Comments on: The Politics of Gloom http://damiengwalter.com/2008/09/29/the-politics-of-gloom/ Writer of weird fiction, Guardian columnist and writing teacher. Mon, 14 May 2012 13:02:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: sTristan a http://damiengwalter.com/2008/09/29/the-politics-of-gloom/#comment-380 sTristan a Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:41:53 +0000 http://damiengwalter.wordpress.com/?p=489#comment-380 While there might be a plight of pacifists in the gaming community, no one can deny that some of the most popular high-spirited styles and most approved genres is punishing games. These are the regatta where from a consideration of position point of view, you slog around an imaginary against zone, gather together diversified weapons, and use them to burn out vacillate away all your enemies. These games bring into the world been enthusiastically dialectic, yet every time in towering assortment and want, since gaming original began, and there are more of them in the present circumstances more than ever. With all the new technologies, there is no end to the possibilities ready to those looking on the side of simulated homicide, and there is no question that more advancements intention create to more and more violent gaming. Indulge in them while you can, still, because these games wish again have their enemies in the media, and you not till hell freezes over grasp what extremes they'll go to in bid to launder up the industry. <a href="http://advancedarcade.com" rel="nofollow">fun arcade</a> While there might be a plight of pacifists in the gaming community, no one can deny that some of the most popular high-spirited styles and most approved genres is punishing games. These are the regatta where from a consideration of position point of view, you slog around an imaginary against zone, gather together diversified weapons, and use them to burn out vacillate away all your enemies. These games bring into the world been enthusiastically dialectic, yet every time in towering assortment and want, since gaming original began, and there are more of them in the present circumstances more than ever. With all the new technologies, there is no end to the possibilities ready to those looking on the side of simulated homicide, and there is no question that more advancements intention create to more and more violent gaming. Indulge in them while you can, still, because these games wish again have their enemies in the media, and you not till hell freezes over grasp what extremes they’ll go to in bid to launder up the industry.
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]]> By: damiengwalter http://damiengwalter.com/2008/09/29/the-politics-of-gloom/#comment-379 damiengwalter Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:42:31 +0000 http://damiengwalter.wordpress.com/?p=489#comment-379 Thanks for your response Luke. I think your final point is very central to the discussion. Its the common flaw in even otherwise great works of sf that the characters become crushed under the idelogical weight of the work.People find ways to still be human even in the darkest circumstances. Thanks for your response Luke. I think your final point is very central to the discussion. Its the common flaw in even otherwise great works of sf that the characters become crushed under the idelogical weight of the work.People find ways to still be human even in the darkest circumstances.

]]> By: Another look at gloominess in science fiction « FROM A SCI-FI STANDPOINT http://damiengwalter.com/2008/09/29/the-politics-of-gloom/#comment-378 Another look at gloominess in science fiction « FROM A SCI-FI STANDPOINT Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:19:09 +0000 http://damiengwalter.wordpress.com/?p=489#comment-378 [...] final comment I want to make, going back to Damien Walter again. In his article “The Politics of Gloom” he says: In very rough terms, the constructive debate is currently being had on the issue of which [...] [...] final comment I want to make, going back to Damien Walter again. In his article “The Politics of Gloom” he says: In very rough terms, the constructive debate is currently being had on the issue of which [...]

