House of Eratosthenes

Might as well link to this tempest-in-a-teapot we had last week over at Daphne’s place about Harlan Ellison, brilliant science fiction writer, creator of such fine classics as Demon With a Glass Hand, which I consider to be among the finest Outer Limits episodes ever made.

Commenter Gordon nails it:

Harlan Ellison is an asshole. Just ask him.

Could be. I certainly think those who are defending Mr. Ellison, trying to take issue with the fact that he’s an asshole, therefore asserting he is somehow not an asshole, are short-changing the curmudgeon and handicapping his effort. Yes, effort. This is what is so right about what Gordon’s saying. Ellson is not an accidental asshole. He’s on a mission to be one.

He finds the faith others place in God, to be “ridiculous and annoying.”

As President Obama might say — Let me be clear. I don’t think this makes him an asshole because I happen to believe in God. What I think makes him an asshole, is finding such private matters to be ridiculous and annoying. Yes, you could say the football player is making it a public matter by saying it out loud. But it’s still the relationship the football player has to the Almighty, which remains a private thing. It certainly isn’t being offered up for discussion or debate.

I’m not Jewish. But if someone else finds Jewish people to be ridiculous or annoying, this is not alright with me. I don’t want to be around this guy, I look on him contemptuously, I don’t want him making decisions about anything. Ditto for the Catholic who finds Protestants to be ridiculous/annoying…or vice-versa. We, as a civilized society, to our credit, do not put up with this. It doesn’t matter what religion you have, or what the other guy has.

Well, atheism is a religion. Maybe it isn’t as long as it remains pure agnosticism. But ask an atheist to explain how everything got here, he’ll have an explanation ready to go — and by the time he’s laid it out on the table, what you’ve got there is a religion, no two ways about it.

How come they get a pass on this? They got a nose-flattening coming just as surely as any Jew-hating gentile, Muslim-hating Jew, atheist-hating Christian, Shi’ite-hating Sunni…et cetera.

I’m sorry, there’s “eccentricity,” as in “oh, you lovable whackadoodle, you just keep cranking out those wonderful stories and I don’t care about the other stuff!” And then there is pure bile. This is the latter. Harlan Ellison is an asshole.

Update: Once again, from the quill pen of Gerard Van der Leun as he comments at Daphne’s spot…to my scrapbook…

Another author of mine who was a sciencefiction writer once told me about a convention of SF writers and fans.

At a reception, a group of old SF hands were standing about and watching a younger writer regal[e] a chunk of enthralled fans with this or that bit of boasting and self-aggrandizement. One writer said, “You know, that guy reminds me of a young Harlan.”

Another looked for a moment and said, “You’re right. Let’s kill him now.”

I think we all agree we have a physical body.
Most agree we have some sort of mind, and some blend of freewill/destiny.
The concept of a soul or afterlife is the point at which all bets are off.
So, typically, I’ll discuss intellectual things intellectually, and keep a sharp eye for where the discussion crosses that line of demarcation into the abstract/philosophical/spiritual realm.
There isn’t much value in attacking other peoples’ opinions, as such, insofar as the opinions are legal. For example, even though Pat Condell is a flagrant atheist, he holds rational positions and genuinely appreciate the intrinsic value of the Judeo-Christian culture supporting his existence. H.E. seems to miss that point, to his detriment.
- smitty1e | 12/13/2009 @ 13:37
I was actually thinking about this “tempest in a teapot” over the weekend, when I wasn’t busy cleaning up baby vomit. Anyway, Ellison is obviously-I think- an asshole, albeit a talented writer of an asshole. What I was thinking about in greater detail was the whole “science fiction is teh stoopid” comment. Frankly, I’ve had my fill of those dickish literary snobs who seem to operate under the a priori assumption that they know what great literature is and science fiction need not apply. How do they know? Because A says so, B agrees with A and C agrees with A that scifi is retarded. Thus the great circle jerk of groupthink is complete. I guess that Homer wrote crap because it included all sorts of fantastical creatures. Okay, he wrote verse rather than prose, but I think that the point still applies.

What makes good writing? I think-and my lit professors more or less agreed- that (a) a comprehensible story; (b) believable or interesting characters; (c) coherence and/or consistency of some sort; (d) perhaps, depending on the story, some interesting dialogue, which reflects back on point (b). You can’t add grammar per se into the mix because then you omit novels such as “The Sound and the Fury”. And sometimes the story is great because it’s seminal, such as Ellison’s “An Invisible Man”. And still other stories can be judged great merely because of the introduction of previously unknown, or little used, literary devices. However, some books “widely accepted” as great are merely ponderous and awful, consisting of the worst sort of turgid prose. As the saying goes, you’re not a genius and your work isn’t great simply because no one understands you.
- Physics Geek | 12/14/2009 @ 07:26
Wow, that’s some good stuff PG.

