The Death of Higher Beings in Science Fiction

According to my Jesuit Confessor, Father Pharisee de Casuist, my vow not to write on my blog except on Friday and only to post a link is not broken if, in the act of posting a link, and quoting an extensive quote, I only make a comment with the intention of explaining what the link means. The difference is in the intent, whether specific or general, ad hoc or in media res, whether per annum or per stirpes, or, as the Schoolmen say, ‘Nemo Intellectia Latine‘ which translates as ‘I don’t know the correct declension for Intellectum.’

So here is the link, followed by a comment:

I happened across this essay by Alexei and Cory Panshin called ‘The Death of Science Fiction.’ The half-joking theory is that Robert Heinlein’s NUMBER OF THE BEAST killed off science fiction.

The authors describe a change between Victorian science fiction and modern science fiction.

By Victorian SF they mean HG Wells and Olaf Stapledon, with their cosmic visions of man evolving into the remotest future, either into diabolic Morlocks, or into the godlike Eighteenth Men.

By ‘modern’ they mean the Hard SF of John W. Campbell Jr. and his three star writers, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and A.E. van Vogt.

The principle difference, so the Panshins argue, was a loss of the cosmic sense of wonder at the appalling sweep of evolution, from deep past to remotest future, and the substitution of the Heinlein’s ‘competent man’ or Van Vogt’s superman, who overcomes by means of his superiority in technical ability or an advanced non-Aristotlian ‘thought system.’

The Panshins go on to argue that a similar cusp occurred between Campbellian Hard SF and the New Wave, which they call (with saccharine crude cuteness) ‘New Head’ SF.

The subject of the essay is the causes behind the the death of Campbellian SF and its rebirth as New Wave.

The bottom line is that the ‘competent man’ SF hero has innate limitations (for what happens when he meets something beyond his competence?). When confronted with those limitations Heinlein (and by extension, the whole Campbellian philosophy) collapses into solipsism, such as is painfully on display in NUMBER OF THE BEAST, both as a theme and as a literal plot mechanism.

I confess I am not persuaded of the main points in the essay, for reasons cramped space and menacing deadlines permit me not to relate. I will merely say that authors write from the viewpoint of narrowly conformist Leftwing piety, not even hinting that any other world view could exist, and so there is no examination of the axioms of their argument. It is presented as a take it or leave it deal. I leave it.

But the essay is rich enough in insights and germs of new ideas that it can be enjoyed even by one skeptical of its persuasive value.

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