It seems like most of the internet is talking about the hilariously bad breakdancing performance given by Australia at the Paris Olympics. Apparently, the “athlete” in question is actually a university professor named Rachael Gunn who specializes in breakdancing studies, or some such nonsense, and the main reasons she got the nod to compete are 1) the Australian breakdancing scene is woefully small, 2) she’s (allegedly) an LGBTQ+ woman, with all the right political opinions, and 3) her husband was on the committe that made the decision to qualify her. Taking advantage of those three factors, she’s apparently made a name for herself in Australia, even winning some local competitions—because who would dare criticize such a stunning and brave LGBTQ+ woman? So of course, she went on to compete on the international scene… and made such a mockery of herself and her sport that the judges awarded her straight zeroes, and the Olympics committee pulled breakdancing from the 2028 Los Angelos Olympics. Wah wah.
While this story is rightly hilarious, and proves the eternal truth that wokeness ruins everything, I can’t help but notice the parallels between the state of Australian breakdancing, that someone so inept and untalented could leverage a “studies” degree to dominate it, and the current state of science fiction. Specifically, this is the comment that made me think about this, which is worth reading in full:
The relevant part is this:
Rachael represents so much of what is totally lecherous about cultural studies academics. Pick a subject area that will be under-studied in your context, so you can rise through the ranks quickly (how many break dancing academics will there be in Australia?), and wreak absolute havoc in lives of the people you want to study. There is no limit to the sheer disrespect they will dole out, purely for self-advancement.
Now, I don’t think science fiction was ruined in quite the same way, ie by being dominated and colonized by academia through “studies” degrees. Science fiction was probably too large to be overtaken that way. However, the pattern is still similar, and from what I can tell, it goes something like this:
Step 1: Take over the institutions in the field that are primarily responsible for determining and evaluating excellence.
In Australia, the breakdancing field was small enough that academia was able to dominate and (for lack of a better word) colonize it, becoming the arbiters of excellence within that art. It certainly helped that the professor who had carved out this academic niche for herself was married to one of the judges in the committee that was tasked with determining excellence. This created an incestuous (and ultimately nepotistic) relationship between academia and the judging panels.
In science fiction, something similar happened with SFWA and the Hugo and Nebula awards. I’ve written before about how SFWA ruined science fiction, so I won’t repeat all that here. But the basic gist of it is this: as science fiction became more established, the organizations and publications that talked about science fiction became more authoritative on the subject of the genre than the actual writers themselves. Because of this, achieving recognition for excellence became less about creating works of actual merit, and more about gaining the approval of the people who had built their careers talking about science fiction, rather than actually creating it. And the best way to gain their approval was to join those institutions yourself, rising up in the pecking order until everyone else was beneath you.
This basically describes the career trajectories of John Scalzi and Mary Robinette Kowal, two insanely woke authors who leveraged their tenure as SFWA president for award nominations. Both of them seem to have spent at least as much time and effort talking about science fiction as they have in actually creating it: Scalzi through his blog, which he leveraged to get his first book deal, and MRK through both her blog and the Writing Excuses podcast.
Step 2: Purge those institutions until they are ideologically pure.
This step is critical. So long as the instutitions are focused on merit, the only way to climb the ranks is by creating something of merit. But once the institution has become ideologically possessed, with all of those who reject the dominant ideology being purged from positions of power, then merit no longer matters, and the way to the top becomes clear. Those who are the most ideologically pure, as demonstrated by their virtue signalling, will rise to the top. This has the added benefit of quelling all merit-based criticism, since those beneath you fear having their own ideological purity called into question.
From what I can tell, this is how Rachael Gunn rose to prominence in the Australian breakdancing scene. After all, once academia had colonized the field, who would dare question the merits of such a stunning and brave LGBTQ+ woman? In a similar manner, Scalzi and MRK rose to the top of SFWA by virtue signaling their own ideological purity and intersectional victimhood status, squelching any criticism by labeling their critics racist, sexist, bigots, homophobic, etc.
Step 3: Redefine excellence in your own image.
In the Australian breakdancing scene, this was accomplished through the combination of Rachael Gunn’s academic work and her husband’s position in the committee that qualified the Olympic competitors. And while it probably isn’t quite so blatantly nepotistic in the science fiction world, the pattern still holds true when you look at what the Hugos and Nebulas have become. This was what the Sad Puppies controversy was actually about, and because the Puppies lost, the Hugo and Nebula awards have been insufferably woke ever since:
Step 4: Use the captured institutions to purge the field of potential rivals.
The final step in this projection is to squash all of those people who represent a threat to your domination, because they have merit and you do not. Ignoring her perhaps overly generous assessment of Australian breakdancing, this is what Hannah Berrelli is talking about when she mentions all the “hundreds of Australian athletes who will have dedicated their entire lives to athletic excellence” whose blood, sweat, and tears were overshadowed and rendered irrelevant by Rachael Gunn’s Olympic stunt.
In science fiction, we see this in the fact that David Weber has never been nominated for a Hugo or a Nebula, or that Jim Butcher’s sole Hugo nomination lost to No Award. Both of these men are far better writers than the majority of award-winning authors, especially in our current era. You could make a solid argument that Dan Simmons or Orson Scott Card were superior, but Scalzi? Jemisin? Kingfisher?
And what about all of the new and relatively unknown authors? At least Weber and Butcher already have large followings, which they have rightfully earned through their merit. But when merit is no longer the determining factor in recognizing excellence within the field, what chance do talented up-and-coming authors have if they aren’t willing to play the ideological purity games? Answer: not a hell of a lot.
So while you laugh at how ridiculous Australia’s breakdancing performance was at the Olympics, understand that the same dynamic has been playing out in modern science fiction for years. And honestly, the results are no less ridiculous.
