March 21, 2007
The future....we're in it, and it's stranger than science fiction...
You may have noticed that there have been a bunch of pro-atheist books published lately. It's sick-o, but also pretty funny. The atheists are clearly in a sweaty panic. Things have not worked out as expected, and in particular, religion is not dying out.
They assumed it would, you know. They assumed that religion is something only for the uneducated, and as education and "progressive" thought spread, the old superstitions would be dropped along the road. I read lots of science fiction in my youth, and I think the only "future" where religion still had any part to play was in Frank Herbert's Dune. And even in that book it was assumed that the ruling elites were irreligious.
Well, the future is here. We're in it. And it sure isn't what was expected by SF writers. Actually, since I've digressed to the subject of of SF, I'll mention that I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of my favorite SF writers, people of my generation, have sort of "hit a wall." I used to wait six months, or a year, or maybe two, for their next book, which was usually better than the ones that went before. But lately, I wait in vain. John Crowley, Michael Swanwick, Greg Bear, Eleanor Arnason....I'm waiting, waiting to be amazed and delighted. (This is all subjective, of course. Just armchair theorizing.) I suspect, like so many people of my generation, they assumed things. They absorbed a certain world-view in their youth, and now they can't deal with the nasty fact that the future ain't what it sposed to be!
But actually none of that is what this post is about. It's really about how our local classical radio station, KDFC, has had some assumptions challenged. First, this from the SF Chronicle:
A 30-second radio ad for a book was taken off the air Wednesday by KDFC-FM, the San Francisco classical station, when it drew complaints from listeners after airing a few times.
The advertisement for "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America," by Chris Hedges, published in January by Free Press, was tailored to play only in the Bay Area, to promote local appearances by the author.
"We thought the demographic for the station would jibe perfectly with the readership for the book," said Suzanne Donahue, associate publisher of Free Press, a division of New York-based Simon & Schuster."We were surprised by the vociferous response," she said by phone Thursday. "It's San Francisco, and you think of it as being open-minded, very left-leaning and a very receptive audience for the ad for the book."
In the end, the audience had a problem not with the book but with the ad copy. Written by the publisher's promotion department, it included these lines:
"In his new bestseller, Chris Hedges challenges the Christian Right and its dark ideology. He challenges their religious legitimacy and makes a compelling case that these zealots have merely found a mask for fascism in patriotism and the pages of the Bible."
When read by one of the radio station's announcers -- a voice familiar to the local audience -- these words could be mistaken for the speaker's opinion...
I love Ms. Donohue's assumption, that "open-minded" equals anti-Christian. I guess San Francisco has allowed some close-minded people to creep in. Who knew? What could be going wrong? Maybe the Roe Effect? (I'm leaving aside here the fact that I happen to BE a member of the "Christian Right," and know perfectly well that the author's thesis is crapulous nonsense.)
The other challenge thing is that our family likes KDFC. Even our kids. Charlene, more musical than I, has been a faithful listener for decades. She recently was sent a survey for hard-core listeners, and was annoyed to see that it asked what other local stations one listened to, but all the options were left-leaning. There was no option to check KSFO, our local conservative talk-radio station. She fired off a stiff note, and today received another survey.....with KSFO!
Maybe the first survey was just a mistake, but I'd guess not. Not that KDFC, or Simon & Schuster intend to offend customers, but they just assumed... Sort of like Pauline Kael, who was famously reported to have said in 1972, about Nixon's victory: "How can that be? No one I know voted for Nixon!"
Posted by John Weidner at March 21, 2007 02:21 PMPlease tell me what left-leaning non-music stations there are in this town? I've been listening to music since about 1994 owing the the lack of lefty talk radio...
Posted by: Andrew Cory at March 21, 2007 02:29 PMI'll get Charlene to answer this. I'm not up on the subject.
Lefty talk radio is basically an impossibility. Good talk radio has to be funny, and all humor is conservative in its essence.
Posted by: John Weidner at March 21, 2007 03:32 PMKGO, KCBS and, of course, NPR are all left-leaning. To the core. I recall about 10 years ago listening to something called "God Talk" early one Sunday morning on one of the above. The host irked me so much with some snarky comment about Christianity that I called in and challenged him. Being a lefty, of course, he didn't respond to the issue and instead immediately started ranting about inclusiveness and Native American spirituality. Typical total drivel. Obviously I don't listen often. There's some host (or there was years ago) who fancied himself "the Lion of the Left." Whenever I heard that I thought, "the Lizard of the Left..."
Posted by: Charlene Weidner at March 21, 2007 03:47 PMLeftists and liberals assume that most conservatives only listen to country music, or Christian pop if they are younger. The idea that conservatives could be so civilized and educated as to enjoy classical music never crosses their minds, nor do ideas such as the fact that there are conservatives who are not Christian, conservatives who like punk and rap, conservatives who eat sushi, conservatives who recycle and ride bicycles instead of cars, conservatives who are gay, conservatives who are black, and so on. "But -- that can't be!" they cry in astonishment, as Handel's Messiah plays in the background.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at March 21, 2007 06:34 PMcrapulous nonsense.
I love that! Nicely spat!
And Andrea - amen!
