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Asimov’s Empire, Asimov’s Wall
- setpatchaddress 7y agoAsimov is on record as saying he didn’t help new writers because he wasn’t good at it. If the claim is that his behavior cost the speculative fiction world many young women writers, who exactly are the young men who were gained?
- sinak 7y agoThe article doesn't claim that the harm to women was just from lack of mentorship. It states that Asimov's (repulsive) behavior made the sci-fi community inhospitable for women, particularly given his unique position as an incredibly popular author. From the article: > From an early age, Asimov was drawn to the communal aspects of fan culture, but he made it more difficult for women to experience that sense of community. Women have long occupied an ambiguous place in science fiction, where they have been alternately welcomed, dismissed, and harassed. Asimov took advantage of what he called the rising percentage of “shrill young girls” at conventions in the 1960s, and his unique position at such events—he was invariably the center of attention—made his example especially insidious. His admirers looked to him as a model of how to behave, and fandom was complicit for years in his serial misconduct in ways that have never been fully acknowledged. > Asimov has always meant a lot to me, and the best qualities of his work—his rationality, curiosity, and imagination—changed thousands of lives for the better. Yet the visible edifice of his hundreds of books needs to be balanced against the unseen wall that he built around the heart of science fiction. His actions had a negative impact on an untold number of women [...]
- LanceH 7y agoYea, it's always someone else's fault. Too bad they couldn't cruise through life with the social status of science fiction/fantasy nerd. Doors threw themselves open. We need some real social scientists to step in and quantify exactly how wronged everyone has been. Then we can sort ourselves out and defer to those who have scored more offense points than ourselves. Or we could stop prosecuting 40+ year old rage on behalf of other people.
- AlEinstein 7y agoAnd assaulting women at conventions is cool and normal because it’s what Asimov did, right?
- worik 7y agoYes. Young men emulate high status older men, that is what I have seen.
- phs318u 7y agoOr we could learn from the past, like human beings have before. By acknowledging past mistakes and reassessing behaviours so we don’t repeat them. It’s called progress not rage. If anything, the tone I got from the author (and which I get reading it, as a fan who didn’t know this about Asimov), was one of profound sadness.
- fatbird 7y agoOne of the reasons for calling out Asimov like this is to establish that the norms that allowed him to get away with his behaviour are no longer acceptable, and to prevent this generation from pointing to them as models or excuses. There's a thoroughly practical reason for disinterring the greats like this.
- fearingreprisal 7y ago> From an early age, Asimov was drawn to the communal aspects of fan culture, but he made it more difficult for women to experience that sense of community. Women have long occupied an ambiguous place in science fiction, where they have been alternately welcomed, dismissed, and harassed... There's a common refrain heard recently regarding basically any historically male dominated domain, that women are not welcomed or encouraged. This is unfortunately all-too-common in software engineering. As a male software engineer, I feel as though no-one is welcomed or encouraged. I feel as though women are reacting to industries that have always been harsh and unwelcoming and feeling uniquely victimised.
- crooked-v 7y agoEven if that were true, crab-in-a-bucket mentality doesn't do anything good.
- fearingreprisal 7y agoDon't imply that I have a crab-in-a-bucket mentality. I don't want my industry to be unfriendly and unwelcoming. I didn't tell you how it has affected me personally either.
- watwut 7y agoThe main claim in article is the huge amount of women groped including odd example of shaking left breast instead of hand. Which leads to women finding excuses to not be in building when Asimov comes around. This sort of behavior makes community aspect of it all much different for both genders.
