J.M. Greer recently wrote a post that elegantly makes the same argument. It's the best essay I've read this year, and I think about it quite a lot, actually. He's right about Tolkien, too.
> . . . It’s occurred to me more than once recently that one of the most distinctive things about the Western cultures of the last century or so is the way it’s become so obsessed with wholly imaginary worlds, as different as possible from the one we actually inhabit. That’s a very odd habit, when you stop and think about it.
I couldn't get through this. Dunking on Star Wars, LOTR, and NATO strategy all at once. Someone hire this guy immediately and make him executive director at the ministry of creative arts and war!
I thought I was going into a piece of writing that would be critical of drawing comparisons between fantasy and the real world, but the author did the exact opposite. He drew the comparison between the Ukraine counter-offensive and magic swords, and put those words into NATO's mouth.
Yeah it's the author pathologizing that the influence of LOTR is somehow a major factor, if a factor at all in influencing NATO/Ukranian military strategy with no real proof?
It looks more a leftist who is mad that their realist socialist fiction didn't become popular and influential and instead the "conservative" fantasy of good and evil somehow came to define Western Liberal thinking, nevermind the sheer diversity of works that do confront moral grayness, or that cultures outside of the West (including Russia) do very much enjoy Fantasy as well.
No, he made the theory, that too many in NATO believed their own sides fiction. (And orcs for russian soldiers is a literal slang)
As someone who followed all of that quite extensivly, I tend to confirm this. Otherwise that disastrous offensive last year never would have happened at all. As it was quite clear from the beginning, that it was bound to fail - but the imagination that the glorious win of the righteous forces of history is about to happen. So it needed to happen, despite objections from reality seeing people on the ground.
Because the russian minefields and fortifications and russian artillery supperiority turned out to be very real. And they were real before.
I think the fundamental concept is that organisations or movement etc can't lie without the organization starting to believe its own lies.
Members acts as if the fiction was real. They have to or are labeled traitors, non team players etc. Those who get it either play along or stay silent.
It likely was rather a ukrainian-polish joint venture.
And the opinion in germany is mixed about the incident, only very few believe it was Putin.
Some say, who cares for russian gas anyway, good that it ended - others are indeed very pissed about the whole thing (Scholz does not seem to like Selensky).
Russia has no reason to blow it up because they can turn off the pipe on their own end. Even Germany can turn off the pipe at their end. So that future is open to normalcy if required.
Sometimes I think playing geopolitics too strong as America does could alienate everyone. E.g. Russell Hantz in Survivors
Or maybe not, since these things are done on decades scale, people / institutions change, circumstances change and there is no emotional weightage to the memory of wrong doing since its the people who hold such weightage.
The defining villain of Survivor during its late 2000s and early 2010s seasons, Russell Hantz's chaotic and destructive style of gameplay revolutionized and changed the way Survivor would be played going forward. His gameplay style is very fast-paced and aggressive in style, focusing on deliberately creating as much mischief and nightmare conditions at camp, in order to control and manipulate those around him. At the same time, he would constantly search for idols without any clues, using them to continue his life in the game while seemingly at the bottom.
It's hard to deny just how impactful Russell's game plan was in his early seasons, as his style of complete villainy had never been seen on Survivor before, and it completely took control of his first season, Survivor: Samoa. Through brute force and complete chaos, he was able to flip around an 8-4 disadvantage at the merge, leaving his enemies destroyed for even thinking they could stand up to his strategic wit. He had a similar reign in his second time around in Heroes vs Villains, once again taking control and using his chaotic prowess to make it to the final three. However, while Russell can find ways to make it to the final three back-to-back, his failed social game has made him one of the strongest Survivor players to never win the game.
He made a theory that Russia is not the bad guy. They invaded a country without a reason. They literally are the bad guy.
Some random percent of Russians believe that Putin is great? Of course they say that, otherwise they would be in prison.
He has a point about West sending trash to Ukraine. But saying it's somehow Anduril? You have to be quiet open minded to accept his associations.
The guy makes some good points but buries them in a ton of his opinions that it's hard to find the points he makes.
"He made a theory that Russia is not the bad guy."
I did not see that. I did see the opinion, that they do not represent the ultimate evil, like the orcs do.
The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia, that is the point being made - and if this already qualifies to you as saying they are not the bad guys, then I recommend reading a bit more carefully, as it is exactly this black and white thinking, that is in the realm of fantasy.
> The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia
Let's suppose this is true (I'm not convinced, in practice most of them are fighting because they don't have choice, so what they think doesn't matter that much anyway). How do they explain the cognitive dissonance that instead of defending Russia they are actively attacking Ukraine? It makes no sense at all.
If you say that they believe that Russia should be great again, and Ukrainians should be its subjects just like Belorussians, this makes much more sense, and there is support for this kind of thinking in the population. But let's not pretend they're good guys then.
> How do they explain the cognitive dissonance that instead of defending Russia they are actively attacking Ukraine? It makes no sense at all.
Replace 'Russia' with 'USA', and 'Ukraine' with 'Iraq'. There are lots of other examples that could be used as well. I am firmly in the camp that believe Russia is in the wrong here and also that the US was wrong to invade Iraq. But that doesn't change the fact that its easy to create a strong rational-sounding argument about how an offense is really a defense. It happens all the time. There is no dissonance. They believe that the attack is the defense.
> Replace 'Russia' with 'USA', and 'Ukraine' with 'Iraq'.
This is actually an excellent example because it's clear that invasion was as wrong as the other one. When Bush designed his mad plan to attack Afghanistan and Iraq, he faced enormous outcry from his allies. In Europe, there were the biggest anti-war protests in the modern history of the continent (I believe in Rome it was 5 million people). It made no sense then, it made no sense during the war, and it makes no sense now.
The only "positive" aspect of that war is that the USA is now much more careful when considering its options as it's clear that starting the war is relatively easy and having a positive outcome (so-called "winning") are two different things. Russia is only learning this now.
"> The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia
Let's suppose this is true (I'm not convinced, in practice most of them are fighting because they don't have choice, so what they think doesn't matter that much anyway"
And are you aware, allmost no russian conscripts are involved in fighting?
It is a voluntarily army. Econonic reasons do play a role, especially for people from asian backwater provinces - but all in all they do fight, because they choose to.
So back to the main story - it is not just evil overlord Putin, that is the problem.
> And are you aware, allmost no russian conscripts are involved in fighting?
Actually I didn't know that, the reports from the beginning of the war stated otherwise. In any case, last time I read they said they managed to mobilize 300 000 people[0]. So what happened to them? It makes no sense to mobilize soldiers during the war and not send them to war.
> The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia
This is a very bold claim, can you back this up?
Because we won't see massive lines of Russian men trying to join the army to defend the homeland. In fact, the moment a general mobilization was announced you had hundreds of thousands (if not million+?) fleeing Russia.
The main motivations we've seen for the Russians joining are:
- entrepreneurship - going to war became an entrepreneurial endeavor to get paid a large sum of money (if I recall correctly Russians are now being paid more than US soldiers if you factor in their sign-in bonus);
- getting out of jail - to the point of seeing violent criminals commit crimes again;
I'm not saying they see themselves as representations of evil; I'm saying they don't seem to care whether they represent it or not.
