This riffs off of the current SF/Hugo Awards controversy, but it is not about that, so you can go ahead and read it.
For the past few months, the science fiction/fantasy fan community has been clogging its own little corner of the Internet with a fight over the history, meaning, and future of the Hugo Awards, given out annually by the members of the World Science Fiction Convention. The specifics of the controversy are irrelevant, and easily locatable (although I warn the uninitiated that catching up could literally occupy the rest of the year). From the lowliest fan to the very highest level of “pro’s with TV shows,” this is the subject du jour, tous les jours.
What a waste of time.
Why is it that crowds (in this case, let’s define “crowds” as “dozens”) of people, both articulate and not, will spend so much of their free time and energy on questions which are not only incapable of objective resolution (e.g., what is a good story, what defines “best of the year,” what criteria should awards follow?), but really don’t matter a hydroelectric dam in the larger world?
What is it about people (not just SF fans) that they are willing to spend so much time on insignificant matters when they could be discussing the Big Questions? I would bet that SF fandom includes a higher proportion of scientists than the general population. And I’m talking the sciences where you actually have to study math: physicists, chemists, astronomers, meteorologists, geologists, biologists, physicians, computer scientists… These are people who have the brains and the education to do something. Invent a new fuel. Solve global warming. Design higher-yielding crops.
And if you can’t do any of that, because you’re not scientific or it’s not your field or you’re still a teenager or whatever, you can still talk about it. And write about it. And encourage others to do the same. Which isn’t happening. Instead, dozens (or hundreds) of people are producing tens of thousands of words relating to how approximately 3000 people should vote on an bunch of awards that have almost no effect on anyone but the eight or ten recipients.
Now, some have said that the Hugos are emblematic of the larger “culture wars,” which are, by anyone’s measurement, a much larger subject affecting a great many people, at least in America. Or would be, if the “culture wars” actually existed. Which they don’t, except in the minds of those who think they are can somehow halt the progress of History. Which they can’t. Two hundred years ago, Americans owned slaves. Now they don’t, and they never will (legally) again. One hundred years ago, women in this country couldn’t vote. Now they can, and they will always be able to do so. There were wars (cultural and literal) over these questions, but we have moved past them.* History marches to a progressive beat. You can’t argue with it, and you can’t stop it. You may slow it down, but if you look back now at the people who have tried, in many cases you don’t want to be one of those people.
The question is, who do you want to be? And what do you want to spend your precious few years on Earth arguing about?
*Please do not leave a comment to the effect that the Civil War was not about slavery. I know that. You might as well argue the Hugo voting is rigged, for all that you will accomplish.
Graffiti on the Walls of Time 