Cuddly Uncle Bob, everybody.
Actually you know what, I've got some time, let's dig in a little here. The Heinlein quote in there 'don the red robe of the venerated elder' is almost a platonic example of everything that's trying to murder genre fiction in it's sleep.
It implies that age equals perfection. It implies that once you have creative tenure, you're able to just coast on your laurels forever, wandering the halls of conventions, telling performatively rambling stories and not applauding while sitting on the front row at the Hugos.
That all you have to do is be massively successful in an industry that has changed beyond recognition and that the idea of coasting or being financially secure doing this is even still possible.
And worst of all, it implies this is open to everyone. That there are no barriers to entry to the hallowed fucking halls of Genre Valhalla and everyone is welcome to the same degree. That's a lie.
Did Tiptree get their venerated elder robes? Butler? Le Guin when their name wasn't being hijacked for an incompetent bloviated end run attempt to re-name an award?
Heinlein. Silverberg. Clarke. Asimov. Bloody HP Bloody Lovecraft the man whose specific gravity my day job genre is entering it's triumphant fifth decade of trying to work out if it wants to escape it.
If you're going to treat genre like it's a community, then it can't be a gated community. If you're going to accept the ridiculous concept that old and experienced equals infallible then that applies to everyone or it applies to no one.
And if you're going to trade not off what you're doing now but what you've done in the past then you maybe shouldn't be so arrogant, incompetent and fucking tone deaf that you think an 'invite only' mailing list is a good place to show off your racism.
Does that invalidate anything Silverberg's written? Hell no. Am I putting anyone on a pedestal? My two writing heroes are a former punk rock singer who used to get into fights to feel alive and a former adulterer. What do you fucking think?
But, yet again, here we are. With someone's toxic, incompetent nonsense being defended because he's old and doesn't know any better. The fact he's old means he HAS to know better and chooses not to. And that says more about the man than it does his work.
The past doesn't need, and often doesn't deserve, defending. The future needs all the help it can get. Back to it.