Since I was talking about russian soldiers, I did talk about their motivation. Not about russian people who are not soldiers and don't want to become soldiers. Because the russian army still largely consists of voluntarily soldiers.
And as far as I know, defending mother russia from NATO aggression is a major motivator, as well as money is.
But also the Nazis did not view themself as evil - but rather as powerful because of lack of restraint. And protecting the poor suppressed aryan people.
So my point was not at all, that the russian soldiers are somehow nice - just that the world is not as black and white as fantasy often is - but people like the fantasy approach of black and white - and the proplem starts when they apply this thinking to the real world.
I was also talking about Russian soldiers. You can exclude conscripts because at the moment the Russian regime seems to want to avoid civilian unrest.
> And as far as I know, defending mother russia from NATO aggression is a major motivator, as well as money is.
This is very confusing, and a lot of Russians are also confused by this by the way: what NATO aggression are you talking about?
> just that the world is not as black and white as fantasy often is
The Nazis crafted a narrative to start WW2 at a time when information didn't have the same freedom. This narrative seem to have heavily inspired the Russian regime: "ethnic russians are under threat in Ukraine!" instead of "ethnic Germans are under threat in Poland".
So the whole casus beli does seem to be a dark fantasy, and people are aware of this, to the point of completely dismissing that reality.
That's why I don't understand your point, nor do I see the logic of it.
I've seen a lot of politicised "reasons". I rarely see resource based reasons .. which are more than likely the undercurrent.
Putin et al truly believe in a "Greater Russia" and that Ukraine is part of that.
First (2014) they wanted agricultural resources, better sea access, etc. and they took Crimea.
That provided some reason for a more recent invasion, after almost a decade of blocked water supply Russia needed a land corridor and a secure water supply o/wise Crimea was a hollow gain.
First, it is not WW3 but Russian aggression on Ukraine.
Second, they had very clear reasons: Putin always considered Ukraine his property and when he realized he can lose it, he decided to use force. He elaborated on it in a longer piece[0] and in the Carlson show.
They had their reasons or at least rationalizations, though you don't see them and they might not make sense to you.
> They literally are the bad guy.
Maybe. I agree that the invasion was a very grave evil.
Even so, it doesn't mean that they're destined to lose, and we shouldn't think that way. Mongols were bad guys but won so much that they got tired of winning.
It's a very grave fallacy to believe that the Good Guys always prevail. And, besides, the Russians you ask would surely say, "Wait, you think those Banderite Ukrainians are the GOOD Guys?! And here I thought we were the Good Guys! Throughout its entire history, Russia has always fought and always conquered evil."
> Of course they say that, otherwise they would be in prison.
You can't seriously believe this. I'd invite you to hang out on the Russian internet (or Russian Telegram) for a different view. Have a look at what they write in their own language, when talking between themselves.
> They had their reasons or at least rationalizations, though you don't see them and they might not make sense to you.
I read Putin's rationalization that was published just after the war broke off and retracted soon after but you can still read it.[0] He basically claims that Russia has to be great again and it is his historical role to conquer it so that Ukrainians are his slaves just like Belorussians are.
So yes, they have their reasons and realizations, just like another ruler in 1938 and 1939, the problem is that nobody else agreed with them.
It can be enough. Not at all everyone who expressed opposition to the war is in prison.
I did not looked too much into it, but can you name anyone at all, who is in a russian prison now, simply for verbally opposing the war?
(There surely are plenty of political prisoners in russia, but I believe they were more vocal and organised in their opposition)
If you'd asked this two weeks ago it would've been pretty easy for me. Alexei Moskalev has only just been released from a penal colony.
I suppose you can dismiss that because social media posts and having a daughter with a brain and a heart don't count as "verbal", but I don't think that would be very reasonable.
Well, I would consider his actions quite vocal.
(And the article in the realm of propaganda, because they made it look like he was jailed just for the picture, when he also made uncited posts on social media.)
But nevertheless, it is another good example to save, for my debates with certain people of other opinion. (Nato aggression)
That piece is as much a victim of western magical thinking as the people who it criticizes. The issues that we're seeing in Ukraine are purely material - offensives are no longer possible due to technological advances and the defensive position always wins. The fact that every Russian advance is also being ground down by a country with a quarter it's population is proof enough of this.
That we found this out in a small scale conflict is a blessing - our forefathers found it out in 1914 in a very unpleasant way across 1000km of trenches.
This is not a permanent state of affairs - a tank will be invented and it will break the stale mate in months.
Western culture? Last century? Really? We're story telling monkeys, and we've been obsessed with myths and stories since forever. More often than not taking it so far as it becoming a religion. It's the most distinctively human thing to do and this behaviour predates written history.
You don't read many old books, do you? The most popular stories of the 19th century -- consider Maupassant, Victor Hugo, Dostoyevsky, Dickens, etc. -- were set in the real world of that same era. Even the pulp fiction of that era, the "penny dreadfuls," were generally gothic stories set in the real world.
This is quite nice, as it allows you to learn a lot about history by reading books from that time. It almost gives you an immersive sense of history, in a way.
Even the oldest legends of Europe -- Arthur, Holger Danske, Orlando Furioso, the 8th century BC Iliad, and I could go on -- ostensibly concerned themselves with the real world. (And, to strengthen Greer's point, often contained noble Saracens and other villains.)
Same goes for Asia, by the way. The great legends of Asia -- from the Three Kingdoms, to the Water Margin, to the Tale of Heike -- were at least nominally "real." Not concerned with imaginary worlds.
The myths we create today are qualitatively different in straightforward and obvious ways.
What about religious text? They were always very much concerned with other planes of existence. Places outside of the real world.
Nonetheless, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to have stories set in their own worlds, separated from reality. Maybe it is inevitable. In previous centuries, the world itself was largely unknown. Most people never left the city they were born in until they died. Reading something set in a different real place was in many ways the only way to experience it.
What is the first noteworthy piece of fiction set in a fictional land? "Alice in Wonderland", perhaps? Maybe in a world that was becoming a tad less mysterious (we already had telegraphs, trains, steam ships and so on), some started to look toward fantastical, fictional world to have the illusion of an unknown world.
People used to take the Bible and other religious texts very seriously, and they believed in their literal truth -- far more than they believed in the truth of the Iliad or Charlemagne's Paladins. What's more, the Bible mostly presents something like a historical account with supernatural effects. So I'm not sure what we can draw from this.
> What is the first noteworthy piece of fiction set in a fictional land? "Alice in Wonderland", perhaps?
Maybe Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene? Its connection to our real world is tenuous at best, I'd say.
> People used to take the Bible and other religious texts very seriously, and they believed in their literal truth
I don't disagree. But in a world where even reality was very much a mystery (so you had myths of ancient lost civilizations, cities of gold, etc and so forth), maybe religion, as literal as it was taken, was enough to satisfy the common people with its otherworldly descriptions of places.
My point is that I think it is natural that as the world becomes less mysterious and religion becomes increasingly seen as allegorical, the craving for fictional worlds where not all is known becomes more appealing.
> Maybe Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene? Its connection to our real world is tenuous at best, I'd say.
Maybe the oldes I can think of is the land of Avalon in Athurian legend? Still would have a tenuous connection to the real world.
