Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth

by John C. Wright

  This is something I neither understand nor condone. As far as I can tell, all characters, male and female, (with the possible exception of the stars of tragedies ending in a pool of blood), are Mary Sues, that is, wish-fulfillment characters. And even the tragic heroes would fulfill my wishes, if they died in the noble fashion, poetry on lip and firmness in eye, as a stoic should die.

  So what is behind this mockery? Is it just a cruel backlash from the Patriarchy, (by which I mean the government of cat-people of 61 Ursae Majoris), trying to stifle the self-esteem of the feminists who want to read about feminine heroines?

  I am sure there are readers with discriminating patrician tastes who want to read stories with well-rounded and realistic characters, drawn with warts and all, granting some memorable insight into the melancholy grandeur of the human condition. I also read such stories, but only when I have run out of Galactic Patrol novels, or Barsoom books, or Justice League comics. I have no problem with wish-fulfillment characters like the Gray Lensman, who is good at everything; or John Carter, who can outfence and outfight everyone on two worlds and comes back to life when killed, except on another planet; or Superman, who can outfight and outfly everyone and comes back to life when killed, except blue.

  What people find annoying is not wish-fulfillment characters. What they find annoying is wish-fulfillment characters who fulfill unseemly wishes.

  The wish is to do without Prince Charming. The wish is to be as good as a man at men’s work in a man's world. Ironically, the characters are from a Disney movie where all the main characters are female and everything that happens, happens because some female makes it happen. (The females are fairies, but so what? Women are magical in real life anyway, as far as I am concerned). The Prince does little more than dance one waltz with the maiden fair, get his butt kicked by orcs, and end up in chains while the evil fairy queen mocks him. Not only is he rescued by women, they are women no bigger than my pinky finger.

  But his is the task to face the poisonous thorns and slay the dragon, who is filled with all the powers of Hell.

  That anyone would see this, this small role occupying only a few minutes of screen time, as an insult to women, or as a threat, or as an imposition, is madness. So what is the wish being fulfilled, where the Sleeping Beauty needs no rescue and needs a man only about as much as a fish needs a bicycle?

  It is not a wish for female equality. This is one fairy tale where every female character is either royalty or is supernatural.

  It is a wish for sexlessness. It is a wish to do away with everything feminine, and to be better at Prince Charming’s task than the Prince. Ultimately, it is a wish to do away with human nature itself.

  But human nature cannot be done away with. Consider that epitome of liberated strong femalehood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who has spawned as many homages and imitations in her day as John Carter did in his. He created a genre of his own, called the Planetary Romance. She created a genre of her own, sometimes called Urban Fantasy, but which should really be called Monster Romance.

  It should be called Monster Romance because the main story arc for Buffy was about her love life. First she was sweet on Angel, but that did not work out, then Riley, and then Spike. Despite that she was a kick-ass wire-fu superheroine with a smile full of quips and a hand full of stakes, the main point of the drama was, as in most stories of this kind, her love life.

  And Anita Blake? And countless others? Where is the main conflict? Where is the reader’s interest? Where is the drama? It is all about Jean-Claude or Spike or whomever the semihuman male lead is. It is all about the romance.

  Most if not all of these urban leather clad ninja-babes and modern swordswomen feed a need in the audience. The males, by and large, just like seeing cute girls dressed as Catwoman. The females, by and large, like the romantic drama. There is no drama if the boy and the girl kiss on the first page and get married on the second. The drama exists if something prevents the marriage. These days, there are no real taboos to marrying whomever you would like, and the guy can even start out married to someone else, because divorce is no fault. Modernity allows no dramatic and realistic obstacle to romance.

