He also wrote editorials. He wrote them almost every month, for more than twenty years; a
lot
of editorials. They excited. They enlightened. They enraged. None were dull. Nearly all were controversial. One doubts that Campbell believed more than half of what he said in those editorials—indeed some of them contradicted others—but he was willing to defend the notions he had put forth. You could win an argument with Campbell, but you would have no easy time of it.
Some of his notions were one-shot; ideas thrown to the winds to see what, if anything, they might inspire: letters, certainly. Stories, often enough, since writers read those editorials and rushed to write stories illustrating Campbell's pet new notions. And once in a while he might inspire a young reader and change lives forever. He certainly did with me. I began reading Campbell's editorials in high school: and "inspired" is too gentle a word for what they did.
It wasn't that Campbell persuaded me to his specific views. It was that he truly believed in rational discourse; in the power of human reason; in the vast future of humankind. Those beliefs permeated everything he wrote. Campbell could be, sometimes tragically was,
wrong
; but he was not wrong for bad reasons. Even when he was most in error he inspired and instructed. Moreover: when I thought him wrong, I could write to him and say so; and he would
answer
. Not only answer, but argue. Not only argue, but admit that he could be wrong. It was a heady experience.
Some themes he put forth and abandoned. To some he returned again and again. Although he had no formal training in social sciences, he truly believed that a scientific sociology was possible. You could, from a study of both history and contemporary events, deduce real truths; which could then be tested as any scientific hypothesis might be tested.
Campbell believed it possible to discover axioms of human action. Moreover, he believed that science fiction—good science fiction, the kind of science fiction he liked to buy and publish-—could illustrate such axioms; that science fiction could be and indeed would be significant in the advancement of a true science of history and humanity. I've believed that ever since; which is one reason for these books.
Campbell had a background in engineering. He liked to describe himself as a "nuclear physicist." In fact he never had any formal training in that subject; but then as now the self education of many science fiction people was more valuable than much of what passes for university education. Science fiction writers often have considerable insight into not one but many exotic fields. It's unlikely that Campbell ever could have made real contributions to nuclear science, but he did attempt to follow the literature. In fact, he followed the literature of a dozen sciences, and knew more of their interactions than most scientists ever would; and he encouraged his writers, students, and readers to do likewise.
The result was a remarkable influence over a generation. My own case will serve well enough as an example. Before reading Campbell I had not the least notion of what my future would be. After reading
Astounding
I knew: not the details, certainly, but I knew that I would be part of designing and creating the future: and that the future would be a great deal more than any reasonable projection of the past. Campbell, both in editorials and in the stories he bought, told us to question authority, question our assumptions, question what we thought we knew best: but at the same time to have faith in the power of reason, and thought, and human action.
I wasn't alone. Many in my generation who became scientists and engineers were persuaded to do so by science fiction in general, and John W. Campbell in particular. Many of us went on actually to work on projects that Campbell and "his" authors only dreamed of. I will not soon forget his sheer joy when he discovered that he had not one, but many fans involved with Project Mercury.
I don't recall John ever calling himself a teacher, but that is what he was. He taught science fiction writers: taught them to create the kind of science fiction he wanted to read. In doing so he created the Golden Age. But he did more: he taught apprentice scientists; and if they have not yet gone out to create a Golden Age in the real world, we have made a start, and there is yet time. . . .
Herewith a pair of John W. Campbell's most famous editorials.
In studying history, there are three general, and quite distinguishable levels of culture we can identify. Our own we naturally call "civilized" or "civilization," with the implication of "completely matured and fully developed." It happens to be as far as cultures on this planet have gone; what the fourth, fifth, nth levels of culture may be we can't guess, of course. But judging from history, we can make one pretty high-probability guess—the next stage of development will yield a cultural system that will appear, to us, utterly abhorrent—a system founded on Evil and practicing degradation and repellent immoralities.
That's the characteristic of every level so far . . . as seen from the immediately preceding level.