- jacobolus 7y ago> As a male software engineer, I feel as though no-one is welcomed or encouraged. I feel as though women are reacting to industries that have always been harsh and unwelcoming and feeling uniquely victimised. Have you ever had someone grab your ass or try to kiss you without consent in a professional context? Ever had a corporate officer seem interested in hiring you, call you in for an interview, ask you on a date, and then decide not to hire you when you rejected them? Ever been told on the first day by a new boss about their open relationship with their spouse, and their search for new sexual partners? Ever had a coworker make an overtly sexist joke about your gender to your face? Ever been propositioned for sex by a stranger at a conference? Ever heard a friend explain that “I would never work for a woman boss. No offense, you’re not like most women.” Ever been denied a new job or a promotion because the decision-maker thought you might have a child within the next few years? Ever been the clear expert or authority in a meeting with multiple people and been repeatedly interrupted by someone asking the clueless novice next to you to explain what you were just trying to say? Ever had a novice badly try to explain the content of your own book to you, even after you mentioned you were the author? Ever gone to speak at an event and had someone ask you which speaker was your spouse? Etc. etc. ad nauseam. If none of the above, then you probably are misunderstanding what people say when they claim to feel frequently unwelcome.
- dannylandau 7y agoI read his biography about 20 years ago, still one of most entertaining books I've ever read. Don't remember him talking about this stuff, other that his female fans were very rabid. Strangely, was never a fan of his fiction, but the biography is wonderful!
- TenJack 7y agoIs this the biography you read? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00317G7K6 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00317G7K6
- dannylandau 7y agoYap, it sure is, great, easy and entertaining read.
- Rerarom 7y agoI guess they asked because there are more of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiographies_of_Isaac_Asimov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiographies_of_Isaac_Asimo...
- ComputerGuru 7y ago*autobiography
- graeme 7y agoHe mentioned it all constantly. He mentioned his habit ribald talk especially often, but mentioned kissing and such quite frequently too. It was a definite theme of the book. Mind you there are 2 or 3 volumes. It only really started some time after he was married; could be volume II if you only read the first.
- ur-whale 7y agoI find it very bizarre that the building of the great wall of China seems to be considered by the author an achievement. I'm rather confident that the folks involved in the actual piling of stones and likely forced to do so at sword point would have begged to differ. Also, building border walls is apparently an unfashionable endeavor these days, I'm not sure why one built a 1000 years ago should be treated different.
- djur 7y agoThe author of the linked piece doesn't really ascribe any moral value to the Great Wall that I can see. Something can be monumental without being good. Borges certainly doesn't describe the building of the Wall as a good thing: > Herbert Allen Giles relates that those who concealed books were branded by a red-hot iron and condemned to build the outrageous wall until the day of their death. This information favors or tolerates another interpretation. Perhaps the wall was a metaphor, maybe Shih Huang Ti condemned those who worshipped the past to a work just as vast as the past, as stupid and useless. Borges isn't comparing a good act and an evil one. He's comparing a great creation with a great destruction -- the building of an enduring historical artifact with the destruction of recorded history.
- jmmcd 7y ago> Borges isn't comparing a good act and an evil one. He is a bit -- at the end of the article there is a suggestion that they two acts cancel each other out, and we can agree that the burning of books is an evil one.
- djur 7y agoThat doesn't mean they cancel each other out as acts of good and evil, though. They cancel each other out as acts of historical creation and destruction.
- glangdale 7y agoSF has always had a problem. As the article points out, there's a certain irony in going to Harlan Ellison to ask about Asimov being a harasser. I think the list is pretty long. But the "communal aspects of fan culture" of SF - almost groupies in the fandom - has led to some very tight networks protecting all sorts of people. A particularly horrifying axis is that between Marion Zimmer Bradley and her husband, Walter Breen. Bradley is merely accused (to be clear: I believe the accuser) but Breen was a convicted molester who was known to be problematic for years - with people in fandom just trying to manage the situation. If this doesn't sound familiar from tech, you haven't been paying attention. idk what to do about all this; it's pretty easy for me to pass on rereading Asimov or MZB anyhow. But the obvious lesson, still unlearned in many quarters, is "don't keep protecting harassers". To quote a better, or at least IMO more interesting author (please don't let him be a harasser too): "Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view." - Stand on Zanibar, John Brunner
- tallanvor 7y agoSF is still a reflection of the world in general. From business to politics, to religion, to the entertainment industry, the "important" people have and still do get away with doing things they shouldn't, and that community will often cover for them as long as possible. What may make things worse is that the SF community does still attract a larger percentage of socially awkward young people, mostly men, who are also extremely passionate, so seeing that type of behavior normalized can have a larger impression on them. This behavior needs to be stopped, but it needs to continue to be addressed in all communities.
