Do Fans Suffer From Dementia?
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| Title: | Do Fans Suffer From Dementia? |
| Creator: | Gerry de la Ree |
| Date(s): | July 1942 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Science Fiction |
| Topic: | Autism and Fandom, ADHD and Fandom |
| External Links: | Hosted online by fanac.org. Spaceways #29 pg. 10, 13. July 1942. |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Do Fans Suffer From Dementia? was a 1942 article by science fiction fan Gerry de la Ree.
De la Ree made some observations that were groping towards later discussions of neurodivergence in fandom, hampered all the while by contemporary understanding of mental illness, such as the belief that 50% of people born into poverty had severe intellectual disabilities. "Dementia" at the time referred to all forms of mental illness, which de la Ree considered an acquired state and distinguished from "amentia", a level of intellectual disability that he believed would prevent people from enjoying science fiction to begin with.
Other fans disputed some of his observations, arguing that science fiction/fantasy weren't the source of mental breakdowns, but rather that people prone to mental illness were already naturally drawn towards material that let them escape from reality.
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The fans of scientifiction are perhaps the queerest aggregation of individuals that you may ever expect to meet. They are strange, different; to an outsider, crazy. The question is, however, are these outsiders correct—could the more rabid fans not be more or less mentally ill? In other words, is it not possible that the fans have become so wrapped up in what was once a harmless hobby, that they have become sick in their mind—thus suffering from one form of dementia?Fans range anywhere from college students to the poorest product of the city slums, who must steal the magazines that he wishes to read. It is an acknowledged fact that 50% of the people born in slum sections suffer from some sort of mental defectiveness, most likely amentia.
However, but a small portion of the fans could be called outcasts of society. The average fan of today was born and up to a certain age lived as average a life as anyone else. But once he had read his first science fiction magazine his thoughts began to wander. He began to dream up such thoughts of space flight, atomic power, time travel, etc., as appear in a science fiction magazine. Soon the fan began to lose interest in just reading the stories—he thought that it was his destiny to do something that might bring about the realization of these dreams. He must organize groups for this and similar purposes, band together people that dream as he does. Thus fandom was born. The fan soon became different. During his intercourse with his non-fan friends he might appear all right, perhaps just a little bored. But once he is in the company of other fans and friends of scientifiction he becomes another personality. In this world he is something greater than just an ordinary person—in his mind he no doubt feels superior and far ahead of the average individual, for in one sense he is living in the future, a future created by the minds of himself and his fellow fans. If he pursues this course of study and living for too long it is altogether possible that he will become so enthralled with the possibility of the things created by the sometimes equally twisted minds of the scientifiction writer that he might slip completely into this fantastic world—mentally, of course.
Many such cases can be found in the numerous institutions all over the country. In 1940 there were almost 500,000 people in mental hospitals in the United States suffering from some mental disorder. Probably a large percentage of these inmates were once as sane as anyone else. These half-million people were all dementia cases, not amentia cases. Amentia is the idiot, imbecile, and moron, while dementia is the mentally ill.
Naturally you wouldn't find one in a thousand of them that were scientifiction fans at one time or another, for stf is still young. But the way these people became ill was probably from similar causes, and the results would be somewhat the same. They couldn't face reality, so they just drifted off into a world of fancy that their mind created for them. Is this not similar to the science fiction fan? I would say yes, in more than a few cases. You must realize yourself in various contacts with a number of fans that they didn't all seem to have a sound mental balance. Yes, they are nice fellows as a group, but wouldn't they be a lot nicer if they were not quite so queer? I believe so.
If some fans are mentally sick it is a characteristic acquired since birth, perhaps since they first were captured by science fiction. It would be impossible for a person suffering from amentia to understand the stories or goings-on of stf. A moron is unable to go any higher in intelligence than the grade schools, and they habitually flunk out in the first year of high school, if not sooner. You will not find many fans that are such. The majority of the fans you know of are extremely bright, usually in one line. Some think they are scientists, others mathematicians, some artists, and others authors. At any right, they couldn't be morons.
Summing it up, you must see that the only way to explain the queer actions of many fans is to state that they have anywhere from a slight to serious case of dementia. They are now or may be soon mentally ill. They could be cured—given the proper cure in an institution; but the rest of you, why take the chance? Those of you who are rabid fans, heed this warning: do not become too wrapped up in your fan activities; catch yourself in time, do not slip into a dreamers' paradise—you too can become mentally ill.
