Storm Over Campbell Award

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer has been presented at the Worldcon since 1973, two years after Campbell’s death. The 47th winner was Jeannette Ng. Will there be a 48th? Many are responding to her acceptance remarks with a call to change the name of the award.

Although voting is administered by the Worldcon, the award belongs to Dell Magazines, publisher of Analog. It was named for him because Campbell edited Astounding/Analog for 34 years and in his early years at the helm he introduced Heinlein, Asimov, and many other important sf writers, reigning over what was called by the time of his death the Golden Age of SF. That cemented his legend as a discoverer of talent (regardless that in later years he passed on submissions from any number of talented newcomers incuding Samuel R. Delany and Larry Niven).

A revised version of Jeanette Ng’s acceptance remarks is posted at Medium, “John W. Campbell, for whom this award was named, was a fascist”, with the profanity removed and other corrections made.

A video of the actual speech is here —

Jeannette Ng’s tweets about the reaction include —

Annalee Newitz commented:

Rivers Solomon, another Campbell nominee, posted screenshots of the acceptance speech they would have given. Thread starts here.

N.K. Jemisin explains why the term “fascist” in Ng’s speech is apposite. Thread starts here.

Alec Nevala-Lee, author of Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, says:

Past Campbell Award winner (2000) Cory Doctorow supported Ng in an article at Boing Boing: “Read: Jeannette Ng’s Campbell Award acceptance speech, in which she correctly identifies Campbell as a fascist and expresses solidarity with Hong Kong protesters”.

Jeannette Ng’s speech was exactly the speech our field needs to hear. And the fact that she devoted the bulk of it to solidarity with the Hong Kong protesters is especially significant, because of the growing importance of Chinese audiences and fandom in sf, which exposes writers to potential career retaliation from an important translation market. There is a group of (excellent, devoted) Chinese fans who have been making noises about a Chinese Worldcon for years, and speeches like Ng’s have to make you wonder: if that ever comes to pass, will she be able to get a visa to attend?

Back when the misogynist/white supremacist wing of SF started to publicly organize to purge the field of the wrong kind of fan and the wrong kind of writer, they were talking about people like Ng. I think that this is ample evidence that she is in exactly the right place, at the right time, saying the right thing.

… When Ng took the mic and told the truth about his legacy, she wasn’t downplaying his importance: she was acknowledging it. Campbell’s odious ideas matter because he was important, a giant in the field who left an enduring mark on it. No one disagrees about that. What we want to talk about today is what that mark is, and what it means.

Another Campbell winner, John Scalzi, tried to see all sides in “Jeannette Ng, John W. Campbell, and What Should Be Said By Whom and When” at Whatever.

… You can claim the John W. Campbell Award without revering John W. Campbell, or paying him lip service, and you can criticize him, based on what you see of his track record and your interpretation of it. The award is about the writing, not about John W. Campbell, and that is a solid fact. If a recipient of the Campbell Award can’t do these things, or we want to argue that they shouldn’t, then probably we should have a conversation about whether we should change the name of the award. It wouldn’t be the first time an award in the genre has been materially changed in the fallout of someone calling out the problems with the award’s imagery. The World Fantasy Award was changed in part because Nnedi Okorafor and Sofia Samatar were public (Samatar in her acceptance speech!) about the issue of having a grotesque of blatant racist HP Lovecraft as the trophy for the award. There was a lot of grousing and complaining and whining about political correctness then, too. And yet, the award survives, and the new trophy, for what it’s worth, is gorgeous. So, yes, if this means we have to consider whether it’s time to divorce Campbell from the award, let’s have that discussion.

Now, here’s a real thing: Part of the reaction to Ng’s speech is people being genuinely hurt. There are still people in our community who knew Campbell personally, and many many others one step removed, who idolize and respect the writers Campbell took under his wing. And there are people — and once again I raise my hand — who are in the field because the way Campbell shaped it as a place where they could thrive. Many if not most of these folks know about his flaws, but even so it’s hard to see someone with no allegiance to him, either personally or professionally, point them out both forcefully and unapologetically. They see Campbell and his legacy abstractly, and also as an obstacle to be overcome. That’s deeply uncomfortable.

It’s also a reality. Nearly five decades separate us today from Campbell. It’s impossible for new writers today to have the same relationship to him as their predecessors in the field did, even if the influence he had on the field works to their advantage….

Bounding Into Comics’ Spencer Baculi unexpectedly followed Doctorow’s and Scalzi’s lead, even though the site often covers the work of Jon Del Arroz and Vox Day’s Alt-Comics: “2019 John W. Campbell Award Winner Jeanette Ng Labels Influential Sci-Fi Author as a “Fascist” During Acceptance Speech”.

…Ng’s assessment of Campbell is undoubtedly informed by Campbell’s personal politics and beliefs and those who have written about him. Campbell argued that African-Americans were “barbarians” deserving of police brutality during the 1965 Watts Riots, as “the “brutal” actions of police consist of punishing criminal behavior.” His unpublished story All featured such racist elements that author Robert Heinlein, who built upon Campbell’s original story for his own work titled Sixth Column, had to “reslant” the story before publishing it. In the aftermath of the Kent State massacre, when speaking of the demonstrators murdered by the Ohio National Guard, Campbell stated that “I’m not interested in victims. I’m interested in heroes.” While difficult to presume where Campbell’s beliefs would place him in modern politics, it is apparent that Campbell would disagree with many of the beliefs held by modern America.

