Let a thousand weirdos bloom

[nancylebov]

cristalia sez:

So why the hell do people try so hard? I mean, we work and read and live in a maligned genre. We supposedly know all about other people's Good Taste not being us. Why's there no room for relative taste in our own house?

People try so hard because being an outsider can be dangerous--of course, all those people trying to be safe insiders is what makes being an outsider dangerous. It's one of those prisoner's dilemna thingies. We live in a relatively safe society, and can afford to calm down a little.

From a more positive angle, the more something is liked, the more support it gets, and the more of it there's likely to be.

As for Good Taste in the larger society, I'm rather amazed at the idea that Great art appeals to universal human values--and therefore people have to be trained to appreciate it.

Link thanks to matociquala.

I'm listening to Alash, and I can't figure out why they aren't wildly popular. Same goes for .

Comments

[avram]

I'm a bit surprised to hear that SF/F is still a "maligned genre". Sure, fifty years ago, when an adult who read SF was considered a childish weirdo. But now? When a fantasy series is a massive international cultural phenomenon? When mainstream cultural magazines talk favorably about SF TV shows? Maligned?

I'm rather amazed at the idea that Great art appeals to universal human values--and therefore people have to be trained to appreciate it.

The more sensible formulation of this principle is that Great Art appeals to the values that transcend current culture, and it's easy to be distracted by the current culture you're immersed in.

Though now that I think about it, the Great Art that people have to be trained to appreciate is generally Great Art from earlier eras, and the training is not to understand the culture-specific aspects. A Shakespeare play, for example, has universal appeal at the level of plot and characterization, but the dialog is specific to Elizabethan England. A typical poorly-educated American can't understand the words well enough to get at the plot and characterization, but if you take the basic plot of Romeo & Juliet and set it among rival street gangs in mid-20th-century New York City, you get something with broad popular appeal, provided you do it well.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Now that you mention it, science fiction is certainly much less maligned than it used to be. I was surprised and pleased when NPR gave Gordon Dickson a very nice eulogy. On the other hand, they referred to Doris Lessing as writing science fiction and novels.

My impression is that science fiction tv is part of the mainstream, but print science fiction isn't, and it's still pretty normal (though less common) to have insulting stereotypes of science fiction fans.

There's a C.S. Lewis essay about trying to figure out the difference between high and low-brow writing. The difference isn't between good and bad--there are good and bad examples of both. He kicks the definition around some more, then brings in Dickens as the definitive example--Dickens was low brow until he'd receded far enough into the past that he was no longer accessible to the general public.