I have covered the subject but briefly, touching only on the seriousness of this possibility. Don't take it too lightly, or it might take you.
Reactions
Gerry starts his article with an unproven statement about us being perhaps the queerest aggregation of individuals on God's green earth, and gets a little too serious about it. 7, tho.Jack Speer: Letter printed in Spaceways #30 pg. 21. Sept. 1942.
...Do Fans Suffer--8. This follows along the line I've discussed with you in several letters, Harry. It does hit the point squarely. No comment is needed.Fred A. Senour: Letter printed in Spaceways #30 pg. 22. Sept. 1942.
De la Ree's bit is a honey. Say! He doesn't mean it, does he? Or does he?Victor King: Letter printed in Spaceways #30 pg. 22. Sept. 1942.
"Do Fans Suffer From Dementia?", while it has been done before, is one of the two thought-provoking pieces in the July issue. Its main fault is that the author mistakes cause for effect. Stf and fantasy appealed to fans who later became psychopathic because they already had schizophrenia tendencies. They welcomed stf and fantasy because they were already retreating into a world of fancy. To say that stf and fantasy caused this withdrawal shows a lack of understanding of psychiatry. As for the contention that fans would be more interesting if they were less queer (la Ree's word, not mine) I must again disagree. This "queerness" is their chief charm. The ability to think independently; to rise from the rut of humdrum, prosaic, everyday world; the capacity for dreams. This is one of the few commendable qualities in man.Joe Gilbert: Letter printed in Spaceways #30 pg. 23. Sept. 1942.
I wish to take opposition--a most emphatic opposition--with Gerry de la Ree, Jr.'s revolting theory that the thing to which we are wont to facetitiously refer as scientifictionitis is a symptom of mental breakdown...The whole article is such as to make one seriously doubt that it is not Ree himself, instead of fans, who has a screw loose in the bonnet. Does Ree mean that the ardent followers of fantasy are in any greater danger of insanity than the rabid devotees of any other sport--for this fan business is a sport--from baseball to the more sedate sport of checkers or chess, or even postage stamp collecting? Ask any doctor and he will recommend an interest in sports, games, or any hobby, as being mentally beneficient. Medical science has found that to get a patient with a sick mind to take an active interest in a hobby or sport is to make a great step toward complete recovery.... In which way does stf. and fantasy differ from baseball or checkers, save superficially--or the enthusiasm of ardent devotees of this type of literature differ from the enthusiasm of rabid baseball fans or checker players or other hobbyists, apart from perhaps a great tendency to a weakening of the eyes of the imprudent reader and the physical degeneration attendant on a protracted sedentary occupation such as the follower of fantasy, especially the fan, are prone to indulge in--which can be offset by the simple expedient of a few simple corrective exercises?
The excessive zeal of some people for all things related to sport or some subdivision thereof has often struck me as being a bit on the squirrelly side, and they have to me seemed to be living in a world apart together with others of their ilk, no less than fantasy fans--far from the realities of life, yet we have a lot in common with them, I suspect, under the skin....We fans think we are followers of an escapist literature--but is there any such thing as an escapist literature? Isn't "escapist literature" a contradiction--like "hot cold"? Can it be both escapist and literature at the same time? The only real escapist is one who closes his mind to everything about him, not one whose energies are merely withdrawn from some affairs of life, that they may be concentrated elsewhere.... Instead of being escapists, living in a world of our own, we might in fact be the more intensely alive and conscious of the world around us--not merely the superficial little details, the things no farther away from us than our noses--but of the universe itself, the vast, mysterious forces that control our destinies--for the reading of science fiction and fantasy.
Assuming I were touched (there are different schools of thought on that subject) I would have had a tendency toward dementia long before I arrived at the fantasy reading phase, and assuming that there was anything in which I read to stimulate that latent tendency, it would not have been what I read that put my brain on the skids--sooner or later that dementia would out, and it just so happened that fantasy brought it out...
And as for the "acknowledged fact that 50% of the people born in the slums have some sort of mental defectiveness, most likely amentia"--what is the source of authority upon which Ree draws for that contention?
Nils H. Frome: Letter printed in Spaceways #30 pp. 23-24. Sept. 1942.