Great interview about a fascinating book. I was wondering why there has never been an authorized biography of Campbell, Jr. but Mister Nevala-Lee helped clarify this oversight. I do feel that it is unfair to critique the "old white guys" of Campbell, Jr.'s time for not having been inclusive enough or affording room for more diverse voices. Complaining about this presently would be the equivalent of me retrospectively criticizing the country of Japan for not having allowed enough white Western voices to be heard in their country during World War 2. Does everyone see the issue here, within a historical context? These older "white" WW2 generation Americans were living in a different environment and we cannot judge them for doing what was socially expected of them when it came to writing stories and expressing idiosyncratic points of view. Unless Campbell, Jr. actively participated in crimes (such as that horrifying historical practice known as lynching) then it is decidedly unfair to attack to his Socratic process of reasoning by simply deeming him a "racist." This is a shallow assessment at best. Also, referring to science fiction as "literature" is disingenuous because the field (as originally intended) has traditionally always been about leading readers into scientific careers OR getting readers into thinking about speculative scientific possibilities (it is hard for the screen-saturated video-game generation to grasp this, I'm sure). Today, sf is known by the company that it keeps with fantasy writing, which has simply lessened the seriousness of the critical response to the field as a whole. Yes, some sf novels can deal with heavy political themes and sociology, but to ask a genre that has always been about the solving and proposing of hard scientific problems and issues to conform to the social fiction done in literature (from Jane Austen to Cervantes to Toni Morrison) is asking something of the field that it cannot rightfully provide. Therefore, the criticism that sf didn't have enough diversity of voices is invalid, since the genre grew up and developed around Western men and their understanding of scientific principles and experiments (to suggest that "white" Americans should have made way for more diverse voices for the sake of diversity alone is a real threat to meritocratic thinking). Since sf writing is more about the model of mind that grew up around Campbell, Jr.'s generation of dominantly male authors, it is wrong to suggest that it should attempt to be more like social fiction (literature). Most of these writers, by the way, did have ties to government-funded operations and departments, and were privy to people and information that the average teenage nerd reading WONDER STORIES in his bed at night would never have understood or cared about. But it is true that the history of published sf magazines and books was something of a controlled experiment in itself. Asimov understood that the sf writer shouldn't be that concerned with social fiction (which has today become the school of multicultural resentment, one reason why new work simply won't appeal in the way that older books continue to do) because sf writing is all about Transhumanism, not about curing the problems of existing humanity but instead making way for the artificial man (the "human being" that is referred to in futuristic stories is an artificial person, not a real human being, c'mon guys). These writers from the Golden Age well understood that the ills of racism, economic inequality, social injustices, and gender competition won't matter in a world in which the human being's influence has all but been removed. Now, did some of these older authors have issues? Sure they did! Campbell, Jr. has always struck me as a bit nutty, and L. Ron Hubbard is likely to inspire more hatred (due to the religious institution that he left in his wake) than any of the others from the WW2 period combined. Again, a very good interview on the topic, but someone has to remind others to realize that there is historical context at work here. I am excited to read the biography on Buckminster Fuller, he is way too undersung in this day and age.
