steampunk: my issues, let me show you them

[forthwritten]

I've been thinking about steampunk recently, prompted by naraht's excellent sets of links (set 1, set 2). We ended up talking about it a couple of nights ago, then again when it came up in #dw last night.

I don't like being forthwritten, Destroyer Of Squee, but there are things I find deeply problematic about steampunk. I'm not a srs Victorianist (and I hope not to embarrass myself in front of naraht and oursin) but my thesis does require some knowledge of late C19th/early C20th issues - politics, ideologies, what were current issues and concerns and anxieties, how the Victorians and Edwardians thought about things. There are some things that seem completely alien to my mind - the way that even those who supported women's suffrage supported it because they thought women were gentler and more spiritually pure, and with the rise of governmental interest in domestic issues they needed women on board to guide them through this unknown territory.

Victorian England was a world where the vast majority of people led difficult, uncomfortable, poor, exhausting lives, where 1 in 3 babies born at the same time as Queen Victoria died before their fifth birthday, where things like pensions or benefits didn't exist and the only relief was to be found in the workhouse (look up the 1834 Poor Law). Most people were not totally awesome explorers and adventurers and countesses.

In celebrating the figure of the adventurer and explorer, steampunk buys into certain assumptions. One: that there are places to explore and discover - the idea that a land can only be discovered by your culture, and has been previously unexplored even if people have been living there for centuries. Two: that, as naraht points out, "deep down, or perhaps not so deep down, there's a sense in steampunk that having an empire must after all have been rather fun".
And I doubt this is deliberate, but it places people like me in a difficult situation. To shamelessly repost the comment I left on one of naraht's entries, am I one of the friendly hilltribes who offers the explorers help? Am I a savage living in harmony with my wild forests? Am I untamed and beautiful and freakish, am I dangerous, am I irresponsible and childlike, am I sturdy and possessed of a certain native cunning? How am I going to be exoticised and made into a tragic character, a simple character, a loyal and passive character? I've read the early C20th anthropology books, I know what role I played in the Victorian psyche, and it disappoints me that steampunk doesn't do much to challenge that.
Even the terms are uncomfortable - how can you be a "orientalist" unproblematically, without knowing or caring about critiques of orientalism offered by post-colonialism? How can you be the thing that Said, in Orientalism, was questioning?

But forthwritten, you cry, I don't care about the ideology! I just like my cool gadgety tech! I think being able to disconnect the two is interesting, yet enabled by the kind of technology steampunk celebrates. Steampunk focuses on engineering rather than the other technologies and sciences the Victorians were exploring - engineering rather than, for example, public health, infectious disease control, evolution and eugenics. Within that, steampunk focuses on engineering of a particular kind - Babbage but not Bazalgette.
And as naraht asks, maybe that's because engineering itself is perceived as a a celebration of cool gadgety tech without having an ideology (comparative to, say, eugenics). As she puts it, it's "all about the uncomplicated triumph of objective, uber-cool science" - as long as you can build Awesome Rockets, who cares who you're building them for or how they could be used? Why does steampunk focus so heavily on weaponry? Who are they shooting with their steam-powered guns and rifles? It looks cool to carry around a big, artistically distressed gun, but why?

And perhaps this is the crux of My Thoughts on Steampunk: it's a superficial understanding of the Victorian age without wanting to understand the anxieties of the age. It doesn't even understand the technology beyond a superficial "ooh, shiny" delight - am I really the only one wondering how that steam must be produced, the miners and kids shovelling coal and smoke-choked cities and pea-soupers, or is there an explanation that ignores Victorian economics in favour of a C21st style fair trade explanation?

Perhaps I'm coming at this from the wrong angle - after all, my punk involves questioning social values and assumptions in a sometimes awkward but often genuine and well-intentioned way. I do understand the appeal of computer mods, and I can understand steampunk as a reaction to the sleek, disempowering kind of technology that says "no, you don't have a chance of understanding me, best get someone else to fix that". But I'm not sure how steampunk subverts and challenges our ideologies and anxieties through the lens of Victorian alternative history, and indeed what it is beyond an uncomplicated celebration of engineering and technology.

Or maybe it does - imperialism is still an issue today. Maybe steampunk is a way of making that safe and uncomplicated, of imagining it as gentlemen inventor-adventurers rather than soldiers, imagining guns and rockets that are beautiful and complicated and are never used to kill people. In which case, I think it achieves this at the expense of really doing something that reimagines the world and creating a genuinely alternative history.

ETA: thank you for all the thoughtful comments; I've greatly enjoyed reading them and seeing discussions unfold. I'm a bit swamped with work so I can't respond to everyone right now but I'd like this discussion to continue and I'll try to contribute if I can.