  The solution is to employ dramatic, unrealistic obstacles, such as by having your male lead be a nonhuman from the Night World. In urban fantasy, the vampire or the werewolf can fulfill this role neatly. Also, the half-monster can be masculine in a fashion no soft modern man is likely to be: werewolves can be badass as Conan, and vampires as seductive and dangerous as Lord Byron. (Who no doubt was a vampire anyway.) And since the heroine is the Chosen One, and destined to kill monsters like him, she is placed in a situation where she must overcome both his fallen nature, and the powers of hell, and her own best judgment, and defy the Council of the Illuminati, to win his heart and restore his soul.

  Which is a perfectly satisfying book because this is exactly what finding and domesticating a man feels like or should feel like to a woman.

  And, of course, in the modern age, where the despair of women is at a historical all-time high, and the divorce rate is high and the suicide rate is high, romance feels like a back alley brawl with a supernatural monster. These books are a picture of the despair of women in the sexual free-for-all that exists in a postchristian, feminist world, a world where a woman is defended by no one but herself.

  A leather-clad street fighter with a sword and a chainsaw, covered in blood, is what life feels like to the female readership, who need an image of strength and security to admire. No wonder such books are popular.

  4. Thought Policewomen

  To recap: by the nature of male and female biology, a certain stereotypical psychology and set of virtues, priorities and values was necessary and desirable to differentiate the sexes and increase their joy in each other.

  The virtues of men are called masculinity; the virtues of women are called femininity. The argument given there was that females can be strong and should be portrayed in stories as strong in the way that is particular to women, but not in the way that is particular to men. What writers should not do, so the previous essay argued, is merely give female characters manly characteristics and call that ‘strong’.

  So far, in none of these essays, have I mentioned what the objection is to the effort to making these masculinized glamour-model Amazons into main characters.

  I have said I have no objection to Supergirl, who is Kryptonian, and stronger than any mortal, and no objection to Wonder Woman, who is, er, an Amazon. Not only do I have no objection to Batgirl either when played by Yvonne Craig or when drawn by Bruce Timm and voiced by Tara Strong, I actually have an unsightly crush on her.

  I have no objection to Mary Sue style wish-fulfillment characters who are good at everything and loved by all men. I do not see them as different from James Bond style wish- fulfillment characters who are good at everything and loved by all women.

  I have no objection to an angst-ridden yet buxom leather-clad vixen in high heeled boots fighting her werewolf ex-lover not in high heeled boots with her silver switchblade on the back of her flaming Harley-Davidson motorcycle in the moonlight on a storm-drenched burning train-trestle collapsing beneath the roaring unmanned freight train carrying jet fuel and nitroglycerine bearing down on her. Will she be able to stab the handsome brute in time to swan-dive to safety into the raging piranha-filled and ice-choked river far below, and still find forgiveness and love, before the inevitable explosive break-up of the Transcontinental Railway and her relationship with her brutally handsome demon-lover?

  Who am I to criticize any of this? I mean, good grief, I watched Resident Evil: Retribution and almost enjoyed it. (I actually have rather plebeian tastes. Albeit I suppose a real plebeian would not know the word “plebeian”. He would use the phrase “the hoi polloi” instead.)

  So what is my objection?

  My objection is to falseness, insincerity, propaganda, bad drama, bad art, and treason against the muses. My objection is to using art for propaganda purposes. My objection
is to Politically Correct piety. My objection is to the Thought Police.

  My objection is to the spirit of totalitarianism.

  For about ten years now, I have been writing and posting essays and articles on my electronic journal, and in all that time, I have been subjected to the Leftist mob tactics of mass hatred once and once only. It was the time I mocked the Sci-Fi Channel, (now SyFy), for kowtowing to Political Correctness. My motive for objecting was perfectly clear to everyone: I would like to write without censorship, formal or informal, based on political considerations. Formal censorship is state enforced; informal is enforced by organized mob-tactics, minority pressure groups, yelling, screaming, boycotts, hysteria and general bullying.

  Because I would like to write without informal censorship interfering with my livelihood, I objected to the Sci-Fi Channel, or anyone in my field, surrendering to the minority pressure groups screaming and yelling and mob-tactics and bullying. So I mocked the Sci-Fi Channel for encouraging the bullies by bowing the knee to them.

