No, this is not about Wuthering Heights which I – Hi, this is Sarah – hate with a burning passion, perhaps because I read it for the first time at thirty, when my husband found me laughing as I read it. Because this whole dying for love thing, and the chick’s attraction for the unwashed one had to be meant as a comedy.
I still think the Brontes were trolling literature and generations of college professors have missed the point. My husband says I’m wrong, though, and, who knows? He might be right.
Which brings us to another bad romance. No, not my marriage. We’re fine, thank you. He might think I’m a little crazy, but I think I amuse him.
No, the bad romance I’m talking about is between two groups of people. Or rather one group and each of several groups.
The first group we’ll call the Missionaries. They’ve been called Social Justice Warriors but that is a bit specific. A lot of them wouldn’t think of themselves that way, because they don’t think they’re Warring with anything, precisely. Instead, they think of themselves as Missionaries of civilization going among the benighted. Just like the nineteenth century Missionaries to Africa never wondered why the natives didn’t wear pants, nor wished to acquire the native customs, so the Missionaries of enlightenment have no interest in the quaint customs and history of the groups they choose to grace with their presence. Instead, they’re there to preach the one true way and bring the recalcitrant into civilization.
The groups they choose to embrace vary: science fiction and fantasy; gaming; hobby groups. The Missionaries are an universalist lot. They want to go everywhere and make everywhere conform to their ideas of good.
Of course, the funny thing is that one of the things these Missionaries preach is multiculturalism, but they have no problem at all imposing their values on various communities that had their own values before they arrived. This is because a) like all multiculturalists they are in fact oikophobic, hating the “less enlightened” of those they live among and cleaving instead to an imaginary superior “other.” b) These are cultures and groups they perceive as low status, sometimes because (like the game community) they are weighted towards males, but mostly because they’re weighted towards geeks and people considered outliers by society.
If I had a dime for every time I’ve been at a convention and heard someone – usually female, although not necessarily – proclaim loudly they haven’t read any of the seminal works of the field I wouldn’t need to write for a living. They will tell how racist and sexist those works are, of course.
After all, the Missionary of the superior civilization doesn’t need to read your primitive tracts to realize he or she is far superior.
In fact, that script has become a point of pride. Instead of reading the early work in the field, these people who want to totally reform your area of interest will lecture you on your evil ways, which they know about because they’ve been told about them by other people in their group. Thus they will tell you with a straight face that science fiction had no female writers or writers of color until they came along, somehow sweeping under the rug the history of the very awards they now demand to be given as representatives of discriminated against groups.
I was reading about the various crusades online – the whole stompy foot careening into various groups and trying to shame people for not wearing pants, having the exact mix of gender/orientation and race that the Missionaries think is civilized, and then I realized this entire psychological scenario is something I remembered vividly from college.
You see, even though I was a geek girl, I can pass. Also, I was cute and enjoyed dressing up. I ran with a group of girls who were generally richer and more upper class than I was. This being Europe, they, of course, dated within their class. Usually.
But there came that time when they were either between boyfriends, or upset at their current boyfriend, and became aware that there was a boy not-in-their-class (either social, or academic, or of presentation) who was making eyes at them. Most of the time, these boys were fodder for being made fun of. But sometimes my “friend” (and by friend I mean friendly acquaintance) was bored or needed a self-esteem boost.
She would make this boy her project. It was always the same. “If only you dressed more like this” and “If only you bought a different car” and “If only you rented a place here” and “If only you changed your major.” At the end of that long list of “if only” was the unspoken promise that “I, who am so superior and so much better, will DATE you.”
Except they didn’t. Not once. They would swoop onto this guy’s life as an “interested friend” and change everything about him, and then go back to their boyfriend/find a new boyfriend more of their type.
These girls were in fact, “bad girlfriends.”
Never once had they any real interest in the boy. He was just a plaything to be molded into their image thereby giving them an ego boost. In fact, they would loudly proclaim that they would never be seen with this boy as he was or had been, but if he “only.”
The Missionaries are exactly the same. They are not fans of science fiction and fantasy. They actually have no interest in the field as it is. They have an interest in the work produced by the other Missionaries trying to enlighten the heathens, of course. And they hold out the promise that “If only.” If only we were more socially conscious. If only we celebrated the Other more. If only we were less obvious about those uncouth fantasy and science fiction elements in our stories. If only we were more like those cool-stories-literature-professors like. If only we did all of this, THEN, oh, then they would be fans. They would love us!
What this means for any self-respecting field of endeavor is that we can tune them off with impunity. They don’t love us. They haven’t ever, and they never will. They just want to get an Ego Boost by making us twist ourselves into pretzels, and then they’ll sail off to court the “real literature” crowd or more likely (because they’re all actually fairly low brow masquerading as intellectuals) the TV and movie crowd.
And if we play their game, they’ll leave us behind with our fun field in ruins. In some of these fields, like science fiction and fantasy, it has almost gone too far already. In gaming they’re being politely shown the door.
But even in science fiction and fantasy there’s hope. You see, we had to conform to their demands because the authorities in the field (the publishers in the old system) made us. The publishers, you see, belonged to the same set as the Missionaries and had gone to the same schools. So we had to write the “right” (which mostly meant the “wrong”) stuff, even if it was driving real readers away.