Comments

[ephemera]

I'm only just starting to dabble in the edges of steampunkery (it does very much feel like 'what goths do when we realise we're too old for pvc and if we keep dying our hair it'll fall out' ;p) but it does seem to take a lot of the interesting out of it to *ignore* all the problematic history and context, and I don't want my AU to either replicate the problematic race and class and gender stuff, nor just white-wash it away. It's something I've been chewing on recently.

(also worth noting that the few steampunk events I've been to in person have been even more majority-white than the goth/industrial/metal events I frequent, and it would be lying to say that those subcultures are hugely racially diverse to start with. They're less monochromatic than some might assume, but still broadly majority white.)

[oursin]

I am currently venturing into the world of H G Wells scholarship for a conference in September (aaaaargh!) - and have been thinking about his novels, and that although he had numerous women friends and lovers who were career writers, political and social activists, reformers, teachers, scientists, etc i.e. had interests and occupation beyond the sphere of lehrrrv, the female characters in his novels (and I don't there are any to speak of in the 'scientific romances' at all) never seem to have any ambition that goes outside hegemonic female roles of being supportive helpmeet wife, or, possibly, political hostess (which is helpmeety territory), and MOTHER.

And case can be made that Wells is the, or a, forefather of steampunk - even though he was, of course, massively about social engineering as well.

Dame R is naturally the most appropriate icon here!

[rogue]

Aaaiiieeeee. I think I love you. You've distilled a lot of what unsettles me about Steampunk into a single post.

I love steampunk, but the sanitisation of Steampunk's Victorian society has always seemed the more unbelievable aspect than water-powered rockets that take you to the pleasure domes of Venus. Much Steampunk seems to have lost the whole point of the 'punk' part of the name, especially when you look over to Cyberpunk. Where's the intrigue? The social outrage? The questioning of societal norms? The fight for something more than 'omg kewl'? I wish more people would dive beyond the surface.

Also: ever notice how most steampunk costumes are always corsets and top hats? I'd feel so out of place at a steampunk meet; dressed in grubby overalls, heavy goggles, and with oil and dirt all over me. Yet, somehow, I'd feel the most steampunk of the lot.

Anyway, an excellent post all round. It'd be an interesting discussion to bring about in the steampunk community.

[lady_ganesh]

I think some of steampunk's appeal is for a time when 'fancy dress' really meant something, and there were rules, only this time we can make our own rather than listen to our grandparents.

[delight]

I greatly enjoy history of medicine; the only time I was ever involved in a steampunk roleplay, my character was a doctor – so I think that might make me unusual, but it was public health & infectious disease control that caught my interest, not the gadgets.

And I always wondered, too – where all the steam power and coal came from. This is an excellent post, I must say, even if my comment isn't all that coherent or helpful.

[ja-baby-ja.livejournal.com]

So apparently the way to coax me over to dreamwidth is to promise essays, who knew?

I found this very interesting and important, anyway. Both steampunk and cyberpunk tickle my academic geek buttons, in that I'm fascinated by the superficiality of both - to a great extent, they're both aesthetics that essentially pick up and collect signifiers that have particular social and psychological resonances, and then sort of cobble and marshal them together into effects, rather than meanings. And that's a process that because I'm a degenerate postmodernist at heart, is something I find endlessly interesting and pick-apart-able. It was good to be reminded here that there is more at stake in both genres than just a psychologically and culturally interesting game of signs and citations, and to realise that my particular academic proclivities are, in accepting and describing/analysing it, rather than critiquing it, actually tying in with (or at least not really doing anything to correct) that tendency in the genre to ignore the bigger and deeper picture. Very well written, too, unlike this comment which from the start I think was doomed to convolutions and obliqueness.

Also, your last line = very much truth.

[naraht]

Both steampunk and cyberpunk tickle my academic geek buttons, in that I'm fascinated by the superficiality of both - to a great extent, they're both aesthetics that essentially pick up and collect signifiers that have particular social and psychological resonances, and then sort of cobble and marshal them together into effects, rather than meanings.

Really interesting. I must think more about this.

[phoenixsong]

My exposure to steampunk is admittedly limited, but it does somehow seem rather superficial and more about the "looks cool!" factor than anything else. "Looks cool" has a time and place, and if that's all someone's interested in, fine. I have a weakness for pretty, shiny, old(-looking) things myself, and I'm OK with that since it's on a pretty small scale.

But if steampunk as a subculture is trying to be more than that, what precisely is that "more" made up of? The lack of direction, mixed with liberal appropriation, is what makes it hard for me to even get a handle on what it's about. I have friends who are active in the SCA, for example, and I can understand that, even enjoy it, for how much research generally goes into the actual history behind something. If someone makes modern alterations, they're usually pretty open about it, and try to disguise them. In short, there's a context. I'm not sure what the context for steampunk is.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

awesome post!

