Prometheus-winning author Neal Stephenson to discuss his latest sf novel

Prometheus-winning author Neal Stephenson will discuss his latest novel Nov. 19 in an American Purpose podcast.

Stephenson, a two-time Prometheus winner for Best Novel, will discuss his 2021 novel Termination Shock at 12 p.m. Friday Nov. 19 (Eastern Time) in an online discussion with Francis Fukuyama, chairman of the editorial board of American Purpose magazine.

Widely acclaimed both within the field of science fiction and outside it, Stephenson is known for writing speculative fiction, cyber punk, and other related genres. Termination Shock is his 13th book.

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Politics undermines the purpose of art, according to an insightful American Purpose essay (but let’s agree to disagree over Atlas Shrugged)

By Michael Grossberg
Libertarian futurists dream of unleashing the potential of every person to flourish, cooperate, innovate, progress, profit and pursue their happiness in peace and freedom – both here on earth, and perhaps eventually, beyond.

Yet, the politicization of society and increasingly, of our culture and arts, threatens that goal – and in the long run, undermines civility and could destroy civilization itself if this disturbing trend approaches authoritarian extremes.

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In a thought-provoking article “Enslaving Art to Politics,” published recently in American Purpose magazine, writer Daniel Ross Goodman argues persuasively against the “politicization of literature.”

His essay should interest Libertarian Futurist Society members, even when Goodman makes some points about particular works and artists that we might respectfully disagree with.

“The best novelists, like all great artists, are not narrow-minded agenda-driven partisans but adventurers in the unbounded universe of the human imagination, who, through their fictions, help us better perceive vital truths about ourselves and our reality,” Goodman wrote in late September in the online magazine.

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