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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wayside" data-source="post: 2298180" data-attributes="member: 8394">You probably want to reread the posts in question (there's more than the 1 line I quoted and responded to directly), as bifurcation is not an issue in my statement. "Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins?" asks Melville; "Distinctly we see the differences of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other?" I know that position by heart--sadly it has nothing to do with what I said. In fact Dannyalcatraz's argument against definition relies more on dichotomizing, because he mistakes the idea that all writing is mixed for the idea that no writing is definable. In order for writing to be mixed, it has to be a mix of something. If the something it's a mix of is merely a mix of something else and so on, we might as well stop talking and just wave our fingers menacingly, since behind every word is another word and we can never get anywhere that way.SF and F don't have to be opposed to one another for us to define them. It's a question of content, not polarity. We don't need the equivalent of a spectrum of colors to think about them, though that is precisely what an aesthetic approach, like imagery, wants to require in some formulations. No, defining SF and F in terms of imagery is no less problematic than defining it in any other way. We just aren't examining the imagery very closely here; that is to say, it's easier to handwave "I'll know it when I see it" arguments when we're talking about something as simple as whether or not there are spaceships. If you really sit down and try to hammer out an image-based definition, you're going to run into just as many problems as you would looking for a thematic or plot-based genre continuity--as if it were any easier to tell SF from F, at a certain middle point, than it is orange from red, as you say. You're actually making my point for me in a different way.</blockquote>

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