[branchandroot]

*nods* I have read very little classic steampunk, for some of these reasons. I've never been much into gadgetry for its own sake. I like it much more when the trappings are acknowledged to be there for the bling-factor, or as dramatization for particular characterization or plot-points. Girl Genius and Fullmetal Alchemist, respectively, come to mind, neither of them being at all in the classic mode. The authors of GG even chose a different word for it (gaslamp fantasy).

Setting something in the Victorian era and not dealing with the vast contradictions and social tensions, the linked colonialism and insularity, the anxiety of change, of borders and identity, does seem to me to miss the point of that setting.

[sara]

Well, and GG could be set in outer space and the plot wouldn't really have to be any different. I think it was more that spaceships were not selling particularly well when they cooked up the concept.

I am bemused by the whole idea of "classic" steampunk, because I think of it as a set of concepts that emerged in the early 1990s...and then died off...and then came back to life as a sort of costuming/fiction subculture a few years ago, which was really quite weird to me.

But no, I've never thought steampunk was subverting much of anything.

[catechism]

Yes! At my office, one of the guys has started working on a way to display information about our servers, and he's settled on nixie tubes. I've been drafted into building the case for the thing, and because the data's in nixie-tube form, I was thinking about going down the steampunk road. [I've not read any steampunk, or been to any steampunk events; my exposure has usually been "look at this awesome computer mod someone did."] So I've been scouring the internet for the last two weeks for steampunk resources, and finding myself more and more bothered, but I haven't really been able to put my finger on why. I think this articulates it very well, though, the sense of how much fun everything must have been, the seemingly unfettered celebration of what was actually a very difficult and problematic time. Hrm. Looks like I've got some more thinking to do, for sure. Thanks for this post.

[trouble]

I'm more interested in the Eugenics side of it all, because of my history studies, but yes - I've always wondered where these folks are all exploring? What roles do people who aren't European have? Stuff like that.

Thank you for posting this. Now I have much thinking to do.

[naraht]

I'm really glad you posted this. Good to have both participants in the conversation represented even though what we were saying did overlap a great deal.

Why does steampunk focus so heavily on weaponry? Who are they shooting with their steam-powered guns and rifles? It looks cool to carry around a big, artistically distressed gun, but why?

That is a seriously good point. Maybe they're just really keen hunters, who knows...

*is vegetarian and hunts tofu*

[way-j.livejournal.com]

This is interesting and certainly valid, but based on a superficial steampunk. Not a relatively superficial understanding of steampunk, you'll note, but a superficial steampunk.

Worth remembering that, as a literary genre, steampunk is based on cyberpunk - which, to quote GURPS Steampunk, "suggests that social customs are a mask for opperession, exploitation, and conflict. Its heroes are the people on the losing end of this conflict, who recognize their situation for what it is and disgregard law and custom when they need to or when it suits them."

Hi-tech and lowlifes. The street finding its own use for things. Sticking it to the man.

But the "superficial" steampunk you're tackling in this post is several stages removed from this origin. In making the leap to a subcultural mainstream, it's moved a lot closer to steam-pulp. We're talking about the visual and the fetishistic ... the brass gears and flying goggles. Little more than a collection of tropes, shuffled to feed escapism and heroic fantasies. A movement that, in surviving, expanding, and marketing itself ... has had to become a broad tent.

To return to the genre's core, look at Mary Shelly's Frankenstein ... Michael Flynn's In the Country of the Blind ... Gibson and Sterling's Difference Engine ... the more recent batch of Pratchett's Discworld books (Fifth Elephant, Night Watch, Going Postal, Dangerous Regiment) ... Christopher Priest's The Prestige ... Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials ... and Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

And have a look at the magazine.

It's not just a whitewashed nostalgia for the Victorian age. It's an interrogation of modernity ... a celebration of the anachronistic on its own terms; of the romantic, the gothic and the baroque.

'One who clings to Modernity will fall with Modernity. But one who builds water-powered Refrigerators will eat summer Fruits in Autumn.'
- A Steampunk's Guide to the Apocalypse

[ja-baby-ja.livejournal.com]

Worth remembering that, as a literary genre, steampunk is based on cyberpunk - which, to quote GURPS Steampunk, "suggests that social customs are a mask for opperession, exploitation, and conflict. Its heroes are the people on the losing end of this conflict, who recognize their situation for what it is and disgregard law and custom when they need to or when it suits them."