Ng’s speech unsurprisingly caused backlash and outrage among some members of the literary community, with some claiming that Ng should have withheld from insulting the man whose award she was receiving.

Chris M. Barkley praised Ng’s comments in his File 770 post “So Glad You (Didn’t) Ask — Special Irish Worldcon Edition, Day Four”.

…I was one of the people madly cheering this speech. I posted a meme on Facebook as she was still speaking: “Jeannette Ng is AWESOME!!!!!” Moments later, swept up in the moment, I posted another meme, “I’m just gonna say it: The Name of the John W. Campbell Award SHOULD BE F***KING CHANGED!”

To clamor atop a soapbox for a moment; NO, I am not advocating that the life and work of John W. Campbell, Jr. be scrubbed from history. But neither should we turn a blind, uncritical eye to his transgressions. When the winners of such a prestigious award start getting angry because the person behind it is viewed to be so vile and reprehensible, that ought to be acknowledged as well….

Mark Blake honored a request to comment about Campbell on Facebook.

For a brief period a few years ago, my byline was prominently associated with the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. This was not because I’d ever won such an award, or even appeared on the ballot (I was never a nominee), but rather because I assembled anthologies for the purpose of showcasing new writers during their two-year window of eligibility, as an exercise in public awareness of writing that, despite potential merit, might not have received sufficient reviews to garner an audience among the Worldcon membership at large.

In that context, someone asked me to defend Campbell because of the acceptance speech given by this year’s recipient.

This was an uncomfortable request. The more I’ve learned about Campbell over the years, the more certain I’ve become that I wouldn’t have even wanted to share an elevator with him, much less try to sell him a story… and I say that despite having learned any number of his storytelling and editing techniques by way of hand-me-down tutelage….

Amazing Stories’ Steve Davidson was mainly concerned that Ng’s remarks were bad for the brand – i.e., Ng mistakenly identified Campbell as an editor of his magazine instead of Astounding/Analog. “Emergency Editorial”.

…A couple of days ago we watched and updated our post covering the 2019 Hugo Awards;  we were a bit surprised at Jeannette Ng’s acceptance where she made some connections between fascism in the SF field, fascism in the US and the events taking place in Hong Kong right now.  Hong Kong is Ms. Ng’s home base and we are absolutely and completely in sympathy with her and the protesters who are braving arrest, and possibly worse, as they try to maintain their freedoms.

We entirely missed the misattributions of Ms. Ng’s speech;  what she wanted to do was identify John W. Campbell Jr., the editor of Astounding Stories, as a fascist.  She ended up naming Jospeph Campbell as the editor of Amazing Stories….

I am sure she is tired, chuffed, overwhelmed and, perhaps even a bit embarrassed over having misnamed Campbell and the magazine he was associated with in front of an audience and a community that knows this history without even thinking about it.

But the internet being what it is, disrespect for facts being what they are these days, I can not allow the idea that John W. Campbell – racist, anti-semite, fascist, misogynist, whatever – was associated with Amazing Stories to go unchallenged….

Ng has issued a correction:

Swedish Fan Ahrvid Engholm today sent two fannish listservs copies of a complaint he has filed with the Dublin 2019 committee that Ng’s speech violated the convention’s Code of Conduct.

…One may wonder what a Code of Conduct is worth, if it isn’t respected by those who have all eyes upon them on the big stage, during the highlight of a convention, such as the awards ceremonies witnessed by thousands.

I therefore want to report, as a breach of the Code of Conduct during Dublin 2019, the intimidation and personal attacks in Jeannette Ng’s Campbell Award speech, of which the very lows are wordings like:

“John W. Campbell…was a fascist” and he was “setting a tone” she claims “haunts” us as “Sterile. Male. White.” glorifying “imperialists” etc.

Full text here https://twitter.com/jeannette_ng/status/1163182894908616706
Several parts of the CoC (as published in the Pocket Convention Guide, and also here https://dublin2019.com/about/code-of-conduct/) may apply, but let me point to:

“Everyone involved with Dublin 2019 is expected to show respect towards…the various communities associated with the convention. …Dublin 2019 is dedicated to provide a harassment-free convention experience for all Attendees regardless of…gender…race…We do not tolerate harassment of convention attendees in any form” /which includes:/
* Comments intended to belittle, offend or cause discomfort”

Most if not all would find being called a “fascist” offending, surely causing discomfort.

And it’s especially deplorable when the person belittled this way has passed away and thus can’t defend himself. It is reported that John W Campbell’s grandson John Campbell Harrmond was present at the convention that branded his grandfather a “fascist”. John W Campbell was the leading sf magazine editor of his era (of Astounding SF, not Amazing Stories as this far from well-founded speech said) and have many admirers who also have cause to feel offended. If you like Campbell, the claim he is a “fascist” surely splashes on you too – you’d be “fascist sympathiser”.

Ms Ng continues to harass whole categories of convention Attendees, those who are “male” and “white”. They are “sterile” and the negative “tone” claimed being “set” in the sf genre. It must be noted that the CoC is explicitly against slurs regarding race and gender. (And in these circumstances “white” indicates race and “male” gender.) The CoC further says it won’t be tolerated “in any form”, which surely must also include the form of a speech from a big stage.

