career advantages to reading SF

[marycatelli]

"I was an effective intelligence officer. Why? In junior high, I matured past the French Existentialists and started reading science fiction. The prose was often ragged, but the speculative frameworks offered a useful approach to analysis."

Full article here.

Comments

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Excellent. And in the Post, no less.

[marycatelli]

:D

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

That particular quote is fun.

The rest of the article is horrifying, though. Referring to other people as aliens, inquiring whether "the angry planet [Afghanistan] ever be sanitized of threats?" - dehumanizing enemies like that leads to sickening behavior.

[marycatelli]

What, you have to think someone is like you or you are "dehumanizing" them?

Anyone who is not like you is not human?

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

No, thinking that someone is different from you isn't dehumanizing.

Calling someone who is different from you an alien, and saying that his country needs to be "sanitized," which is a nice Newspeak way of saying "we need to shoot a bunch of people, stat!", is dehumanizing.

Which is not to say that there aren't people in Afghanistan who deserve to be shot; there are, as there are anywhere, and Afghanistan has more than many other places. But viewing the entire country through that lens will get a lot of people who don't deserve it shot - better safe than sorry, after all.

[marycatelli]

Nonsense. He wrote "sanitized of threats". Calling that 'nice Newspeak way of saying "we need to shoot a bunch of people, stat!",' is as dehumanizing as you claim he's being.

Besides, they are alien. They are different and that is what alien means. He is describing a mental exercise to broaden your mind's horizons.

This exercise is just meant to break our mental gridlock, to challenge our crippling assumption that we're all merry brothers and sisters who just have to work through a few small understandings.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

First: How does one sanitize a country of threats without shooting people - especially given the threats he's referring to are caused by people? It's not like the country is an abstract object that can be cleaned without reference to it's inhabitants. Second: who am I dehumanizing by saying that "sanitize the country" is Newspeak? At worst, I'm saying that the author of the article was being less than frank, which doesn't say he isn't human.

Also, you're right - alien does mean different - but given he's using it specifically with reference to aliens in science fiction stories, I hardly think it's a stretch to say that this at very least implies that these "humanoid forms" are not quite human, which is by definition dehumanizing.

[marycatelli]

But what you accused him of meaning was "we need to shoot a bunch of people, stat!" Which is not the same as saying that it will take shooting people.

As for saying that it will take shooting people -- well, you yourself admit that there are people who deserve it.

I dunno

[notr.livejournal.com]

The "in junior high" bit suggests to me either that there's a putdown implied of those who stuck with SF beyond that, or that the value of his praise is considerably diminished by his being stuck at a junior-high level of maturity himself. Or both.

Re: I dunno

[marycatelli]

at least he admits you have to mature past French Existentialists to get it.

0:)