  And in return the mob tried to bully me, of all people. As if I give a tinker’s damn for the opinions of these yowling halfwits. (There was exactly one person of the seven hundred or so who wrote in to me who seemed sincerely offended, and to him I apologized. To the remaining six hundred and ninety-nine or so, I offered defiance in public, and in private prayed for their fool souls, hoping despite all appearances they were not damned fools.)

  This taught me a lesson, but not the one the mob organizers wanted to teach. It taught me what they were afraid of. Not of me: no one can be afraid of a fat and balding nearsighted science fiction writer with a dull swordcane.

  Nor were they offended by hearing sodomy called a sexual perversion, which I have done frequently before and since, never eliciting a single angry comment in reply, nor attracting the slightest notice.

  Since my legions of drug-maddened terror troops are all stranded on Salusa Secondus, the third planet of Gamma Piscium, 138 light-years away, surely the mobsters of Political Correctness are not afraid of any physical force I can bring to bear. Neither am I in a position to deny any man any economic opportunities, nor am I influential enough to provoke public opinion or create any controversy. I doubt I could even do as much myself against them as they have done to me, such as hack a Wikipedia page or send around an open letter and expect it to be published and reprinted.

  To explain what they are afraid of, I am afraid I have to explain something of the pathology of Leftism.

  They actually think they are fooling us.

  No, stop laughing. I will give you a moment to catch your breath again.

  They think we think they care about gays and lesbians and blacks and women and Jews, and that their motive is compassion for all these poor oppressed groups….

  Please stop laughing. I will give you another moment.

  Now they know what their real motives are: to give themselves a sense of greatness which they do not deserve by thinking that they fought for civil rights that they actually oppose, out of compassion which they do not have for victims of utterly imaginary hardships and oppressions.

  Am I being unfair? Remind me of the last time a group of feminists rioted outside of a Saudi Embassy.

  They want what they have not earned. I do not mean monetary earnings. Their socialism, the craving for the unearned in the economic sphere, is not the main thrust of their psychopathology, it is a side-effect. I mean spiritual earnings. They want self-esteem without the effort of doing anything worthy of esteem. They yearn for the palm of martyrdom without actually suffering the pain of being a martyr in the same way they want the crown of righteousness without actually being right.

  My theory is that the schoolgirlish overreaction prompted by my comment had nothing to do with the particular topic of gay characters in Sci-Fi shows. My theory is that the unadmitted reason for the degree of hostility in that one case was that I happened accidentally to tell the truth about them.

  They are censors. The Politically Correct are Thought Policemen.

  They do not think it is evil if a man commits crimes; for them, evil is a matter of thinking the wrong thoughts. Hence, Bill Clinton can abuse women without limit, but if he mouths the correct thought in reference to abortion, the feminists love him. Hence, Mrs. Cheney can be loving and compassionate toward her gay sister, but if she disapproves of gay marriage, she is the same as a Nazi lusting to exterminate the Jews.

  ‘Censors’ is perhaps not the right word. In ancient Rome, the office of the Censor, in addition to counting the numbers of the tribes and orders for voting, was to bring public shame upon behavior unbecoming to Roman dignity. Later, the office was to bring shame upon books thought heretical or immoral or deleterious to the public order, or redact, or forbid them.

  What they are is anticensors: the Politically Correct try to bring shame onto books thought orthodox or moral or insufficiently deleterious to the public order. If a book does not promote sexual perversion in a sufficiently flattering and fulsome way, our anticensors hold it up to public shame.

  Now, these self-anointed Thought Police would have no appeal if they admitted their true motivations, even to themselves. They need rationalizations, they need excuses, they need a mask.

  The mask is compassion for the downtrodden.