It is too late now do do anything about this regrettable episode, but those making reports are asked to state what they would like to happen next. What I simply want is to get it confirmed that the event reported indeed IS a breach of the CoC, because that could be important for the future.

–Ahrvid Engholm
sf con-goer since 1976 (of Worldcons since 1979)

Scott Edelman supported Ng in several comments, describing his deep unhappiness with some of Campbell’s opinions at the time the were originally published 50 years ago. He also quoted this anecdote from the autobiography of William Tenn / Phil Klass:

232 thoughts on “Storm Over Campbell Award

  1. I grew up reading Astounding/Analog, and IMO it’s a good thing that Campbell’s influence is finally waning. (I dropped my subscription three years ago; I got tired of reading the same kind of stories every month, most of them not all that good, and way too many reading like they were from the 40s.) Most of the people I’m reading now wouldn’t have gotten published with him as editor; they’re not cis/het white males, and they’re not writing heroes who are blue-eyed blonds with square jaws.
    Yes, he did good things, but that was in a different time, and we’re not living then.

  2. Mike Glyer: Well, there a number of discussions going on here, some peripheral.

    I suppose you’re right about the response to the speech and to the reactions to the speech. However, if the effect was intentional, it seems a bit manipulative. My conclusion is that humans are insane, needing to be manoeuvered by others.

  3. Jeff Jones: “My conclusion is that humans are insane…”

    Why yes we are. But it doesn’t mean we can’t try to be better.

  4. Jeff Jones, is trying to persuade someone of something manipulative in all cases? I suppose it depends on your definition of the word. The connotations of the word “manipulative” implies to me a certain venal self-interest, like, say, advertising or a political rally.

    The Oxford English Dictionary (best birthday present ever!) give this definition for manipulation (the first three do not refer to modifying human behavior):

    4. The act of operating upon or managing persons or things with dexterity; esp. with disparaging implication, unfair management or treatment (of documents, etc.).

    So the OED agrees with me that manipulation has a negative connotation.

    I don’t see venal self-interest or unfair treatment in Ng’s acceptance speech, so I do not consider it manipulative. If your definition of manipulative is different than mine and the OED’s, than I suppose your mileage may vary.

  5. @Jeff Jones: Telling overdue truths in an articulate and impassioned way can be persuasive.

    You call that manipulative manoeuvring; I call it persuasiion. So, I’m going to make a wild guess that your choice of vocabulary owes to your having judged Ng’s choice of overdue truth somehow unwelcome. What say you? Am I near the target? In the same time zone?

  6. “However, if the effect was intentional, it seems a bit manipulative. My conclusion is that humans are insane, needing to be manoeuvered by others.”

    It sounds as if you are trying to manipulate us into disagreeing with Ng without having any argument for why we should.

  7. Jeff Jones on August 25, 2019 at 5:16 pm said:

    I just read the edited speech again and it gives the impression that Ms. Ng has a low view of males and/or whites, even if that wasn’t intended.

    It may give you that impression; it certainly didn’t give me that impression. Like the previous fellow, I would like to suggest that you speak for yourself, instead of trying to put words in my mouth.

    I suppose it might read as if she’s a bit grumpy at white men, but then, who isn’t? I’ve been grumpy about white men for a while, particularly in the last couple of years, and I are one! 🙂

  8. @Cassy B.: Actually, I think that she was not consciously trying to manipulate, just expressing how she felt (genuinely angry), therefore no manipulation. Anyways, I don’t speak Oxford English.

    @Rick Moen: Obviously persuasive. But was it a calculated effort? I don’t think so. Unfortunately, it’s too late for Campbell to reform his views.

    @Hampus Eckerman: Where do you get that from?

    @Xtifr: I’m not putting words in anyone’s mouth. I only said that a certain part of the speech gives that impression, to me and clearly to some others (not everybody).

    p.s. If someone reads a text while in a combative frame of mind, they’ll almost certainly succeed in misunderstanding.

  9. “Where do you get that from?”

    From what you wrote. Instead of discussing what she was addressing, starting to go into how it was addressed. But I see you have withdrawn your accusation of manipulation.

    With regards to “Sterile. White. Male.”, I see that as Ng not speaking at Worldcon at all, nor even the world of SFF, so referring to the CoC is kind of weird. She is instead talking about the kind of works Campbell wanted to limit his publishing to. I think “Sterile” is an apt description for words such as “Cold Equations”, entirely lacking in life or humanity.

  10. I didn’t make that accusation; my statement was conditioned by a proposition I never expressed agreement with AFAICT.

    I suspect you’re right about Ng’s intent but the speech itself can be understood more than one way; that’s all.

    OK. Was Ng (a fantasy writer?) criticizing Campbell’s political views or his editorial views or both (at different points in the speech)? I happen to like hard SF while I see his politics as being delusionary.

  11. @Jeff —

    OK. Was Ng (a fantasy writer?) criticizing Campbell’s political views or his editorial views or both (at different points in the speech)?

    For heaven’s sake, the whole speech was less than two minutes long.

    😉

    She was saying that his political views influenced his editorial views, which in turn encouraged a limited range of topics and treatments in the sff stories told by the authors at the time.

  12. @Contrarius: OK. I hadn’t gotten the connection. Of course, a given publication is necessarily limited, which is why it’s good to have many different publications.

  13. ” Was Ng (a fantasy writer?) criticizing Campbell’s political views or his editorial views or both (at different points in the speech)?”

