You misspelled equal rights and ethics. Don’t fret, it’s a common mistake.
Also, unsarcastically, I appreciate the good Campbell did, but it doesn’t erase the injustice he fostered. So by all means, learn from him, good and bad. But an award that someone named after him? Those awards’ inheritors renaming that because they object to his politics is fine. If it was an award Campbell had founded; then I’d just say reject it, but it wasn’t, any more that General Robert E. Lee sponsored the statues later racists made of him in the early 20th century.
I pray you have not read Hubbard, because whatever one thinks of his legacy as abusive cult founder, his other fiction was…not a volcano you want to stand your ground on.
Yep, this is the truth that the censorship ranters will cleverly forget to engage with because it doesn’t fit the narrative. This isn’t about erasing Campbell’s contributions to the genre (or, you know, this would be about removing articles), but it’s about no longer celebrating a known bigot by name.
Feynman is a pretty good example of someone who had some significant problematic portions of his personality that have come out and the scientific and literary community (as he was part of both) is pretty broadly understanding and accepting of him as a whole person. This understanding doesn’t mean people are broadly boycotting his books, but it does mean that you also understand that ‘hey, maybe he was creepy? And kind of a dick.’ It also helps to some degree that Feynman, later on in his life, ruminated on some of these events and considered them a problem and an important part of his history, although never fully came to terms with the problems.
The fundamental problem with reverence for “brilliant assholes” is that they take the place of non-assholes who are often equally, if not more talented. How many great authors, who happened to be women or POC or LGTB did Campbell hold back in favor of the Heinleins he put forward?
Completely agree. Reverence is something I find usually worse than useless, and the keystone of cults of personality. My personal metric is to help the living with whom I have common cause, fight the living against whom my personal compass arrays me, and learn from the consequences of the actions of the dead. To paraphrase Samuel Clemens, another deeply problematique, I don’t always attend the funeral, but sometimes I send a nice card saying I approve of it.
THIS. And even more than this: how much better might Heinlein have been without Campbell’s thumb on the scales? Because look: I love me some Heinlein, and I think he gets political stick he doesn’t deserve,* but not all of his work is… equal. Some of it deffo could have used a different editor than it got.
*You can argue that he was a fascist for Starship Troopers or a right-libertarian for Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, but he can’t really have been both, can he? (Yes, some people do manage to fit the broad strokes of both labels. But if you get down to specifics, the societies he describes in those novels are fundamentally incompatible, so the argument that they’re both exemplars of the author’s One True System doesn’t hold water.)
Good. Campbell was an excellent editor, but he was also a racist reactionary kook. We can remember his contributions to SF, and his numerous awful qualities, all without pinning his name on a major award.
But what if we hurt the fee-fees of defensive reactionaries afraid their way of life fandom is under threat? They might get hopping mad. And I can only print bingo cards so fast. /s
Aye and that goes all across the board for every creative medium and artist; IMO.
For instance, I still love my John Hughes 80’s movies, yet I fully acknowledge that many of the ideas and imagery those films contain are sexist, homophobic, and bigoted… and none of that shit is “acceptable” now.
Honestly, one of the big reasons I’m pleased with this change is that I know it must drive a bunch of far-right kooks in the SF circles absolutely livid.
Amen. I’m a big fan of a lot of old SF, horror and Sword & Sorcery stories, some of which are absolutely foundational to the SF and fantasy genres… and I love them despite, not because, of the badly dated and often deeply shitty attitudes baked into those stories.
As RickMycroft pointed out Hugo Gernsback had some serious issues too, and I don’t mean what was in the issues of his magazines, but his bent for screwing his writers by underpaying them or not paying at all. It was likely he who had Donald A. Wollheim for leading a successful lawsuit for payments due.
Image where the worlds of SF would be if SF remained the realm of total amateurs.
