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YankeyMCC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-04-07 09:04 AM
Original message
Prometheus Nominees Named
I'm not real familiar with these awards but from SciFi Weekly: "...recognizes novels that explore the value of personal freedom, human rights and other libertarian ideals"

Now my question. Look at this list:
(snip)
The finalists for the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction were also announced. The nominees include the novels A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1963), It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (1936), Animal Farm by George Orwell (1946), The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954), the short story "As Easy as A.B.C." by Rudyard Kipling (1912) and the novella "True Names" by Vernor Vinge (1981).
(snip)

Some of these don't seem to fit my idea of what Libertarians would accept as extolling their ideas. Particularly LoTR?

I guess I could see Animal Farm but that seems a bit of a stretch too.

Am I missing something?


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salvorhardin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-04-07 12:45 PM
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1. From the awards' site
* 2006 -- Alan Moore (writing) and David Lloyd (art), V for Vendetta
* 2005 -- A. E. van Vogt, The Weapon Shops of Isher
* 2004 -- Vernor Vinge, The Ungoverned
* 2003 -- Robert Heinlein, Requiem
* 2002 -- Patrick McGoohan, The Prisoner
* 2001 -- Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr editors, The Survival of Freedom
* 2000 -- Hans Christian Anderson, The Emperor's New Clothes
* 1999 -- H. Beam Piper and John McGuire, A Planet for Texans aka Lone Star Planet
* 1998 -- Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
* 1997 -- Robert Heinlein, Methuselah's Children
* 1996 -- Robert Heinlein, Red Planet
* 1995 -- Poul Anderson, The Star Fox
* 1994 -- Yevnegi Zamiatin, We
* 1993 -- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
* 1992 -- Ira Levin, This Perfect Day
* 1991 -- F. Paul Wilson, An Enemy of the State
* 1990 -- F. Paul Wilson, The Healer
* 1989 -- J. Neil Schulman, Alongside Night
* 1988 -- Alfred Bester, The Stars my Destination
* 1987 -- Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land;Ayn Rand, Anthem
* 1986 -- Cyril Kornbluth, The Syndic; Robert Anton Wilson/Robert Shea, Illuminatus!
* 1985 -- Poul Anderson Trader to the Stars; Eric Frank Russell, The Great Explosion
* 1984 -- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four; Ray Bradbury Farenheit 451
* 1983 -- Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress;Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
http://www.lfs.org/awards.htm


Notice the first awards went to Heinlein for perhaps his most libertarian novel and Ayn Rand. These both seem fitting, as do most of the rest of these. There's a few here I haven't read, but I've read most of them and they're all exceedingly libertarian except perhaps for The Dispossessed but even that could be seen as advancing a social libertarian society.
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Orrex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-09-07 11:42 AM
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2. Sounds like they mean small-case-L libertarian
That is, libertarian in terms of "valuing personal liberty," rather than Libertarian in terms of "smug and self-congratulatory derision of those who don't enjoy the benefit of economic good fortune."

At least, that's my interpretation. Though there is a decidedly minarchist element to V for Vendetta, it's clearly in reaction to Thatcher's government. Come to think of it, Libertarianism is at its core pretty reactionary, too.

Gosh gosh gosh. I just can't decide.
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