- neiman 7y agoI agree with all you said, but I may put it in the past tense. I only started visiting Worldcon in the few years, but from what I see, there is huge awareness for it there, and these phenomenons do not exist there nowadays. They probably exist in other sff events, the sad/rabid puppies didn't disappear yet sadly, however, since Worldcon is the face of the field, I wouldn't define it as a "problem of contemporary SF"
- fractallyte 7y agoHe was a product of his time. For all his intellect, cultural imprinting resides at a deeper level, and is hardest to shake.
- djur 7y agoEven his contemporaries thought that his behavior was exceptional and worthy of comment, though. It's less that such behavior was accepted in his time than that it was tolerated of a "great man".
- Cthulhu_ 7y agoI don't believe you. Come on. In what time was it considered normal to shake a woman's breast? Was your father like that? Your grandfather?
- ivanhoe 7y agoNormal not, but widespread and tolerated by society at large yes. Pinching, grabbing, hugging, making lascivious comments and cat calling had the same treatment as swearing, it was considered rude, but nothing more than that...
- fractallyte 7y agoOK, I'll clarify. His attitude was a product of the time. I love that his fiction had strong female protagonists, but his everyday attitude toward women is typical of the era. Mad Men illustrated this very well (slight spoiler: especially consider what happened to Peggy, by Pete, early in the series..). Women were expected to take a lot 'on the chin'. After all, guys will be guys, right? If others raised eyebrows about his behavior, it was only because it was more risqué than normal, but not out of any consideration for the victims.
- roca 7y agoHis female protagonists were mostly sex objects. The only exceptions I can think of are Susan Calvin (who is portrayed as hardly a woman at all) and Arkady (too young, just).
- lurkercommenter 7y agoisn't slap in the face an appropriate response to a unwanted ass grab? Sex is everywhere, and each person have their own approach to sex. This is too deep in the rabbit hole for me, collecting opinions of opinions of opinions
- goto11 7y agoSo imagine this scenario: A big fat guy with a creepy smile follows you around and grabs your ass. What would be an appropriate response?
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- RobertRoberts 7y agoThe real dilema though is everyone has done something wrong. Everyone. So why do some people get called out and lambasted while other continue (right now) to get away with it? I think there is a mob mentality out there that controls the media and wants to take down a very specific set of people and leave the others standing. Edit: To not be misunderstood I have personally suffered molestation as a kid/teen, and even the single photo of Asimov trying to kiss that girl is sickening. Power, fame and narcissism corrupts.
- reagent_finder 7y agoThat's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. If you see someone doing something wrong, call them out. Like this article does. Otherwise they will simply keep doing it. If you have a problem with someone not getting called out, call them out. Otherwise you are simply protesting the act of calling out because you're afraid to do so yourself.
- javajosh 7y ago>If you see someone doing something wrong, call them out. Like this article does. Otherwise they will simply keep doing it. Yes, thank God: this article (and the outrage it creates) will save young women from being groped by Asimov's corpse.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- RobertRoberts 7y agoMob justice benefits no one in the long run. Hypocritical mob justice is the worst of it's kind. It simultaneously enrages one side against another while claiming it's actions are justified by it's own group, but no other group can act the same. The accused should be taken to court. But mobs don't like court, they want a lynching.
- eesmith 7y agoMob-whitewashing, to coin a term, is also terrible. We cannot seriously talk about Columbus-the-brave-explorer without also talking about his acts of slavery and genocide. We cannot take Asimov to court. We cannot take Columbus to court. But we can talk about them as real people, and look at their entire history, rather than as a single facet of their lives.
