John W. Campbell, a chief architect of science fiction's Golden Age

Re:John W. Campbell, a chief architect of science fiction's ... by imglorp on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @08:59AM (#18493785)

Not to condone his views, but we have to remember the societal context.

Racism as a concept that needed a word was barely present in the early 60s [1], until then it was completely normal and expected by everyone. Bus desegregation wasn't until 1956. "I Have a Dream" was 63. Blacks couldn't vote until 1965. We might find it surprising now, but if he had written about an integrated community then, readers would have been shocked.

Now, for us, it serves as a valuable window into past culture. On a similar note, Roddenberry's Star Trek was 1966 - featuring aliens and--more shocking: Russians--cooperating. They received flak for that but HE was visionary.

1. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=racism&year_st...

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Re:John W. Campbell, a chief architect of science fiction's ... by snowwrestler on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @10:34AM (#18494528)

This is ignorant and wrong. Integrated communities date to before the founding of the United States. Frederick Douglas was a prominent and internationally recognized voice for equality and integration 100 years before the 1960s. We fought a civil war over it. Immediately following that civil war, there were strong legal protections created for the rights black Americans to own property, run businesses, vote etc. in an equal and integrated way. These protections were then chipped away down to Jim Crow levels through the sustained and vigorous efforts of racists who wished they had won the civil war and perpetuated slavery.

To be even more specific, you have authors who worked directly with Campbell during that time saying that they knew that he was racist and that it was wrong.

This idea that racism was normal and not remarkable in 1960s is a pernicious fiction that is promulgated by racists and their apologists. If you feel that this is an unfair inference about you, I would recommend you spend some time with history and get caught up.

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Re:John W. Campbell, a chief architect of science fiction's ... by imglorp on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @10:50AM (#18494696)

Thank you for the education about the earlier protections. I agree that the culture was intentionally pushed backwards.

It almost seems like we are witnessing another backwards swing currently.

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Re:John W. Campbell, a chief architect of science fiction's ... by snowwrestler on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @11:26AM (#18495050)

Thanks for a graceful reply to my comment, which was probably more strongly worded than it needed to be to get the point across.

I think we are currently seeing an attempt to swing things backward, which is why I think it's important to speak up against that.

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Re:John W. Campbell, a chief architect of science fiction's ... by eesmith on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @02:20PM (#18496796)

I think your response was well-worded and appropriate given a comment which argued that we need to look at historical context - after some of that context was already given - then proceeded to give an invalid context.

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Re:John W. Campbell, a chief architect of science fiction's ... by maxerickson on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @09:09AM (#18493859)

For the present it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold; that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that we are engaged in all the enterprises common to other men -- digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave -- we are called upon to prove that we are men?

Frederick Douglass, 1852

http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/douglass.htm

(I don't know his works well, I just searched and read...1 of them)

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Re:John W. Campbell, a chief architect of science fiction's ... by imglorp on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @09:12AM (#18493873)

Oh yes, others had the visions earlier, but my point was that it wasn't a mainstream viewpoint until much later.

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Re:John W. Campbell, a chief architect of science fiction's ... by ska on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @12:55PM (#18495891)

It's pretty hard to argue that selective enforcement of contemporary mainstream views is necessary to speculative fiction. The hint is right there in the name.

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Re:John W. Campbell, a chief architect of science fiction's ... by my_first_acct on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @10:47AM (#18494665)

The fight against racism has spanned decades, but your statement, "Racism as a concept that needed a word was barely present in the early 60s" does not seem correct.

To select an example from popular culture: the musical "South Pacific" (1949) contains a strong and explicit anti-racist message [1]. John Campbell reflected the racist views of a fairly large segment of the American society of his day. But there was already a large, and growing, part of society that rejected these views.

It is often unhelpful to apply modern-day standards to historical figures. But Campbell is from a time and place where racism was already recognized as an evil to be fought. He has no excuse.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pacific_(musical)#Race

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Re:John W. Campbell, a chief architect of science fiction's ... by eesmith on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @10:38AM (#18494573)

My understanding of the social context was that his views were extreme even for his era. Eg, I gave two examples of his authors who were less extreme than he was.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited racial discrimination in voting. Blacks could and did certainly vote long before then. Blacks, for example, voted immediately after the Civil War. It wasn't until the end of the Reconstruction Era and the repeal of most of the Enforcement Acts that blacks were deliberately disenfranchised by state governments run by racist whites.

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Re:John W. Campbell, a chief architect of science fiction's ... by Symmetry on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @10:52AM (#18494718)

Abraham Lincoln might have had positions that we would consider quite racist nowadays but because he became a much more moral person than his intellectual environment encouraged we rightly admire him. By contrast Campbell was somewhat retrograde to the circles he moved in as you can see from the authors he stifled. And so because he was exposed to arguments that he should have been a more decent person than he was and because far more enlightened positions were socially acceptable we are free to condemn him for his failings.

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