Re: Political Correctness + Nobel Prize

[John King <fs6y097@public.uni-hamburg.de>]

On Mon, 10 Mar 1997, Umberto Rossi wrote:

> Ah, did anybody know if Juenger dealt with genetic engineering in 
> some of his texts?
> 

Not come across it as such. But there's bound to be a little comment in 
one of the "Siebzig Verweht" volumes.

> And, second, would you accept the definition of Eumeswil as 
> "Science-fiction novel"?  (ok, we often mistrust definitions, but 
> sometime we have to deal with them...)
> 

Well, as Hans-Peter Schwarz has pointed out, it was a bit with its 
Phonophors and total information systems, in which history can be called 
up as virtual reality, notions which were a little ahead of their time. 
To put it briefly, I would suggest that in "science-fiction" the 
fictional exploration of the possibilities of science is the essential 
feature of the genre. I do not really think that this is quite the case 
in "Eumeswil". On the one hand, any novel which wants to reflect on the 
condition of humanity/the individual within a highly technicised and 
media dominated society like ours, does deal in fictional terms with 
scientific and the technical, but "Eumeswil" does not make 
technical/scientific practice the centre of its interest, nor does it 
depend on a fictional elaboration of this practice. Rather - I would see 
the central axis of the novel as the struggle of Venator to assert his 
own self, even if only internally, in the face of political and technical 
domination from outside. It does offer a bleak vision of the future, but 
its post-histoire scenario is not essentially dependent on gizmos or 
fictionalised scientific theory.

> (John, with "real politics" you have translated Realpolitik, didn't 
> you?  is that a customary translation?)
> 

Erm no. I meant "real life politics" - like elections, state affairs, the
encounter with contingent situations. Realpolitik is often left as such in
English and thus counts as a Fremdwort ;-)

John.