- scarejunba 7y agoThe article mentions Harlan Ellison and his grabbing a Hugo Award host's breast and I thought to myself that surely that can't have been possible a mere fifteen years ago in front of all those people and yet https://youtu.be/Zxd1jFDXzsU https://youtu.be/Zxd1jFDXzsU that's a video. I can't imagine someone doing that in front of me. I don't even know how I'd act. Probably just sit there wondering if they really did just do that.
- ZoomZoomZoom 7y agoI know nothing about the incident nor about that particular person (except his most famous short story), but what I can see on this video is an awkward and misplaced move that sometime happen in nervous situations to some people. Like someone was trying to pat other person's shoulder and shake their hand (using his left) at the same time while speaking and failing both. If you ever had similar situation, you know what I mean. Please, mind it, I don't say that's what happened, I just say it looks like it and may be interpreted this way. A person can hide his intentions using awkward behaviour, of course. Prior information and context tip the scale in the end.
- chris_wot 7y agoIt looked pretty deliberate to me. They always say never meet your heroes - I loved the Stainless Steel Rat.
- staticman2 7y ago
- MichaelMoser123 7y agoI find it hard to believe that such behavior was socially acceptable; I mean was there really no way at the time to complain about advances like this? I mean I was born in 1970 but that was never part of my experience.
- tudorw 7y agoI expect one could complain and it seems apparent at least some did, but in the context of the environment it would have seemed out of place, it's very hard to apply contemporary moral values to historical times, morality is not a fixed thing, our lives are entwined with social convention that for the most part is invisible until viewed from the future. Try and consider now, what things we do that in the future could be seen as abhorrent, it's hard, eating meat maybe, not including externalized costs in commercial endeavours, but, history shows, it's probably true that something we do now will fall 'out of time' and be viewed as a moral deviation in the 'new contemporary'.
- MichaelMoser123 7y ago'Out of place' means they would not have followed up on a complaint. Isn't it?
- tudorw 7y agoExactly.
- roca 7y agoFWIW I don't think Asimov's behavior would have been broadly accepted in "historic times" in general. If you think that groping another man's wife in public has generally been acceptable in the past, see "thou shalt not covet" and the Sermon on the Mount. Of course men, especially powerful men, have often ignored such restraints, but the sexual revolution of the 20th century gave them a lot more license.
- tudorw 7y ago
- coldtea 7y ago>These two numbers might seem very different, but both are central to Asimov’s legacy Yeah, I really don't think so. The legacy of people with important contributions (technical, cultural, political, etc) is their work, not what they did in their private life, unless they were also moonlighting as the Boston strangler or something. In 2500 nobody would care whether he did this or that. But they would probably still read some of his work.
- sytelus 7y agoIt's not about reading his work, it's about being an aspirational figure that generations want to follow and emulate. I didn't know any of these about Asimov and he has written some of the stories that I believe is the finest. But would I say to my kids "look at this great guy, be like him!"?
- coldtea 7y ago>It's not about reading his work, it's about being an aspirational figure that generations want to follow and emulate. People can still "follow and emulate" the achievements he did, not whatever bad side. Like people still try to follow all kinds of public figures, despite their known bad sides, from Hemingway to Jobs. Else we would only follow saints. () not to mention, if the tide turns, even the bad side could be "cool" again. There are even people into things like satanism or self-destruction, or womanizing, or machoism after all, and they too have their idols.
- doliveira 7y agoHonestly I never could relate to this focus I see nowadays on role models and aspirational figures. I think you should at most get inspired by specific actions scoped to the relevant areas of their lives. Just tell your kids to be themselves. They don't need to emulate anyone.
- scandox 7y agoWell his personal issues with women definitely are apparent in his work. His female characters are often shrieking ninnies. Also I don't think anyone but an academic will be reading his work in a few hundred years. As much as I enjoy his ideas and his easy style he is actually mediocre.
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- neskiredk 7y agoSigh, in Summary: The reason why most women dont write nor like science fiction is because of Asimov's behavior. What a joke, Even if the article has plenty of valid points (unsourced of course), the above insinuation makes the whole article untrustworthy.