At least aspects of fiction in fictional lands are much older. Plato's (admittedly very short) mentions of Atlantis in his dialogues are a good candidate.
There are old books about the kingdoms far far away. Ancient Greek legends were enjoyed by renaissance era people who've never even been to Greece. And let's be real those penny dreadfuls with supernatural horror elements weren't that different from superhero comics when it comes to how detached from reality they are.
And of course there's the religious texts. They often have a heavy focus on abstract things like afterlife that are very much detached from our daily life, but they're also very often foreign imports as well. Christianity is popular in Europe but its roots are in the middle east, and buddhism is very popular in east asia but its origins are in south asia. I think a certain desire for escapism is one reason why this is the case.
In fact, one distinctive feature of the last century was that organized religion became less relevant to many western people. Perhaps you could argue that fiction filled the void? Kind of like how the rise of protestantism removed a lot of catholic rites and rituals from northern europe and to fill the void things like freemasonry became really popular.
> And of course there's the religious texts. They often have a heavy focus on abstract things like afterlife that are very much detached from our daily life
Before the modern age, people were far more accepting of supernatural and/or unproven narratives about our world. Nowadays we demand evidence for anything out of the ordinary and faeries in a purportedly realistic story would feel wrong to us. It seems natural to me that the genre of "fantasy" has emerged, to let us have unrealistic elements in stories without having to admit them into our worldwiew.
It sort of mirrors children's development, with them gradually considering fairy tale elements as less real and relegating them to stories specifically.
Before the modern age, and perhaps for the vast majority even now, there is no such notion as supernatural. Magical thinking, superstition is not the exception, it is the norm. It requires conscious effort, training to diminish its effects, to introduce logic, facts into the thinking process.
Propaganda would be much less effective if people were able to think rationally.
As a counterpoint the golden age of scifi (largely originating from the US) coincided with a golden age of the US. The largest thing in fantasy since Tolkien was probably D&D and that also coincided with a golden age for the US. The popularization of the next escapist medium (home video games) also coincided with an amazing decade for the US
Science fiction is something very different, and I believe you can construct an entire philosophy from the analysis of science fiction as an artform.
Whereas fantasy is escapist and constructs alternative worlds, most works of science fiction -- and especially the classical "hard" science fiction of the Golden Age -- present us with a potential human future. Many of these futures, like Clarke's satellites and today's cyberpunk dystopia, quickly came to be realized. Others, like the space elevator, seem like inevitable ideas that will be realized at some point in the future.
There's a lot that can be written about this, but it's definitely something different...
Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter just replaced the bible in my opinion, but the people in the 19.century had reasons to flee into imaginary worlds as well.
I think there is something fundamentally different between religious texts and even mostyths and fantasy/sci-fi stories. When the Mesopotamians were listening to the Epic of Gilgamesh, they were reading about the world as they thought it is. When the ancient Jews were listening to stories of Genesis or Moses, they were reading about what they believed the world to be. Even to the extent that they believed certain aspects of those stories to be parables and not an exact description of reality, the main point was to elucidate aspects of what the real world is, or how it should be.
In contrast, when you read The Lord of the Rings, you're reading a pure fantasy, about a world that you're not expected to believe is real in any particular way, and where the reflections on any real world concepts are buried deep in the subtext (unlike, say, a teaching by the Buddha).
> When the Mesopotamians were listening to the Epic of Gilgamesh, they were reading about the world as they thought it is.
When people tell their kids about Santa Claus is that because they believe he exists?
There are always credulous people, but even in highly religious communities you will find amazingly large numbers of people only there for the community and just going along with public displays of adherence to whatever the belief system is. “True believer” is a term for a good reason.
Absolutely, I didn't mean to suggest that every single Mesopotamian thought that the Epic of Gilgamesh was the truth. But even looking at non-devout Christians today, I don't think many of them would call the Bible a work of fiction - they view it as something less than an accurate account of history, but not at all as fictional. I would bet that if you asked the majority of Christians, even the non-practicing ones, they'd believe Noah was a real person who really did worship God, and maybe even faced some kind of flood, and probably lived to an old age - even when they don't believe that he built an arch that literally housed two of every animal on Earth to traverse a global flood, or that he lived for 900+ years.
We know by the number of real kings who claimed descent from Gilgamesh that there were enough people who believed this that it was worth it politically. Same as we know enough people in medieval Europe believed in the literal truth of Christianity to make it worth for kings to claim to be chosen by God for their purpose. Contrast this to the lack of modern day leaders claiming descent from Batman, or claiming the legitimacy of the Ministry of Magic.
Of course, there would have certainly been people who did not believe in the literal truth of these stories - either as some form of early naturalism, or simply because they believed in other stories (like how devout Christians view the Bible as literal truth, but think the Veddas are just stories, and vice versa).
Lord of the Rings is a Catholic Christian morality tale set in the third age of our world. We are now in the year 2024 of the seventh age. It is our world and it is no more or less fiction than the Song of Roland is.
I wish more people would read what the authors meant their worlds to be because a lot of what's described as 'merely fiction' is nothing of the sort.
I have no idea where you came up with this, but it is completely false. While there are clear aspects of Christian morals in Lord of the Rings, it would have been extremely clearly heretical if it had been ever claimed to be a real account (as it has a completely different God, Eru Iluvatar, as the creator, for example).
Not to mention, Tolkien has written quite a bit about the three ages preceding The Third Age (the Dawn Age and the two numbered ages), and there is no mention of Adam, Eve, God, King Solomon, Moses, Noah, the Flood, or any other parts of the Christian mythos of the first few ages. And there are a great many more evil lords, giant spiders, winged eagles, and magical rings then you'll find in any Bible.
> Lord of the Rings is a Catholic Christian morality tale set in the third age of our world. We are now in the year 2024 of the seventh age. It is our world and it is no more or less fiction than the Song of Roland is.
This is contradictory. The Catholic Church has its own history of the world, which is set down in the Bible, and they would consider any alternative history -- such as the one Tolkien wrote about, if you've interpreted it correctly -- to be a heresy. Simple as that.
St. Augustine wrote of Six Ages:
The First "is from the beginning of the human race, that is, from Adam, who was the first man that was made, down to Noah, who constructed the ark at the time of the flood".
The Second "extends from that period on to Abraham, who was called the father indeed of all nations".
The Third "extends from Abraham on to David the king".
The Fourth is "from David on to that captivity whereby the people of God passed over into Babylonia".
The Fifth is "from that transmigration down to the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ"
The Sixth: "With His coming the sixth age has entered on its process."
In fact, I'm disappointed about hiatus of HxH manga because I want to see more of Dark Continent. Gigantic animals, extinction level threats, etc. - it's super interesting!
I feel like humans have this interest for discovering the unknown, solving mysteries, seeing things never seen before. What's not to like about it? That's the same exact reason why I like Astronomy and quantum physics - I'm interested in things that are on the edge of what we know.
Whoever thinks creating imaginary worlds is weird must be fun at parties.
Alan touches on critique versus creation. He almost but not quite get at the core issue when he evokes that, in those old glory days of comic fandom, fans were creators too. This is a strong observation but not explored in the article.
As communication technology improves, we get better at making copies of and making searchable the most resonating works. This means that new creators face bigger and bigger barriers to resonating. Most people give up.
