the dark underbelly of fictional preferences

An entry and discussion in bettyp on destined/chosen heroes also linked to an article by David Brin about the underlying anti-modernist ideology, something that seems to be a recurring theme in his articles (at least in those I've checked out after reading the one about the LOTR). The conflict he sees between literature and entertainment in the tradition of the Enlightenment (in particular SF) vs. those in the tradition of a specific anti-democratic Romanticism is also central to his article "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists, for example.

And while I thought Betty's interpretation to see the "chosen hero" motif as metaphor, in which the "world" they're destined to save and to rule is really a stand-in for the reader's life and the importance and consequences of personal, individual choices of the hero, choices the readers are sort of automatically "destined" to make in their own lives, is interesting, for me whether the hero is preordained or accidental is not at the core of my unease with the setup. The problem is that in universes with "chosen" heroes, there is a natural order to the universe, which also imposes their quest. I suspect for me the construct of a "feudal" universe has emotional appeal because it is anti-modernist, there is no uncertainty about the goals, only about the methods, and this set-up removes the abstract, political responsibility for the shape of the world and society as whole from everybody in favor of a natural order, that is fixed and only to be defended against threats to that order. A hero in such a universe can never set out to change the "natural order," that remains the realm of the villains. Those universes are structurally conservative. Whereas I don't believe in a natural order of the universe, certainly not when humans are concerned. But emotionally somehow that concept isn't so attractive as that fantasy one, in which there are certainties about the world.

But this discussion and Brin's political criticism of a certain kind of romanticism in fiction reminded me of a list post I'd made a while back (actually last September) to FCA-L, about my unease with some of my fictional preferences, and how the reassurance "it's only fiction" fails to dispel my nagging doubts about my own psyche. And I back then I wanted to cross-post it in the blog, but I just checked the archives and obviously I forgot. Anyway, now I'll use this opportunity to inflict my rambling once again on the public... ( cut-away for the cross-posted part )