    I do not see them as separate things. I see his worldview as shown in editorials and other places influencing his editing and what works he accepted. I do think that they should be critisized as one. And I thought everyone had understood that the problem with Campbell as an editor was not who and what he allowed to be published, but who and what he kept out. As en example, Delaney being refused because they couldn’t have a black hero.

    And yes, all speechs can be seen in more than one way. Especially if you, as you said, listen or read them while in a combative frame of mind. But in the context of her saying how grateful she was and how wonderful she said the SFF community was, I have a very, very hard time seeing how anyone reading the speech more than once can believe she targeted it against white men as a group.

    I can understand it if you listen to it once and being filled up with feelings. Not if you sit down and read it again in a more neutral state.

    With regards to Ahrvid (hi Ahrvid!), I think he has taken it a bit further than I’m comfortable with. He hasn’t only tried to speak about the good things Campbell has done. He hasn’t stayed with saying he was a man of his time (which was a more prejudiced time than now). He has actually defended several of the essays, trying to argue why there wasn’t anything especially wrong with them.

    I’m not okay with that.

  14. @Jeff: Saying the speech can be interpreted in more than one way is meaningless. Phil Dick could probably have interpreted it as a warning that the Martians were about to invade. The question is, how could a reasonable person have interpreted? And if you think it could have been interpreted as saying “all white men are bad”, I’m not entirely sure you’re being reasonable. If it had been a white man saying it, would you have interpreted it that way? And if not, then isn’t there at least a hint of racism in interpreting it differently just because a (well-educated, intelligent) PoC said it?

    (And before you get all huffy about the “r” word, let me point out that I don’t claim to be entirely free of racism myself. I wish I were. It’s something I’m working on; something most of us need to work on. But it’s not that easy. It saturates our society and is nearly impossible to escape.)

  15. Some additional comments…
    It would be a bad idea to deprive the Campbell new writer award its raison d’etre, the fact that the award came to existence because John W Campbell was the editor who discovered scores of new, important sf writers.
    Two principles must be remembered: 1) It is futile to view yesterday through glasses of today. And: 2) Racism and fascism isn’t the same thing.
    That doesn’t mean racism isn’t deplorable, it just means it’s something else than fascism, which according to Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism ) is “authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy” – racism isn’t mentioned.
    The founder of fascism, the Italian dictator Mussolini, didn’t engage in persecution of Jews like his buddy Hitler (or at least not until the setbacks in the war had stripped him of all power and he became a German puppet). There’s an interesting definition: fascism + racism = nazism. The last is what Hitler was into, but it also says racism is a (detestable, of course) practice SEPERATE from fascism.
    John W Campbell wasn’t a fascist by any acceptable definition. I’m aware of that many think that “fascist” must be a description of anything “vaguely right-wing which I don’t like…” – but it’s wrong. We can’t let the meaning of words slip and slide around. That’s dangerous. Soon anything becomes “fascist”. Some dimwitted call meter maids fascists as they write out tickets, for instance, and suddently real fascism becomes pretty tolerable in comparison.
    Now, was Campbell a racist? By today’s standards, it can be argued. You can find phrasings here and there, which however are parts of longer, complex reasonings and discussions with other aims. You can study Collected Editorials from Analog (ed Harry Harrison, 1966, a left-winger but still a fan of JWC) freely available here: https://archive.org/details/collectededitori01camp
    Harrison writes in his forword:

    “The editorials took on a unique character of their own, they became Campbell Editorials, and have been the center of controversy ever since. … John W. Campbell is a born trouble-maker. The mere fact that something exists and that millions believe in it does not convince Campbell of its validity. Quite the opposite, this seems to be the point where he begins to doubt… He stopped writing stories as examples as soon as he had mastered the technique of the Campbell editorial inquisition, or writer’s conference. This has been likened, by writers who have experienced it, to being fed through a buzz saw or a man-sized meatgrinder. It is a painful process, I’ll vouch for that, because a Campbell conversation consists almost entirely of loaded questions that demand answers. No one really likes to be forced to think. Campbell forces you. It is a heartening experience that should be part of the training of all budding SF writers, providing their hearts are in good shape and their sweat glands functioning well… /Campbell’s editorials were/ idiosyncratic, personal, prejudiced, far-reaching, annoying, and sabotaging. All of these terms have been applied by readers – and far stronger ones as well… The next editorial, on politics, will bring the social scientists out of the woodwork with arguments blasting, both pro and con. For almost thirty years now the Campbell editorials have produced shouts of joy and moans of pain from thousands of ASF readers. Campbell is always happiest when far out on a limb.”