To adapt, People have become critics rather than creators - consumers rather than producers. This has a deep effect on our culture.
This might explain the malaise of inaction - that we don’t feel we can accomplish much and that we’ll more readily point out the flaws in an action than encourage the action in others.
As alluded to in the article, it also might increase the tribalism wherein we have one super-creator and their followers.
The act of creation also deepens understanding. The creation process creates a more thoughtful person as much as it creates the work itself.
star trek fan films are a good counter example. there are thousands of them and several reach professional quality. check
https://startrekreviewed.com/
so it doesn't look like that some productions getting better and better leads others to give up. the improvement of quality just seems to go along with the access to better tools.
the relaxed stance of the star trek owners may have something to do with it. even the clarification of rules a few years ago didn't do anything to reduce the activity. it may have even increased it because now the rules are clearly spelled out where as previously only those that were im contact with CBS/Paramount knew if they overstepped any limits.
there is literally a new release every day. (i have verified this. i have watched almost every video posted on startrekreviewed.com and since the last year or two i am watching one new video per day, and i haven't run out yet. and that's not even counting audiodrama, comics or stories)
> c'est en forgeant qu'on devient forgeron ("working at the forge is how one becomes a smith")
I don't know if there ever was a culture of creation (have you any examples?) but I wouldn't say that there's any lack of opportunity for people today to create for themselves and their friends. Even the super-creators spin off their own opportunities for subdemiurges: recall Bowsette.
It's true that now more than ever, niche super creators have found an audience. I think the paradox here is, because of specifically this, not so gifted people have less incentive to create.
30 years ago, there simply was no spreading of media that wasn't so mainstream. So there was no medium for a lot of niches. Without the medium, people felt rewarded in their local community for showing something interesting that had no mainstream analog.
In a sense, the niche creators that were great were more effectively broadcast leaving less audience for worse niche creators. This, over time, meant that less people tried to create and switched to critique.
> less people tried to create and switched to critique.
I'm not convinced of that — I suspect that in earlier times, there were just as few creators, but we didn't get exposed to all* the critiques. (for instance, if I were to make this argument I'd have to go back much earlier than 30 years, because 30 years ago people were already putting their S&M Barbies up on the web; we were already on the second generation of browsers:
However, under the hypothesis that fewer people try to create and switch to critique instead: that'd be their problem.
EDIT: * eg, the other day on Zhihu I saw someone asking "What is even the point of Joker 2?" Nowadays we can see criticism from 5 billion people without even scrolling down.
> “…poisons the society surrounding it with its mean-spirited obsessions and ridiculous, unearned sense of entitlement.”
> “…liking something is OK. You don’t need the machete or the megaphone.”
I feel this very strongly in terms of BIG (work) TRUCKS not used for work. Those big trucks with Marvel’s The Punisher themed graphics, flat/matte paints, military-inspired details (I’m thinking of a particular bumper style), and most of all comic inspired details: blacked out windows—so much easier to draw, so much the worse for actual driving. Main character syndrome in the worst way. Just go for a walk or bicycle ride or ride your motorcycle on a Saturday in the greater NYC area and you’ll know exactly how I feel
...
In my opinion the biggest problem with fandom is that it leads to an overly attached attitude towards some work and creates a sense of entitlement and audience capture. Fanservice is a very close cousin to fandom and for very obvious reason, a lot of media with huge fandoms end up being driven by serving people the same thing over and over again because creators lose the ability to actually challenge their audience. It's how you get the whole Marvel industrial complex.
I've always liked Nabokov's attitude towards reading:
"A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle even though we must keep a little aloof, a little detached when reading."
Fandom is the opposite of this where people end up treating their favorite media the way K-Pop fans treat K-Pop idols and it's why fandom driven media just ends up lowbrow and bad.
In summary, blaming “Toxic Fandoms” is a convenient way for Hollywood to divert blame for the garbage movies they roll out and demand the audiences love. “Oh you hate our movies? It’s definitely not our fault, it must be because you’re just a hater and a toxic fan.”
From reading the headline, that was my first thought too... But after reading the article, I don't think that he's even touching on that?
He's taking about how the culture of >fandom< itself is toxic to a society - among other reasons, because it creates unhealthy habits that spread beyond media consumption (he's naming politics specifically)
I honestly think he's onto something, even though I also agree with critical thinkers point that the fans aren't particularly toxic, the recent productions are just shit or at least shouldn't be associated with the IPs they're being associated with
Only difference between internet slapfights over superheroes and the Crusades is that we aren't starting hundred year long wars because Superman is better than Spider-Man.
I love Alan's work but he is also kind of an idiot on many issues
He rails against the interactions of fans and large conglomerates but he was happy to cash checks anytime his work went up for sale
Remember his big publicity stunt of declining his name to appear on the Watchmen movie credits? Yet he had no issue taking the payday from DC that started it all
I've read everything he has written including his novels...but, shut up Alan
'Remember his big publicity stunt of declining his name to appear on the Watchmen movie credits? Yet he had no issue taking the payday from DC that started it all'
Because back then Comics book industry was not the same, he sold his story and rights to DC and the contract specified that if DC stopped selling the book after a period of time, the rights would revert back to him. Alas, he wrote Watchmen, it's never been out of print he has not been allowed to reclaim his own work.
A lot of his complaining about Movie/Comic book companies comes from the perspectivie of a creator who has lost control of his creations, and is doing what he can to protest that.
I guess he'd been hoping his audience (his readers) would have been more like the pigs on Manor Farm, and is a touch disappointed that the majority audience (his fans) are running around bleating the equivalent of 2 legs bad: "you're locked in here with me!"
What's the matter with calling it out like it is, "fandom is sometimes a grotesque blight that poisons the society surrounding it with its mean-spirited obsessions and ridiculous, unearned sense of entitlement."
J.M. Greer recently wrote a post that elegantly makes the same argument. It's the best essay I've read this year, and I think about it quite a lot, actually. He's right about Tolkien, too.
> https://www.ecosophia.net/the-three-stigmata-of-j-r-r-tolkie...
> . . . It’s occurred to me more than once recently that one of the most distinctive things about the Western cultures of the last century or so is the way it’s become so obsessed with wholly imaginary worlds, as different as possible from the one we actually inhabit. That’s a very odd habit, when you stop and think about it.
I couldn't get through this. Dunking on Star Wars, LOTR, and NATO strategy all at once. Someone hire this guy immediately and make him executive director at the ministry of creative arts and war!
I thought I was going into a piece of writing that would be critical of drawing comparisons between fantasy and the real world, but the author did the exact opposite. He drew the comparison between the Ukraine counter-offensive and magic swords, and put those words into NATO's mouth.
Yeah it's the author pathologizing that the influence of LOTR is somehow a major factor, if a factor at all in influencing NATO/Ukranian military strategy with no real proof?
It looks more a leftist who is mad that their realist socialist fiction didn't become popular and influential and instead the "conservative" fantasy of good and evil somehow came to define Western Liberal thinking, nevermind the sheer diversity of works that do confront moral grayness, or that cultures outside of the West (including Russia) do very much enjoy Fantasy as well.
The author is obviously a conservative!
(note the praise for the virtuously conservative Tolkien and Herbert at the beginning)
Secretly sussing out which team someone is on is part of the issue of turning things into fandoms.
