Mutation or Death!

Meta
Title:	Mutation or Death!
Creator:	John B. Michel
Date(s):	1937
Medium:
Fandom:	Science Fiction
Topic:	Leftism in Fandom, Michelism, Science fiction
External Links:	Text hosted on Fancyclopedia
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Mutation or Death! was a speech written by John B. Michel, a member of the Futurians. Donald A. Wollheim delivered it at the Third Eastern Science Fiction Convention in 1937. The philosophy outlined called for science fiction fans to embrace leftist action as representatives of the best and brightest of humanity. The Futurians' motion was defeated 12-8, and the ramifications of the speech would continue to divide science fiction fandom on the East Coast for years to come.

Immediately following the Third Eastern Conference, the Futurians' movement was called Michelism. It would later be renamed Futurianism.

Excerpts

The Science Fiction Age, as we have known it during the past few years, is over. Definitely over and done with. Dead, gentlemen, of intellectual bankruptcy.

Gentlemen, we are gathered here this afternoon in solemn conclave -- to do what? To do precisely what?

In a few words let me put forth my opinion on what we are doing. My opinion is that we are baloney bending, throwing the bull, indulging in dull flights of fancy, tossing barrels of rhodomontade all over the place.

I SEE BEFORE ME FANS, writers, editors, and publishers, stf fans all and but a handful really awake to the enormous possibilities inherent in that fragile little thing called science fiction, that potentially mighty force which is rapidly being buried in a deluge of obscure issues, meaningless phrases, stupid interpretations, and aimless goals.

When the first science fiction fan organizations came into existence several years ago, they did so because of a need -- a need, however obscure, which nevertheless existed. That need was expression. We all know the various organizations that were formed. Why recall their history, their mistakes, their stupid, colossal, blundering mistakes of bickering and internal strife and more and still more baloney bending? In reviewing the field in its entirety we would be doing nothing more than adding to the dull, dreary reams upon reams of historical fact, consigned already to the limbo of forgotten things.

THE VERY FACT THAT no single science fiction organization has ever made any lasting impression on anything (except for the single exception of the ISA which did more or less practical research work on rockets before its dissolution) speaks for itself.

Because, gentlemen, there is something in each and every one of you fans which places him automatically above the level of the average person; which, in short, gives him a vastly broadened view of things in general. The outlook is there, the brains are there. Yet, nothing has happened!

But why not give science fiction a meaning? Naturally all types of fiction are idealized versions of situations found in everyday life. Science fiction is an idealized type of vision of the life of the future.

What is wrong with science fiction today is that its outlook on the future has changed; or rather, has never existed in a rational sense.

How can science fiction have any rational outlook on the future when today exists the greatest confusion in world affairs since the dawn of recorded history?

WHAT IS IMPORTANT to us is what science fiction is going to do about it.

Science fiction has to do something about it because its very life is bound up with the future and today practical events are working to shape the outline of that future in bold, sharp relief.

Today we are face to face, FACE TO FACE, I repeat, with the choice: CIVILIZATION or BARBARISM -- reason or ignorance.

FEARLESSLY AND BEFORE the entire world we state our platform and beliefs (and I speak for all the visitors here today wearing the red delegate badges of the NYFA).

We come out wholly and completely in support of every force seeking the advancement of civilization along strictly scientific and humanitarian lines.

All help to the democratic forces of the world!

All help to the heroic defenders of Madrid and Shanghai, defenders of democracy!

Death and destruction to all forms of reaction!

The machine that will shatter forever the reactional assault on civilization is already in motion. Let us become part of it.

THEREFORE: Be it moved that this, the Third Eastern Science Fiction Convention, shall place itself on record as opposing all forces leading to barbarism, the advancement of pseudo-sciences and militaristic ideologies, and shall further resolve that science fiction should by nature stand for all forces working for a more unified world, a more Utopian existence, the application of science to human happiness, and a saner outlook on life.

Responses

This Michelism business: It seems to me that the Fantasy Amateur Press Association and "Michelism" both had their inception at about the same time. Yet in his speech, "Mutation or Death," John B. Michel definitely stated that science fiction was dead. Donald A. Wollheim, who read the speech, evidently agreed with his views. Yet these two are now the powers behind the FAPA, which consists for the most part of magazines given over to "baloney-bending," as JBMichel so crudely put it. And Wollheim talks about William S. Sykora's two-facedness!

"Azygous": A Thought For Today. Fantascience Digest #4 pg. 14 (May 1938)

Mysteriously, the fan behind the Azygous moniker would later be unmasked as Dick Wilson, a Michelist who was already a friend and collaborator to both Wollheim and Michel, and would remain so for years to come. Sam Moskowitz himself pointed this out in Fantascience Digest #6, and theorized that the name was used by any fan who wanted to remain anonymous.

No one who has meticulously digested the contents of the past few issues of "Novae Terrae" can have escaped noticing the trend for contributors to ignore science-fiction itself, and to expound in their articles the ideas, beliefs and. inspirations that science-fiction arouses....The truth of the matter is that British fans are at last beginning to realise that science-fiction is something more than a mere type of literature....

But while we were still thinking about them a few of our American colleagues who shared the same beliefs decided in a typically American fashion that action, and not theorizing, was required. Consequently John B. Michel, at the recent Philadelphia Convention, demanded that science-fiction fans should adopt an active attitude towards the future instead of a passive one...

That, roughly, is the situation. If this article strikes one as being extremely reactionary, it is because I have stated what other contributors have only dared to hint. No doubt many readers who still believe in science-fiction for science-fiction's sake will be offended to encounter this new line of thought.

But I am not suggesting that these ideas should be adopted without discussion. I am asking that all thinking fans should admit that science-fiction in itself is a mere nothing; it is what lies beyond science-fiction that counts. I am also suggesting that it is a practical possibility for persons who share these ideas to unite in strength to DO SOMETHING, and I sincerely believe that the matter is one that should be seriously and actively considered in further articles, and at the forthcoming British Conference..

Douglas F.W. Mayer: Wake Up, Fans! Novae Terrae #19 pp. 10-13. Dec. 1937.