Socrates and the Hugos

Writing projects underway:

• “The Kings of the Corona”: 17000 word story: finished, accepted for the upcoming anthology TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, edited by Anthony Marchetta. Publication date not yet scheduled. #Fantasy #Arthurian #YoungAdult 
• “The Stowaways” (working title): projected as 8000 word story. #ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera

Socrates and the Hugos

I was at the agora the other day buying some baklava and some ripe olives stuffed with feta and nuts when I ran into my old friend, Socrates, and we fell to talking about the Hugo Awards. Our dialog went something like this:

JUSTIN M TARQUIN: It depresses me that the Hugo Awards nowadays can go to mediocre works as long as their authors espouse popular leftist political viewpoints, or have personal identities that the political left associates with a “victim group”, rather than to works that deserve the award.

SOCRATES: Is there, then, some quality a work can have, besides giving homage to leftist political causes, that would better deserve the award?

JMT: Why, of course, Socrates. I think the Hugo award should go to science fiction that’s fun to read, and that excites the imagination, inspires wonder, draws the reader to a sense that the world is grander and finer than he might have supposed.

S: Such an award would be useful for guiding readers who desire such science fiction! But, of course, then it would not be useful for leftist readers who prefer science fiction that echoes their political views and congratulates them for holding them.

JMT: Surely, Socrates, you do not suggest that such puerile sycophancy is as suitable to an award called “the most prestigious in Science Fiction” as the criteria I have mentioned.

S: That does seem an odd state of affairs, does it not? Perhaps there is something to be learned from considering the question. Here, let us sit upon this bench and snack on our olives while we talk. Well then: the matter before us is what is ‘suitable’. I believe we are agreed that suitability is a quality that depends on its object.

JMT: What do you mean, Socrates?

S: I mean what you already implied when you questioned the suitability, not of political bias per se, but bias in a particular object: namely, in an award called the most prestigious in Science Fiction. Are not the robes of a king suitable to a king?

JMT: Of course.

S: But would they be suitable for a shepherd?

JMT: Clearly not, Socrates!

S: Or a shepherd’s tunic, would it be suitable for a surgeon?

JMT: No.

S: Or again, would a surgeon’s outfit be suitable for an olive-picker?

JMT: Not at all.

S: But the garb of each of these men would be suitable to himself, or another in his station?

JMT: Correct.

S: Then suitability is a relationship that matches a subject and an object?

JMT: You make it perfectly clear.

S: But what if a shepherd’s master were pleased to call him a king. Would royal robes then become suitable to him, while he remain a shepherd?

JMT: Why, no.

S: Or say that a surgeon’s patient insists upon calling him a shepherd. Would it then be suitable that he perform surgery in the stained and dirty tunic of a keeper of flocks?

JMT: No, no.

S: Then what is suitable depends not on what a thing is called, but upon what it truly is?

JMT: Clearly so, Socrates.

S: Then to inquire whether awarding the Hugo to works that tickle the egos of leftists is suitable or not, we must determine what the Hugo Award actually is: and not merely what it is called. As you have remarked, the award is called “the most prestigious award in science fiction,” but is it that in reality? And again, does “prestigious” mean that it is in reality the award most worthy of respect, or only that people believe it so or call it so? There are layers of shadow and illusory perceptions to be peeled away before we arrive at the reality of what the Hugo Award really is, my good Tarquin.

JMT: But, Socrates, here we are only returning to what I began by saying: I want the Hugo Award to go to science fiction that is fun and uplifting. One might say, to works that are enjoyable to read and enjoyable afterward to reflect upon.

S: Then let us begin there our inquiry into what the Hugo Award is. Is the Hugo Award bestowed to such works?

JMT: It once was. But not for many years, no.

S: Let us confine ourselves to the Hugo award of today, since that is where your complaint lies. Do you determine how the Hugo is bestowed?

JMT: No; though I may vote.

S: Is your vote dispositive of the result?

JMT: No.

S: Then many others also vote?

JMT: Certainly.

S: Do these others share your desires for the Hugo?

JMT: Sadly, most do not.

S: Is it widely known that those who vote for the Hugo do not share your notions of merit?

JMT: Quite so. Indeed, the news criers hail the results of each Hugo ceremony as a victory for trendy left-wing victim groups.

S: Then do even the winners of the award see it as a prize for political views and group identity?

JMT: None that I know of have said so explicitly, though some have made public statements after winning that indicate what is uppermost in their mind is not the qualities of the work they wrote, but rather their personal identity as a member of a group underrepresented among Hugo laureates. Possibly they were led in their remarks by the agendas of those who reported their words. But it would seem impossible they are not aware and approving of how their personal identities influence the decision.

S: What of people like yourself who object to the present nature of the Hugos?

JMT: There was a movement called the Sad Puppies that strove to nominate works that did not meet the left-wing political criteria; but though they succeeded in gaining nominations, the results of the election among the nominees chose “No Award” over any non-left-approved works.

S: And the authors whose work is passed over by this system, do they understand the nature of the award?

JMT: They do, indeed. I have even heard an author I favor say in a podcast that he would be embarrassed to win and thereby join the ranks of the recent winners, their work is so unimpressive.