> the author is obviously a conservative!
Why not just say he's the villain of the story you are in?
No, he made the theory, that too many in NATO believed their own sides fiction. (And orcs for russian soldiers is a literal slang)
As someone who followed all of that quite extensivly, I tend to confirm this. Otherwise that disastrous offensive last year never would have happened at all. As it was quite clear from the beginning, that it was bound to fail - but the imagination that the glorious win of the righteous forces of history is about to happen. So it needed to happen, despite objections from reality seeing people on the ground.
Because the russian minefields and fortifications and russian artillery supperiority turned out to be very real. And they were real before.
I think the fundamental concept is that organisations or movement etc can't lie without the organization starting to believe its own lies.
Members acts as if the fiction was real. They have to or are labeled traitors, non team players etc. Those who get it either play along or stay silent.
Uncle Sam blew up Nord Steam 2 pipeline so that Germany won't hesitate in its support against Russia.
Imagine Germans believing lies that hurt themselves.
It likely was rather a ukrainian-polish joint venture.
And the opinion in germany is mixed about the incident, only very few believe it was Putin.
Some say, who cares for russian gas anyway, good that it ended - others are indeed very pissed about the whole thing (Scholz does not seem to like Selensky).
Russia has no reason to blow it up because they can turn off the pipe on their own end. Even Germany can turn off the pipe at their end. So that future is open to normalcy if required.
Don't try to apply reason to anything russia.
To be honest I got these talking points through youtube comments. It is so obvious for anyone who pays little attention. Not that difficult.
Sometimes I think playing geopolitics too strong as America does could alienate everyone. E.g. Russell Hantz in Survivors
Or maybe not, since these things are done on decades scale, people / institutions change, circumstances change and there is no emotional weightage to the memory of wrong doing since its the people who hold such weightage.
Or maybe, it's all "priced in".
https://collider.com/survivor-villains-ranked/
The defining villain of Survivor during its late 2000s and early 2010s seasons, Russell Hantz's chaotic and destructive style of gameplay revolutionized and changed the way Survivor would be played going forward. His gameplay style is very fast-paced and aggressive in style, focusing on deliberately creating as much mischief and nightmare conditions at camp, in order to control and manipulate those around him. At the same time, he would constantly search for idols without any clues, using them to continue his life in the game while seemingly at the bottom.
It's hard to deny just how impactful Russell's game plan was in his early seasons, as his style of complete villainy had never been seen on Survivor before, and it completely took control of his first season, Survivor: Samoa. Through brute force and complete chaos, he was able to flip around an 8-4 disadvantage at the merge, leaving his enemies destroyed for even thinking they could stand up to his strategic wit. He had a similar reign in his second time around in Heroes vs Villains, once again taking control and using his chaotic prowess to make it to the final three. However, while Russell can find ways to make it to the final three back-to-back, his failed social game has made him one of the strongest Survivor players to never win the game.
He made a theory that Russia is not the bad guy. They invaded a country without a reason. They literally are the bad guy. Some random percent of Russians believe that Putin is great? Of course they say that, otherwise they would be in prison. He has a point about West sending trash to Ukraine. But saying it's somehow Anduril? You have to be quiet open minded to accept his associations. The guy makes some good points but buries them in a ton of his opinions that it's hard to find the points he makes.
"He made a theory that Russia is not the bad guy."
I did not see that. I did see the opinion, that they do not represent the ultimate evil, like the orcs do.
The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia, that is the point being made - and if this already qualifies to you as saying they are not the bad guys, then I recommend reading a bit more carefully, as it is exactly this black and white thinking, that is in the realm of fantasy.
> The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia
Let's suppose this is true (I'm not convinced, in practice most of them are fighting because they don't have choice, so what they think doesn't matter that much anyway). How do they explain the cognitive dissonance that instead of defending Russia they are actively attacking Ukraine? It makes no sense at all.
If you say that they believe that Russia should be great again, and Ukrainians should be its subjects just like Belorussians, this makes much more sense, and there is support for this kind of thinking in the population. But let's not pretend they're good guys then.
> How do they explain the cognitive dissonance that instead of defending Russia they are actively attacking Ukraine? It makes no sense at all.
Replace 'Russia' with 'USA', and 'Ukraine' with 'Iraq'. There are lots of other examples that could be used as well. I am firmly in the camp that believe Russia is in the wrong here and also that the US was wrong to invade Iraq. But that doesn't change the fact that its easy to create a strong rational-sounding argument about how an offense is really a defense. It happens all the time. There is no dissonance. They believe that the attack is the defense.
> Replace 'Russia' with 'USA', and 'Ukraine' with 'Iraq'.
This is actually an excellent example because it's clear that invasion was as wrong as the other one. When Bush designed his mad plan to attack Afghanistan and Iraq, he faced enormous outcry from his allies. In Europe, there were the biggest anti-war protests in the modern history of the continent (I believe in Rome it was 5 million people). It made no sense then, it made no sense during the war, and it makes no sense now.
The only "positive" aspect of that war is that the USA is now much more careful when considering its options as it's clear that starting the war is relatively easy and having a positive outcome (so-called "winning") are two different things. Russia is only learning this now.
"But let's not pretend they're good guys then."
I did not.
"> The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia
Let's suppose this is true (I'm not convinced, in practice most of them are fighting because they don't have choice, so what they think doesn't matter that much anyway"
And are you aware, allmost no russian conscripts are involved in fighting?
It is a voluntarily army. Econonic reasons do play a role, especially for people from asian backwater provinces - but all in all they do fight, because they choose to.
So back to the main story - it is not just evil overlord Putin, that is the problem.
> And are you aware, allmost no russian conscripts are involved in fighting?
Actually I didn't know that, the reports from the beginning of the war stated otherwise. In any case, last time I read they said they managed to mobilize 300 000 people[0]. So what happened to them? It makes no sense to mobilize soldiers during the war and not send them to war.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_mobilization
> The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia
This is a very bold claim, can you back this up?
Because we won't see massive lines of Russian men trying to join the army to defend the homeland. In fact, the moment a general mobilization was announced you had hundreds of thousands (if not million+?) fleeing Russia.
The main motivations we've seen for the Russians joining are:
- entrepreneurship - going to war became an entrepreneurial endeavor to get paid a large sum of money (if I recall correctly Russians are now being paid more than US soldiers if you factor in their sign-in bonus);
- getting out of jail - to the point of seeing violent criminals commit crimes again;
I'm not saying they see themselves as representations of evil; I'm saying they don't seem to care whether they represent it or not.
Since I was talking about russian soldiers, I did talk about their motivation. Not about russian people who are not soldiers and don't want to become soldiers. Because the russian army still largely consists of voluntarily soldiers.
And as far as I know, defending mother russia from NATO aggression is a major motivator, as well as money is.
But also the Nazis did not view themself as evil - but rather as powerful because of lack of restraint. And protecting the poor suppressed aryan people.
So my point was not at all, that the russian soldiers are somehow nice - just that the world is not as black and white as fantasy often is - but people like the fantasy approach of black and white - and the proplem starts when they apply this thinking to the real world.
I was also talking about Russian soldiers. You can exclude conscripts because at the moment the Russian regime seems to want to avoid civilian unrest.
