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Posted by m-hodges 4/12/2025

Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015)(culture.pl)
268 points | 206 commentspage 3
djaouen 4/13/2025|
Even monkeys sometimes fall from trees!
cafard 4/14/2025||
""" In addition to Lem, Dick named three other sci-fi figures associated with him as in on the plot – Peter Fitting, Fredric Jameson and Franz Rottensteiner (also Lem’s literary agent in the West). """

I've never heard of the other two, but Fredric Jameson was a well-known literary critic. I gather that he did write about science fiction, and certainly he was a Marxist, but was he really a "sci-fi figure"?

DonHopkins 4/13/2025||
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42850909

Lem and Dick are such precious peas in a pod!

Too bad Dick reported to the FBI that Lem was a faceless composite communist committee out to get him and brainwash the youth of America and undermine American SF with "crude, insulting and downright ignorant attacks", while Lem asymmetrically thought all science fiction writers were charlatans except for Philip K Dick.

https://english.lem.pl/faq#P.K.Dick

https://culture.pl/en/article/philip-k-dick-stanislaw-lem-is...

Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans (1975) (depauw.edu) 140 points by pmoriarty on June 19, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 51 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17349026

https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/5/lem5art.htm

>In 1973, Lem became an honorary member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, a gesture of ‘international goodwill’ on the association’s part. However, in 1976, 70 percent of the SFWA’s voted in favour of a resolution to revoke Lem’s membership. A very quick dismissal for such a prestigious author, but the reasons for his quick ejection from the organisation are clear – he didn’t seem to regard his honorary membership as any sort of honour. He considered American science fiction ‘ill thought out, poorly written, and interested more in adventure that ideas or new literary forms’ and ‘bad writing tacked together with wooden dialogue’, and these are just a few examples of Lem’s deprecatory attitude towards the US branch of his genre.

>Lem, however, considered one science fiction author as exempt from his scathing criticisms – his denouncer, Philip K. Dick. The title of an essay Lem published about Dick is evidence enough of this high regard: A Visionary Among the Charlatans. The essay itself waxes lyrical on Dick’s many excellent qualities as a writer, and expounds upon the dire state of US sci-fi. Lem considered Dick to be the only writer exempt from his cynical view of American SF. It seems likely that Dick was unaware of Lem’s high opinion of him and that he took Lem’s disparaging comments personally, stating in his letter to the FBI:

>"Lem’s creative abilities now appear to have been overrated and Lem’s crude, insulting and downright ignorant attacks on American science fiction and American science fiction writers went too far too fast and alienated everyone but the Party faithful (I am one of those highly alienated)."

mentalgear 4/13/2025||
So Dick could also be a Dick.
dang 4/14/2025||
One small previous thread:

Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30702522 - March 2022 (1 comment)

readthenotes1 4/13/2025||
Different take:

A solid accusation of being a commie is just the cover that Lem needed to stay out of trouble back home in Poland.

notahacker 4/13/2025|
That might have been a more interesting hypothesis about motivation if Philip K Dick was denouncing Lem as a communist propaganda on stage at a convention rather than in a private letter to the FBI
readthenotes1 4/14/2025||
Ah, but with all the moles, perhaps PKD was thinking a private letter to the FBI was a public letter to the KGB
rdtsc 4/13/2025||
> Due to the economic restrictions of Poland under the communist regime, Lem was unable to give Dick his due royalties. Surely losing out on this potential source of income, regardless of reason, would incline Dick unfavourably towards Lem

If we pull aside the ideological grandstanding what we see is plain old jealousy, resentment and vindictiveness. That’s usually the case in any context. The ideological grandstanding is just a fig leaf.

kmeisthax 4/13/2025||
The only thing stronger than society's ability to undercut authors is the author's ability to find any excuse to talk about it.
dgfitz 4/13/2025||
This should be the top comment. Turns out ideology can be trumped by emotion.
NooneAtAll3 4/14/2025||
[flagged]
bububenrjfjtj 4/13/2025||
[flagged]
danielktdoranie 4/13/2025|
TIL Philip K. Dick was even more based than I previously thought.