The other day, my wife the university professor asked another of her very good questions: “Why do so many critics equate pushing boundaries with excellence?”

Why indeed?  Does more violence, more nudity and sexual content, or the detailing of the depths of human depravity have much at all to do with excellence?  Let’s face it.  Nude human bodies are similar to other nude human bodies, and death and violence have always been with human beings. So have depraved behaviors.  With the advent of HDTV, Blu-Ray, and similar high resolution video media, nudity and violence are now depicted in stunning visual detail right in the home.  As I recall, the science fiction writer Marian Zimmer Bradley (who also wrote pornography under various pseudonyms) once made an observation to the effect that pornographic sex was like writing about plumbing.  And, in a way, excessive sword and slash fantasy is like rather crude dissection.  If adults want to watch detailed plumbing and dissection, so long as it doesn’t involve children or other perversions, that’s largely their right under the first amendment… but let’s not equate it with excellence.

At least in my mind – and historically – excellence is the concept for striving for something higher, not a depiction in greater detail of something sordid, fatal, or demeaning. And while Game of Thrones, for example, certainly has great supporters, and its visuals – at least from the trailers/ads – are stunning, I gave up on the books shortly after the first one, simply because, although Martin writes well, that skill is employed most effectively at portraying a society where there is really no such thing as excellence except in violence and betrayal.

Perhaps I’m dated, or old-fashioned, but to me, the employment of talent to portray the worse in human behavior with no counterpoint of the best in human nature is the equivalent of moral pornography, in addition to the pornography of sex and violence.  And even if it the best is portrayed along with the worst, humans being humans, they concentrate on the worst. In addition, such graphic portrayals also desensitize at least a percentage of younger viewers, a trend that is continuing in pretty much all forms of the arts, so that music must be louder and simpler to retain its appeal, movies – at least the blockbusters – are simpler (and, as an aside, there are so few good songs in movies that the Academy Awards might as well eliminate that category) and ask less and less of the audience in terms of knowledge and understanding, all of which is perfectly understandable from the marketing point of view.

Then again, it could be that pushing boundaries is the only thing some of these movies and mini-series have going for them… and the rest don’t even have that.

In almost every bit of advice about success there’s something about the need to be dependable.  Even Woody Allen, who, for all of the craziness of his personal life, has certainly been artistically and professionally successful, once said, “Eighty percent of success is just showing up.”  In other words, be there on a dependable basis.

 The only problem with this is that it isn’t totally true. From what I’ve observed, in the military, in business, in government, and in education, people who are talented and dependable are all too often viewed, particularly the longer they’ve been in an organization, as solid and… well… dull, not terribly innovative and creative.  And I can also say that I’ve seen the same thing happen in the field of writing.  Time after time, I’ve watched talented and dependable people pushed aside for younger, more “brilliant” newcomers, and in a reversal of the Woody Allen percentages, I’d said that in about 80% of the cases, those new, “young,” and brilliant types managed to screw things up.  Often the work of the “dependable” individuals is actually more creative and innovative than that of those who make brilliant presentations but never actually accomplish more than a mediocre job.   

 There is, of course, an underlying reason why the “dependable” are so-often shunted aside, minimized, or even discarded, and it’s fairly obvious, and simple, and usually ignored.  All organizations have limits.  People who are talented and dependable – and responsible – understand those limits, either implicitly or explicitly. They know that, for example, why a seemingly brilliant idea won’t work, and, in many cases, has failed several times, each time with another charismatic individual who is convinced that force of personality will accomplish the impossible.  Once in a very great while that happens, but the benefits of that infrequent success doesn’t begin to cover the costs of all the unsuccessful efforts.  But no new supervisor or executive wants to be told that his or her brilliant idea won’t work, and the dependable workers get faced with an impossible situation – if you oppose the idea, you and your career are toast, and if you do your best and it fails you’re toast.