    The impression one gets is that Campbell was a very demanding editor (remember: trouble-maker!) constantly questioning things among his writers as well as in his editorials. He would launch or play around with ideas as test balloons to force people to think and react. We can’t be sure that every idea that Campbell expresses is something he really and deeply stands behind. It may very well be a temporary whim. He was an intellectual constantly banging his head against the limits of thought. That’s far, far away from fascism which is dictatorial and doesn’t accept opposing thoughts.
    And what we have to remember that Campbell, born in 1910, was a product of his time, the early 20th Century (and a person’s basic properties are fully formed by around age 25, it’s often noted). Whatever Campbell says about race – and it isn’t much, see eg the editorials above – seems close to the everyday racism of his era. He isn’t exceptional in any way here. He assumes things about race that many shared from the decades when he grew up and was formed.
    And it’s wrong to view history through modern goggles. We can’t change history. We can learn from history, but we can’t change it. Here’s why it’d be a bad idea to slaughter the Campbell award and give it a meaningless name:
    There are hundreds if not thousands of awards named after people (not only in literature, in all areas). There must be thousands if not tens of thousands of roads, buildings, bridges, parks, scholarships etc named after persons. If you study people thus honoured, from Campbell’s generation, I’d estimate that if you dig into their background probably 70-90% have expressed the everyday – for it’s time – views we’ve sometimes seen from Campbell too.
    Those who want to go into the meaningsless task of attempting to rewrite history has a monumental task ahead of them! Thousands of campaigns! Thousands of names to be changed! Terabytes of arguments!
    It’s silly. We’ve had enough of retroactive self-rightousness. Let history be what it is.

    –Ahrvid

  16. Ahrvid Engholm on August 26, 2019 at 4:23 am said:
    John W Campbell wasn’t a fascist by any acceptable definition.

    by ANY acceptable definition? Well that sounds like a challenge for me to dust off my political dictionaries. I’ll come back to that.

    And it’s wrong to view history through modern goggles.

    A very relativistic perspective which is a paradox if we are looking back at a period of more moral certainty.

    We’ve had enough of retroactive self-rightousness. Let history be what it is.

    You are contradicting yourself. Are we supposed to be ignoring Campbell’s views or examining Campbell’s views? The man either has a legacy or he doesn’t.

    If he doesn’t have legacy we can ignore his views but then why bother having his name attached to an award. If he does then we should LEAVE HISTORY ALONE not edited it make it seem nicer to avoid upsetting a modern audience – in which case we shouldn’t attach his name (and views) to a modern award.

  17. @Xtifr: Yes, it’s a reasonable reaction. It takes care and study to find the other possibilities. And I’m amused, not huffy. Her color has nothing to do with it. Try a different hypothesis. You’re beginning to sound delusional (to me, in case that’s not clear). Excuse me for getting personal.

  18. Ahrvid
    Those who want to go into the meaningsless task of attempting to rewrite history has a monumental task ahead of them! Thousands of campaigns! Thousands of names to be changed! Terabytes of arguments!
    It’s silly. We’ve had enough of retroactive self-rightousness. Let history be what it is.

    I disagree. The past is not the dead past. It’s not even dead. Not examining our past as a field says “No, we’re not willing to engage with the darker and more distasteful aspects of it. We’re not willing to grow. We’re not willing to change.” That is a very conservative political (with a small p) philosophy. It’s a philosophy of tradition of “he’s always had the award name, why change it now? Why rock the boat”. That’s a recipe for stagnation for a field.

    The future of SFF, I feel, are in people like Ng, Kowal, Martine and Jemisin, not in dusty enshrining of figures, forms and beliefs of the past.

    And yes, Ahrvid, it IS painful to realize that authors and works that I loved when younger have issues through the lens of today. That is in essence what the “Suck Fairy” is all aboutl. But a gauzy “let Campbell be” sort of mentality sends a message to new writers, especially women and those of colour, that those beliefs should remain unexamined.

    It’s (here in America) the Confederate Statue problem. Or here in Minnesota, the “Lake Calhoun” problem.

  19. @Ahrvid: If you think there’s too much in the present that needs examining and fixing, and want to focus there, by all means go ahead and put your energy where you think best. But if that’s your motivation, why are you wasting valuable fixing-things time on trying to convince us that it’s inappropriate to worry about the view of dead people, and also Ng was wrong to call Campbell a fucking fascist because he was only a fucking racist?

    You’ve set this up to use up other people’s valuable time, not just your own. If the Dublin concom takes your complaint at all seriously, that’s someone’s time being used up answering it, when they could be doing other post-con wrap-up stuff, catching up with the rest of their lives, or taking political action on other subjects.

  20. People called Campbell a fascist while he was still alive. You and I might disagree with those people, but we can’t impose our modern sensibilities onto historical figures. That would be wrong.

  21. “John W Campbell wasn’t a fascist by any acceptable definition.”

    I’d say he was a fascist by several well-known definitions. Umberto Eco’s definition on ur-fascism is often referred to and Eco starts it off with the following sentences:

    ” These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.”

    And there are of course several other definitions of fascism for which Campbell is a fit.

    Arguing against democracy (which he called “mob rule”), calling for the government to be ruled by a small elite, wanting to remove the voting rights for the 80% of the population with lowest income, supporting the murder of the students at Kent state as a rightful punishment for protesting against the government, concluding that genetics made it a bad idea to try to help people in poverty, thinking blacks had it better in slavery – well, these are all hallmarks of fascist attitudes.

    Even looked at through yesteryears glasses, Campbell would still commonly be seen as a fascist and was indeed called a fascist during his own lifetime.

  22. Camestros Felapton:

    Are we supposed to be ignoring Campbell’s views or
    examining Campbell’s views?
    Ignore them, because whatever indignant rants say his views were complex, searching, testing but in specifics bashed here they weren’t extreme but normal for people of his generation.
    –Ahrvid

  23. “…but in specifics bashed here they weren’t extreme but normal for people of his generation.”

    There were of course others who, during the time of the growing civil rights movement, wrote editorials in support of murdering students, of removing the voting rights for those not rich enough or who argued that blacks would have been better off in slavery.

