With specific regard to hegemonic sociopolitical opinions I think it is quite clear that when Harrison is talking about nerdism, he is talking about a tendency rather than a set of people. So of your shopping list of comparisons the only one that makes sense is “the clomping foot of conservativism”. I don’t see what is wrong with this, indeed it is the sort of thing people say all the time. Your objection seems to be that it is “hectoring” but I’m not interested in this sort of argument over tone.

I don’t think Harrison is an agent provocateur, he is just someone with a forceful and highly developed aesthetic sensibility. A lot of people seem to take this personally.

Secondly, considering your own response and others who I guess would constitute the “geek” or “nerd” based on what you say above, could one conclude that MJH’s piece did succeed as a piece of AP?

The second passage, and the title of your post, refers to Harrison’s views on worldbuilding, where he has sought to distance himself from nerds/geeks, and to put all those who indulge in the sin of ‘worldbuilding’ into the latter category – yes, another of those Goodkindesque “I don’t write fantasy (or at least not nerdy fantasy), I write about real human issues. Please, cool people, take me seriously!” appeals. I called him “Kool, Sexy and Popular” because this called to mind exactly the same dynamic in schools – the sort-of-geeky kid loudly proclaims how different he is from the geeks, and how much he hates geeks, because he wants to be taken seriously by the kool kids. Even though to the kool kids, and indeed to everybody else, he looks just like a geek himself.

For those who don’t read my post itself, the line “the side I’ve been born (or raised) on” refers to geeks. I am one, and I’ve always been one (I’m not perhaps a stereotypical geek in every way, but let’s be honest, non-geeks would see me as one, so I don’t care to fight it). Harrison seems to consider this a bad thing. Implicitly, his comment about worldbuilding tells us that we geeks should all be more like Harrison. Well, comparing geeks to non-geeks, I don’t see why it would be better not being one – and looking at Harrison’s behaviour, I certainly don’t see why we should be more like him.

Yes, it was tongue-in-cheek, but I don’t think “hegemonic sociopolitical opinions” is really entirely inappropriate. He associates certain behaviours and interests in writing with a particular social group (‘nerds’) and on those grounds advises avoiding those behaviours – the implication of ‘worldbuilding is bad because it’s the clomping foot of nerdism’ is ’so you’d better not do it, because you don’t want to be one of those horrible ‘nerd’ people, do you?’.
This is hegemonic, even if the term is too grandiose for it – it expresses a hope to exclude the dissidant voices of a particular minority social group. I don’t think it would be widely accepted if the same were said of other groups characterised by shared common behaviour (“the clomping foot of conservativism”, “the clomping foot of Islam”, “the clomping foot of people who like rock music” – at best, it sounds politically hectoring or socially fuddy-duddy), or groups characterised by shared genetic features (“the clomping foot of femininity”, “the clomping foot of black people”). Personally, I think ‘nerdism’ probably involves both genetic and cultural componants.

Above all, however, I think it’s vital to distinguish the three entirely unrelated topics: overdramatisation of Art; the importance of ‘realistically human views of humanity’ (or, to use the more common Goodkindian phrase, ‘Real Human Themes’); and the role of worldbuilding. The first topic is only tangentially related to Harrison – this was only an example of the wider point; the second point is actually one where I agree with Harrison, though I’m not sure I agree with him that such themes have been absent until now. As I said before, I think Morgan’s comparing things falsely, taking pulp fantasy and comparing to literary non-fantasy. Literary fantasy and pulp non-fantasy do both exist…

—–

“Emulandory”, in one sense, means nothing, as it’s clearly a nonce-word. That said, the meaning I gave it should be perfectly clear, and indeed you seem to have deduced it despite your denials!
[It's transparently formed from a hypothetical latin gerundive, with the common -ory adjectival suffix on the model of 'emulatory'. Being from the gerundive, it would, if it existed, mean "that which is to be emulated"]

———

Thanks for taking the time to mention my views, though. New as I am to the world of you ‘Bloggers’, it’s a somewhat bizarre experience – hence, perhaps, my over-paternal anxiousness to explain my words’ meaning even after they’ve been birthed and sent off into the electric sea.