Michael Flynn's Blog, page 12

Crimes Committed Inside Other People's Heads

An intriguing comment on another writer's blog responds to the plaint that too few today read or even know of the seminal works in fantasy and science fiction. The anonymous commenter writes :

so much of what is Classic or Seminal in this genre (along with many others) is problematic or inadequate in some fashion. You mentioned the sexism in one story, which is enough to keep me from reading it. You can get past it, perhaps, because sexism doesn't affect you the way it would me. And that's fine and I'm not pointing fingers and calling you a name, I'm just saying it would be a bigger problem for me.

And then there's racism, homophobia, antisemitism, and any number of other bigoted attitudes lurking in those old stories and stories. No, thanks.

Then there's the issue of how much early SF/F is decidedly Western. Euro-centric, US-centric, and all about the superiority of anglo white men. These days there are so many amazing novels and stories that arise out of non-European/non-Western modes of thinking and folktales or myths, why would I bother soaking myself in a history that erases or ignores such things?

I agree that an understanding of the history of this genre is important, but that doesn't mean having to actually read that stuff.

Sure, and it is a burdensome life when even the act of reading fluffy entertainment and adventure stories must be a political act. To the contrary we have the well-known dictum of M.Tullius Cicero, in Orator Ad M. Brutum:

"Nescire autem quid antequam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum."

("To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be forever a child.")

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On the Natural Law

Posted a few days ago on The TOFSPotThere is something in the human heart that recognizes wrong. As long as it is in other people. Ze'ev Chafets once wrote that "Mainstream Protestants tend to locate sin in the moral malfeasance of others—slaveholders, colonialists, capitalists, settlers, oil barons, and the Bush administration." Perhaps distance lends perspective. Or perhaps it is easier to spot a hole in front rather than one behind one's own eyeballs.
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Putzing Around

The newspaper here runs a feature that reports on stories covered "100 years ago today" as well as 50 and 25.  We note in passing that today is the birthday of a man with many devoted followers; viz., Jimmy Buffet.

In any case, both yesterday and today the 100 Years Ago feature mentioned marvelous putzes. Yesterday's was a putz set up by the South Side boy scouts, and today's was set up by the Central Fire Station.  Both items mentioned how wonderfully detailed the putzes were and TOF was transported to his youth when Christmas time meant a lot of putzing around as we trooped from house to house to view people's putzes.
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TOF's Secrets of Life

Walk around with a serious look on your face and a clipboard in your hand. It's amazing what you can get away with.  A hard hat and a roll of blueprints under your arm will also serve. 
The key to dealing with deadlines is to learn to enjoy the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
If at first you don't succeed, don't try skydiving.
A day without sunshine is like... night.
To be at your best all the time, strive for mediocrity.
TOF plans to live forever.  So far, it's working.
Talk is cheap, except in Congress.
The reason that talk is cheap is economics. Supply exceeds demand.

Quotes of the Day

"For historians looking back, the sign of a dark age is the lack of comprehensive, consistent and canonical records. The actual history that unfolds may be marked by progress or decline. The European Middle Ages, once known as the Dark Ages, are now widely regarded as a period of widespread cultural development. It just wasn’t of the Greco-Roman variety that preceded it, or the Renaissance variety that followed."
-- Venkat, "Our Diurnal Civilization" (ribbonfarm, 12/9/13)


"The barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time."
-- Alasdair MacIntyre (quoted in Paul D.Miller, "Book Hunters in the New Dark Ages (The City, Fall 2013))


As late as 1900 Ernst Mach still thought of atoms as a convenient fiction without any physical basis in nature.
-- Alan Wall, "Lux, Lumen and the Lights of Science." (The Fortnightly Review)


People often question the utility of philosophy. One use of philosophy is to protect us from bad philosophy, pseudo-philosophy, the 'philosophy' of those who denigrate philosophy yet cannot resist philosophizing themselves and as a result philosophize poorly.
-- Bill Vallicella "Nonsense about Descartes from the Science Page of the New York Times" (The Maverick Philosopher, June 10, 2012)


"Globalization can also have the paradoxical effect of fostering intense localism and nativism, frightening people into taking refuge in the comfort of small, like-minded groups. One of the unexpected results of the Internet, for example, is how it can narrow horizons so that users seek out only those whose views echo their own and avoid websites that might challenge their assumptions."
-- Margaret MacMillan, "The Rhyme of History" (Brookings Essay, 12/14/13)

Dennis

Some folks here may know that my beloved son is named Dennis, whose birthday was yesterday.





Dennis Michael Flynn


He gets his name from my late beloved brother, also Dennis, whose birthday is today.






Dennis Harry Flynn

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Someone is Thinking Ahead

Nothing Displays How Our Culture Has Changed Better Than This:

Calvin's Dad

'Tis the Season

h/t Mark Shea