> And as far as I know, defending mother russia from NATO aggression is a major motivator, as well as money is.
This is very confusing, and a lot of Russians are also confused by this by the way: what NATO aggression are you talking about?
> just that the world is not as black and white as fantasy often is
The Nazis crafted a narrative to start WW2 at a time when information didn't have the same freedom. This narrative seem to have heavily inspired the Russian regime: "ethnic russians are under threat in Ukraine!" instead of "ethnic Germans are under threat in Poland".
So the whole casus beli does seem to be a dark fantasy, and people are aware of this, to the point of completely dismissing that reality.
That's why I don't understand your point, nor do I see the logic of it.
I've seen a lot of politicised "reasons". I rarely see resource based reasons .. which are more than likely the undercurrent.
Putin et al truly believe in a "Greater Russia" and that Ukraine is part of that.
First (2014) they wanted agricultural resources, better sea access, etc. and they took Crimea.
That provided some reason for a more recent invasion, after almost a decade of blocked water supply Russia needed a land corridor and a secure water supply o/wise Crimea was a hollow gain.
Still not going well with that: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-dam-blast-could...
Next to grain and water the other complaints seem small petty namecalling with little justification.
"First (2014) they wanted agricultural resources, better sea access, etc. and they took Crimea."
No, they already had it de facto, just not de jure. But with the shift in power in Kiew they were afraid of loosing it.
Either way, they (Russia) lost the water supply.
> invaded a country without a reason
Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly why. WW3 happened for no reason at all.
First, it is not WW3 but Russian aggression on Ukraine.
Second, they had very clear reasons: Putin always considered Ukraine his property and when he realized he can lose it, he decided to use force. He elaborated on it in a longer piece[0] and in the Carlson show.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220305153356/https://thefronti...
> They invaded a country without a reason.
They had their reasons or at least rationalizations, though you don't see them and they might not make sense to you.
> They literally are the bad guy.
Maybe. I agree that the invasion was a very grave evil. Even so, it doesn't mean that they're destined to lose, and we shouldn't think that way. Mongols were bad guys but won so much that they got tired of winning.
It's a very grave fallacy to believe that the Good Guys always prevail. And, besides, the Russians you ask would surely say, "Wait, you think those Banderite Ukrainians are the GOOD Guys?! And here I thought we were the Good Guys! Throughout its entire history, Russia has always fought and always conquered evil."
> Of course they say that, otherwise they would be in prison.
You can't seriously believe this. I'd invite you to hang out on the Russian internet (or Russian Telegram) for a different view. Have a look at what they write in their own language, when talking between themselves.
> They had their reasons or at least rationalizations, though you don't see them and they might not make sense to you.
I read Putin's rationalization that was published just after the war broke off and retracted soon after but you can still read it.[0] He basically claims that Russia has to be great again and it is his historical role to conquer it so that Ukrainians are his slaves just like Belorussians are.
So yes, they have their reasons and realizations, just like another ruler in 1938 and 1939, the problem is that nobody else agreed with them.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20220305153356/https://thefronti...
> You can't seriously believe this.
You don't need to say that Putin isn't great to get arrested. Holding up a blank piece of paper is enough.
It can be enough. Not at all everyone who expressed opposition to the war is in prison. I did not looked too much into it, but can you name anyone at all, who is in a russian prison now, simply for verbally opposing the war?
(There surely are plenty of political prisoners in russia, but I believe they were more vocal and organised in their opposition)
If you'd asked this two weeks ago it would've been pretty easy for me. Alexei Moskalev has only just been released from a penal colony.
I suppose you can dismiss that because social media posts and having a daughter with a brain and a heart don't count as "verbal", but I don't think that would be very reasonable.
Well, I would consider his actions quite vocal. (And the article in the realm of propaganda, because they made it look like he was jailed just for the picture, when he also made uncited posts on social media.)
But nevertheless, it is another good example to save, for my debates with certain people of other opinion. (Nato aggression)
> Have a look at what they write in their own language, when talking between themselves.
Let them enjoy some degree of relative freedom on Telegram channels where they still can. I honestly doubt it will last for long.
That's quite a trick to dive into a fantasy that the problem with your opponents it that they are living in fantasy.
That piece is as much a victim of western magical thinking as the people who it criticizes. The issues that we're seeing in Ukraine are purely material - offensives are no longer possible due to technological advances and the defensive position always wins. The fact that every Russian advance is also being ground down by a country with a quarter it's population is proof enough of this.
That we found this out in a small scale conflict is a blessing - our forefathers found it out in 1914 in a very unpleasant way across 1000km of trenches.
This is not a permanent state of affairs - a tank will be invented and it will break the stale mate in months.
Western culture? Last century? Really? We're story telling monkeys, and we've been obsessed with myths and stories since forever. More often than not taking it so far as it becoming a religion. It's the most distinctively human thing to do and this behaviour predates written history.
You don't read many old books, do you? The most popular stories of the 19th century -- consider Maupassant, Victor Hugo, Dostoyevsky, Dickens, etc. -- were set in the real world of that same era. Even the pulp fiction of that era, the "penny dreadfuls," were generally gothic stories set in the real world.
This is quite nice, as it allows you to learn a lot about history by reading books from that time. It almost gives you an immersive sense of history, in a way.
Even the oldest legends of Europe -- Arthur, Holger Danske, Orlando Furioso, the 8th century BC Iliad, and I could go on -- ostensibly concerned themselves with the real world. (And, to strengthen Greer's point, often contained noble Saracens and other villains.)
Same goes for Asia, by the way. The great legends of Asia -- from the Three Kingdoms, to the Water Margin, to the Tale of Heike -- were at least nominally "real." Not concerned with imaginary worlds.
The myths we create today are qualitatively different in straightforward and obvious ways.
What about religious text? They were always very much concerned with other planes of existence. Places outside of the real world.
Nonetheless, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to have stories set in their own worlds, separated from reality. Maybe it is inevitable. In previous centuries, the world itself was largely unknown. Most people never left the city they were born in until they died. Reading something set in a different real place was in many ways the only way to experience it.
What is the first noteworthy piece of fiction set in a fictional land? "Alice in Wonderland", perhaps? Maybe in a world that was becoming a tad less mysterious (we already had telegraphs, trains, steam ships and so on), some started to look toward fantastical, fictional world to have the illusion of an unknown world.
People used to take the Bible and other religious texts very seriously, and they believed in their literal truth -- far more than they believed in the truth of the Iliad or Charlemagne's Paladins. What's more, the Bible mostly presents something like a historical account with supernatural effects. So I'm not sure what we can draw from this.
> What is the first noteworthy piece of fiction set in a fictional land? "Alice in Wonderland", perhaps?
Maybe Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene? Its connection to our real world is tenuous at best, I'd say.
> People used to take the Bible and other religious texts very seriously, and they believed in their literal truth
I don't disagree. But in a world where even reality was very much a mystery (so you had myths of ancient lost civilizations, cities of gold, etc and so forth), maybe religion, as literal as it was taken, was enough to satisfy the common people with its otherworldly descriptions of places.
My point is that I think it is natural that as the world becomes less mysterious and religion becomes increasingly seen as allegorical, the craving for fictional worlds where not all is known becomes more appealing.
> Maybe Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene? Its connection to our real world is tenuous at best, I'd say.