To define what I mean by the three so-far known levels, I distinguish Tribal, Barbarian, and Civil cultures; the natives of the three we call Tribesmen, Barbarians, and Citizens. Preceding all three is the pre-organized-culture level of the "primate horde"—the sort of quasi-organized group found among baboons and monkeys, in the present time.
The Tribal culture—in its never-actually-existent theoretical pure state—is a system of pure ritual and taboo. "Everything that is not forbidden is compulsory." The objectively observable system stems from an unstated philosophy—which is unstated because the Tribesman doesn't know philosophy exists, any more than a dog knows logic exists, or a fish knows that biochemistry exists. The philosophy is, essentially precisely that of the Absolute Totalitarian state . . . minus the familiar dictator. That is, in the Tribe, the
individual exists for the service of the state.
The individual has no value whatever, save as a replaceable plug-in unit in the immortal, ever-existent machinery-organism of the Tribe. No individual exists as an individual—neither Tribal king nor Tribal slave; each is a unit plugged in—temporarily, for all these units wear out and are discarded in a score or two of years—to the eternal Traditional System of the Tribe. The cells in a living organism wear out and are discarded; the organism is, relatively speaking, immortal. So, in the Tribe, the individual is nothing; the Tribe is eternal.
In return for a practically absolute loss of self-identity, the Tribesman is rewarded with security and peace of mind. The Tribal Traditions have The Answers to all possible real problems; nothing can happen that the Tribal Traditions, in their ancient and time-tested wisdom, have not already solved. There are no doubts; there are answers which involve "these tribesmen must die," but Death is not intolerable. Uncertainty—Doubt—these are the Terrors that live in the Unknown. And against those horrors, the ancient wisdom of the Tribal Traditions stand a strong, sure defense.
The Tribesman has an exact, clear-cut, and perfectly understandable definition of Evil. Evil is Change. Any Change whatever is Evil. The correlation is absolute—perfect one-to-one.
The Barbarian represents the Ultimate Horror from the viewpoint of the Tribesman; he is the Pure Individual. The Barbarian does not put his faith, his sense of security, in the ancient wisdom of the Traditions—but in the wisdom and strength of a Hero, a living demigod-man, a Leader who solves all problems.
Barbarism, in other words, is the Dictator, without the Totalitarian State. There is a Hero, who is a strong, and unusually clever leader—an individual who stands out above the men around him.
Tribalism is "a government of laws, not of men," with the minor change that "traditions" replace "laws."
Barbarism becomes a government of Men, not of traditions.
It is the first development of human culture which recognizes the value of the individual. It is
not
true that only civilized people respect the dignity of the individual; any Barbarian will assure you that Citizens have no dignity, that Civilization does not respect the individual. That only Barbarians understand what it means to be an individual.
The Barbarian, in essence, "has too much Ego in his Cosmos."
It's perfectly true that all men seek security—but necessarily, that means they seek
what they believe
is security. A superstitious Tribesman, fleeing a ghost, would happily climb a 100,000 volt power-line tower because he knows that ghosts can't climb.
The Tribesman's security is his conviction that the Tribal Traditions have sure answers to all real problems.
The Barbarian's security is in his absolute conviction that
he
can handle any problem—and if he can't, why, of course his Leader-Hero can, and will.
While the Barbarian leader-hero corresponds with what we think of as a Dictator, the implication we attach is entirely wrong; the Barbarian's leader-hero is followed out of conviction, not out of fear. Oh, there's always the Fear of the Outer Darkness—the fear of the Unknown and Unknowable—but the Barbarian follows the Hero because he admires, respects, and adulates, not because he fears the power of the Hero.
When Barbarism first arises in any area, Tribalism is doomed. The two are mutually exclusive, and there is no possible "peaceful coexistence" between them. To the Tribesman, the Barbarian is Evil Incarnate; the Barbarian has utterly rejected all Good, Moral, and Ethical values. He has rejected the Sacred Traditions, and glories in his absolute defiance of them. He blasphemes not casually, but as a way of life.