  Now, if you look through all human history, you will not find a single instance where the Leftists have actually helped the downtrodden, but many instances of the Left enthusiastically trampling the downtrodden, and grinding the faces of the poor into the dirt. That is the mental image which causes the Leftists their semi-sexual leg-tingles of sadistic lust: they want to see the human face trampled forever beneath their bootheel.

  The examples of Cuba, China, Soviet Russia, and Nazi Germany should be sufficient warning of what the true motives are behind movements like Occupy Wall Street, or what the moblike anger of the Ku Klux Klan, which formed the military arm of the Democrat Party after their defeat in the South, can do when its grip on the levers of power goes unchecked.

  A reasonable objection to make at this point is that the Fabian-style socialists do not want violence. Clement Attlee managed to bring postwar Britain to adopt all the same economic and social policies as Mussolini’s fascist Italy, after all, without firing a shot, without making any arrests.

  An even more reasonable objection is that nearly all Leftists think of themselves and talk of themselves and tell narratives about themselves where they are kind and compassionate and softhearted and filled with pity and brimming with the milk of human kindness, and so violence is the farthest thing from their mind.

  Then they explain why Che Guevara is a hero, why George Washington is not so much a hero, why Castro’s Cuba has free health care, and why the guillotine was necessary because the aristocrats and the Jews are enemies of the people, and you cannot make an omelet without murdering 259,000,000 million people in wars, pogroms, and government-orchestrated famines.

  So they might not approve of killing the victims of Communism by the millions, but they strongly, strongly object to you criticizing Communism.

  After all, Castro and Che and Mao and Stalin murdered more people than Attila the Hun, but Senator McCarthy terrified self-important Hollywood people by following legitimate evidence indicating that the State Department was infiltrated by Soviet Agents, and, after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was discovered that each and every person McCarthy accused was guilty of exactly that which he accused them…. So, this means McCarthy was such a bad person, you cannot criticize Che or Castro or Stalin. Ronald Reagan was the real terrorist, and may have been a madman.

  In other words, not all Leftists are violent, but Leftists are blind to violence on their side, because whatever their side does is not judged by moral standards.

  Hence in the Politically Correct cult worldview, violence is permitted when it serves the cause, but not necessary. Violence is merely icing on the cake, an extra, something in which to indulge when and if opportunities permit, such as amo
ng barbaric Russians who passively will endure it, but easily eschewed when opportunity does not permit, such as among civilized Englishmen who might well take up arms if provoked, as Englishmen, judging by their history, are wont to do.

  Violence is not the point of Political Correctness.

  The central point of Political Correctness is faith.

  It is a religious faith, similar to Christianity and growing out of her, but opposed to its host organism and seeking forever to destroy her.

  Leftists will trace their roots back to Marx or to the left hand seats of the French Assembly during and before the time of the French Revolution, but the transformative and utopian spirit reaches back to Cromwell and the Puritans. The Puritans in their early days were the arrogant intellectual elite precisely like our current ones, and it was bishops, not beer, to which they objected.

  The Puritans gave birth to the Unitarians who gave birth to the Progressives who gave birth to the modern Left, which takes little or no inspiration from the French Revolution. The religious and crusading impulse of the Puritans, the hatred of Christmas, of worldly wealth, of Jews, of Catholics, all of those things remain.

  What the Puritans wanted was totalitarianism. The Catholic Church wanted the secular power separate from the spiritual power, and always has, and always will, and the Church always grants her children freedom to make their own judgment in any thing where God has not spoken. The Puritans want no freedom at all, no latitude. Teetotalism and Prohibition and living without private property and that sort of rigorousness have never been a Catholic thing meant for the Catholic laity. Just ask the Irish.

  The Church has always allowed and encouraged those called to a special spiritual adventure to live without worldly pleasures or worldly goods, but never demanded each and every one of us dress in broadcloth like the Puritans year round, rather than just for Lent. The Church demands modesty from her daughters, but not the head-to-toe veil of the Islamic Fascists or the austere unisex drabs of the Maoists.