Maybe the oldes I can think of is the land of Avalon in Athurian legend? Still would have a tenuous connection to the real world.
>What is the first noteworthy piece of fiction set in a fictional land?
Earliest I know of set in an entirely fictional land with no connection to the real world is Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott, from 1884.
At least aspects of fiction in fictional lands are much older. Plato's (admittedly very short) mentions of Atlantis in his dialogues are a good candidate.
There are old books about the kingdoms far far away. Ancient Greek legends were enjoyed by renaissance era people who've never even been to Greece. And let's be real those penny dreadfuls with supernatural horror elements weren't that different from superhero comics when it comes to how detached from reality they are.
And of course there's the religious texts. They often have a heavy focus on abstract things like afterlife that are very much detached from our daily life, but they're also very often foreign imports as well. Christianity is popular in Europe but its roots are in the middle east, and buddhism is very popular in east asia but its origins are in south asia. I think a certain desire for escapism is one reason why this is the case.
In fact, one distinctive feature of the last century was that organized religion became less relevant to many western people. Perhaps you could argue that fiction filled the void? Kind of like how the rise of protestantism removed a lot of catholic rites and rituals from northern europe and to fill the void things like freemasonry became really popular.
> And of course there's the religious texts. They often have a heavy focus on abstract things like afterlife that are very much detached from our daily life
Really? Which ones?
Before the modern age, people were far more accepting of supernatural and/or unproven narratives about our world. Nowadays we demand evidence for anything out of the ordinary and faeries in a purportedly realistic story would feel wrong to us. It seems natural to me that the genre of "fantasy" has emerged, to let us have unrealistic elements in stories without having to admit them into our worldwiew.
It sort of mirrors children's development, with them gradually considering fairy tale elements as less real and relegating them to stories specifically.
Before the modern age, and perhaps for the vast majority even now, there is no such notion as supernatural. Magical thinking, superstition is not the exception, it is the norm. It requires conscious effort, training to diminish its effects, to introduce logic, facts into the thinking process.
Propaganda would be much less effective if people were able to think rationally.
As a counterpoint the golden age of scifi (largely originating from the US) coincided with a golden age of the US. The largest thing in fantasy since Tolkien was probably D&D and that also coincided with a golden age for the US. The popularization of the next escapist medium (home video games) also coincided with an amazing decade for the US
Science fiction is something very different, and I believe you can construct an entire philosophy from the analysis of science fiction as an artform.
Whereas fantasy is escapist and constructs alternative worlds, most works of science fiction -- and especially the classical "hard" science fiction of the Golden Age -- present us with a potential human future. Many of these futures, like Clarke's satellites and today's cyberpunk dystopia, quickly came to be realized. Others, like the space elevator, seem like inevitable ideas that will be realized at some point in the future.
There's a lot that can be written about this, but it's definitely something different...
Hm, the most popular book in the 19. century was probably still the bible.
And in a list I found here, I would say the majority is still quite concerned with the real world:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6.Best_Books_of_the_20th...
Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter just replaced the bible in my opinion, but the people in the 19.century had reasons to flee into imaginary worlds as well.
I think there is something fundamentally different between religious texts and even mostyths and fantasy/sci-fi stories. When the Mesopotamians were listening to the Epic of Gilgamesh, they were reading about the world as they thought it is. When the ancient Jews were listening to stories of Genesis or Moses, they were reading about what they believed the world to be. Even to the extent that they believed certain aspects of those stories to be parables and not an exact description of reality, the main point was to elucidate aspects of what the real world is, or how it should be.
In contrast, when you read The Lord of the Rings, you're reading a pure fantasy, about a world that you're not expected to believe is real in any particular way, and where the reflections on any real world concepts are buried deep in the subtext (unlike, say, a teaching by the Buddha).
> When the Mesopotamians were listening to the Epic of Gilgamesh, they were reading about the world as they thought it is.
When people tell their kids about Santa Claus is that because they believe he exists?
There are always credulous people, but even in highly religious communities you will find amazingly large numbers of people only there for the community and just going along with public displays of adherence to whatever the belief system is. “True believer” is a term for a good reason.
Absolutely, I didn't mean to suggest that every single Mesopotamian thought that the Epic of Gilgamesh was the truth. But even looking at non-devout Christians today, I don't think many of them would call the Bible a work of fiction - they view it as something less than an accurate account of history, but not at all as fictional. I would bet that if you asked the majority of Christians, even the non-practicing ones, they'd believe Noah was a real person who really did worship God, and maybe even faced some kind of flood, and probably lived to an old age - even when they don't believe that he built an arch that literally housed two of every animal on Earth to traverse a global flood, or that he lived for 900+ years.
> When the Mesopotamians were listening to the Epic of Gilgamesh, they were reading about the world as they thought it is.
How do we know this?
We know by the number of real kings who claimed descent from Gilgamesh that there were enough people who believed this that it was worth it politically. Same as we know enough people in medieval Europe believed in the literal truth of Christianity to make it worth for kings to claim to be chosen by God for their purpose. Contrast this to the lack of modern day leaders claiming descent from Batman, or claiming the legitimacy of the Ministry of Magic.
Of course, there would have certainly been people who did not believe in the literal truth of these stories - either as some form of early naturalism, or simply because they believed in other stories (like how devout Christians view the Bible as literal truth, but think the Veddas are just stories, and vice versa).
> The Lord of the Rings
Lord of the Rings is a Catholic Christian morality tale set in the third age of our world. We are now in the year 2024 of the seventh age. It is our world and it is no more or less fiction than the Song of Roland is.
I wish more people would read what the authors meant their worlds to be because a lot of what's described as 'merely fiction' is nothing of the sort.
I have no idea where you came up with this, but it is completely false. While there are clear aspects of Christian morals in Lord of the Rings, it would have been extremely clearly heretical if it had been ever claimed to be a real account (as it has a completely different God, Eru Iluvatar, as the creator, for example).
Not to mention, Tolkien has written quite a bit about the three ages preceding The Third Age (the Dawn Age and the two numbered ages), and there is no mention of Adam, Eve, God, King Solomon, Moses, Noah, the Flood, or any other parts of the Christian mythos of the first few ages. And there are a great many more evil lords, giant spiders, winged eagles, and magical rings then you'll find in any Bible.
> Lord of the Rings is a Catholic Christian morality tale set in the third age of our world. We are now in the year 2024 of the seventh age. It is our world and it is no more or less fiction than the Song of Roland is.
This is contradictory. The Catholic Church has its own history of the world, which is set down in the Bible, and they would consider any alternative history -- such as the one Tolkien wrote about, if you've interpreted it correctly -- to be a heresy. Simple as that.
St. Augustine wrote of Six Ages:
The First "is from the beginning of the human race, that is, from Adam, who was the first man that was made, down to Noah, who constructed the ark at the time of the flood".
The Second "extends from that period on to Abraham, who was called the father indeed of all nations".
The Third "extends from Abraham on to David the king".
The Fourth is "from David on to that captivity whereby the people of God passed over into Babylonia".
The Fifth is "from that transmigration down to the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ"
The Sixth: "With His coming the sixth age has entered on its process."
It is, yet it is a new thing to claim rationality, yet still base most decisions on fantasy.
I don't find it odd at all.
