Pushing the boundaries
Oct. 20th, 2013 08:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteIn a discussion in the F&SF forum, we got to talking about issues of race. In noting that Edgar Rice Burroughs presented multicolored folk in his "Princess of Mars" series (with red, green, yellow, or black skins), I pointed out that he was pushing a boundary that (for his time, ca. 1910-1920, which is important to remember) was very sensitive. A participant in the discussion noted that this was largely for background color. Although it's true that Burroughs was not what one would consider (by modern standards, again a point that's important to note) an intensely liberal thinker, my recollection of the stories was that he treated "the other" with a fair amount of respect. There are many flaws in these stories, some of which arise from the culture that shaped Burroughs' ways of thinking, but I have a sense that he paid more respectful attention to the issue of diversity than most of his contemporaries.
One of the things I love about science fiction and fantasy is how the best examples of the genre transgress boundaries to place the uncomfortable or imponderable or socially unacceptable in an abstract context so that we can ponder it from a safe distance. This is often done through metaphor or, as in a recent discussion of Susan Palwick's “Hhasalin” in the September/October issue of F&SF, through direct parallels. With sufficient exposure to an uncomfortable notion, some of the fear or distaste erodes, to the point that the notion becomes ponderable and eventually it may even become acceptable. In some cases, it may even become laudable. Fiction offers a safe playground to explore these ideas because "everyone knows its just fiction, right?" That lets people think about things they might otherwise be reluctant to ponder.
I haven't seen any hard data to suggest that this literary dialogue with readers changes attitudes across a society, but there is considerable anecdata that it can change attitudes within the community that is given a chance to think more clearly about an issue. An example might be polyamory, which I have a sense is much more broadly accepted within the SF/F community than outside the community. Ditto for bisexuality and homosexuality. I suspect that writers such as Heinlein and Delaney were key forces in this dialogue, but I'm not a historian of the genre and can't say that with any confidence. Please note that I do not claim these statements to be Proven Facts; they only represent my informed but inexpert sense of how things happened. As we say in the sciences, correlation does not imply causality. As we also say, focusing on the average does not mean you can safely ignore the extremes; all such generalizations are suspect, and I've certainly met people who would disagree with these statements within the fannish community.
This approach is not limited to SF/F, by the way. Many other literary genres push the boundaries in different ways by exploring "dangerous" notions in a fictional context, thereby providing the necessary distance. It's all about "changing the world one mind at a time", a phrase I've seen quoted in enough contexts that I don't know the origin.
[A look back: About half an hour after I posted this, I came across an interesting example of the last point in a "Brain Pickings" article about Virginia Woolf.--GH]
One of the things I love about science fiction and fantasy is how the best examples of the genre transgress boundaries to place the uncomfortable or imponderable or socially unacceptable in an abstract context so that we can ponder it from a safe distance. This is often done through metaphor or, as in a recent discussion of Susan Palwick's “Hhasalin” in the September/October issue of F&SF, through direct parallels. With sufficient exposure to an uncomfortable notion, some of the fear or distaste erodes, to the point that the notion becomes ponderable and eventually it may even become acceptable. In some cases, it may even become laudable. Fiction offers a safe playground to explore these ideas because "everyone knows its just fiction, right?" That lets people think about things they might otherwise be reluctant to ponder.
I haven't seen any hard data to suggest that this literary dialogue with readers changes attitudes across a society, but there is considerable anecdata that it can change attitudes within the community that is given a chance to think more clearly about an issue. An example might be polyamory, which I have a sense is much more broadly accepted within the SF/F community than outside the community. Ditto for bisexuality and homosexuality. I suspect that writers such as Heinlein and Delaney were key forces in this dialogue, but I'm not a historian of the genre and can't say that with any confidence. Please note that I do not claim these statements to be Proven Facts; they only represent my informed but inexpert sense of how things happened. As we say in the sciences, correlation does not imply causality. As we also say, focusing on the average does not mean you can safely ignore the extremes; all such generalizations are suspect, and I've certainly met people who would disagree with these statements within the fannish community.
This approach is not limited to SF/F, by the way. Many other literary genres push the boundaries in different ways by exploring "dangerous" notions in a fictional context, thereby providing the necessary distance. It's all about "changing the world one mind at a time", a phrase I've seen quoted in enough contexts that I don't know the origin.
[A look back: About half an hour after I posted this, I came across an interesting example of the last point in a "Brain Pickings" article about Virginia Woolf.--GH]