- wslack 7y agoI don't see that insinuation in the article. It says he was part of a bad tone and that his actions had a negative impact on an untold number of women, but that's a far cry from what you said above.
- jccalhoun 7y agoThat is a very inaccurate summary. I think a more accurate summary would be "Asimov's behavior discouraged women from writing science fiction."
- Ma8ee 7y agoHe probably never understood the harm he did. His writings reveal quite a lack of real understanding of other people. And I guess no one ever sat down with him and tried to explain the consequences for him. I'm very happy that these things are brought up loud and clear nowadays so no one can continue to be ignorant.
- zozbot234 7y agoThe article does describe Asimov as a loser in romantic relationships, so one should not underestimate the harm he did to his own prospects. It's also true that we care a lot more about these behaviors than we did in the 1950s, and that's mostly for the better. But Asimov seems to have had comparatively little of that narcissistic, overentitled attitude which you'd find in so many harassers, and which perhaps should be of most concern.
- Ma8ee 7y ago> But Asimov seems to have had comparatively little of that narcissistic, overentitled attitude which you'd find in so many harassers Exactly. I think he would have been horrified if he actually understood the harm he caused. It sometimes amazes me how people who are extremely intelligent in some aspects of life can be so utterly clueless in other.
- soylentcola 7y agoThis is why I'm generally supportive of contemporary efforts to call out that kind of behavior as unacceptable. I think on some level, everyone who finds someone else attractive has at least some instinctual desire to touch them or hug them or kiss them, etc. It's the definition of sexual attraction. If all you've been told and all of your experience says "hey, go for it! It's not a big deal and occasionally they'll reciprocate," why would you refrain? It's important for people to learn and understand at a very basic level that it's inappropriate, unacceptable, and degrading to the person on the receiving end. When I was in my mid 20's I used to work with a lot of young guys who would catcall and pester women all the time. I'd shake my head and ask them why they did that. Didn't they know it annoyed the hell out of the women (at the very least)? Their response was usually along similar lines to the one quoted in the article: "well, some of them like it and occasionally it might work!" Without a real understanding of how flawed this logic was, these dudes had been taught that the ideal approach was just to proposition as many women as possible in the hopes that one might respond positively. Without understanding the flip side, they just didn't consider or grasp the harm it caused to the vast majority of their "targets".
- cambalache 7y agoAn aside about the article's author. His blog is very interesting and full of fantastic articles that will delight a science fiction fan, especially for those who like their SF combined with "high" literature. He writes thoughtfully also on the craft of being an SF writer, showing discipline and care. Given all of that, I was really looking forward to read his first novel. Well, I wish I hadn't done it. It was terrible in almost every aspect: Pace, dialogue, characters, plot, and prose. It goes to show for the n-th time that to theorize about a topic is a very different skill that to practice it well.
- square_usual 7y agoOften theorizing about something makes it much harder to do it, because you get bogged down by constantly thinking about how bad what you're doing is.
- chongli 7y agoWhat sets science fiction apart from high literature is that it tends to emphasize the novum, that new idea or technology that distinguished the setting from the real world, at the expense of characterization. It’s any ideas, not people. Literary fiction is the opposite. It’s about people, their relationships and struggles, situated in reality. It tends not to deal with high concept counterfactuals which are the bread and butter of science fiction.
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- chris_wot 7y agoIs my memory failing me, but I seem to recall in one of the Foundation books one of the female characters is interrogated and assaulted during the interrogation, but she just shrugs it off. It seriously disturbed me when I read it.
- reagent_finder 7y agoAlso in the Foundation books: Sex as a weapon (for men), sex as a reward (for men), sex as payment by the (suddenly irresistible) main character to get concessions out of an amazon politician.
- jccalhoun 7y agoI only read the first Foundation book and noticed that there were basically no female characters. I did read that he was made aware of that and was sure to have female characters in subsequent books but I didn't care enough about the books to read any more of them. This makes me glad I didn't take the time to do so.