 All this, of course, also ties into the “new is better” philosophy, which is often even worse than the “we’ve always done it this way” philosophy, which, at the very least, works, if not so well as as an incrementally better way might, but in most organizations steady incremental improvements are overlooked in favor of a single “brilliant” one-time achievement. I’ve seen, more than a few times, a middle-management professional double or triple, or in some cases quintuple output with the same level of resources, but because they did it over five or ten years, it’s overlooked in favor of the professional who posts a one-year 25% increase by spending more and burning out people so that improvements for years to come are negligible.

 Then, too, in large multi-layered organizations or institutions, those who make the decisions on raises and promotions often never really understand what goes on at lower levels and rely on summaries and aggregated statistics presented by immediate subordinates who tend not to stay in any position very long. 

This is often why the best of  small companies are often quite successful… and then become less productive or even fail when they’re acquired by large conglomerates – because the expertise and dependability necessary for a smaller company to survive is less vital to more senior executives whose success often depends more on political maneuvering than day-in, day-out task-oriented performance.

 The result, from what I’ve observed, is that, in the majority of organizations and institutions, the higher one moves, the less dependability is valued, unless dependability is defined as being dependably loyal to those who can reward and advance one’s career.

Recently here in Cedar City, there have been several letters decrying the direction of the university as a “liberal arts” institution and complaining about the high cost of tuition.  My initial – and continuing – reaction has been along the lines of what planet are these idiots from? 

The university has always had a liberal arts/teaching focus, from the days of its founding over a century ago, and its tuition is so low that its out-of-state tuition and fees are lower than the in-state fees of many universities in other states.  Now, admittedly, tuition has increased more than the administration would like, entirely because the state legislature has decided to cut per-student funding while mandating enrollment increases, not only for the local university but for most of the state institutions.  Even so, considering the quality of many programs, state tuition here and elsewhere in Utah is a comparative bargain. Here, the music, art, and theatre areas have won national awards against much larger schools; the nursing program is rated as one of the best in the state and region; pre-law and pre-med students have an enviable rate of acceptance at graduate schools; and the physical education program has been so successful that it’s known as the “coaching factory.”

Unfortunately, this disregard for the facts isn’t just about college education here in Cedar City, but is symptomatic of a larger problem.  More and more, I see people ignoring the facts that conflict with what they feel and want.  It’s as if they actively avoid facts and circumstances contrary to their beliefs, as if they simply don’t want to know.  Whether it’s global warming or deficit spending, immigration, income inequality, decreased social mobility, education…or a dozen other subjects… they don’t want to know… and trying to get them to consider “contrary” facts just makes them angrier.

Part of this is an effect of civilization. If, earlier in history, you didn’t want to believe that the perils of the time – predators, floods, fire, famine, and raiders from other tribes, for example – you ended up dead.  Now that civilization has eliminated or limited the effects of those perils, and the dangers we face are more indirect and take more time to affect one, people ignore the facts about dangers.  In this regard, global warming is a good example.  I can recall predictions dating back almost twenty years suggesting that weather would get more violent with even modest rises in overall global temperatures.  Temperatures have risen; weather has become more violent; and still people debate whether global warming and its effects are real. 

On a personal level, there’s and even more stark and direct example — obesity.  Excessive weight is one of the primary causes of early death and other health hazards.  There’s absolutely no question of that… and yet Americans are the most obese nation on the face of the planet… and they scream bloody murder when a politician suggests banning serving soft drinks in 32 ounce sizes.  For heaven’s sake, does anyone really need a quart of carbonated beverage at one sitting?

But then, I suppose, why anyone would want that much at once is one of those facts I don’t want to know.

The New York Times best-selling author Jeannette Walls was quoted in the Times this past weekend as saying, “I’m not a huge fan of experimental fiction, fantasy or so-called escapist literature. Reality is just so interesting, why would you want to escape it?”  This kind of statement represents the kind of blindness that is all too typical of all too many “mainstream” writers and critics.

