Sturgeon's Revelation

[chipotle]

I've seen a couple references recently to "Sturgeon's Law," usually in a fannish context. I'm sure most or all of you know Sturgeon's Law: "90% of everything is crud (or crap, or another derogatory word)."

Well, while I posted about this long ago in a comment on Xydexx's journal, this is something worth repeating. Sturgeon's Law -- or more accurately, Sturgeon's Revelation -- has been almost entirely abstracted from its context, and is most often found these days being used by net.bastards to smirk at whatever they're being cynical about at the moment.

Sturgeon was Theodore Sturgeon, considered one of the more literate science fiction writers of his day and a passionate humanist -- and a gentle but insistent defender of science fiction's virtues against those who sneered at it. He codified this famous statement in the March 1958 issue of Venture Science Fiction:

I repeat Sturgeon's Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud.

The Revelation: Ninety percent of everything is crud.

Corollary 1: The existence of immense quantities of trash in science fiction is admitted and it is regrettable, but it is no more unnatural than the existence of trash anywhere.

Corollary 2: The best science fiction is as good as the best fiction in any field.

There are lot of other things I can apply this to, and a lot of them you could probably guess -- but I leave that to your imagination.

Comments

[dour.livejournal.com]

Thank you once again for reaffirming my belief that there are a fair number of people online who Get It. Hell, maybe even more than 10%! ;>

[kaijima.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Sturgeon's Law / Revelation is one of those clever-sounding little "truths", which is right up there with classics like Ockham's Razor for being as you say, abstracted to the point of absurdity. They're treated as hip, ironic sound bites.

The thing about Sturgeon's sentiment is that it depends very much on context. The abuse of it comes frequently in the form of ridiculous reductionism in how it's applied: call 90% of everything crap, then take 90% of THAT, call it crap, then... uh, no.

For instance, applying it more fairly (in my view), to EVERYTHING, let's say, culture and society as a whole... you could say that a small subculture which displayed signs of generally showing a lot more creativity, innovation, and convention-breaking was in that top 10%. It wouldn't follow that 90% of -that- was then crap by the previous context - no, you're already in the top 10%. This is how people abuse the "law", pointing it at whatever they care to target regardless of context or the most common sense. (And really, in a lot of cases most likely fully aware of it but uncaring because it's a great weapon in their agenda.)

(And no, my analogy isn't meant to insinuate that say, none of furry is crap, since it's one such subculture. However, I do think a lot less than 90% of it is crap; not even close, though we may be tempted to think so in our cynical moments.)

[momentrabbit.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reminder. I referenced SR recently and gave the odds at 95% crap - nothing to blame but creeping senility and cynicism.

Variant on Sturgeon's Rule

[(Anonymous)]

Sturgeon's Rule: 90% of everything is crap.

Rosenberg's Corollary: BUT OH THAT TEN!