I find these ideas appealing and interesting, but Miller makes some bizarre claims (like fantasy being a closed genre—maybe I’m reading the wrong stuff?) or Scandinavia being especially individualist (it’s the most collectivist place I’ve ever lived, and the most xenophobic. Denmark has a major political party dedicated to xenophobia.)
Things like this make me more skeptical of his research in general.
like fantasy being a closed genre—maybe I’m reading the wrong stuff?
I don’t know what objective data you expect him or me to point to, but I agree with him on this one. Fantasy is, by and large, hidden authoritarianism and other ‘closed’ social structures; from the overt medievalisms and Great Chains of Being to the hereditary succession of power to the straight fascist allegories. Not that SF is perfect either, but it tends to be much better and more challenging, especially towards the harder end of things—I don’t know any equivalent classification for fantasy.
I have heard of such a thing as “hard fantasy”, but it’s a very small niche and seems to be running on crossover appeal to hard SF fans as much as anything else. As best I can tell, readers of fantasy valuing high Openness have instead migrated to the New Weird subgenre (exemplified by China Miéville, Mike Mignola, etc.); epic and heroic fantasy aren’t as hidebound as they were before the mid-1990s, but they’re still a highly stereotyped body of writing.
(I think using The Iron Dream as an example is a little disingenuous, though; it’s essentially an essay in novel form about the parallels between fascist mythology and heroic fantasy of the pulp tradition. Using it to demonstrate the same seems to assume its conclusion.)
Many fantasy stories are about an ordinary person who suddenly finds themself in a world of myth, magic, and sorcery. This seems to be in part about openness: the protagonist has to realize that their model of the world was way off, and come to understand a new and different world.
Yes, indeed. The ratio open/closed may be higher in scifi books than in fantasy books, but there are still many open fantasy books and closed scifi books. In the end it only depends on the invidual book. This is why I don’t think it’s really safe to label fantasy as a closed genre.
I found Denmark to have an open culture in terms of dress and sexuality. But as far as religion and ethnicity, it closes like a trap. I was treated like I had three heads for attending a non-Lutheran church. If you’re Muslim, it’s much worse.
I think Denmark has undergone a major shift in recent decades. My grandfather, who was the only Jew in his US military unit during the Second World War, reported getting a warmer reception in Denmark than anywhere else.
I find these ideas appealing and interesting, but Miller makes some bizarre claims (like fantasy being a closed genre—maybe I’m reading the wrong stuff?) or Scandinavia being especially individualist (it’s the most collectivist place I’ve ever lived, and the most xenophobic. Denmark has a major political party dedicated to xenophobia.)
Things like this make me more skeptical of his research in general.
I don’t know what objective data you expect him or me to point to, but I agree with him on this one. Fantasy is, by and large, hidden authoritarianism and other ‘closed’ social structures; from the overt medievalisms and Great Chains of Being to the hereditary succession of power to the straight fascist allegories. Not that SF is perfect either, but it tends to be much better and more challenging, especially towards the harder end of things—I don’t know any equivalent classification for fantasy.
I have heard of such a thing as “hard fantasy”, but it’s a very small niche and seems to be running on crossover appeal to hard SF fans as much as anything else. As best I can tell, readers of fantasy valuing high Openness have instead migrated to the New Weird subgenre (exemplified by China Miéville, Mike Mignola, etc.); epic and heroic fantasy aren’t as hidebound as they were before the mid-1990s, but they’re still a highly stereotyped body of writing.
(I think using The Iron Dream as an example is a little disingenuous, though; it’s essentially an essay in novel form about the parallels between fascist mythology and heroic fantasy of the pulp tradition. Using it to demonstrate the same seems to assume its conclusion.)
Okay, I can see that.
Many fantasy stories are about an ordinary person who suddenly finds themself in a world of myth, magic, and sorcery. This seems to be in part about openness: the protagonist has to realize that their model of the world was way off, and come to understand a new and different world.
Yes, indeed. The ratio open/closed may be higher in scifi books than in fantasy books, but there are still many open fantasy books and closed scifi books. In the end it only depends on the invidual book. This is why I don’t think it’s really safe to label fantasy as a closed genre.
If the ratio is low enough in fantasy, I’m fine calling it “closed” as a genre. I’m just not sure that it’s even commonly closed.
(I’m also not that clear on what it means to be open vs closed)
Tyler Cowen defends Sweden as the “land of the true individualist”.
I found Denmark to have an open culture in terms of dress and sexuality. But as far as religion and ethnicity, it closes like a trap. I was treated like I had three heads for attending a non-Lutheran church. If you’re Muslim, it’s much worse.
I think Denmark has undergone a major shift in recent decades. My grandfather, who was the only Jew in his US military unit during the Second World War, reported getting a warmer reception in Denmark than anywhere else.