What Did Napoleon Say At Waterloo?
15. Aug, 2009 
4 Comments
Do you think Nappy said “Gosh darn it!? The Duke has ringed the hills with artillery – now I’ll have to pull back and reconsider…” or did he say “I AM the greatest! I will forgo all tactical sensibility and continue with ‘hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle’; once I’ve crushed this British upstart, I’ll have more than enough time to deal with those Prussian SOBs advancing on my flank.”
(Actually, Napoleon mostly just stood in bed…)
Seems like the Unnameable One is trying to broaden the scope of the ‘debate’ and is looking for his own ‘Prussians’ to come in on the ‘flank’ of the argument, if this piece in the National Catholic Register is anything to go by.
So far as propaganda goes, it’s a pretty ham-handed effort (which is ok, since this is a Catholic site on a Saturday and not a Jewish one).
False correlation abounds, as do strawman arguments and glancing ad hominem attacks on the entire SF genre.
On the other hand, this could represent the opening salvo in a much wider conflagration.? If this is so, then two things are fairly obvious conclusions: the ‘won’t buy his books/sent a note to his publisher’ crowd has already inflicted serious blows and – things are about to get nasty.? Religious wars are never pretty.
My tactical suggestion is: this is not a difference of opinions about religion and it is not the ‘evil humanist/atheist’ ‘controllers of the genre’ beating up on a minority within the genre.? This is about the outing of hate speech and the consequences of engaging in it.
If you’re clueless about the Unnamed one – go here, here, here and play catch-up
NOTE:? Over on Jeff VanderMeer’s website (linked to above) I suggested that those who seek a popular audience have to accept some limitation on their freedom of speech – IF they want to retain their general audience.? I then also suggested that there were plenty of folks who have chosen the other route (successfully) of ‘pandering’ to a particular audience and, as a result, retaining their ‘freedom’ to say pretty much just about any stupid, assholish, ignorant, hateful and hurtful thing they wish to say.
Do not discount the possibility that the Unnamed One’s actual ploy in this case was to say the things he did in order to earn cache and points (actually, to attempt to elevate himself to hero status) in the eyes of a ’special interest’ audience.
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You don’t make any mention of it, so I’m wondering if you’re aware/recall that Sandra Miesel was one of the best-known serious fan writers on sf in the Sixties and Seventies, getting a Hugo nomination for Best Fan Writer in 1973, 1973, and 1975, as well as having written on Catholicism and Catholicism and sf, and medieval topics, for decades, as well as having had a couple of sf novels published, edited a couple of anthologies and published a smattering of short stories.
Given that the piece you link to consists almost entirely of quotes from a piece by Sandra written many months ago, it seems peculiar to not mention any of this.
We can both give a crotchety sigh, though, to see Gene Wolfe characterized (not by Sandra) as a “sci-fi writer.”
“1973, 1973, and 1975″
The middle one there was supposed to be “1974,” it shouldn’t surprise you to know.
Yes, I was aware of Sandra’s credentials – I’ve even read things by her (including the above mentioned), but my focus was on how this piece intersected and was potentially part of something larger. I’m not sure if Sandra is part of ‘one side’ or the other, yet.
Wright has, as I noted in and addendum to my original post, now entirely disappeared his post, by the way. Poof! It never happened.
I’ve included a link summarizing the general blogging view of that practice.