To the Barbarians, the Tribesman is a slave, a spineless, gutless coward, a disgrace to human shape. He has no self-respect, no courage to take a risk, no faith in himself. He doesn't respect himself, or any man. He won't fight for any reward, no matter how great and shining! He's a stupid, lazy slug, a disgrace to humanity.
The Tribesman won't fight for reward, he won't take a risk for great gain—because that is not in the Traditions. A Tribesman can't fight an enemy tribe for that enemy tribe's
land
; his tribal traditions refer to
his tribe's
land. If he did take the neighboring tribe's land . . . there would be no traditions to tell what to do with it. It would, in fact, be a Change, and therefore Evil.
The "battles" between two ritual-taboo tribes, anthropologists have long since observed, are practically pure rituals, and actually have a vanishingly small casualty rate. Not greatly different—for all the use of spears!—than in modern college football clashes. The spears are hurled while at a range so extreme that it's sheer accident if someone gets hurt.
When Barbarism appears—that situation changes in a hurry. The Barbarian army isn't going through a ritual; they're out for blood and loot. They don't have traditions as guides, nor as limiting fences about them.
When Genghis Khan appeared, the Mongols, who had been ritual-taboo nomads were converted to Barbarians—and it was only the sheer overwhelming mass of geography that finally stopped them.
Barbarism is one of the great breakthroughs in cultural evolution; for the first time, it establishes that the individual has great value, that the individual must be respected. That it is
not
true that all men are interchangeable plug-in units.
Barbarism introduces the idea that Man can, and should,
make
his fate, rather than accept it. That Man can accomplish, that Change comes in two varieties, Good and Bad, and that the correlation Evil-Change: Change-Evil is
not
a one-to-one system.
Of course, it horribly complicates the problems of life; where before it was only necessary to show that X was a Change to prove conclusively that X was Evil, it now became necessary to decide whether X was Progress or Degeneracy.
Like most fundamentally sound and necessary ideas, the importance of the individual, which Barbarism first discovered, was very promptly overdone. The Barbarian respects
only
the individual; his respect for self becomes the only effective respect he has. He does not respect Gods, Demons, or other men. He will swear a mighty vow that will endure "so long as the sun shines, the rivers flow, and the grass grows," but which will, in fact, endure until his personal inclinations veer, and he decides he was tricked into the vow.
A democratic vote means nothing whatever to a Barbarian, in consequence. He is a Free Soul, and he spits on sniveling cowards who allow themselves to be compelled to do what they don't want to. Crawling slaves!
So, of course, to accept a vote that goes contrary to his own ideas is impossible; only a whimpering slave lets other people determine what he shall do!
When the Barbarian encounters Civilization, therefore, he is going to be enormously confused and baffled. The Barbarians of North Europe, meeting the Citizens of the Roman Republic, were meeting men who allowed others to order them about, to tell them what to do and when to do it. Who obeyed commands they didn't, themselves, agree with. Obviously, a pack of servile slaves!
But these cowardly Roman Legionnaires, for some incomprehensible reason, did not collapse in battle. These Legionnaires, who had no self-respect, who did not fight man-to-man, but used short swords so that no one of them could say, when he returned home, "I killed Urhtoth!" but only, "I am a member of the Fourth Legion,"—these Romans strangely didn't flee before the fiercest Barbarian charges.
To the Barbarians, the Citizen shows the symptoms of all the things the Barbarian rejects as vile and degrading—the essence of cowardice. The Citizen yields his will to the demands of others. He allows himself to be limited, and allows himself to be compelled against his own desires.
To the Barbarian, the Citizen shows the same loathsome abnegation that the Tribesman does.
Which makes it all the more incomprehensible that these sniveling Citizens win battle after battle. They who have sacrificed their Manhood, have given up their right to individual dignity, somehow prove able to fight like maddened demons!