Andrew,
Charlene hits the nail on the head: surely you've heard of NPR? You might as well listen to it-- you're paying for it on Form 1040. (I just wonder why I have to pay for it, too. It's not like Rush Limbaugh is able to compel me to pay for his show. On the other hand, he doesn't need to. Tens of millions of people listen to his show without being coerced into doing so, let alone being coerced into paying for it.)
And Andrea has a good point, too. Conservative-versus-Liberal isn't a Right-versus-Left thing so much as it is about an awareness of human nature.
Conservatives aren't the weirdos they're made out to be. Rather it's the Liberals who have the strange idea that human nature is nearly-infinitely malleable, reshape-able at the whim of reformers and do-gooders, if only we gave them enough power to do so. That's why right-wingers like Pat Buchanan and left-wingers like John Kerry (to pick two prominent men at random) are really both Liberal-- they want to force us into straitjackets of their own device.
Conservatives, being more mindful of the near-immutability of human nature, tend to avoid the mistakes Liberals make, and so that's why you find Conservatives in the unlikeliest of places (at least from the standpoint of Liberal hothouses such as Big Media).
Of course, Conservatives have their own blind spots, too, which why I'm a libertarian. :)
Posted by: Hale Adams at March 21, 2007 09:08 PMOh, and to at least leave a comment that actually relates to the topic of the post:
I like the "Miles Vorkosigan" series by Lois McMaster Bujold. She doesn't mention religion much at all in those books (I haven't read her fantasy works, yet, and probably won't as fantasy usually isn't my cup of tea) but she does have a very firm grasp of human nature and I get the feeling that she's anything but an atheist. And I think it's that (probably religion-inspired) grasp of human nature that make the "Vorkosigan" series so compelling for me when some other authors' works seem pallid somehow.
Well, that, and Miles is an arrogant and manipulative little SOB (in the service of a good cause, though) and I can't wait to see what situation he finds himself in next.
Oh, if only I were only a tenth as resourceful and courageous as he is....
Posted by: Hale Adams at March 21, 2007 09:21 PMHuh. I just discovered Bujold (yeah, yeah, I know, I've had her recommended to me before and never got around to it.)
If you want faith, try The Curse of Chalion. It's a straight-up fantasy that takes a turn somewhere and makes some rather interesting statements on the nature and capabilities of belief. Of course, I like her treatment of saints the most. In this world, the gods can grant power under certain conditions. Those who have this are able to see other such "saints" and usually the local clergy is let in on the saint as well.
Then they all treat the saint with a certain amount of awe or reverence, while the saint is thinking, "Crap— doesn't this come with a manual?" Utterly hilarious, because that's what I'd be thinking under similar circumstances. "Okay... you're all looking at me like I should know what I'm doing..."
Posted by: B. Durbin at March 21, 2007 09:39 PMOn that note, here's a link to a page that talks about science fiction and fantasy authors of various faiths. Bujold is listed as "unknown."
Posted by: B. Durbin at March 21, 2007 09:43 PMReligion in SF: Consider David Weber's Honor Harrington series, which begins with On Basilisk Station. The Church of Humanity Unchained, on the planet Grayson, includes both thoroughly good guys and nasty fanatics among its clergy and among its laity. And the good guys are not good because they have less faith than the bad guys, nor are they less religious. They resemble the pope, while the fanatics resemble Osama bin Laden.
Posted by: Prof. Willard at March 22, 2007 07:11 AMGene Wolfe is very, very good. He is profiled in 's current issue. His Book of the New Sun series of novels is his best.
Posted by: Terry at March 22, 2007 12:23 PMI'd put KGO as Center-right (and unrelatedly unlistenable-- their news is simply stale), KCBS as a bit further right, and NPR vaugly leftist-- on the rare times they talk politics. I started listening to NPR when they I was in Sacramento, and they were the Jazz station...
Speak of Jazz, I know for a fact that Mr. Weidner is so conservative that he thinks of Jazz as being too modern...
It's been a while since I listened to KGO, but God Talk was (and is) done by a devout Catholic, and former professor of Theology. Liberal, yes. But hardly unchristian...
And finally: If anyone is in the market for a good new SF author, I cannot recommend John Scalzi in high enough terms. In fact, John, if you want to borrow my copy of Old Man's War, send me an Email and we can make arrangements. Since I've also got your copy of Topsy Turvy, we can do a swap...
Posted by: Andrew Cory at March 22, 2007 01:53 PMAndrew Cory-
I'm an old time SF fan. Started reading the stuff when I was pre-teen, loved Bradbury & Heinlein, which was about the only SF my local library carried.
I hated Old Man's War. The characterization was awful. The storyline was unbelievable. Things just seemed to happen to push the plot along. Every soldier that was obnoxious died in a horrible way,foolishly or cowardly. All the good soldiers that died, died heroically. I don't think life is like that.
I mean the book was really bad. Cliched and sterile. The training camp was on planet just like Florida, but there were four winged parrots! The black drill sergeant is hard as nails! Sex had no consequences outside of the people involved! And what heck is it with Scalzi's obsession with aliens that eat people? No human (or post-human) in the book has any desire to eat an alien.
Old Man's War has been widely praised by Heinlein fans. I haven't read Heinlein in thirty years, now I'm afraid to.
