with plot, characters and the like (as Wells did not in Anticipations, and decreasingly did even in his novels). And those who would go beyond mundane reality in telling their stories need not dress up the fantastic in scientific jargon (the way Wells felt he had to when he began writing his scientific romances). Indeed, today fantasy seems to have trumped science fiction, with the popular market and with the critics alike.
The old mission having run its course, science fiction writers, by the 1960s, increasingly prioritized other things--things which diminished their ability to deal with science fiction's traditional concerns. The emphasis of many on Modernist and postmodernist subjectivity and irrationality in their choice of content and style were absolutely at odds with the "science" in science fiction, and edged it out over time, as science fiction increasingly abandoned its old interests to the end of becoming regular old fiction which simply happened to have science fiction's trappings.
Indeed, even getting away from the highbrow, artier end of the genre, one suspects that many of the old formulas which retain their popularity are having an effect opposite to what science fiction once did. Rather than helping us think about science, technology, and the future, the genre trades in ideas inhibiting this. The Frankenstein complex (which had even Asimov's I, Robot present us with robot rebellion). The Edisonade (epitomized by Iron Man Tony Stark). Science fiction where the "science" is really pseudoscience (as Carl Sagan complained about The X-Files). There are plenty of reasons for all this, like the ease of fitting such material into a superficially character-centered dramatic narrative, the appeal of the sensational, and so forth. But really these ideas are lingering on past their time and cluttering and confusing things.
One way of looking at this may be to think that science fiction ran its course and, over the last half century, became increasingly decadent--reaching the condition that Paul Kincaid famously criticized a few years ago, recycling old ideas, more or less nostalgically, or playing the game ironically, or even being just fantasy (or even mundane) fiction passed off as sf. Certainly I have tended to that view in many of my writings on the subject. However, one might also imagine that the stage has been set for "science fiction 2.0"--for science fiction to set aside its old tasks (and old devices), and take on some new task, using speculative science to look at the world in a new way (or perhaps even an old way we've simply forgotten). In today's cultural climate it is hard to picture anyone actually doing anything like that--writers and editors and critics too leery of such seriousness. Yet, it seems to me that that possibility does exist.
Monday, July 27, 2015
Just Out: After the New Wave: Science Fiction Today
Four years ago I published a collection of my writing on science fiction, After the New Wave.
I have just published a revised version of that collection, containing a fair amount of new material, some of which I have published there for the first time, and which I have reorganized with my other book Cyberpunk, Steampunk and Wizardry in mind, enough so that while it was intended to stand on its own, in its offering more in-depth looks at various aspects of science fiction today alongside CSW's more comprehensive picture, I like to think of it as working as a companion volume.
To all who made those earlier writings, and the earlier version of the book, seem like it was worth revisiting: thank you again.
I have just published a revised version of that collection, containing a fair amount of new material, some of which I have published there for the first time, and which I have reorganized with my other book Cyberpunk, Steampunk and Wizardry in mind, enough so that while it was intended to stand on its own, in its offering more in-depth looks at various aspects of science fiction today alongside CSW's more comprehensive picture, I like to think of it as working as a companion volume.
To all who made those earlier writings, and the earlier version of the book, seem like it was worth revisiting: thank you again.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Reviewing George Friedman's Predictions
Reading George Friedman's comments on Greece made me take another look at his arguments in The Next Decade and The Next 100 Years.
As one might guess, the evidence is ambiguous on a great many issues. Still, he seems to have been at least partly right about some things. The idea that Europe's integration had reached its high water-mark now seems more persuasive to me, rather than les so. I would say that he has also been right regarding an increased American concern with Russia leading to greater attention to European affairs, and China's increasing economic difficulties.
However, Friedman would also seem to have been wrong about the emergence of a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis. Germany seems to behave more unilaterally than ever now (as the Greek situation demonstrates), while its relations with Russia have worsened considerably, particularly in the wake of a civil war in Ukraine. Additionally, the idea that this would be associated with the U.S. pulling back militarily from the Middle East and keeping aloof from East Asia has also been wrong. Instead there have been the operations in Libya, Iraq, Syria in the former region, and the "pivot to Asia" in the latter--even as the U.S. has become more concerned with Eastern Europe. And certainly the idea of Russia falling apart looks less likely than it did before.
