Transcribe
Translate
Science Fiction Forward, v. 1, issue 1, September 1940
Page 8
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
Page 8 SCIENCE FICTION FORWARD REBIRTH! By - PETER DUNCAN. EDITORIAL NOTE: Scinnce-fcition certainly cannot be accused of being entirely unaware of itself. The last few years have witnessed a veritable rash of histories, both from the personal and impersonal points of view, in which the fans indulged in almost every type of soul-searching known to man. We hage read articles on the "significance" of this or that tendency, "surveys" of science-fiction's "evolution", "analyses" of science-fictions "today", and "prediction"---mostly hopeful---for the future. We think that up to a certain extent awareness of one's self and the first-person probing which stems from this is good and natural, but when carried to extremes, it gets niave, and just a little silly. the following essay---another example, it must be admitted, of this first-person stuff---endeavors to create a line of demarckation between good and bad self-analysis and to present, as far as this impossible, a true interpretation of the many marches and counter-marches which make the history of fandom the fascinating and turbulent thing it is. I. "All men mean well," - St. Thomas Aquinas. History is a funny thing. In the inevitableprocess of interaction with their environment, men found that they must necessarily come into collision with each other. Mostly these collisions have been unspectacular, but on occasion they become extremely violent, taking the forms of wars. Almost any history book, no matter how hard it tries to gloss over and idealize its subject, is little more than a catalogue of theseccollisions arranged in chronological order. Sometimes the historian attempts to show a definitely interconnexion between them, and before us and then proceeds to babble ludicrously about it after the manner of an Episcopelian minister pronouncing judgement upon Satan. Hence we find ourselvesat a disadvantage to begin with simply because there have been so many bad history books written. Another thing. Looking at history as a whole, it becomes plain that there exists a remarkable divergence between cause and effect. That is to say, things which mean thought they were fighting for, and things they actually achieved, were quite different. A good example of this is the recent uproar between 1914 and 1918. There can be no doubt that the majority of Americans who fought in that conflict really had a notion that they were saving the world for democracy. (Democracy wasse young lady with breasts hanging out of a burning house, or a small urchin with golden locks running away from a ravening wolf, depending upon the personality of the individual involved.) Today, however, we have found out that the World War was merely the inevitable outcome of the expanding colonial system of Germany on the one hand, and the expanding colonial system of England on the other. Both sys-
Saving...
prev
next
Page 8 SCIENCE FICTION FORWARD REBIRTH! By - PETER DUNCAN. EDITORIAL NOTE: Scinnce-fcition certainly cannot be accused of being entirely unaware of itself. The last few years have witnessed a veritable rash of histories, both from the personal and impersonal points of view, in which the fans indulged in almost every type of soul-searching known to man. We hage read articles on the "significance" of this or that tendency, "surveys" of science-fiction's "evolution", "analyses" of science-fictions "today", and "prediction"---mostly hopeful---for the future. We think that up to a certain extent awareness of one's self and the first-person probing which stems from this is good and natural, but when carried to extremes, it gets niave, and just a little silly. the following essay---another example, it must be admitted, of this first-person stuff---endeavors to create a line of demarckation between good and bad self-analysis and to present, as far as this impossible, a true interpretation of the many marches and counter-marches which make the history of fandom the fascinating and turbulent thing it is. I. "All men mean well," - St. Thomas Aquinas. History is a funny thing. In the inevitableprocess of interaction with their environment, men found that they must necessarily come into collision with each other. Mostly these collisions have been unspectacular, but on occasion they become extremely violent, taking the forms of wars. Almost any history book, no matter how hard it tries to gloss over and idealize its subject, is little more than a catalogue of theseccollisions arranged in chronological order. Sometimes the historian attempts to show a definitely interconnexion between them, and before us and then proceeds to babble ludicrously about it after the manner of an Episcopelian minister pronouncing judgement upon Satan. Hence we find ourselvesat a disadvantage to begin with simply because there have been so many bad history books written. Another thing. Looking at history as a whole, it becomes plain that there exists a remarkable divergence between cause and effect. That is to say, things which mean thought they were fighting for, and things they actually achieved, were quite different. A good example of this is the recent uproar between 1914 and 1918. There can be no doubt that the majority of Americans who fought in that conflict really had a notion that they were saving the world for democracy. (Democracy wasse young lady with breasts hanging out of a burning house, or a small urchin with golden locks running away from a ravening wolf, depending upon the personality of the individual involved.) Today, however, we have found out that the World War was merely the inevitable outcome of the expanding colonial system of Germany on the one hand, and the expanding colonial system of England on the other. Both sys-
Hevelin Fanzines
sidebar