- Hokusai 7y agoPeople do not protect harassers. People protect their own jobs and status. Let someone unimportant to have the same behaviour and it will land in prison. It is the system that rewards the people protecting the harassers. Think about Human Resources in your company. Do they work for the employees, for the company or for upper management? I have seen upper management abusing their positions while damaging people and projects alike. And Human Resources have always protected them. The few times that is not like that, the person that tries to fix the situation get silently fired. We should request from people to NOT protect famous/important/rich harassers. But, we also need to change the system to make sure that they are not protected by people looking for a reward. Without changing the system we are doomed to continue suffering these behaviours.
- goto11 7y agoYes and no - you will often see people trivialize or make excuses for harassers even if there is noting on the line for themselves. Nobody is scared of Asimov since he is long dead, but just look in this comment section.
- krapp 7y agoSee: Richard Stallman. edit: there is a causal chain between the sexist and racist dimension of early SF/F fandom, the cult of personality around Richard Stallman, and the tolerance for and excusing of sexism and sexual assault in modern tech culture. While I expect to be downvoted for even bringing it up, because it's a live wire of HN identity politics, I hope some people will at least consider that these things are not unrelated.
- wickedwiesel 7y agoDupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21989855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21989855 from yesterday (where there was 0 interaction with the subject)
- gus_massa 7y agoThis happens all the time. It's usual to link to the old post when it had a lot of attention. (The thresholds is not clear. 20 upvotes? 20 comments? 20 upvotes + comments? 40? ...) An exception is when the older post has a very good comment. And in those cases I sometimes quote the comment partially. More (less?) details in: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
- gadders 7y agoInteresting article, but doesn't this come back to the age-old question of whether you can divorce a person from their art? Isaac Asimov, Michael Jackson, Roman Polanski - can you enjoy their work knowing what you know about the creator?
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- Konnstann 7y agoI personally can, maybe that says something about my moral code, maybe not. Orson Scott Card's works are some of my favorite books to read, and it puzzles me how he was able to write a book like Speaker for the Dead while holding the xenophobic and racist views he did. Mel Gibson also holds some pretty reprehensible views, however that doesn't stop me from watching the Lethal Weapon films. Contextualizing works of art is important in some cases, and moreso if the art is political. In cases where author bias either isn't present or doesn't matter, however, I don't think it matters.
- jholman 7y agoI think the point about Card is particularly interesting. Card's writing can be terrific, and in particular some of it is terrific because of the nuanced way it questions religious orthodoxy and/or the role of religion in society. As an anti-religionist, I greatly appreciate how Card's writing has both acknowledged my concerns and also raised counterpoints. It is indeed hard to reconcile that with what we have heard about his personal positions. Good on him, I guess. I note that he's not the only Mormon SF writer I've thought that about, though the other one that comes to mind has evolved his public politics over the last decade. But making that connection ("Mormon SF writer") may be an invalid cognitive bias.
- jccalhoun 7y agoI like to reframe the question. Can I divorce the person from the art? Of course. But should I? I don't think so. There are so many books, movies, song, games, etc. that I could never consume them all so there is still a near infinite list of works for me to enjoy by creators who aren't known to be terrible people.
- cerealbad 7y agovery little of a writer survives with time; asimov had interesting world building but his characters are a little flat. the surviving great works of literature deal with human beings rather than the world they find themselves in. there is also the problem today of new authors breaking through and having to compete with a giant cannon of golden age sci fi or fantasy, and it can be overwhelming. if you read genre fiction, you could continue to do so for another 20 years and never leave the 20th century. there is a similar problem in literature, but there you get a lot more adventurous readers and experimental writers so novelty is sought out. the general problem is a massive bloat of amassed and received works. record keeping is almost exhaustive so new books, movies, shows and songs just keep piling up, and the immensity of choices is overwhelming. i wonder how many people are subscribed to dozens of channels on youtube but just never find the time to catch up with more than 2 or 3 videos a day, and their backlog just keep growing and growing.... overcommunication and data creep. i can see a near future where the virtual you goes off and tests entertainment products then comes back and offers recommendations. in a primitive way this is already happening it's just past-you helping make selections for present-you. it reminds me towards the end of the middle ages, when chroniclers amassed hundreds of manuscripts and began creating world history by condensing it down into something readable and understandable. maybe the essence of the age we live in is that of the neo-chronicler, tools that will reconnect people with the passage of time.
