f you think I'm going to use this month's editorial to write about the events of last Tuesday, then you don't know me very well. The Web is already overrun with enough lamentations, celebrations, accusations and remonstrations to last a lifetime. I'm not about to add to the spin.
Now that the after-effects of the most bitter election cycle I have experienced in my lifetime are echoing across the country, the only thing useful I can say to both sides is this—
Calm down. Take a deep breath. Because whether you sided with the winner or the loser, when looked at in the long term, none of this political hoopla matters as much as we'd all like to think it does.
There was doubtless also much weeping and much cheering (depending on one's political affiliation) back when Republican candidate Theodore Roosevelt overwhelmingly beat Democratic nominee Alton Parker in the 1904 presidential election. People on both sides of that political debate were as full of righteous passion then as we've become now—but 100 years later, to whom is that rage or rejoicing now meaningful? How many of us, save for the historians among us, can remember why the choices were even supposed to matter?
On the other hand, I can easily list a handful of other accomplishments from that same year that echo with us far more greatly today. Even as the citizens of 1904 suffered through their presidential campaign, they also witnessed the publication of Nostromo by Joseph Conrad, The Golden Bowl by Henry James, The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekov, Master of the World by Jules Verne, The Sea Wolf by Jack London, Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson and numerous other literary classics.
Acknowledging the legislators
A century later, as we look at these two movements, one political and the other artistic, which has had the greater impact? To those who lived through it, I'm sure that the political brouhaha seemed far more earthshaking, but which has truly lasted to still touch our souls?
In 1821, long before our current divisive election, or even the election of 1904, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote in his "Defence of Poetry" that "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." He wasn't thinking of our current situation, but still, Shelley was right. Shelley will always be right. Genius has a way of reaching across the generations to remind us of what matters.
There are novels being published this year that will be remembered long after the Bush-Kerry struggle seems as nostalgic to the future as the Lincoln-Douglas debates seem to us.
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that we should ignore our history—only that there are many histories. Why not seek out the strand that lasts, that will still be relevant when those forced to suffer through the 2104 election pause to look back at us?
If you're too upset by the election, too angry at the way that the so-called red states and blue states have been pitted against each other, go out and listen to this generation's unacknowledged legislators. They're out there right now, waiting for you between the covers of a book, or in the pages of a magazine, or in pixels on your computer screen, far more important than any acknowledged legislator could ever hope to be.
And you know what? Many of them are science-fiction and fantasy authors whose voices will carry to future generations and will still matter long after this year's candidates have been forgotten.
Scott Edelman started his trek to the editor-in-chief position at Science Fiction Weekly decades ago, when he began working as an assistant editor at Marvel Comics. Between these two positions, this four-time Hugo Award nominee in the category of Best Editor was the founding editor of the award-winning magazine Science Fiction Age, in addition to editing Sci-Fi Universe, Sci-Fi Flix and Satellite Orbit. Currently, he also edits SCI FI, the official magazine of the SCI FI Channel. His most recent short story appears in the new anthology Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic.
