Quote:
Originally Posted by Licence Denied - Paul Cornell
The reason the greater culture [ridicules fans as 'sad obsessives'] is sheer psychological projection. They want to portray fans as mad consumers, people who accept everything the television [or books or whatever] gives us, without question. That's them, I'm afraid. Fandom is the culture that takes what television [or books or whatever] gives us, chops it up, laughs at it, pulls it apart, makes its own art with it, and eats it.
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I'm afraid I must take exception to Cornell's use of the phrase "greater culture." It seems to imply "culture-at-large" or some other kind of massive "norm." At least in this quote, he doesn't mention the madness of sports fans. I've never heard of a Sci-Fi convention coming to blows over whether Balrogs have wings or not, yet I have more than once seen sportscasters dismiss soccer riots (sorry, football riots for those BD members not from the U.S.) as mere abberations. They do the same for Little-League fathers who beat up other Little-League fathers in front of the crowd watching. (wasn't it just a year or two ago that one father actually beat another father to death in front of the entire team, including the victim's eight year old son, as well as his own?)
My point is that our societies, our cultures, have become too large to truly identify ourselves with them. I'm an American, and am delighted and proud to be so, but America is now in excess of three hundred million people, and our herding/tribal instinct cannot be satisfied when we cannot keep all those names straight. So, we find smaller groups to identify with. Being a Tolkien geek is just one of those groups. Sports-fans are just another (larger) group. It could as easily be quilting or gardening or video games or movies (or anything else that people are fans of.) Of course, any group that you're not a part of is weird (or sad) because you're just not interested.
From what I can see, that interest seems to happen while puberty sets in. Say, ten to fourteen years old. Maybe sixteen. And we all (hopefully) have more than one group. Literature appreciation is my primary group, and Tolkien especially (at least for me.) That doesn't preclude my interest in gardening, or pets or theatre or bicycling. I don't quite understand my friend who studies every statistic for every baseball player any more than he understands why I re-read
The Lord of the Rings every year or so. It's just another group that he's not part of, and baseball fans are just another group that I'm not really a part of. Before I take Cornell seriously, I'd like to know which of these interests to which he has attached himself.