Cybergreen

Bruce Sterling on media, design, fiction, and the future

Mike Godwin from the January 2004 issue

(Page 7 of 7)

Sterling: The guy has great skill in getting headlines when he thinks he needs them. I learned a lot from him, like how to organize a literary movement. You need some controversy. He had a Breton thing, in that he burns friend and foe alike. But he's always been very good at making enemies, and many of his enemies are the proper enemies to make. Spiro Agnew. How many other science fiction writers are upset at the vice president? Norman Spinrad's books were condemned in Parliament. How many other science fiction writers have ever been condemned by the powers that be in a parliamentary inquiry?

reason: You're envious.

Sterling: No, I'm not envious. I'm respectful. If I were envious I'd say, "How come I don't get as much money as Michael Moorcock?"

reason: But don't you want to be condemned in Parliament at least once?

Sterling: I want to testify to Congress, but I've done that. I think it's an improvement over being condemned in Parliament: to be a cyberpunk testifying in Congress. This guy is a science fiction writer, and he's here before our panel. You want to be in a situation where you can screw with their heads.

reason: One of the distressing insights of working in D.C. is the extent to which the panel of witnesses at a congressional hearing is a kind of theater. And whether it serves as input to anybody's thinking is highly questionable.

Sterling: It's not that Congress doesn't listen to science fiction writers. They shouldn't, really. They should have never listened to Newt Gingrich, that's for sure, and he's a science fiction writer.

Shelley said poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. The truth is that legislators are the unacknowledged poets of the world. They're going to remain unacknowledged. If you talk to anyone who is in power, they never think they have enough to get anything done. No one has ever said, "I have too much power; some of my power should be devolved." It's always, "I'm president, and the Senate is driving me nuts!"