    Those people we commonly call racists, fascists and people on the wrong side of history. Those whose racist worldview was defeated in the struggle for equal rights for everyone.

    John W Campbell was on the side of those that lost. His was the worldview people demonstrated against.

  24. Comment to Hampus Eckerman:
    – I don’t agree with Eco’s claim that just one property of fascism is enough for it to be fascism. The whole package must be there.
    – “Mob rule” was an expression used tentatively, as an element in a chain of reasoning. The same with with his discussion around an income threshold to vote.
    – Source for your genetics claim, please? (I suspect you misinterpret JWC.) Dito regarding slavery.
    – As for the Ken State shootings, this indicates he didn’t defend it: https://twitter.com/scottedelman/status/1164724541270167557 . He talked about was that it was stupid by bystanders that were hit to not have run away, thus “knowingly taking a risk”. To me it sounds reasonable to get the hell out of a place if you see trouble coming!
    – Look, if you read eg Harry Harrison’s foreword to the editorials collection you realise that Campbell liked to lob ideas around, to get reactions, to use as test balloons, to probe the limits of thought. It’s doubtful if he stood behind every whim or that they meant what you think.

    –Ahrvid
    …who however hopes not to spend too much time here, commenting people who have already made up their mind.

  25. “– As for the Ken State shootings, this indicates he didn’t defend it: https://twitter.com/scottedelman/status/1164724541270167557 . He talked about was that it was stupid by bystanders that were hit to not have run away, thus “knowingly taking a risk”. To me it sounds reasonable to get the hell out of a place if you see trouble coming!”

    The last line of that editorial:
    “It was too bad that the wrong four died but for the group of students, punishment was due”:

    Ahrvid.

    I don’t see how that ISN’T a defense of the Kent State Shootings. But maybe I am dumb and I am missing a subtlety here.

  26. He talked about was that it was stupid by bystanders that were hit to not have run away, thus “knowingly taking a risk”. To me it sounds reasonable to get the hell out of a place if you see trouble coming!

    Two of the students who were killed were proceeding to their classes, as normal. How is that “knowingly taking a risk”? Do you contend that civilians on a college campus should expect the military to open fire on unarmed civilians? Campus demonstrations were fairly commonplace at the time. If students never went out or tried to go to class if there was a demonstration, honestly, they’d have been considered paranoid and wasting their tuition money.

    This is a classic case of blaming the victim, and I frankly find it reprehensible.

  27. Paul W:

    “It was too bad that the wrong four died but for the group of
    students, punishment was due”.
    I don’t find that line in the link I gave. If you have the entire text, give us a link. For some reason I’ve found that just snippets tend to give the wrong impression of things. I wonder why…
    –Ahrvid

  28. @Ahvrid. It’s right in the second image of the editorial that Scott attached to the tweet that you linked. There are two images that Scott linked in that tweet.

    You perhaps missed that second image.

  29. @Ahrvid —

    Two principles must be remembered: 1) It is futile to view yesterday through glasses of today.

    Campbell was NOT a part of the “norm” even for his day. In fact, multiple authors who worked with him commented on the extremism of his views.

    And: 2) Racism and fascism isn’t the same thing.

    This is a wild red herring. There is nothing in the Code of Conduct against calling dead men fascists, so it’s irrelevant to your complaint whether you agree with it or not.

    And also remember, Michael Moorcock specifically called Campbell a fascist way back in 1971. This isn’t some newfangled notion Ng has come up with.

    Those who want to go into the meaningsless task of attempting to rewrite history has a monumental task ahead of them!

    The sff community is not responsible for every monument, bridge, highway, and so on. It is responsible only for the sff community. And nobody is trying to “rewrite” history — only to be a bit more careful in its choice of whom to publicly honor.

    And, again — there is nothing against the Code of Conduct about agitating to rename an award, so once again your complaint about names is irrelevant.

    Why do you keep trying to distract attention from the ridiculousness of your CoC complaint?

  30. Ahrvid Engholm:

    “– I don’t agree with Eco’s claim that just one property of fascism is enough for it to be fascism. The whole package must be there.”

    That doesn’t matter to me. Your claim was that no acceptable definition would call Campbell a fascist. Eco’s is widely used by scholars. That you think other definitions might be better does not hinder Eco’s from being widely quoted. How about for now accepting that people who call Campbell use this definition or one of the several ones of the same type? For swedish scholars, I’d point you to the work of Lena Berggren about Swedish fascism 1920-1950.

    That he used the expression “mob rule” with regards to democracy in a chain of reasoning still means that he thought it was a good argument to refer to democracy as “mob rule”.

    The link with regards to Kent State clearly shows him advocating the murder of children.
    I have read the foreword of Harrisson. I’d call someone lobbying out racism and fascism for “reaction” a racist and fascist who knows it is not socially acceptable to be one. We’ve seen more edgelords than Harrison and know them when we see them.

  31. Paul Weimer:
    No, I don’t fins it. Maybe there’s something with my browser? (Give us a direct URL!)

    Contrarius:

    authors who worked with him commented on the extremism of his views
    Misinterpretation, I think. “Extremism” of his contant questioning of things sounds more like it.

    Michael Moorcock specifically called Campbell a fascist way back in 1971
    So what. It doesn’t make it follow the CoC.

    sff community is not responsible for every monument, bridge, highway, and so on
    Moral principles must be universal. If you claim something, you must do the same both within and outside the SF/F community.

    nobody is trying to “rewrite” history
    Many are in this thread

    Hampus:

    Eco’s is widely used by scholars
    It isn’t.