In fact, I'm disappointed about hiatus of HxH manga because I want to see more of Dark Continent. Gigantic animals, extinction level threats, etc. - it's super interesting!
I feel like humans have this interest for discovering the unknown, solving mysteries, seeing things never seen before. What's not to like about it? That's the same exact reason why I like Astronomy and quantum physics - I'm interested in things that are on the edge of what we know.
Whoever thinks creating imaginary worlds is weird must be fun at parties.
Its almost like it becomes a religion; with the emphasis on almost.
Alan touches on critique versus creation. He almost but not quite get at the core issue when he evokes that, in those old glory days of comic fandom, fans were creators too. This is a strong observation but not explored in the article.
As communication technology improves, we get better at making copies of and making searchable the most resonating works. This means that new creators face bigger and bigger barriers to resonating. Most people give up.
To adapt, People have become critics rather than creators - consumers rather than producers. This has a deep effect on our culture.
This might explain the malaise of inaction - that we don’t feel we can accomplish much and that we’ll more readily point out the flaws in an action than encourage the action in others.
As alluded to in the article, it also might increase the tribalism wherein we have one super-creator and their followers.
The act of creation also deepens understanding. The creation process creates a more thoughtful person as much as it creates the work itself.
How do we bring back a culture of creation?
star trek fan films are a good counter example. there are thousands of them and several reach professional quality. check https://startrekreviewed.com/
so it doesn't look like that some productions getting better and better leads others to give up. the improvement of quality just seems to go along with the access to better tools.
the relaxed stance of the star trek owners may have something to do with it. even the clarification of rules a few years ago didn't do anything to reduce the activity. it may have even increased it because now the rules are clearly spelled out where as previously only those that were im contact with CBS/Paramount knew if they overstepped any limits.
there is literally a new release every day. (i have verified this. i have watched almost every video posted on startrekreviewed.com and since the last year or two i am watching one new video per day, and i haven't run out yet. and that's not even counting audiodrama, comics or stories)
the creator fans still exist, but many don't want to deal with threats of copyright enforcement from the popular publishers
> c'est en forgeant qu'on devient forgeron ("working at the forge is how one becomes a smith")
I don't know if there ever was a culture of creation (have you any examples?) but I wouldn't say that there's any lack of opportunity for people today to create for themselves and their friends. Even the super-creators spin off their own opportunities for subdemiurges: recall Bowsette.
Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-FDFsHA20w
The shape of attention has changed.
It's true that now more than ever, niche super creators have found an audience. I think the paradox here is, because of specifically this, not so gifted people have less incentive to create.
30 years ago, there simply was no spreading of media that wasn't so mainstream. So there was no medium for a lot of niches. Without the medium, people felt rewarded in their local community for showing something interesting that had no mainstream analog.
In a sense, the niche creators that were great were more effectively broadcast leaving less audience for worse niche creators. This, over time, meant that less people tried to create and switched to critique.
> less people tried to create and switched to critique.
I'm not convinced of that — I suspect that in earlier times, there were just as few creators, but we didn't get exposed to all* the critiques. (for instance, if I were to make this argument I'd have to go back much earlier than 30 years, because 30 years ago people were already putting their S&M Barbies up on the web; we were already on the second generation of browsers:
However, under the hypothesis that fewer people try to create and switch to critique instead: that'd be their problem.EDIT: * eg, the other day on Zhihu I saw someone asking "What is even the point of Joker 2?" Nowadays we can see criticism from 5 billion people without even scrolling down.
> “…poisons the society surrounding it with its mean-spirited obsessions and ridiculous, unearned sense of entitlement.”
> “…liking something is OK. You don’t need the machete or the megaphone.”
I feel this very strongly in terms of BIG (work) TRUCKS not used for work. Those big trucks with Marvel’s The Punisher themed graphics, flat/matte paints, military-inspired details (I’m thinking of a particular bumper style), and most of all comic inspired details: blacked out windows—so much easier to draw, so much the worse for actual driving. Main character syndrome in the worst way. Just go for a walk or bicycle ride or ride your motorcycle on a Saturday in the greater NYC area and you’ll know exactly how I feel ...
In my opinion the biggest problem with fandom is that it leads to an overly attached attitude towards some work and creates a sense of entitlement and audience capture. Fanservice is a very close cousin to fandom and for very obvious reason, a lot of media with huge fandoms end up being driven by serving people the same thing over and over again because creators lose the ability to actually challenge their audience. It's how you get the whole Marvel industrial complex.
I've always liked Nabokov's attitude towards reading:
"A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle even though we must keep a little aloof, a little detached when reading."
Fandom is the opposite of this where people end up treating their favorite media the way K-Pop fans treat K-Pop idols and it's why fandom driven media just ends up lowbrow and bad.
The Truth About "Toxic Fandoms" - The Critical Drinker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3FF_vBwftw
Why The "Toxic Fandom" Excuse Stopped Working - Critical Drinker After Hours
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=tQBnhFCVcl4
In summary, blaming “Toxic Fandoms” is a convenient way for Hollywood to divert blame for the garbage movies they roll out and demand the audiences love. “Oh you hate our movies? It’s definitely not our fault, it must be because you’re just a hater and a toxic fan.”
From reading the headline, that was my first thought too... But after reading the article, I don't think that he's even touching on that?
He's taking about how the culture of >fandom< itself is toxic to a society - among other reasons, because it creates unhealthy habits that spread beyond media consumption (he's naming politics specifically)
I honestly think he's onto something, even though I also agree with critical thinkers point that the fans aren't particularly toxic, the recent productions are just shit or at least shouldn't be associated with the IPs they're being associated with
Only difference between internet slapfights over superheroes and the Crusades is that we aren't starting hundred year long wars because Superman is better than Spider-Man.
Not yet
I love Alan's work but he is also kind of an idiot on many issues
He rails against the interactions of fans and large conglomerates but he was happy to cash checks anytime his work went up for sale
Remember his big publicity stunt of declining his name to appear on the Watchmen movie credits? Yet he had no issue taking the payday from DC that started it all
I've read everything he has written including his novels...but, shut up Alan
'Remember his big publicity stunt of declining his name to appear on the Watchmen movie credits? Yet he had no issue taking the payday from DC that started it all'
Because back then Comics book industry was not the same, he sold his story and rights to DC and the contract specified that if DC stopped selling the book after a period of time, the rights would revert back to him. Alas, he wrote Watchmen, it's never been out of print he has not been allowed to reclaim his own work.
A lot of his complaining about Movie/Comic book companies comes from the perspectivie of a creator who has lost control of his creations, and is doing what he can to protest that.
So much of his point is that you should appreciate Watchmen for what it is, rather than worry about his association with it.
You thinking he should behave a certain way in response to your appreciation is more or less exactly what he thinks is ridiculous!
I guess he'd been hoping his audience (his readers) would have been more like the pigs on Manor Farm, and is a touch disappointed that the majority audience (his fans) are running around bleating the equivalent of 2 legs bad: "you're locked in here with me!"
Honestly, he comes off as being contrary for the sake of being contrary, instead of the principled contrarian that he thinks he is.
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What's the matter with calling it out like it is, "fandom is sometimes a grotesque blight that poisons the society surrounding it with its mean-spirited obsessions and ridiculous, unearned sense of entitlement."