In fact, the best science fiction, fantasy, and other “escapist” literature puts a reader, in a real sense, “outside” the framework of current society and reality in a way that allows a perceptive individual to see beyond the confines of accepted views and cultural norms. Some readers will see this, and some will not.  As a simple, but valid example of this, take my own book, The Magic of Recluce, in which the “good guys” are ostensibly and initially portrayed as the “blacks.”  In western European derived cultures, as demonstrated by all too many westerns, where the good guys wear white Stetsons, and the bad guys crumpled black hats, in the United States, in particular, there is an equation of the color white with purity and goodness.  But this is far from a universal norm.  In many cultures, white is the color of death, and other cultures use other colors for purity.  My very deliberate inversion of this western color “norm” was designed to get readers to think a bit about that… and then, when they’d thought a while, I started writing other Recluce books from the “white” perspective, in an attempt to show the semi-idiocy of arbitrarily ascribing “color-values” to people or societies, or values to colors themselves.

I’m far from the only F&SF writer to use the genres to explore such themes or to question values or concepts, and I could list a number of writers who do.  So could most perceptive readers of F&SF.  This fact tends to get lost because fiction is for entertainment, and if we as writers fail to entertain, we don’t remain successful professional writers for very long, and, frankly, if we’re extremely successful at entertaining, we tend not to be taken seriously on other levels. Stephen King, for example, is technically a far, far better writer than is recognized, largely because of the subjects about which he writes, and not because he writes poorly – which he does not.  Only recently has there been much recognition of this fact.

Even with critics within the F&SF genre, there’s a certain dismissal of writers who are “commercially” successful as writers of “mere” popular escapism, as though anything that is popular cannot be good.  Under those criteria, Shakespeare cannot possibly be good or have any depth.  For heaven’s sake, the man wrote about sprites and monsters, faery queens, sorcerers and witches, along with battles, kings, ghosts, and ungrateful children.

Good is good;  popular is popular; and popular can be anything from technically awful to outstanding, although I’d be among the first to admit that works that are both good and popular are far rarer than those that are popular and technically weak or flawed.  And the same holds for so-called escapist fiction, no matter what the mainstream “purists” assert.

Then too, the fact is that all fiction, genre or mainstream, is “escapist.”  The only question is how far the author is taking you… and for what reasons.

Over the years, both my wife and I have encountered quite a number of individuals who had the ability and skills to succeed, and who then proceeded to commit self-sabotage, often when they were on the brink of accomplishing something they said was important to them. Another instance just occurred, and without going into details, the individual in question suddenly stopped going to two required senior level classes, while attending other classes… and getting good grades in those.  Despite promises to do better, that individual ended up flunking both courses… and being unable to graduate for at least another semester.

It’s easier to understand why people fail if their reach exceeds their abilities, or if accidents or family tragedies occur, or if they become addicted to drugs, or suffer PTSD from combat or violent abuse, or if they suffer from depression or bipolarity, but it’s hard to understand why seemingly well-adjusted people literally throw their future, or even a meaningful life, away.  Some of that may be, of course, that they’re not so well-adjusted as their façade indicates, but I have a nagging suspicion that in at least a few instances, there’s another factor in play.

What might that be?  The realization that what they mistakenly thought was the end of something was just the beginning.  For example, far too many college students have the idea that college is an ordeal to be endured before getting a “real” job that has little to do with what was required in college.  In my wife’s field, and in many others, however, what is required in college is indeed only the beginning, and the demands of the profession increase the longer you’re in it… and some students suddenly realize that what is being asked of them is only the beginning… and they’re overwhelmed.

The same can be true of a promotion. The next step up in any organization usually involves more pay, but today, often the pay increase is minimal compared to the increased workload and responsibilities… and, again, some people don’t want to admit, either to themselves or to others, that they don’t want to work that hard or handle that much responsibility.  So the “easy” way out is self-sabotage… and often blaming others for what happens.

This certainly isn’t the only explanation for self-sabotage, but it does fit the pattern of too many cases I’ve observed over the years… and it also seems to me that cases of self-sabotage are increasing, but then, maybe I’ve just become more aware of them…or maybe the “rewards” for advancement, degrees, etc., just aren’t what they used to be… at least in the perception of some people.