    –Ahrvid

  32. The founder of fascism, the Italian dictator Mussolini, didn’t engage in persecution of Jews like his buddy Hitler (or at least not until the setbacks in the war had stripped him of all power and he became a German puppet). There’s an interesting definition: fascism + racism = nazism. The last is what Hitler was into, but it also says racism is a (detestable, of course) practice SEPERATE from fascism.

    BULLSHIT.

  33. @Ahrvid —

    Misinterpretation, I think. “Extremism” of his contant questioning of things sounds more like it.

    Ahrvid, Michael Moorcock’s quote was very clear. Multiple other author statements are also very clear. It’s hard to misinterpret statements like “the man was a fascist” or “he told me black people wanted to be slaves” or “he said a technologically advanced civilization run by black people was a biological impossibility”.

    Stop deluding yourself.

    And again: there is no CoC policy against calling dead men fascists, whether you agree with it or not.

    So what. It doesn’t make it follow the CoC.

    And yet again — there is no CoC policy against calling dead men fascists.

    Moral principles must be universal. If you claim something, you must do the same both within and outside the SF/F community.

    No.

    If I believe it is a Good Thing to feed my own cat every day, that does not mean that I am personally responsible for feeding every cat in the world every day. I have taken personal responsibility for my own cat; I have not taken personal responsibility for every cat in the world.

    Similarly: the sff community takes personal responsibility for things that happen within the community, like the naming of awards. The sff community has not taken personal responsibility for every name on every award, bridge, or whatever out there in the world.

    I said: nobody is trying to “rewrite” history
    You responded: Many are in this thread

    That’s a lie.

    Please stop lying, Ahrvid.

    And you didn’t answer my question, so I’ll ask again: why do you keep trying to distract attention from the ridiculousness of your CoC complaint?

  34. Ah, yes. The very non-racist Mussolini who in 1920 held a speech saying:

    “When dealing with such a race as Slavic – inferior and barbarian – we must not pursue the carrot, but the stick policy…. We should not be afraid of new victims…. The Italian border should run across the Brenner Pass, Monte Nevoso and the Dinaric Alps…. I would say we can easily sacrifice 500,000 barbaric Slavs for 50,000 Italians.”

    Not to say when he in 1921 held a speech in Bologna on how fascism was born out of the needs of the aryan race.

  35. Campbell liked to lob ideas around, to get reactions, to use as test balloons, to probe the limits of thought. It’s doubtful if he stood behind every whim or that they meant what you think.

    You know what the difference is between an edgelord who throws out racist ideas or fascist ideas in extended editorials, and a person who believes these things in earnest?

    None whatever.

    Sometimes teenagers throw these ideas around while trying to figure out why the world works, or doesn’t. And it’s not impossible for someone technically not a teenager anymore but still in the same adolescent learning-the-world phase, to write a college newspaper editorial that they later cringe at because they were tossing out ideas with no real idea of their real-world implications. But teenagers are supposed to be mutable beings who try things on for size, and probably within the same week or month of trying one radical idea on, they will also test out its polar opposite. Moreover, despite their reputation for rebelling against everything their parents/teachers/grown-ups think, most of them abandon flirting with anything genuinely abhorrent the moment that all the sane and respectable adults or peers in the vicinity cringe. (This would be why most racists are raised by racists; not enough actual pushback.)

    (And this does not in any way excuse teenagers who ACT on those impulses and commit violence based on one of these ideas they are flirting with. That’s a whole other discussion I want to head off before it starts.)

    Still flirting with the idea as a 30, 40, or 50-some adult is no longer teenage experimentation. And Campbell never flirted with one idea then with its opposite. He flirted consistently WITH racism and fascism, and never once suggested anything, either seriously or in jest, other than fascism.

    This is not the actions of someone playing with ideas he doesn’t take seriously. He might be refining the details of his fascism, but the fascism is still, at its core, fascism. he might admit if pressed with evidence that a specific racist thought was wrong but he would not let go his basic underlying racism. He did not believe in the vote for all. He wanted those in charge to have executive power. He believed black people had never produced any intellectual geniuses. He WAS a fascist and he WAS a racist.

    (And lest anyone think it’s just him, and that we only want to remove award names* from Right-wingers, Tiptree is coming under heavy fire right now too.)

    *Remove award names. Not erase the existence or history thereof. People will not forget Campbell existed and the books about him — one written this last year — will not vanish if he does not have an award named for him. And if he does vanish for history that quickly at the absence of ONE accolade? Then his hold on a place in the history books was too tenuous to care about in the first place.

  36. I cannot write an articulated response to the many, many stupid and false characterization of fascism, all of them trivial to prove false, Ahrvid has posted.

    But Umberto Eco – who by the way did not say what Ahrvid says he did – FUCKING LIVED THROUGH FASCISM. As did my extended family. As my friends in Italy would say, you could power a small city using the dead Italians of the 1920-1948 as dynamos right now.

  37. WSFS should take over the Best New Writer award, and sell naming rights. If you want someone other than Campbell to bear the name of the award, and can kickstart or otherwise fund a bigger price than anyone else, you get to pick the new name.

    Advantages:

    Cash to WSFS.

