this is the baseline,
…or as good as any, to start any discussion about the political efficacy and/or value of any artistic project (something that’s been on my mind a lot lately, and which I hope to blog about more in the near future):
1. We must think steadily, honestly, and realistically about what it is that our works might reasonably do.
2. The fact that they probably won’t spur the immediate resolution of age-old antimonies and contradictions doesn’t mean that they are totally useless.
3. But getting #1 wrong will likely lead them to be useless, yes. Getting #1 right will likely lead to marginal usefulness, and marginal usefulness is better than no usefulness at all.
4. The cultural sphere still is the place where decisions collective and individual are made about who we are, where we’re headed, and what we should do. The base and superstructure are codeterminant. Intervention in culture is still very valuable.
5. You just have to think about which levers you can pull from where you’re standing. And make sure they are the right levers.
I think this is what Gernsback did, precisely, with his little radio magazines. And what people in the field have been trying to figure out since…
Seems like (1) has been SF’s major point of failure for twenty or thirty years now. Probably peaking when Jerry Pournelle won the Cold War.