S: Why then, all the world appears to understand the meaning of this award. The organizers know, the fans who vote for leftist works know, the Sad Puppy sympathizers know, the authors whose works do not win know, even the authors whose works do win Hugos appear to know that the point of the award is to gratify the political left’s view of the world. And therefore, you are wishing the award to signify what the world does not expect it to signify. Indeed, if works that satisfied your definition of merit were to win Hugo awards, the public understanding would be that the authors belong to leftist-approved groups, and that the works promoted leftist-supported positions, which they do not; and why would you wish the public to be so deceived?

JMT: But, Socrates, I think you misunderstand. The Hugo award is supposed to be an award for the best science fiction, chosen by the fans themselves.

S: You must explain this to me. When you say “supposed to be”, by whom is it supposed that the Hugo award is given to science fiction that first of all provides the most enjoyment to readers? For we have just established that it is generally understood by all involved that the Hugos are awarded politically.

JMT: Why, but the other is what the organizers of the Hugo award themselves say of it.

S: Ah, yes, it is then a boast that certain people make of their own project.

JMT: Well, yes.

S: In my life I have heard many who made boasts for themselves, and when I have inquired into the basis of their vaunting I very often found it lacking. But has the practice of self-puffery vanished since my more active years?

JMT: Well, no.

S: Is there not, in fact, an entire industry now devoted to self-aggrandizement, wherein fantastic sums of money are expended, and the ceaseless labor of thousand upon thousands of highly-skilled workers, present to the public hundreds of times a day, on every billboard, on every cereal package, every coffee cup, interspersed every few seconds in every television show or radio broadcast, on the margins of every Web site, these self-same substanceless boasts that the secret to happiness lies in consuming the goods and services they offer?

JMT: Indeed, it is so, Socrates.

S: And every two or four years, barrages of similarly vain boasts about candidates for public office?

JMT: You have said a mouthful, Socrates.

S: Then have not the people become skeptical of such claims?

JMT: True, Socrates, and yet if an award like the Hugo is to be seen as a claim about a work of science fiction, are not those who make false claims doing evil by telling falsehoods, even if they are not believed?

S: We can agree, Tarquin, that to speak falsehood, knowingly, is clearly wrong. For the value of language lies in its power to exchange truths among men; to put even a single deliberate falsehood into language is like striking a gold coin with an admixture of lesser metal: the surfeit of counterfeits in circulation debases the value even of the true coins. But when the choice of an awardee is divided among hundreds, they cannot all be held responsible for the choice of the group: but each man is responsible only for his own choice. No more could a man sentenced to die by a jury of five hundred think of the entire jury as his enemies, but only those who cast the vote for his condemnation. But, Tarquin, are not those voting for the winner of the Hugo award asked to vote for whichever nominee they feel should receive it?

JMT: Why, yes.

S: And surely there is no thought of any voter not voting for the work they wish to receive the award?

JMT: Well, no.

S: Then, among the voters it would seem that no question of dishonesty occurs. It is an instance of what you might call “free speech”.

JMT: And yet it still seems to me that the works that win a Hugo award ought to deserve to win it.

S: Why, but whether or not the Hugo winners deserve to win Hugos is a question we have not yet touched upon, Tarquin!

JMT: What do you mean? Have we not been discussing it this whole while?

S: Not at all! Up until now we have only considered to what sort of qualities the Hugo award actually does attest. Now that we have established that it awards works on the basis of stroking the egos of leftists, and is understood to do this both by the fans who vote for it, the people who receive it, the authors who do not receive it, as well as to you and to me, we can at last proceed to the question of whether the Hugo and its winners are suitable to one another.

JMT: And are they, then?

S: Is it not quite clear, Tarquin? The nature of the present-day Hugo award is that it is given to those works voted in by a group who are strongly disposed to favor works that promote leftist ideology and are written by authors who themselves support leftist ideology, by their public opinions and identities as members of groups the political left is pleased to extol. Therefore, works that promote such ideology, written by such authors, are perfectly suitable to the Hugo awards.

JMT: Do you mean to say that the Hugo winners, in fact, do deserve Hugo awards?

S: I think it would be more complete, elegant, and illuminating, to say that these authors and this award deserve each other.

JMT: I confess I am floored by this conclusion, though I can find no fault with the logic.

S: We must follow the argument where it leads us, Tarquin.

JMT: Why, but Socrates, it occurs to me that there is nothing about your argument that is specific to the Hugo awards. This would apply to any honorary award whatsoever—to the Oscars, the Emmies, the Grammies, the Edgars; to the kings and queens of all the proms, all the big-city parades and all the small-town festivals; to prizes that are awarded with rank nepotism, cheating, to contests with slipshod ballot-counting, where errors change the result. Can you say that all of the winners of all of these contests deserve the awards they receive?

S: Absolutely, Tarquin. Though, of course, the honors that they get, and deserve, are worthless in such cases.

JMT: I can only say, Socrates, that this would come as a great shock to the many thousands, the millions, who spend a great deal of time arguing about whether the winners of all these contests deserve their prizes, or whether it should have gone to another.

S: It does seem a great waste of time, when they might be arguing about the nature of beauty, or justice, or of goodness, of piety, or the nature of poetic inspiration, or the immortality of the soul, or of knowledge, truth and wisdom itself.

JMT: Yes, well, most people would consider arguing about all those things to be a waste of time.

S: A waste of time?

JMT: So they say.

S: Discussing truth, beauty, and virtue?

JMT: I’m afraid so.

S: While arguing about who deserves a trophy is worthwhile?

JMT: I can only report what I have heard men say, Socrates.

S: Well. I have nothing to say.

Coincidentally, we had just finished the baklava.