Now we have indie, so we don’t have to conform to the agenda anymore.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Missionaries say we have to wear pants, have inconclusive endings and write according to their “enlightened” check list.
Fortunately, they’re not fans and they have no power, now we don’t need to go through their pet publishers.
We know they don’t love us and are only using us as step-stools to “greater things” and also having much fun berating us.
We all met women (and men) like them. They’re not worth the effort.
And it’s time we collectively stopped listening to them.
Nothing annoys this type of Missionary as being soundly ignored. Let’s do it.
It’s time to put an end to this bad romance.
Worlds Of Wonder – August, 1956
By AUTHOR
Do you miss the fun SF pulp magazines of yesteryear? Have you noticed a lack of enjoyable short fiction lately? Are you looking for fantasy and humor, for high adventure, drama, and hard science? Pick up ‘Worlds of Wonder’ today! Assault Normandy on D-Day with our unsung allies of the S.A.F.! Fly for your life in the clouds of Jupiter! Reclaim a ruined planet for humanity! DON’T try to trick a genie, and change everything! Pick up the latest edition of ‘Worlds of Wonder’ for your Kindle now! Only 99₵, and guaranteed in stock today!
No Network Found
By Jerry Lawson
The Nevada Test Site in the summer of 1954… A hot wasteland of rock and sand – but the appearance of a small sphere carrying a cell phone from the future is about to change everything. That cell phone was a test article, loaded with data to be compared after a time travel experiment – tens of thousands of books on computers, networks, material science, medicine and history… on all aspects of Future Tech.
Now – the people of 1954 have to deal with technology from 2016… and the first integrated circuit hasn’t even been invented yet!
A Patriot’s Act
By Kenneth Eade
When a naturalized American citizen turns up missing in Iraq, Brent Marks fights the Goliath U.S. government with its own Constitution. Santa Barbara accountant Ahmed Khury responds to the plea of his brother, Sabeen, a suspected money launderer in Iraq. Before Ahmed realizes what has happened to him, he is in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, being subjected to torture to extract information that he doesn’t have. The drama outside the courtroom explodes, and when murder, corruption and cover-up enters the picture, nobody, including Brent, is safe.
Sarya’s Song
By Kyra Halland
In a world where music is magic, Sarya dyr-Rusac has risen from her destitute childhood to become a respected Arranger of musical magic rituals, until a wedding ritual she wrote results in tragedy. As unprecedented disasters follow, a beautiful, nameless man in chains begins to appear in her dreams, begging her to sing him free. With time running out, Sarya must discover the truth: is he too dangerous and powerful to deal with, a threat to the man she loves and to their world, or does he have the power to end the catastrophes that threaten to tear the world apart?
Nine empathies: Apprehending love and malice
By Greg Swann
Virtually all of philosophy, not just reductionist science, labors under the delusion – an empathy for the impossible – that people can be controlled from the outside, and can thus be impelled to betray their own interests and values. My impression is that the sole interest academia takes in empathy is to try to figure out how to build a better shmoo.
How do you adore your self while your loved ones suffer? How can you be so deeply in love with them that you cannot distinguish loving from being loved? How can you plan to share a lifetime – to build a home, a family, a future – with someone you really only know by conjecture? This is why you need empathy – and why its real-life expressions are never a self-sacrifice.
Shot through the Heart
By Julia Blaine
Abduction. A duel. Murder.
Since birth, Galatea was betrothed to Lord Harte Whatley. Conscientiously he visits every Tuesday and Friday. Only on Tuesdays and Fridays. Surely her up-coming, magical London Season will kindle love between them, overcoming obligation. Then Harte replaces his fickle younger brother Pierce in a fatal duel. A third shot strikes accurately. Who is the intended victim? Believing both shooters dead, Galatea and Pierce comfort each other, attempting to solve a mystery with more than one villain — in spite of meddling aunts and an important monkey. Is Harte alive? How can Galatea know who she really loves?
Acts of War
By James Young
August 1942. London is in flames. Heinrich Himmler’s Germany stands triumphant in the West, its “Most Dangerous Enemy” forced to the peace table by a hailstorm of nerve gas and incendiaries. With Adolf Hitler avenged and portions of the Royal Navy seized as war prizes, Nazi Germany casts its baleful gaze across the Atlantic towards an increasingly isolationist United States. With no causus belli, President Roosevelt must convince his fellow Americans that it is better to deal with a triumphant Germany now than to curse their children with the problem of a united, fascist Europe later.
Acts of War is the continuation of the Usurper’s War series, which charts a very different World War II. As young men and women are forced to answer their nation’s call, the choices they make and risks they take will write a different song for the Greatest Generation.
Suraiya Jafari: An American President
By Cindy Moy
Suraiya Jafari is an Indian-American Muslim Congresswoman who accidentally becomes the U.S. President. Suraiya, a Republican and former Marine lawyer, is serving as the House Minority Leader in 2022 when the vice president is charged with fraud and forced to step down. Suraiya is tapped to be vice president in an effort to rebrand the party. Then the president dies, and Suraiya moves into the Oval Office. Thereafter she deals with secession, distrust from her own party, sabotage from her political rivals, and even the threat of a third world war, all while coming to terms with how others try to define her and figuring out how she defines herself.
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