]]> By: Luke Jackson http://damiengwalter.com/2008/09/29/the-politics-of-gloom/#comment-377 Luke Jackson Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:17:13 +0000 http://damiengwalter.wordpress.com/?p=489#comment-377 I enjoyed reading your article and the discussion that arose as a result, Damien. Although the works I like tend to be darker, I think Cramer's response says more about her (and the perhaps-too-powerful role of editors) than the field at large and what readers enjoy. She says that great writing is a result of those who are in touch with the nature of reality, so that it would appear that accurate reflection of reality in writing is the utmost goal-- a strange goal for an SF writer, I would think. In terms of popularity, I'm pretty sure that the more optimistic works fare better. People have talked about Star Wars, and I think maybe Scalzi's works would fall in this optimistic category-- no matter what bad things happen, there is a positive, can-do vibe suffusing the work and its eventual happy resolution that the general reader likes. Every generalization has exceptions and nuances, but it does seem that darkness provides things that optimism cannot, the most obvious being more dramatic conflict. As a future becomes too utopic, the conflict comes to seem more of a "game" than a crisis. (I think an example of this is Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.) You didn't mention Brave New World in your piece, but I think it's instructive to look at. It's not as clearly dystopic as 1984, and yet most people do recognize it as a dystopia. (I remember reading a piece by Irvine Welsh, I think it was, who argued that Brave New World was actually a perfect utopia of sex and drugs on demand.) That more complex dystopia, I believe, would be taken as a utopia by a large percentage of the world's population without literary "guidance", but we take it as a dystopia because of the narrator's existential crisis, the delimitations and lack of freedoms of these future individuals. I think the work suffers when writers create a future which predetermines their character's fate, whether positively or negatively, while stripping them of their human-ness and ability to act, see, think, and feel. In the best works, this is always preserved, despite the landscape. (A great example being Womacks' Random Acts of Senseless Violence.) Even the most benighted slave has something that is, for him, a life. I enjoyed reading your article and the discussion that arose as a result, Damien. Although the works I like tend to be darker, I think Cramer’s response says more about her (and the perhaps-too-powerful role of editors) than the field at large and what readers enjoy. She says that great writing is a result of those who are in touch with the nature of reality, so that it would appear that accurate reflection of reality in writing is the utmost goal– a strange goal for an SF writer, I would think.

In terms of popularity, I’m pretty sure that the more optimistic works fare better. People have talked about Star Wars, and I think maybe Scalzi’s works would fall in this optimistic category– no matter what bad things happen, there is a positive, can-do vibe suffusing the work and its eventual happy resolution that the general reader likes.

Every generalization has exceptions and nuances, but it does seem that darkness provides things that optimism cannot, the most obvious being more dramatic conflict. As a future becomes too utopic, the conflict comes to seem more of a “game” than a crisis. (I think an example of this is Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.)

You didn’t mention Brave New World in your piece, but I think it’s instructive to look at. It’s not as clearly dystopic as 1984, and yet most people do recognize it as a dystopia. (I remember reading a piece by Irvine Welsh, I think it was, who argued that Brave New World was actually a perfect utopia of sex and drugs on demand.) That more complex dystopia, I believe, would be taken as a utopia by a large percentage of the world’s population without literary “guidance”, but we take it as a dystopia because of the narrator’s existential crisis, the delimitations and lack of freedoms of these future individuals.

I think the work suffers when writers create a future which predetermines their character’s fate, whether positively or negatively, while stripping them of their human-ness and ability to act, see, think, and feel. In the best works, this is always preserved, despite the landscape. (A great example being Womacks’ Random Acts of Senseless Violence.) Even the most benighted slave has something that is, for him, a life.

]]> By: Eric Tolle http://damiengwalter.com/2008/09/29/the-politics-of-gloom/#comment-376 Eric Tolle Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:55:40 +0000 http://damiengwalter.wordpress.com/?p=489#comment-376 This political dichotomy seems like a strange reversal in attitude. It seems to me that traditionally it was the Left that held that society could be improved with science, and the Right that held the past was better, and Change Was Bad. I even remember tradtional conservative SF fans back in the 1980s arguing that human nature could never change, and thus society could never change. Maybe it was a combination of the failure of the 1960s youth movements, along with the fall of Communism that's made the Left so pessimistic? This political dichotomy seems like a strange reversal in attitude. It seems to me that traditionally it was the Left that held that society could be improved with science, and the Right that held the past was better, and Change Was Bad. I even remember tradtional conservative SF fans back in the 1980s arguing that human nature could never change, and thus society could never change.

Maybe it was a combination of the failure of the 1960s youth movements, along with the fall of Communism that’s made the Left so pessimistic?

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