    There is no expectation that using a person’s name on the award somehow indicates that the WSFS is “honoring” that person; no expectation that someone who receives the award is tainted by the moral failings of the named person. When Nascar drivers won the Winston Cup (back when there was a Winston Cup), no one took their victory to endorse smoking, or the attitudes of slave-owner Joseph Winston. It was just an award, the name of which was a result of a commercial transaction. It’s all about the Benjamins.

    It’s temporary. When someone comes up with a criticism of the most recent buyer of naming rights (and they will), the current owner can be paid off to relinquish rights, or their time will eventually pass. There used to be an Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, but there isn’t any more.

  38. Selling naming rights is a clear statement that you don’t really give a shit about the thing being named. When you do care, it’s not “all about the Benjamins.”

  39. @bill —

    When Nascar drivers won the Winston Cup (back when there was a Winston Cup), no one took their victory to endorse smoking

    It’s a little different, though. The Winston Cup is commercial — the Winston Company purchased the rights, and it’s won not by fan approval but by objective performance standards.

    In contrast, the Campbell Company did not purchase the rights, the Analog Company (or the Dell Company, or however that works out with all the parent companies) did. And the award is won by fan approval, which means the fans have a more personal stake in it.

    I am not hugely offended by the name, but I don’t have much of a dog in that hunt. On the one hand, I have always been slightly bemused about the Hugo organization handing out a not-a-Hugo, so I would not be at all upset if the WSFS decided to start their own New Writer award; but as a white person myself, it’s relatively easy for me to ignore Campbell’s personal failings, so I would also not be terribly upset to see his name remain as a reminder of where we’ve come from.

  40. @Lis Carey

    Selling naming rights is a clear statement that you don’t really give a shit about the thing being named. When you do care, it’s not “all about the Benjamins.”

    But naming the award after a racist/facist is a clear sign that you do give a shit?

    How does one name an award in a way that indicates you do care? No matter what you come up with, there will be someone who differs. The proposal was a tongue-in-cheek way of getting away from that, and finding a benefit in an alternative.

  41. @bill —

    I don’t see why the award has to be named after anyone. I’d be fine with Best New Writer or Best Debut Novel or whatever. (And yes, I included the word “Novel” intentionally, because I personally refuse to put anyone on the Campbell ballot who hasn’t written a novel yet.)

  42. I said I’d come back to definitions of fascism. I see Hampus has already raised Umberto Eco’s Ur-fascism list, which I think is one of the most insightful into fascist movements.

    To save bandwidth on this already lengthy thread, I’ve put a heap of them on my blog https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2019/08/27/some-definitions-of-fascism/

    There are others! Some emphasise the economic policies of Mussolini more, others don’t. Does Campbell fit EVERY definition? Nope. He didn’t march around in a uniform with his own gang of street thugs for example, so if that’s an essential criteria for you then we’d have to say he had many things in common with fascism or shared many fascist views rather than the straight-forward “he was a fascist”. However, by many of the definitions, I think it is a simple match to say he was fascist, even if not a self-admitted one.

    To say this:

    Ahrvid Engholm on August 26, 2019 at 4:23 am said:
    John W Campbell wasn’t a fascist by any acceptable definition.

    …is a silly point. There are multiple points of connection.

    Was Campbell a man of his time? Sure, but who isn’t a person of their time? Mussoilini was a man of his time, that doesn’t make him any less of a despot.

  43. @bill–Fans didn’t name the award. The publisher that owned the magazine Campbell was the long-time editor of did. And they probably didn’t care much, and were likely more aware of the fact that Campbell made the magazine a success than of his editorials or editorial policies.

    So, no, WSFS doesn’t even have the right to change the name of the current award. If we did, the fact that Dell didn’t care isn’t an argument that it’s mistaken or hypocritical for us to care.

    Same if we establish a new award and stop presenting the Campbell. The fact that Dell doesn’t care isn’t an argument against us caring.

    Of course, some people do seem to be convinced that no one should be offended by anything anyway–except the shocking act of women & POC speaking up to say something has been offensive for a long time; they just haven’t been heard before this, because nobody was listening.

  44. @Ahrvid Engholm: You entering this discussion has actually changed my mind. I was unaware until just now that Campbell had said this about the students murdered at Kent State: “It was too bad that the wrong four died but for the group of students, punishment was due”. Given that, fascist is exactly the right word for him.

    Sorry, folks–I was wrong to argue for definitional purity. John W. Campbell was a fascist. Maybe not a Fascist, but I would say a FASCIST.

  45. Ahrvid Engholm:

    You’ve dug yourself so far into a hole that you’re almost all the way to New Zealand.

    The only thing you’re doing with your defenses of Campbell, and your attempt to distract from who and what he was, is showing yourself to be a person with despicable values.

    STOP DIGGING.

  46. Coincidentally I read Mack Reynolds story “Status Quo” (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30339/30339-h/30339-h.html) today which contains a few of the Campbellian tropes (and some less classifiable notions – including a version of the Neal Stephenson “Scramble everyone’s records so people learn not to trust anything but their individual judgments” idea discussed here a few weeks back).

    Relevant quote:
    “According to him, true democracy can only be exercised by peers and society today isn’t composed of peers. If you have one hundred people, twenty of them competent, intelligent persons, eighty of them untrained, incompetent and less than intelligent, then it’s ridiculous to have the eighty dictate to the twenty.”

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