Recently author K.T. Bradford issued the challenge for people to for one year to not read anything written by a straight, heterosexual, while, cis-male author. The goal of the challenge, as I understand it, to expand the readers awareness and understanding of the world and its people by exposure to culture, thoughts, and individual from outside the main stream. Make no doubt I agree that the firehouse of material from mainstream media, print, TV, and film, is very much one in which the white, straight, cis-male voice is overwhelmingly dominate. I think it is a terribly good idea for everyone to read and write outside their comfort zone. All readers should seek out material that comes from author who are not like themselves. When you read only from people like yourself you do yourself and others a grave disservice. It is only by such exposure that we can learn what it means to be different and only when we learn that can we begin to have true empathy. That said, I think this exclusion of voice is a terrible concept. No one should be excluded because of the circumstances of their birth. The exclusion of any whole class of people, particularly based upon inherent traits, is an ugly action. Now supporters of challenge may feel that the firehouse of media is so overwhelming dominated by the straight, white, cis-males that the exclusion does no real harm and is justified in the name of social justice. To me such an argument only works if you take the mental step of not remembering that each and every one of those authors, straight, white, and cis-male, are all individual persons. They are not a class, They are not a category. They are people. They are individuals that, by participating in this challenge, your are slighting, excluding, and devaluing their voices. For well-established authors, choosing to not buy their books as part of this challenge is a very minor affair in terms of damage. A man like John Scalzi, an ally in this sort of action, has a well established and devoted fan base. His career is made. However a new voice, a new author needs every single sale he can get. He has to proved that the investment in his art by the publishers is well worth it. It is much more damaging to a first time novelist to have people excluding his work from purchase based solely upon his inherent characteristics that it is the well known and successful. I would urge you to expanding your reading. Expand your understanding. Expand your empathy, but do it by inclusion not exclusion.

John Scalzi over at his blog whatever posted an essay in response to this blog post. Like Scalzi I would urge you to go read the pose and then come back to my thoughts.

While Scalzi addressed the idea of taking back SF conventions, award, and SF culture in general, I am more interested in the whole concept of the right myths to be telling.

Mr. Lehman seemed to be supporting a stand that principle American myths in SF were being undermined by ‘enemies’ and that it was important that the right myths be told, and written.

I agree with him utterly that myths are one of the primary definitions of a culture. Understand their myths and you have gone a long way to understanding them. Myths are also critical in the transmission of culture across generations. So there we are again in agreement.

What he seems to miss in my opinion is just how fluid myths are. They are never the same from tale to tale and their alteration, divergence, and mutations is part of what drives changes in culture. He speaks of the cowboy myth, one that was born of dime novels and expanded upon my film and television. I wonder which cowboy myths are the right ones? The Roy Rogers, white hates and black hats, never shoot anyone in the back, always tell the truth cowboys? Perhaps the gritty people are no good and you cannot depend on them myth of ‘High Noon?’ Or maybe the violent, murdering butchers of ‘Unforgiven?’ just within the cowboy myth and over a few short decades the meaning changed and the truth as I see it is that there is no ‘correct’ or ‘right’ cowboy myth. All of them speak to something about America and its people, all of them speak to the changes that she endured and continues to endure.

Myths change the people and people change the myths. It is a feedback loop of a dynamic unstable system. Science-fiction myuths used to be something else, but they changed as new voice came in, added their own experiences, as the culture changed and elevated myths that better spoke to them as that time. It is a constant process. It is not one driven because some people went to mechanical engineering school while others plotted and planned in social engineering schools. SF is a business first and what you see on the shelves today is a result of the market demanding it be there. (I speak of course concerning the traditionally published, outside of that everything in the world is available.)

There is no perfect set of SF myths and stories anymore than there are for cowboys or knights. Trying to restrict it top a perfect set a platonic ideal of what SF is about is as futile as reducing a motion picture to a singe perfect frame and insisting that only that frame need be viewed.

New voices will always come in, they will always bring in new idea, some will be accepted, some will not. Some old ideas will endure, others will fade. It is the nature of culture to change.