Okay the book sprints through the rest of their lives. They’re all dead within the next couple of chapters.
Campbell dies in 1971, watching Mexican wrestling on TV.
Hubbard, 1986, stroke
Heinlein dies, 1988, at 80, old age
Asimov 1992, transfusion-HIV
Conversation
The last few chapters are unexpectedly poignant, and the last third of the book the strongest. Does a great job threading the needle between showcasing their contributions and honestly portraying their flaws, and not flinching from judging them
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What struck me the most is the extreme degree to which severe physical and mental health issues shaped their lives and work, and the extent to which their flaws and failures seem like natural products of those struggles.
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There’s a whole “everybody’s fighting a hidden battle” aspect to their stories. Only Hubbard comes across as irredeemable, turning into a true psycho sadist by the end. The other 3 are redeemable I think. Their reputations/legacies can be rehabilitated/salvaged, and deserve to be
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But damn the blast radius of personal tragedy around their personal lives is non-trivial. Asimov’s estranged son ended up getting convicted of child pornography. Hubbard’s son committed suicide.
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Final rankings: One Asimov survives the tale with a life worth emulating, modulo some editing of flaws. He’s the only one on the list.
Campbell is a cautionary tale, grew himself into a cul de sac.
Heinlein ended up pwned by his ideological leanings
Hubbard beyond the pale.
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So... Competent Man viewed through the lives of these 4 eigenauthors of the archetype?
Campbell and Heinlein believed most fervently in the silly unreconstructed ideal, but in different ways.
Hubbard rejected it in his fiction but aspired to it in his life and failed badly.
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Asimov is the interesting one. He inherited and faithfully executed on the archetype but didn’t believe in it or aspire to it, proclaiming his own unworthiness etc in the beginning. Yet by the end he found he’d come closest to achieving a version of it with psyche intact.
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Heinlein and Campbell present diffferent patterns of arrested development. Hubbard a degeneration into unrestrained deviancy. All 3 aspired to being Competent Men in life. None deserves the title Competent Man. All 3 realized it and it soured their last years, making them bitter.
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They died with relationships to individuals, society and posterity in a troubled, unresolved state of failed self-actualization.
Asimov though, kinda conquered life and seems to have died genuinely happy, having managed to grow old along with himself. Competent man.
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A nice thought experiment: what combination of these 4, who bridged the worlds of campy Flash Gordon and complex Rick Deckard, would make the best Frankenstein Competent Man? What traits would you pick from each, what would you leave out?
Replying to
Campbell: keep the confident authoritah, imagination and OG contrarianism, leave out the utter sloppiness when it came to rigorous thinking, the insecurity in relation to science.
Heinlein: Keep the political and artistic courage, leave out the intolerant conviction in himself
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Hubbard: keep the sociopath realism and spiritual daring, leave out the cartoon levels of 7 deadly sins and more
Asimov: keep the energy, IQ, humility, loyalty, and general integrity. Leave out the odd conservatism, misogyny, and deep self-absorption/neglectful ness of relations
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For those interested, the Golden Age was followed by New Wave. Kinda like DC —> Marvel in comics.
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