Nova Albion and the Future of Fandom

[kevin_standlee]

I didn't hang around after the main convention ended around 5 PM. Too tired, too hungry again. Going to try to get to sleep early.

I had someone ask me yesterday, "How can we inject the energy and spirit at this steampunk convention back into Worldcons?" He's right about the issue. I remember Worldcons, when I started attending in them in 1984, as high-energy, high-excitement events. Now they're much less so.

I gave the person as long-winded answer to his question, but I think it boils down to a single, cold-hearted answer: "Some significant Worldcon SMOFS are going to have to die." Or at least retire from the field of active convention running and participation in Worldcon organization.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not wishing death on anyone, neither literally nor figuratively. But to a great extent our collective conrunning brains at the Worldcon level are suffering from calcification of the neurons as we continue to keep things frozen into the form that we consider ideal, and in some individual cases, effectively working toward mummification, with a stated opinion that amounts to, "I want Worldcon and fandom to die when I do, and it must not change in the slightest until then, either."

It's not that we don't need experience. We do. What we need to do is not be straightjacketed by it. We need people who have the energy and drive to make events like Nova Albion and the other steampunk events and like the anime conventions want to work on general-SF/F events rather than getting discouraged by the entrenched interests who are more concerned with making sure that the Wrong Sort of Fan doesn't actually get involved. We certainly don't need the people making the decisions passing rules that effectively preclude those who actually are willing and able to get things done from even participating. (And that's not an academic, theoretical statement, as the WSFS Mark Protection Committee did exactly that this past year, even in the face of evidence that the members of the WSFS Business Meeting wanted something different.

Comments

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

I heart Kuhn, and you're right. Change doesn't happen at the top. And that means, quite honestly, that it won't happen because of kevin_standlee.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

You're saying I'm opposed to all change? I suppose I could be. But if you think I'm conservative, remember that I'm a flaming radical lunatic compared to the people who were old guard when I started attending conventions and are still there.

What I'm more likely to be is to try and point out the rather serious challenges facing anyone who wants to change things. You can, for instance, run Worldcons cheaply, but you have to throw away huge amounts of things that we've come to take for granted, and you have to be willing to accept a level of discomfort that the core audience has shown a propensity to bitterly complain about.

I don't mind people making changes. What troubles me is people changing things without understanding why things are the way they have been in the past. Deliberately changing things with your eyes open is completely different from charging into something and stepping on the same organizational landmines that others have previously triggered. See the difference?

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

See my comment below. I was commenting on your positionality with Kuhn. Kuhn's model says that the tenured -- the SMOFs -- are now the sources for new paradigms. Period. Within that context, Kuhn would predict that the overthrow of the existing Worldcon paradigm will not come from you or Cheryl or others who are consider to be within SMOFdom.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

c/now the sources/ NOT the sources. Not. Gah.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Understood. Thanks for the clarification. I think I'm touchy about this precisely because within entrenched SMOFdom, I'm pretty liberal and yet get flagged as deeply conservative by "outsiders." If they think I'm bad, they should try talking to the real Old Guard — the ones who use the term "Wrong Sort of Fan" without any irony at all.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

I AM the wrong sort of fan, so I know what you mean. :-) And of course, everyone is someone else's wrong sort -- I can't stand the D*C porn-star-adoring fans. They're *totally* the wrong sort of fan. *grin*

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

I also want to point out that Kuhn's model -- which applies to the overthrow of existing scientific and research paradigms for new ones -- makes it clear that part of what you've just written is exactly how those supporting the existing paradigm talk. :-) This is not an attack on you, Kevin; it's an application of Kuhn's model to the Worldcon issue. For Kuhn, you're part of the old paradigm, even if you don't think you are. :-)

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

It occurred to me that I need to clarify this statement. I appreciate the work being done to change Worldcon, and I've tried to participate in that. However, in Kuhn's model, the tenured don't make change; grad students and the untenured do. As much as I like and respect kevin_standlee, his position as a former Worldcon chair and veteran con-runner (at this point) puts him in the tenured camp in Kuhn's model. So when I say that change won't happen because of him, I don't mean that he or Cheryl or others will block change, but that within Kuhn's model, the source of change lies with folks other than SMOFs, so to speak.

In my case, what I'm trying to do is encourage more people to nominate and vote on the Hugos, which will, I hope, create a more diverse voting body. I've also tried to propose different panel topics and other kinds of programming -- though I get a lot of resistance about that. I think that Reno appears to be creating a great model for new programming, by making the interests of panelists visible to each other, so that we can add interests we hadn't thought of previously.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Oh! That makes sense. You're right. I used to be an outsider. I worked very hard for many years to get myself into positions of influence and authority in a field which I love dearly and which has been the focus of my life, but yes, I'm entrenched now. I only hope that I can recognize good change and work to facilitate it.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Yup. And in his model, once the outsiders get into power, they get just as invested in their entrenched paradigm as the previous generation was about theirs. *grin* In your defense, Kuhn himself had issues with people applying his model -- which was about *scientific paradigms* -- to other fields, especially humanities. He said that in the humanities, people are used to a multiplicity of paradigms and schools of thought, which is simply not true in the sciences. (Once the humours were discredited as a source of illness, you can't go back to humours, and such ideas can't coexist with the new paradigm.) Therefore, it could be argued that Kuhn would say "This model doesn't apply to conrunning, duh."