I would have to add on to that, that the audience has to be confused at some point. If every scene plays out the way they expect it to, then what’s the point? And so Trent has to go through a “Tomato in the Mirror” exercise and find out that (spoilers, highlight to read) he’s a robot, and the guardian of the human race. This doesn’t mean spoiler. Mere irony will do. Ambiguous meanings packed into a great line. The Godfather saying “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Even better: “To serve man.”

Had to get that thought out, because in the years recently past we have seen so little of this. It’s been more of the pattern for the stories we “all” like to have one, and only one, purpose for each chapter, page, paragraph, scene, character, plotline…to me it’s all as tedious and irritating as underwear worn seven days in a row.
- mkfreeberg | 12/14/2009 @ 07:40
I get irritated when people assume that, because I like science fiction and fantasy, I must be ignorant and cannot be widely read, or that I’m too stupid to appreciate the “nuance” found in some piece of literary bilge that they find so wonderful. People are free to like what they want to, and more power to them, but I find it offensive when some treat my dislike of a particular piece (Silas Marner) as indicative of a mental defect. I will admit that the story is generally appealing, but I find reading the prose containing that story to be painful, which mars my overall impression of the book. I had a similar experience when reading Moby Dick. That freaking 40+ page chapter on “types of whales” made me want to gouge my eyes out and pour bleach into my brain. It added nothing-nothing- to the story. All it did was, for the first time in my life, make me want to stop reading a novel halfway through it.
- Physics Geek | 12/14/2009 @ 09:20
That comment by Gerard is by Isaac Asimov and is from The Hugo Winners Vol. I & II (it’s a dual set). And the person who made the “let’s kill him” comment was Silverberg. How do I know? Because I remember the quote almost verbatim:

::Asimov:: Someone whose name I won’t mention except to say that it was Robert Silverberg said, “Let’s kill him now.”

I could look it up when I get home, but I’m lazy. Actually, I probably will look it up to see what adjective or adverb I dropped. Much like Chun the Unavoidable, science fiction cannot be missed in my house, and The Hugo Winners Vol. [insert volume of here] are eye height, middle of the shelf.

All those years reading science fiction really paid off. I can now casually drop quotations that no one, outside of a handful of geeks, will ever recognize. Here’s an exchange, as best as I can remember, from the first Hugo Award winner ever:

Q: What will you do if your job gets replaced by a little black box.

A: I dunno. Guess I’ll get a job making those little black boxes.

The story in question is The Darfstellar.

Sigh. My brain is so full of stuff these days, and it’s all jumbled up like a library with a random filing system. I used to be able to pull almost anything out at will. That, of course, was before I had children. I find that the three of them take up a significant portion of my brain processes these, to the point that other things I’ve always known get dropped as unimportant which, I suppose, they actually are. But I do miss the days of almost total recall of most everything I’ve ever read or done. Now I have to work to piss people off. Before, it was almost too easy.
- Physics Geek | 12/14/2009 @ 12:04
Gah. I couldn’t even make it through the video clip. It’s just too….offensive. Seriously – he doesn’t understand why some football player wants to glorify God because God had nothing to do with the touchdown? How the *&^@% does this guy know what God did or did not do? He doesn’t believe, yet nonetheless expects to identify genuine God-caused events when they do happen? He wouldn’t know a miracle if it bit him on the ass. He couldn’t even begin to understand the Lord’s purposes in this world, which are often hidden even from believers, much less the unbelieving.

People like this used to annoy and irritate me to the point where I wanted to sock them. Eventually I came to realize that attitude wasn’t very Christian, and to tell you the truth that realization has been liberating.

Now I just sort of feel sorry for people who think like this. They’re blind. They can’t understand, see, or comprehend the Almighty’s hand at work in this world and in this universe. The Bible is quite clear that indeed, such people are blind, and that the message of the Cross is foolishness to them, but to we who are being saved, it is the power of God.

I also pity them from the standpoint that they’re missing out on life’s ultimate purpose and the fulfillment that brings. That purpose is to walk humbly with the Lord thy God, and to help others along the way. It’s a little frustrating that anyone would have a problem with that answer, but Morgan as you say, few people have more blind faith than those who condemn others for having some.
- cylarz | 12/15/2009 @ 02:44

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That Jackhole Harlan EllisonSunday, December 13th, 2009

That Jackhole Harlan Ellison
Sunday, December 13th, 2009