Statesmanship and Science Fiction: Remembering Greg Bear (1951-2022)
Why do we still read it? What's it about?
The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils. In seeking to do so, it encounters obstacles which are deeply rooted in human nature. One is that by the very order of things such evils are not demonstrable until they have occurred: at each stage in their onset there is room for doubt and for dispute whether they be real or imaginary. By the same token, they attract little attention in comparison with current troubles, which are both indisputable and pressing. — Enoch Powell, April 20th, 1968.
We're not prophets. We're not here to inform the rich people of the world on how to make more money, or to inform governments on how to direct themselves. We are here to allow you to dream your dreams and make them happen, and have your nightmares a little in advance so you can prevent them from happening. Greg Bear, “On science fiction writers, Guest of Honor speech at the Millennium Philcon 59th World Science Fiction Convention (2001), from Women in Deep Time (2002), p.224.
When I think of science fiction, I think often of the pedigree of the men who wrote it down. These old white men who would, I think, be canceled for some of the things that they tucked away in books. No matter. In the main by encouraging everyone to use their imaginations they made the world a richer, more empathetic place.
Many of them, like the recently departed Greg Bear, came, like me, from Navy families. Their service isn’t in wearing the uniform but in thinking and guiding a generation of young people of all ages toward a better tomorrow. They understood that the Cold War was a kind of psyop where we were literally battling for hearts and minds of the young. I sometimes think how much worse life would be had they not come around — had nerd culture not become pop culture.
Bear argued quite forcefully that he warned in 2009 to government “agencies we shall not mention” that “modern conservatism is getting so very strange and conflicted that it’s going to lead to major security issues in the next few years and I did not realize how close that was to the truth.” Though it pains me as a recovering Republican, I think Bear is right here: “Conservatism is not about tradition and morality, hasn't been for many decades... It is about the putative biological and spiritual superiority of the wealthy.”
Incredibly Bear forecasted a dysfunctional intelligence apparatus and the near bankruptcy of the U.S. and the necessity of “cleaning up after the elephant parade.” In addition to his government work Bear advised Paul Allen of Microsoft and Jeff Bezos of Amazon — no mean feat — especially when it came to advising Blue Origin.
Bear believed in the power of science fiction to shape dreams then reality but he wasn’t a Pollyanna. “To see the awful things is to see life as it really is. It makes you sharper, stronger, superior,” he wrote. “You can stand it when others cannot.” Elsewhere he was similarly clear eyed: “Didn’t anyone who changed things ultimately lead some people—perhaps many people—to death, grief, torment?”
In this he’s not alone. Among the greatest living science fiction writers is David Brin, whose recent book, Vivid Tomorrows: On Science Fiction and Hollywood (2021), argues that science fiction might well have saved the world. Maybe so. I found his books, The Postman, and The Transparent Society particularly arresting, especially as I cofounded Clearview.Ai. I’ve always wanted to ask him about his relationship with his father, Herb Brin, who seems to have served as some sort of Jewish-American spy. Maybe one day.
There is a kind of hopefulness and boyishness that the best of the science fiction writers keep with them long after they are adults. When I was a boy I met hard sci fi writer Hal Clement a.k.a. Harry Stubbs. He and his wife attended my church in my hometown and it struck me then as it does now simply marvelous that an Air Force man and fellow Milton Academy man could imagine different planets from our quiet Boston suburb.
I have gotten older but the boyishness remains. Or as Bear once put it, “You are what you leave behind.”