Dear all,
Having read David Wood's recent comments about the United States Space
Command's web-site, I followed his advice to check it out
(particularly in the light of recent discussion about geographies of
sci-fi, and with the forthcoming Star Wars trilogy likely to provide a
similar socio-cultural context to that which allowed Reagan to talk about
the evil empire and Strategic Defence Initiatives). I'd imagine my
response was fairly typical - a combination of incredulity, shock and
disgust.
BUT, I do feel a certain disquiet when some (typically us left-leaning
academics) seek to infantilise and hyper-masculinise such sets of
representations and their authors (typically those associated
with the military). Although satire and irony are powerful weapons of
criticism (Dr. Strangelove springs to mind), the militarization of space
is simply too serious to dismiss as a particularly horrific form of "boys
with toys" or "cartoon violence".
'Macho and naive' though such representational forms may be, I
think that attempts at fashioning a sort of 'partition' between us
and them - based on our assumed intellect and maturity - partly serve to
obscure the awful truth that those responsible for the USSC's plans are
real, are powerful and certainly don't see it as a game.
Yours,
David Lambert
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David Lambert
and
Department of Geography, Sidney Sussex College,
University of Cambridge, Cambridge,
Downing Site, CB2 3HU, UK.
Cambridge,
CB2 3EN, UK.
Tel: (01223) 740878 or 360570 (home)
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