Space Opera's Long March from Fascism to Producer's Ethic
Science fiction space opera and fascism share similar ideas of war and conquest.
They both advocate a producer's ethic based on a couple's erotic relations.
Only in the space opera do we glimpse the possibility of the erotic finding free play as cooperation, mutual aid, and team work in the work place.
D Mark Abinante
29 July 2022
Both the rise of fascism and space opera share the same historical era and at times the same set of ideas or ideology. Even their respective prehistories display a remarkable convergence, as I will demonstrate later when I talk about Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson.
For our purposes, I will define fascism as a party dictatorship that destroys a democratic republic and pursues a policy of conquest. Even this definition does not quite get it. Let us agree then that fascism is unique among political ideologies for its glorification of war, cruelty, and violence. First there is terrorism, then fascist discourse.
Space opera deals with wars, conquests, and invasions of planetary civilizations in outer space. Although we will spend most of our time remarking on how planetary romances give us insight on terrestrial fascisms, these science fiction stories constitute humanity’s first theoretical works on politics and warfare in space. Until something better comes along, Catherine L. Moore’s Judgement Night will serve as our space war Sun Tzu, Von Clausewitz, and Liddell Hart, as well as our galactic War and Peace.
Let us begin with that marvelous example of space opera that saw the light of day in 1934, Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon. As you will recall the McCormick-Dickstein congressional committee heard the testimony of U.S. Marine Corp Major General Smedley Butler in 1934. Butler exposed the conspiracy of a group of wealthy businessmen, allied with groups like the KKK and Liberty League. These traitors planned to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt and establish a corporate fascist dictatorship.
The same year, in Ethiopia, fascist Italy stage managed the Walwal Oasis incident as a pretext for invading Ethiopia. This Italian fascist invasion inflicted a blood flood of atrocities and war crimes on the Ethiopian people. These crimes against humanity were never prosecuted in a court of nations.
In France, this marked the year when that unique brand of French fascism of the monarchist nationalist variety incited a mob to attack the French premier and parliament. In this instance, there were enough police to hold the line and fight the domestic enemies of the republic to exhaustion.
Then along comes Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless, Emperor of the Universe. Ming embodies an all too familiar litany of outrages common to tyrants and dictators: Ming sentences Flash to death because Flash is unfit for military service! There is no rule of law. Ming’s whims and caprices are the only law. Ming kills the unsuspecting Zogi, high priest of Tao. Zogi’s only crime was to uphold religious law in defiance of Ming’s thirst for revenge.
Ming has seen to the social and psychological engineering of the populace. Ming forces Dale to suffer treatment by the Dehumanizing Machine so that she may ascend to a higher life form beyond mere humanity. She will be cruel, unscrupulous, and scientific!
Ming’s absolute and uncurbed power extends over women and the erotic, another trait widespread among despots of all varieties. Ming punishes his own daughter for loving Flash.
A more telling example of fascist state power exerted over sexual relations involves Azura the Witch-Queen. The witch-queen has Dale bound and whipped for spilling a plate of food. Asura’s sadistic punishment of Dale betrays a hidden sexual charge coiled like a worm within the exercise of authority. Once capturing the state apparatus, fascism embarks on a legislative and institutional war on the human body and sexuality. The fascist’s delight in violating the body and regulating sexuality finds expression in concentration camps, genocide, medical experiments, massacres, and the whole catalog of cruelty. Jews, gypsies, socialists, communists, homosexuals, abortionists of the master race, and other undesirables will be slaughtered or forced to work.
Needless to say, Ming’s empire is constantly mobilized for war and conquest. The empire is always embroiled in invasions, covert actions, terror operations, espionage, and sneak attacks.
Most of what I mentioned above applies not only to fascist regimes but any form of authoritarian nationalism. The peculiarity of fascism lies in its ideology or set of ideas. We need look no farther than Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers for the evil flowers of fascism bedewed with poison. All we need do is refer to The Doctrine of Fascism by Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile, in Italian Fascisms, ed. George Steiner, Harper Torchbook, 1975, to find a rough parallelism between Heinlein and fascist discourse.
Heinlein stuffs his space opera with prolific harangues cloaked in the veneer of science. Conquest, free love, and corporal punishment easily serve as slogans for Heinlein’s propaganda campaign to mobilize the troopers and the reader.
Only the most prolific species will conquer the universe. Promiscuous sex and over population are the engines of war. Heinlein decries any attempt to bring population and environment into balance as a sign of weakness that will invite an ET invasion. Despite technical innovation, future space wars will be genocidal in scale, in a hand to hand combat sense. There will be no peace until all extraterrestrials or humankind is wiped from the face of the universe. Only sex, child birth, and child care can feed the carnage.