- defertoreptar 7y agoIf Asimov was still living, what do you think he would say about younger Asimov? The Civil Rights Act of 1991 happened the year before he died. There was a big change in the way people saw this behavior between the 80s and now. How many celebrities, who lived through that era, would now say that behavior is okay? I honestly think had he lived, he'd say he was wrong.
- rbanffy 7y agoI'd like to believe he'd be deeply ashamed. I don't have many reasons to believe that, however. People are flawed. Some people are deeply flawed and fame has been for far too long an enabler foe behavior that should never be tolerated from anyone.
- ianai 7y agoGreat point! The dead may never change. Is it fair to eternally damn them from a modern perspective? One of the reasons I left religion was principally this eternal damnation practice. It’s extreme. The variety of life and even the universe requires nuance and forgiveness.
- roca 7y agoThere's plenty of nuance and forgiveness in traditional religion. Speaking of which, Asimov was certainly aware that "thou shalt not covet" and "whoever looks at a woman lustfully..." had been preached for a couple of thousand years, so it's not like he had no idea what he was doing could possibly be wrong.
- roca 7y agoWhat do you think Asimov's father would have said about Asimov? I reject the idea that before the 1990s it was always acceptable to grope women in public. In older, more traditional and more conservative societies it was not acceptable.
- kangnkodos 7y agoOne possible data point is to look at the half-hearted apologies of Robert Crumb. He lived through the 80's and treated women in a similar manner. Now, as an old man in a new era, he has issued some vague apologies. And yet, he also leaves so many transgressions out. My guess is that Asimov might have done something similar if he were alive in the #MeToo era. Some vague apologies, but no true reckoning of everything.
- roca 7y agoIMHO, Asimov was a terrible writer of fiction. (I haven't read his non-fiction.) Some interesting ideas, but nothing like the imagination of, say, China Miéville. Terribly thin characters and plots, and very mediocre writing. He had the good fortune to get into sci-fi near the beginning and crank out a lot of readable material, and get some good ideas out there first. The rest is confirmation bias. Had he appeared 30 years later he would have been writing Star Trek or Star Wars novels. I've got nothing against classics per se. "Dune" for example is still very good. But some classics were only considered great because they broke new ground, and they do not stand the test of time.
- mLuby 7y agoAsimov gave the world plenty of mind-expanding ideas, many that we take for granted today as staples of science fiction. I'm also amused and a bit humbled at reading his many stories featuring futures with "a world market for maybe five [building-size] computers" on my one-of-billions smartphone. That said, I've witnessed (and been guilty of) full-throated defenses against character assassinations based on little more than being a fan of the work. It's important for fans, who ought to be more informed than average, to be aware of and acknowledge the works' and creator's flaws. This both gives the fan more credibility, and by reducing the perceived personal protection the creator may feel from their fans, in aggregate should discourage bad behavior. So thanks for sharing.
- nzealand 7y agoIt was Watson who said "a world market for maybe five [building-size] computers" Asimov wrote about AI everywhere - positronic brains inside androids, multivac etc...
- WorldMaker 7y agoYeah, acknowledging flaws is more useful than ignoring them or papering over them. > "a world market for maybe five [building-size] computers" on my one-of-billions smartphone Though in some of Asimov's books' terms, it easy to imagine that the internet would have counted to Asimov as having only one "building sized computer" and we just have billions and billions of terminals. The microcomputer revolution remade what the world calls a computer [1], and it's hard to predict futures when the words themselves shift out from under you. ;) [1] Just as I like to half-jokingly predict the lasting impact of the smartphone revolution is that it is possible the word phone eats the word computer, bringing about AT&T's 50s retro future visions in a roundabout pathway they didn't foresee.