"Literature of Ideas" and the SF Left
Dave Truesdale stirred up a bit of trouble with his TangentOnline editorial titled "Idiocy from the SFnal Left" , which caused a remarkable discussion on the Tangent newsgroup -- a discussion where some excellent ideas and conversation is crowded amidst hostility, short tempers, bruised egos, petulance, bile, apologies, misunderstanding, mis-statements, and brilliance.
The strangest result of the discussion was Truesdale's announcing that, because of it, he was ending Tangent . That would be a great disaster for the SF field, as no-one else, that I know of, works so hard to notice and review SF short fiction. I expect the discussion was the proverbial straw breaking the camel's back, since Truesdale has been under many pressures recently, and Tangent has not been easy to keep going. No matter what the cause, though, Tangent's demise would be a horribly sad one.
What I want to discuss here, though, is the editorial itself, and some of the discussion aro