All fascist discourse finds it’s fount of inspiration in the biological laws of species fighting for food and a species over populating a territory. From the temporary dominance of a locale by a species, it is a small step to self identify as the master race, the new fascist man, or superman. All other inferior life forms are fair prey. Herein we find the fuel that ignites that peculiar form of fascist vilification, persecution, and mass murder of imaginary enemies.
Thanks to the Dover Publications reprint of their timely Doomsday Classics series, we can read for ourselves how Benson’s Lord of the World, first published 1907, Dover 2015, names all the usual suspects busy with bringing the global satanic conspiracy to power: these are the Jews, Freemasons, liberal democrats, socialists, labor unionists, and communists. These minions of Satan, destined for mass liquidation, must be conjured from thin air, or should I say invoked from the ethereal infernal regions of a sadist’s imagination?
A purist science fiction fan would be quick to point out that despite its future world and advanced technological setting, Lord of the World barely passes muster as science fiction. Calling it space opera stretches a point. Would cosmic drama be a better label? Certainly it does not meet Heinlein’s definition of science fiction: the story should center on the scientific method. Despite mechanical war suits, space ships, terra-forming and what not Starship Troopers does not meet Heinlein’s definition either.
Once again, the fascist erotic finds expression in whippings. Trooper Rico spends his nights reminiscing about past academic lectures justifying state imposed floggings. It’s a wonder Rico gets any sleep at all. He stays awake all hours pondering the ethical intricacies of state mandated lashings. What is the difference between sadism and legal whippings? Do state personnel contaminate these punishments? Such questions occupy Rico’s night time thoughts.
Funny, Rico feels no moral qualms during surprise raid on a city of “skinny” extra-terrestrials. The goal of the raid is to terrorize the unsuspecting populace: the Federal starship troopers could destroy the city and its inhabitants if the Federal command so desires. Are we to infer the trooper command wants to seize the fixed assets of the planet? As for the skinny population of the planet, are they destined for slave labor or extermination?
During the raid, Rico methodically tosses bombs at the planet natives with the same cool calculation that the Federal state administers whippings. The carnage of war not only extends to the farthest planet but is also inflicted on the anatomy. Fascist state regulation erects a monstrous torture chamber to methodically punish the body and psyche.
Unfortunately for star trooper command, only a cooperative technology can produce mechanized war suits. The sinews of war grow from the mutual aid on the factory, lab, or workshop floor.
The fatal flaw of fascism lies historically on the use of penal labor, slave labor, and coerced labor. Of course all labor in a free market economy is coerced depending where you land within the division of labor. After all the boss is the boss. Yet, nothing in the business gets done without teamwork, cooperation, and even self sacrifice of the more thoughtful workers. A worker sets aside their personal pleasures and interests for the good of the collective enterprise. In losing their life, they find it.
Only in Heinlein’s Space Cadet does he arrive at a producer’s ethic. Space cadet Matthew Dodson gets so involved in cultivating the space ship’s garden that his studies suffer. This voluntary self managed labor, for the good of the crew, serves as a close approximation of a producer’s ethic.
Unfortunately, neither Heinlein nor fascism was ever able to deliver a producer’s ethic because the erotic was diverted or perverted towards war, violence, and sadism. Besides penal labor, fascism in theory advocated a national syndicalism or national labor unionism as a producer’s ethic. In practice, the labor relations of the free market were merely carried over to the shop floor and rendered more authoritarian.
When Georges Sorel wrote Reflections on Violence (1908) he argued that a combative elite’s violence and cooperation in the workplace both spring from couple’s erotic relations and the raising of a family. On Earth as in outer space, will we choose the way of war or mutual aid?
Now that the label “consumer” seems the most appropriate term to describe the bulk of our behavior, the relevancy of industrial labor policy seems light years away. Still, one space opera sends a barely detectable signal from the outer reaches of space. calling us to the great adventure.
To my mind, this greatest of all space operas, Catherine L Moore’s novella Judgement Night is that faint broadcast from the beyond. Here is Greek tragedy decked out as space opera. As a planet’s empire comes crashing down amid fire, flame, blood, and battle, the weakest and most vulnerable species receives an oracle. This gentle species will take dominion of the planet, a dominion bestowed by the higher powers of the gods or those wielding an advanced technology.
This docile creature, a llar, always shares in the benevolence and wisdom of her species. He is never alone. The llar knows the oracle lies. No matter what the future holds for her species, he enjoys a unity with the loving, wise, heart of the species. Let science, technology, armies, and gods rage, we have already landed safely home on the planet of Utopia.