That’s why I wrote that I’m totally okay with denaming him. It’s just not very relevant. Such an easy, soft target.
Anyway, it’s an American problem anyway. Germany got him by birth, but the US actually wanted and recruited him. And I think most if not all schools in Germany named for him dropped his names years, sometime decades, ago.
Well, more importantly…
Fuck nazis.
Fuck downplaying them as easy targets, not worth the bother.
This is what you were talking about, I assume…
Yeah, I think removing celebratory monuments to Nazis is always a worthwhile task, even when people call them “little fish”.
And the problem wasn’t that he had American citizenship, it’s his actions participating in the Nazi atrocity machine, making requests about where death-camp labor should go.
I’m glad you’re tepidly “okay” with taking his name off things, but “It’s just not very relevant.” is, it must be admitted, a very soft take on removing celebratory references to Nazis and other fascists, for another instance, John W Campbell.
Von Braun was hardly “small fish.” He oversaw Peenemunde and Dora, two of the worst Nazi labor camps, in which tens of thousands of slaves died.
They should have renamed it The Bruce Cambell Award.
Others have covered the issues with your examples of who he chose* to “deliver”. But do you really think he was the only person who could have done this editing job. The job is more important than most people think, but he was not irreplaceable. Those three would almost definitely have been published even without Campbell.
* It’s worth considering that it was a choice and he could have chosen to “deliver” less problematic authors.
Ah, you beat me to it. That is a great series.
I think it is undeniable Campbells contributions to the genre. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to name an award after him. Yes he did important contributions to the art, and I think one can still admire or respect those specific things. But we don’t need to deify him. He’s a flawed person, like everyone else. (More so than most, IMO.)
Don’t forget Lovecraft’s racism.
These are examples that show pretty much EVERYONE in the past wouldn’t pass a modern litmus test in these areas. I think one has to weigh the good vs bad and decide if we should hold them in esteem or not. Of course, not everyone will agree on where lines should be drawn.
These days, nobody does. To the point, in fact, where it occasionally makes discussing his writing stupidly difficult. The conversation keeps veering into the fact that yes, old Howard was intensely and weirdly racist, especially in his younger days. (He may have mellowed somewhat towards his death, but still.)
Niven: Turned into a dirty old man.
It’s hard to find authors from the 50s, 60s, and 70s who wouldn’t be considered sexist today. Even ones you would expect to be more progressive like LeGuin wrote some pretty dubiously preachy material.
The past is a different, and generally nastier, country.
No. That’s what white supremacy does.
It was racism before and during the civil war, too.
Except keep in mind some of the earliest attempts to oppose slavery go right back to the beginning of the republic. The ink was hardly dry on the constitution when enslaved people began to challenge their enslavement, and at least a few white Americans supported them (not a lot).
Saying that white people are “natural superior” is not “bad manners or politics.” It’s a lie of the highest order that perpetuated brutal systems of oppression.
Agreed. There is something distributing when people stomp their feet at the slightest criticism of their heroes who they assume must be beyond reproach because reasons. I think it’s better to have all the cards on the table, to understand people’s flawed nature, and then decide if you’ll continue to enjoy their work.
But we can’t do that! she hated mens! /s
How many times do people bring out “But he was a genius, his behavior/racism/baby-eating should not affect how we revere his memory”?
I’m waiting for a single time someone casually uses “But she was a genius, we should remember what she created first before…”
A. Single. Time. in one of these kind of discussions.
(I don’t think bad behavior should be celebrated as the only way to genius, I’m just tired that the “abusive genius” stereotype only seems to be carted out to preserve a certain kind of career, and only certain kinds of “difficult” qualities.)
If anyone hasn’t read it, here’s Pam Noles’ wonderful “Shame” essay that inspired Lovecraft Country (which is awesome). On her parents’ criticism of the old sci-fi she read as a kid:
You think we’re being racist, my Mom said so many times as I was growing up, when we went round and round about these weird books and movies. I heard an accusation. But what she and my Dad were trying to make me hear was their question: Why do you love a thing that won’t even let you exist within their made up worlds?
Well worth reading.
Good.
Don’t need to say anything else, but I had to type words to post that.
Oh yeah, for sure. I was just going off the previous apologist’s list.
Side note: heard a wonderful thesis paper comparing Elizabeth Bear’s “Shoggoth’s in Bloom” with Lovecraft’s original works. It’s pretty amazing how modern authors can still riff off the old racist while eshuing and undermining his ideology.
From Isaac Asimov, Astounding was one of the better markets of the genre for word-rate and payment. If Hubbard was still getting a penny a word by 1948, it’s because he was a hack.
Little known fact: during the late 1960ies, Asimov briefly was the lead singer of a British boy group.
It has a lot of pages. That’s a good thing, right?
You only mentioned one. Is the other soup-based?
There were 2 that were named for him, the best new writer award and a memorial award.
He was probably talking about the “Mission Earth” series (10 books!) or “Old Doc Methusalah”.
Believe it or not Hubbard could write very good science fiction.
And if creating a world-spanning cult doesn’t impress you then I’m not sure what will. I mean, he’s the kind of dangerous, exciting character than we write science fiction about.
A world where cults and empires are not a thing, maybe?
