Relativism, alternate history, and the forgetful reader: reading science fiction and historiography

184 Pages·2015·2.484 MB·English

by  Thiess, Derek

Relativism, Alternate History, and the
Forgetful Reader
Relativism, Alternate History, and the
Forgetful Reader
Reading Science Fiction and
Historiography
Derek J. Thiess
LEXINGTONBOOKS
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Thiess,Derek,1981–author.
Relativism,alternatehistory,andtheforgetfulreader:readingsciencefictionandhistoriography/
DerekJ.Thiess.
pagescm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-7391-9617-5(cloth:alk.paper)—ISBN978-0-7391-9618-2(electronic)1.Science
fiction—Historyandcriticism.2.Literatureandhistory.3.Postmodernisminliterature.4.Alterna-
tivehistories(Fiction)—Historyandcriticism.I.Title.
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction:TheNamshubofHistory 1
1 TheForgetfulReader 21
2 ForgettingtheScientificRevolution 49
3 TrivialLiteratureandtheTechno-PaganNazi 81
4 TheDaVinciCodePhenomenonandOrthodoxy 113
5 MadnessandtheText 139
Conclusions 159
Bibliography 165
Index 173
AbouttheAuthor 175
v

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank several people for their help, both professional and
personal,thatwentintotheproductionofthisbook.Thankyoutotheschol-
arsthathelpedtoformtheoriginalinspirationforthetext,especiallyClayton
Koelb,GreggFlaxman,RandallStyers,andTylerCurtain.Thankyoualsoto
those who provided encouragement, however great or small, along the long
paththistexttooktofruition:LisaYaszek,MackHassler,KevinP.Eubanks,
MichaelButter,DavidLowenthal,KurtKoenigsberger,MeganSwihart-Jew-
ell, Mark Pedretti, Jim Hansen, Ron Bogue, and so many others. Thank you
to librarians at all the various universities I’ve spent time at—too numerous
tomention—researchwouldsimplynotbepossiblewithoutyourhelp.Thank
you to all those anonymous scholars who reviewed this book in its various
drafts, the dreamers and the deriders, both of whom helped to make the
argument stronger and more focused. And a special thank you to Lindsey
Poramboforherbeliefinthistextandallherhardworkonitsproduction.
On a personal note, I am extremely grateful to my wife, Arial, who was
thereformethroughthelongprocessofseeingthisbookintoprint.Without
her support I might have given up long ago. The same may be said of my
parents, who have been perpetual optimists and have picked me up when I
needed it. And also of friends such as Manika Khanna. To everyone, a
sincereandheartythanks.
vii

Introduction
The Namshub of History
Neal Stephenson’s 1992 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash tells the story of a
younghackerwho,withthehelpofaskateboardingcourier,investigatesthe
originsofamysteriousnewdrugthatcausespeopletogocatatonicandbegin
speaking in tongues. Strangely, this drug can “infect” people either through
bodilyfluids,orbyviewingabitmap(codedcomputerlanguage).Theyoung
hacker traces this “drug” or “virus” historically to the Tower of Babel and
beyond, to a Sumerian myth upon which the biblical story is supposedly
based. He finds that one particular Sumerian god “somehow understood the
connectionbetweenlanguageandthebrain,knewhowtomanipulateit.The
samewaythatahacker,knowingthesecretsofacomputersystem,canwrite
code to control it.”1 Even as they deal with the social effects of this “nam-
shub”(thelinguisticversionofthedrug)intheirownpost-Lapsariansociety,
an America that no longer has a central government, but is comprised of
corporatized ethnic franchises, this text repeatedly refers us back to this
amalgam of fiction, history, and religion, as well as the confusion and dis-
cord that language sows within it. As I shall argue throughout the coming
chapters,asimilarmixtureoffiction,history,andreligioninheresinapartic-
ularpostmodernapproachtohistory,relativism,whichbetraysatendencyto
overwrite,orforget,certainhistoricaldetails.
In order to establish this claim, however, it will be useful to continue to
engage the science fiction (sf) genre, in particular the philosophical under-
pinnings of the alternate history. One reason for this comparison is that
scholars have already claimed an inherent connection between what I shall
term relativist historiography and the alternate history genre. As Karen Hel-
lekson offers, “The alternate history asks questions about time, linearity,
1