The Unz Review shows how the Right all too often rushes to enshrine earlier Leftist subversion simply because it precedes current Leftist subversion.
This time, the subject of misguided right wing hagiography is John W. Campbell, Jr.
Alec Nevala-Lee, an Asian-American science fiction writer, has here written something remarkable: an intentionally PC multi-biography that nevertheless manages to be well-informed and informative, well-written and compulsively readable.
It’s the first substantive biography of John W. Campbell, Jr., the man – or, as we’ll see, some would insist on “the white male” – who basically invented modern science fiction; and that last point means that to do so properly, we have to take into account the three men – yes, again, white males – whose writing careers he promoted in order to do it.
It’s an index of Campbell’s importance that, although I am not really a science fiction fan – certainly not to the level of the fanatical creeps that slip in and out of these pages – I could recognize almost every work referred to, and had indeed read most of them; and I bet you have, too.
The reviewer stumbles right out of the gate. Nevala-Lee is an intersectionalist true believer straight from central casting. A quick glance at his bio reveals he is a Hugo Finalist who mostly writes nonfiction books about how problematic science fiction is.
If the reviewer is unaware of SJWs’ compulsive dishonesty, why would he take Lee’s religious tract–which is what his book really is–at face value? Especially if he’s admittedly unfamiliar with science fiction beyond the “important” books all the revisionists say we should read?
But like a broken clock, Lee does present two accurate data points, which science fiction readers who know better will see as red flags.
All [Campbell, Asimov, Hubbard, and Heinlein] were generalists who saw science fiction as an educational tool – although to radically different ends. And they all embodied Campbell’s conviction, which he never abandoned, that science fiction could change lives.
Therein lies the origin of message fic–the scourge that has plagued science fiction sine the 1930s.
Campbell wasn’t the man who, “basically invented science fiction.” He helped destroy the far more popular pulps–science fiction’s true Golden Age.
The reviewer may have read “Nightfall”, Foundation, and Stranger in a Strange Land. Once upon a time, everybody read Edgar Rice Burroughs and Walter B. Gibson.
Lee notes Campbell’s association with notorious perverts Isaac Asimov and Samuel R. Delany–especially Asimov, whose career Campbell made. Why, then, does the reviewer white knight for Campbell?
Because Lee calls him waciss.
At his worst, Campbell expressed views that were unforgivably racist, and even today, the most reactionary movements in modern fandom – with their deep distrust of women and minorities – have openly stated, “We have called for a Campbellian revolution in science fiction.”
Lee’s quote is out of date. It comes from a 2015 Vox Popoli post written before Vox’s publishing house released the seminal Appendix N.
The pulp revolution Jeffro Johnson fostered is neither reactionary nor part of a decrepit fandom. It recognizes Campbell as a deleterious influence on science fiction who replaced the fun and mass appeal of the pulps with agenda-driven message fic.
Folks on the Right desperately need to learn not to defend people the Left is attacking just because the Left is attacking them. The death cult’s need to constantly reset to year zero means they routinely anathematize their former fellow travelers.
Today’s commissar throwing the useful idiot under the bus is tomorrow’s useful idiot. Don’t interrupt him.