Gene Wolfe is one of the main voices of science fiction today. Watching current world news, especially the democratic struggles in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, I could not help thinking of his torturer and torture society portraits (e g The Shadow of the Torturer, 1980), and I have ordered two of his newer books, volume one (On blues) of a trilogy, and a historical work (Latro in the mist). We shall see. Whatever I read, from now on, is more influenced by the perspectives of Edward Said, Jonathan Littell, Victor Serge and other authors widening my understanding of democracy, some of them described in this blog.
PS A good introduction to Edward Said (e g Culture and imperialism, 1993) and post-imperialist culture, as it currently applies to the “Arab” world system issue, is Robert Fisk’s The Great War for Civilization (2006). For understanding more of the crucial “dignity” aspect, cf. Evelin Lindner and others on dignity and humiliation: http://www.humiliationstudies.org/
On humiliation, see further harassment and mobbing research – this is a wide research area. For world system theory cf Immanuel Wallerstein.