Africa also remains a more active scene of foreign intervention than he thought, as has been the case in Mali--with that particular intervention related to that greater intensity of conflict in the Middle East (its civil war, in part, a spillover from the fighting in Libya). And of course, while he anticipated a more statist economics, neoliberalism, discredited as it is, remains the conventional wisdom among policymakers, no real challenge having emerged to it (a fact recently underlined by SYRIZA's immediate and utter surrender to Germany's demands).
Of course, tabulating right and wrong guesses has only a limited interest. What seems to me more interesting is the reasons for both the successes, and the failures. Given that his books--forecasts--offered more in the way of prediction than argument for why he thought events would take the course he describes, there is only so much of that one can discuss. Still, it seems to me that his track record has much to do with his basic analytical framework, which is centered on a realpolitik vision of international relations in which billiard ball-like states bounce off of one another. This keeps him from underestimating the importance that nation-states still do have--but it would seem that this also leaves him with an insufficient regard for economic motivations. Even where he was right (the EU and China bumping up against important limits) it seems to me that he guessed the event, but not what would lead up to it, namely the depth of a worldwide economic crisis, which he does not seem to have appreciated. Nor does he seem to have appreciated the difficulties neoliberal prescriptions for the problem have caused (the real factor which has made the EU's weaknesses so glaring).
As one might guess, the evidence is ambiguous on a great many issues. Still, he seems to have been at least partly right about some things. The idea that Europe's integration had reached its high water-mark now seems more persuasive to me, rather than les so. I would say that he has also been right regarding an increased American concern with Russia leading to greater attention to European affairs, and China's increasing economic difficulties.
However, Friedman would also seem to have been wrong about the emergence of a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis. Germany seems to behave more unilaterally than ever now (as the Greek situation demonstrates), while its relations with Russia have worsened considerably, particularly in the wake of a civil war in Ukraine. Additionally, the idea that this would be associated with the U.S. pulling back militarily from the Middle East and keeping aloof from East Asia has also been wrong. Instead there have been the operations in Libya, Iraq, Syria in the former region, and the "pivot to Asia" in the latter--even as the U.S. has become more concerned with Eastern Europe. And certainly the idea of Russia falling apart looks less likely than it did before.
Africa also remains a more active scene of foreign intervention than he thought, as has been the case in Mali--with that particular intervention related to that greater intensity of conflict in the Middle East (its civil war, in part, a spillover from the fighting in Libya). And of course, while he anticipated a more statist economics, neoliberalism, discredited as it is, remains the conventional wisdom among policymakers, no real challenge having emerged to it (a fact recently underlined by SYRIZA's immediate and utter surrender to Germany's demands).
Of course, tabulating right and wrong guesses has only a limited interest. What seems to me more interesting is the reasons for both the successes, and the failures. Given that his books--forecasts--offered more in the way of prediction than argument for why he thought events would take the course he describes, there is only so much of that one can discuss. Still, it seems to me that his track record has much to do with his basic analytical framework, which is centered on a realpolitik vision of international relations in which billiard ball-like states bounce off of one another. This keeps him from underestimating the importance that nation-states still do have--but it would seem that this also leaves him with an insufficient regard for economic motivations. Even where he was right (the EU and China bumping up against important limits) it seems to me that he guessed the event, but not what would lead up to it, namely the depth of a worldwide economic crisis, which he does not seem to have appreciated. Nor does he seem to have appreciated the difficulties neoliberal prescriptions for the problem have caused (the real factor which has made the EU's weaknesses so glaring).
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Fourth Reich, Again?
A few years ago I remarked the way that the "E" word--empire--kept coming up in discussions of Germany's dealings with its neighbors. (George Soros, for instance, made a few headlines using the word back in public remarks in Italy back in 2012.)
The word's use did not quite disappear afterward, but it did seem to come up less frequently until this year, and especially the recent deal with the Greek government (which has brought another troubling word, "diktat," into wider use again).
What is more surprising than the frequency with which the word "empire" is the way in which it is being used--not as a thing that might happen, as Soros said it was, but an accomplished fact--and at least as much so, the places where this sort of rhetoric came up.
