I. Asimov

by Isaac Asimov

On the Intellect: “Why is it, I wonder, that anyone who displays superior athletic ability is an object of admiration to his classmates, while one who displays superior mental ability is an object of hatred?”

On Literacy: “The age of the pulp magazine was the last in which youngsters were forced to be literate. True literacy is becoming an arcane art, and the nation is steadily ‘dumbing down.’”

On God: “If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.”

Orthodox Judaism dictates one’s every action at every moment of the day and it enforces differences between Jew and Gentile that virtually make certain the persecution of the weaker group.

I also tried to avoid becoming uncomfortably hooked on anti-Semitism as the main problem in the world. Many Jews I knew divided the world into Jews and anti-Semites, nothing else. Many Jews I knew recognized no problem anywhere, at any time, but that of anti-Semitism.

It struck me, however, that prejudice was universal and that all groups who were not dominant, who were not actually at the top of the status chain, were potential victims. In Europe, in the 1930s, it was the Jews who were being spectacularly victimized, but in the United States it was not the Jews who were worst treated. Here, as anyone could see who did not deliberately keep his eyes shut, it was the African-Americans.

For two centuries they had actually been enslaved. Since that slavery had come to a formal end, the African-Americans remained in a position of near-slavery in most segments of American society. They were deprived of ordinary rights, treated with contempt, and kept o...

Such is the blindness of people that I have known Jews who, having deplored anti-Semitism in unmeasured tones, would, with scarcely a breath in between, get on the subject of African-Americans and promptly begin to sound like a group of petty Hitlers. And when I pointed this out and objected to it strenuously, they turned on me in anger. They simply could not see what they were doing.

I once listened to a woman grow eloquent over the terrible way in which Gentiles did nothing to save the Jews of Europe. “You can’t trust Gentiles,” she said. I let some time elapse and then asked suddenly, “What are you doing to help the blacks in their fight for civil rights?” “Listen,” she said, “I have my own troubles.” And I said, “So did the Gentiles.” But she only stared at me blankly. She didn’t get the point at all. What can be done about it? The whole world seems to live under the banner: “Freedom is wonderful—but only for me.”

Whereupon Wiesel, very excited, said, “Give me one example of the Jews ever persecuting anyone.” Of course, I was ready for him. I said, “Under the Maccabean kingdom in the second century B.C., John Hyrcanus of Judea conquered Edom and gave the Edomites a choice—conversion to Judaism or the sword. The Edomites, being sensible, converted, but, thereafter, they were in any case treated as an inferior group, for though they were Jews, they were also Edomites.”

Right now there is an influx of Soviet Jews into Israel. They are fleeing because they expect religious persecution. Yet at the instant their feet touched Israeli soil, they became extreme Israeli nationalists with no pity for the Palestinians. From persecuted to persecutors in the blinking of an eye.

Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

It is so important to be in the right place at the right time.

Let me make a few points about pulp fiction while I’m at it. It flourished in pre-World War II days, and in those days racism and racial stereotypes were an ingrained part of the American scene. It was not till World War II and the fight against Adolf Hitler’s racism that it became unfashionable for Americans to express racist views. I don’t mean by that that racism disappeared after World War II, but merely that Hitler’s example killed its respectability except among the troglodytes we always have with us. People still may feel racist in many respects, but they are cautious about expressing it, and if they are decent (and most people are), they try to fight it in themselves. Pre-World War II pulp fiction was racist outright and everyone accepted the fact. Even the people who were victimized by it accepted it. There was very little militancy among the minorities, very little self-assertion.

The comic magazines increased the level of looking, decreased the level of reading. The television set has carried this to an extreme.

In short, the age of the pulp magazine was the last in which youngsters, to get their primitive material, were forced to be literate. Now that is gone, and the youngsters have their glazed eyes fixed on the television tube. The result is clear. True literacy is becoming an arcane art, and the nation is steadily “dumbing down.”

What I do now is think up a problem and a resolution to that problem. I then begin the story, making it up as I go along, having all the excitement of finding out what will happen to the characters and how they will get out of their scrapes, but working steadily toward the known resolution, so that I don’t get lost en route.

Heartbreak, as I judge from my limited experience, is the pain one feels at the loss of a love object, in the case where the love object, not returning the love, breaks off (whether kindly or cruelly) and disappears. The person you love is gone, but still exists, and is simply not available, This is a rather benign situation as compared with the irrevocable loss through death of someone you love, but it is, nevertheless, painful.