Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the short story....

The Mold of Yancy • (1955) by P.K. Dick

From the anthology The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick. See The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories discussion hub for more info on the anthology and pointers to discussion of its other stories.

Reading this story makes me wonder which one is worse: having no viewpoint or having an illussion of viewpoint.

The art of opinionate about nothing. Yancy gestalts would make a great youtube lectures on how to become today's policians, heh.

I felt like I had read this one before. Not sure where though. I liked it, and even better I found myself thinking about it a lot after I read it. Many PKD stories seem to me to be thinly veiled commentaries on society and I thought in this one he was pointing out how people are easily led by politicians and societal leaders. "Sheeple" is a term I heard someone use once.

Randy wrote: "Many PKD stories seem to me to be thinly veiled commentaries on society and I thought in this one he was pointing out how people are easily led by politicians and societal leaders..."

The gambit here seems to be to establish the nonexistent virtual Yancy as everybody's friend by confining them mostly to platitudes, in anticipation of using him later to direct public opinion.

When I read the story, I was thinking of a folksy voice with a bit of a drawl, a sort of Will Rogers character, someone like Paul Harvey (youngsters and those outside the US have probably never heard of him; you kids can think of Seth Meyer doing his "in my day" skits.)

So I was really surprised when reading the Notes that PKD writes that he modeled Yancy after Dwight Eisenhower (President of the US in 1955 when the story was written, still in his first term.) PKD even writes "Obviously" in front of that, though it's not obvious to me at all! In fact, if someone other than PKD wrote it, I wouldn't believe it. I don't remember Eisenhower as quite that folksy. Ike was very popular, mostly based on his tenure as supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe & Africa during World War II. He was the first President to have access to television, though, so maybe that influenced Dick?

Well that is a strange parallel but I guess PKD saw something about Ike.

What I think is weird is that those people did not even get bored of watching only one or two persons in the telly giving them all kinds of tips and tricks. Because that won't work in today's society. We love diversity, no?

Silvana wrote: "What I think is weird is that those people did not even get bored of watching only one or two persons in the telly giving them all kinds of tips and tricks. Because that won't work in today's society. We love diversity, no? ..."

Uh, No. People have their favorite celebrities. Whether it's Martha Stewart, Rush Limbaugh, Oprah, Steven Colbert, Bill O'Reilly, or Kim Kardashian, people follow their favorite celebrities from network to network (or to the web.)

But is it not common that some people have more than one fave celeb/news/inspiration source? I like and follow more celebs than I could count and watch all kinds of news (except Fox or anything showing local political squabblings) so...dunno, maybe I am just a minority here. Would love to know if there's any relevant statistics on how many people actually rely on one or two persons in the media for their daily lives.

Let's not forget that when this was written there were three total networks available for people to watch. Even PBS wouldn't be created for another 15 years, much less FOX, MTV, HGN etc. In those days you didn't have the choice to rely on more than 3 people for your TV news and you probably weren't watching more than 1 of them.

Randy wrote: "In those days you didn't have the choice to rely on more than 3 people for your TV news and you probably weren't watching more than 1 of them...."

Yes, but... Radio was still a thing back then. I can still remember my father's favorite radio programs,... especially the show that played every morning while we had breakfast. (Wanna hear me sing the theme song? :)

Which is why I thought of the voice of Paul Harvey for Yancy.

Silvana wrote: "Would love to know if there's any relevant statistics on how many people actually rely on one or two persons in the media for their daily lives. ..."

I didn't get the impression Yancy was the only person on Callisto TV. Rather, he was designed to be the most popular by being the most inoffensive. He seemed to have a regular programming slot.

G33z3r wrote: "(Wanna hear me sing the theme song? :)"

Yes, please.

G33z3r wrote: "So I was really surprised when reading the Notes that PKD writes that he modeled Yancy after Dwight Eisenhower (President of the US in 1955 when the story was written, still in his first term.) PKD even writes "Obviously" in front of that, though it's not obvious to me at all! ..." Well, that's a relief. I figured it was obvious, and I must just be a rather dim whippersnapper.

Yancy makes me think of A Face in the Crowd.

One of the most interesting things here is not that the Yancy machine tries to take over, but that's there an investigative force out to stop them, one that monitors incipient fascism & troubling conformity.

Hillary wrote: "One of the most interesting things here is not that the Yancy machine tries to take over, but that's there an investigative force out to stop them, one that monitors incipient fascism & troubling conformity. .."

I noticed that too. A sort of interplanetary UN; or maybe an interplanetary EU. Call it the Galactic Patrol?

Whoever they are, we should send them to the Expanse.

This was a bit too prescient at the moment... :(