It is, perhaps, not so unusual that it came up in recent coverage of these events by Sputnik News. However, in this case Sputnik is citing a piece by David Dayen which ran in the very mainstream American Salon.
George Friedman of STRATFOR (you can read my reviews of his books The Next 100 Years and The Next Decade if you want a sense of his writing), also used the word in his comment, titled "An Empire Strikes Back: Germany and the Greek Crisis."
Interestingly, an article by the staff of Der Spiegel (the guys who ran this surprisingly offensive cover), while denouncing the political usage of the term and the memories it evokes, conceded that it "may not be entirely out of place."
Still, in light of the fact that holding the EU together is still broadly approved by not just Germany's but Europe's elites, and the short and long-term limits to Germany's economic power (the German economy is the continent's biggest, but not overwhelmingly so), it appears more a matter of the four decade-old fight of neoliberal globalizers against state intervention in economic life, welfare states and organized labor. The fact that a free-trading European Union serves German manufacturing well does not change this.
Still, there is no denying that economic nationalism had been drawn into the fight, on both sides. German economic nationalism is on the side of the EU in this matter, Greek economic nationalism opposed to it.
One might even wonder if the nationalists are not exerting a greater influence within the dialogue and the horse-trading than has been the case for some time. After all, for many years we have been hearing about a "revival" of statist economics. However, by and large this was a question of the behavior of exceptionally large states able to buck the conventional wisdom through sheer mass, and the power that it brings (China); of resource exporters advantaged by the boom in commodity prices during the first decade of the century (Venezuela); and especially those countries combining both those characteristics (Russia). That Greece would go similarly nationalist (refusing the deal, exiting the euro) would have extended this to a country in quite a different situation--a small nation (10 million people) which is not a noted producer of commodities like oil and gas, and a First World EU member to boot, suggesting the kind of challenge to globalization not really seen in a long time. However, Greece's falling into line only confirms the pattern that has prevailed thus far.
The word's use did not quite disappear afterward, but it did seem to come up less frequently until this year, and especially the recent deal with the Greek government (which has brought another troubling word, "diktat," into wider use again).
What is more surprising than the frequency with which the word "empire" is the way in which it is being used--not as a thing that might happen, as Soros said it was, but an accomplished fact--and at least as much so, the places where this sort of rhetoric came up.
It is, perhaps, not so unusual that it came up in recent coverage of these events by Sputnik News. However, in this case Sputnik is citing a piece by David Dayen which ran in the very mainstream American Salon.
George Friedman of STRATFOR (you can read my reviews of his books The Next 100 Years and The Next Decade if you want a sense of his writing), also used the word in his comment, titled "An Empire Strikes Back: Germany and the Greek Crisis."
Interestingly, an article by the staff of Der Spiegel (the guys who ran this surprisingly offensive cover), while denouncing the political usage of the term and the memories it evokes, conceded that it "may not be entirely out of place."
Still, in light of the fact that holding the EU together is still broadly approved by not just Germany's but Europe's elites, and the short and long-term limits to Germany's economic power (the German economy is the continent's biggest, but not overwhelmingly so), it appears more a matter of the four decade-old fight of neoliberal globalizers against state intervention in economic life, welfare states and organized labor. The fact that a free-trading European Union serves German manufacturing well does not change this.
Still, there is no denying that economic nationalism had been drawn into the fight, on both sides. German economic nationalism is on the side of the EU in this matter, Greek economic nationalism opposed to it.
One might even wonder if the nationalists are not exerting a greater influence within the dialogue and the horse-trading than has been the case for some time. After all, for many years we have been hearing about a "revival" of statist economics. However, by and large this was a question of the behavior of exceptionally large states able to buck the conventional wisdom through sheer mass, and the power that it brings (China); of resource exporters advantaged by the boom in commodity prices during the first decade of the century (Venezuela); and especially those countries combining both those characteristics (Russia). That Greece would go similarly nationalist (refusing the deal, exiting the euro) would have extended this to a country in quite a different situation--a small nation (10 million people) which is not a noted producer of commodities like oil and gas, and a First World EU member to boot, suggesting the kind of challenge to globalization not really seen in a long time. However, Greece's falling into line only confirms the pattern that has prevailed thus far.
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