Crooked Cogitations - 21/04/2010

Jason Baki © 2010

In the last few weeks it seems as if every book I've read, every discussion I've had or blog post I've enjoyed has raised in my mind the question of snobbery and elitism. From the discussions occurring in the world of fantasy about genre awards, to casual conversations about so-called high art; to witnessing the use of social networking sites to continue the ubiquitous dismissal of a generation of Britain's socially marginalised as "chavs," by those whose politics suggest they should know better.

To be honest these questions have always fascinated me. My own background has given me ample reason to wrestle with ideas of social exclusion, poverty and the use and abuse of power. What I really want to talk about in this post, however, is the snobbery of the oppressed and the marginalised themselves. In this case the marginalised being the Genre Fiction Fan.

It's not uncommon for fans of fantasy, science fiction and horror to be more than a little miffed at the way our taste in literature is ridiculed by many of the literary elite. Like bookish bourgeoisie I think many aspire to acceptance into the hallowed chambers of esteemed literature; we want our authors to have those Booker nominations, those invitations to the Cheltenham Literary Festival etc. What we often get is the kind of view that offhandedly dismisses our choice of fiction. Like a recent review I read from a US reviewer in The Washington Post on Peter Straub's latest, which disregarded it as supernatural silliness (quite what this reviewer was expecting of a supernatural horror book I don't know). Or the view I've heard countless times, that fantasy and science fiction have no place outside of literature for children and young adults. After all it's really all just juvenile, escapist, anti-intellectual piffle.

In our desire to be taken more seriously we are also rather fond of engaging in a little snobbery of our own. Following the convention established in other areas of society, the social aspirant seeks to separate themselves from the vulgar masses and goes to great lengths to denigrate those with whom they might otherwise be associated. Among fantasy fans this takes the form of endless jibing aimed at high and 'commercial' fantasy, and among horror and fans of dark fiction, paranormal romance is equally ridiculed. It also takes the form of routinely disparaging whatever is generally popular: Twilight, Dan Brown, Avatar, X-Factor, and so forth. The argument being that popularity is no guarantee of quality, of true artistic merit. I agree, the popular cannot possibly accord to all the various designations of quality any given individual or group may have. It is an indication of only one thing, that more people have been attracted to it, by whatever process and for whatever reason, than the next thing less popular and so on down to the least popular.

Then there is the view that what is popular is only so because of ignorance or manipulation. After all since my opinion is self-evidently right, if you disagree you must either be ignorant of the facts - In literature terms, probably having not read author X's work - have been mesmerised by nefarious marketing techniques, or otherwise are plain stupid and therefore intellectually my inferior.

The other thing with many of these ideas is that they based entirely on supposition. It may be that the reason Dan Brown is more popular than X's favourite author is entirely down to the budgets and marketing spend allocated by publishers. It may also be that even with the same amount of money Dan Brown would still be more popular, in which case given X's fave is clearly the better author, the only possible explanation is the stupidity of the masses. Now before you all nod in agreement, that the masses are indeed stupid, let's not forget that this is actually an elitist viewpoint. Which, is fine if you favour the idea of elites, but otherwise not so good.

Another thing that springs to mind for me regarding these arguments, is around the idea of what constitutes true art. Surely the definition of art is highly subjective? Robert Jackson Bennett the author of Mr Shivers, is one of the people I've been talking to on Twitter about such things, here he discusses the question of art in relation to video games. Not only do we have the entirely subjective idea of what constitutes art, but I think also the question of art vs entertainment. Is that which entertains, but which may or may not be art, any less valuable because of it?

Some people assert true literature must be challenging, which rather like the idea that art must be born of pain, I find to be another unhelpful designation aimed at making something more or less worthy, and thus enforcing exclusivity. Surely there is great literature that is challenging, and it's certainly true, that many love challenging books - I do, but I don't think that literature which has the primary goal of being entertaining is by default inferior. Nor do I think that being challenging and entertaining are mutually exclusive. Surely if these things must be judged, then it can only be on the degree to which they achieve the task they set out to achieve? The rest is a question of taste. Not all people read to be challenged, the majority I would guess read to be entertained. Fair enough I say.

My purpose though in writing this isn't really to defend the popular, or suggest that we shouldn't promote alternatives to what is currently fashionable. But to highlight the dismissive nature of so much of the commentary on what is popular. I'm not suggesting that China Miéville isn't a better author than Dan Brown, I think he is. I'm suggesting that my view, in the spirit of true democracy, is no more or less important or more or less right, than that of the person who prefers Dan Brown; regardless of whether one considers them well read, a casual reader or suchlike. A person's vote is not rendered eligible by the degree to which they are educated in politics.

Perhaps if I were less dense, and more open to the virtues of true literature, I would instantly recognise that Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie are infinitely better than any genre author I might care to name.

I think the next time we fans of SF become self-righteously indignant at the treatment meted out to genre fiction by the literati, we should perhaps reflect on our own dismissive attitude towards those whose works we consider vulgar. An attitude that has implications across many aspects of society.