Men Like Gods
According to Cambridge history lecturer Dr Richard Toye, Winston Churchill borrowed phrases such as “English-speaking peoples”, “gathering storm” and “reverse employer of Labour” from science fiction works by H. G. Wells.
Toye quotes a fan letter Churchill wrote to Wells in 1902, and Churchill saying in 1931 that he could “pass an exam” on Wells’s work.
Toye compares this to “Tony Blair borrowing phrases from Star Trek or Doctor Who.” As it happens, George W. Bush referred to Brave New World in a 2001 speech condemning stem cell research, while Dick Cheney has recently admitted that people see him as “the Darth Vader of the administration” - but I have no evidence that Cheney has ever written George Lucas a fan letter, or that Bush could pass an exam on Huxley’s work.
Full story: Sydney Morning Herald.
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Toye lost me when he compared borrowing from Wells to borrowing from Star Trek and Dr Who. Though they may be similar in terms of popular appeal, I’m not sure the same level of sociological intent and philosophhical seriousness is involved, especially as many of the phrases Churchill apparently borrowed from Wells come from his speculative non-fiction rather than from his scientific romances. Still, maybe that’s just a sign of the times.
Yeah, it would make more sense if Toye had talked about Bush quoting Kim Stanley Robinson and Blair quoting Iain M. Banks. The closest thing in Churchill’s era that would compare to Star Trek and Dr Who would have been Burroughs and Haggard — but as we all know, there was only ever one literary science fiction writer, and that was H. G. Wells.
I also find it amusing that people such as G.W. Bush draw on Brave New World without ever understanding that Huxley, if he was still alive, would be one of their most vitriolic critics.
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