I agree with you entirely that this is the (or at least an) intention of cyberpunk, yes - I'm not sure, though, that it stands as a counter to the points made in this post. There are things that are problematic, both in this "manifesto" and in the realisation of it in specific texts - firstly, the fact that "its heroes are the people on the losing end of this conflict" is often (although by no means necessarily) true only for certain values of "people on the losing end of this conflict", whereas others remain invisible. Secondly, the model of resistance that cyberpunk offers - essentially, learning to work first within and then outside the structures oppressing them - doesn't really sit well with the reality of a lot of people's experience of oppressive structures. For many people on the losing end of this conflict, renegade-hacker-style "sticking it to the man" is not only a far more complex and ambivalent proposition (simply as a function of how complex any one individual's relationship to the structures that both oppress and support her is), but it can also be an unviable and even dangerous proposition. And both those problems are still tied up in the sort of things that this post is talking about: privileging, even in discussions of marginalised members of society, some experiences and models of experience over others.

I also definitely see your point about steampunk being an "interrogation of modernity", and can understand how that would and does work - but just because the other things that forthwritten and apparently many others see at play in steampunk are subordinated to or marshalled in the service of a different and laudable purpose, doesn't mean they're not still there. You're invoking big, unwieldy problems and discourses when you set images or versions of the past in opposition to "modernity", and if you don't actively engage with them then they're going to be there floating around in the play of the text, leaving nasty tastes in people's mouths and undermining what the genre's actually setting out to do. None of which is saying that steampunk can't be rigorous enough to do this, but I'd be surprised if it does it more often than not.

One last thing: if you've the time/inclination, would you be willing to expand on why you'd call Frankenstein a forerunner of steampunk? It sounds like a really interesting idea, but I don't feel like I've got a grasp of exactly where you're coming from with it.

[littlebutfierce]

Very interesting & smart post! You probably saw it on LJ a while ago & I don't think I memoried it, but there was a big post about this stuff from Oyceter & also another one I think written by an Asian guy who did a lot of steampunk costuming.

I admit I'm mostly just interested in the costuming, ha. I like pretty clothing, even if I'm usu. too lazy/cheap/bad at sewing to wear it. But just from my brief perusals over the years of, say, steampunk fashion sites, there are some disturbing things out there along the lines you mentioned...

[spiralsheep]

one I think written by an Asian guy who did a lot of steampunk costuming

I recall anachronaut posting (namecheck for reference).

[princess]

There's a guy named Kit on LJ whose alias I believe is "anachronaut". His quote (probably badly mangled by me here) is along the lines of "I want a little more punk in my steampunk. It's not all air ships and tea parties. The world is ending and the Empire is burning."

I think that there's an aspect to steampunk that *does* engage in that sort of social deconstruction. It's not a huge movement yet, and yes, it's still a culture built more around cool mods for computers and making your own corsets, but some of us are also wondering about those things.

[liseuse]

Steampunk is one of those things I know very little about. Just enough to refer to a pair of shoes as steampunk!governess ones but nothing much more. I do wonder if part of it is the fact that, unless you've gone away and done some reading, you do tend to end up with the sanitised version of the Victorians. You end up knowing that they made leaps in sanitation, were wishy-washy on what women were for, and generally seemed a bit dull. If you haven't studied them any further than GCSE (and maybe A-Level, I don't know. I studied the Russian Revolution and British Social Politics) then you haven't really encountered the harsh realities of what being a Victorian meant - physically and when it comes to ideologies and politics.

This doesn't, obviously, excuse anyone because, in my opinion, if you are going to be a part of something, like steampunk, you need to think about it, explore it, and understand it before you can join in fully.

[starlady]

Yes. A thousand times, yes.

BUT, inasmuch as steampunk--and I'm thinking here specifically of Pullman's His Dark Materials, which I'm not really sure I'd call steampunk--has the potential to be a genre of fantasy which does not automatically valorize monarchy and magic (and the medieval era or the far future) and demonize representative government and science (and the present era or the close past), I think it has clear potential merit--potential merit that it's largely failed to fulfill, so far. For which reasons I'd cite Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle as a far truer image of what steampunk could do as an engaged critic rather than a superficial imitator. Of course, those books aren't set in the 19thC, but in the 17th and 18th--which doesn't seem insignificant.

[naraht]

One of the problems in this discussion is (IMO) that people seem to want to define steampunk so widely that it really starts to lose its meaning. Mary Shelley? Steampunk! China Mieville? Steampunk! Philip Pullman? Steampunk! I don't like the idea that we can take any piece of good non-epic fantasy and toss it into the balance on steampunk's account.

As you say, His Dark Materials is really questionable. It was inspired by Milton, who wasn't Victorian at all. It has zeppelins, sure, but god knows zeppelins aren't everything in life. Similarly, I do see what you're saying with regard to the Baroque Cycle, but steampunk before steam seems to be a bit of a contradiction in terms.

Basically I think that *all* fantasy has, or ought to have, the potential to not automatically valorize monarchy and magic. You're putting a great deal of expectation on the back of one sub-genre that--again, as you say--has so far failed to deliver. What is so special about steampunk that we should expect all these things from it?

[chasingtides]

I'm here from metafandom so I apologise if I shove my foot in my mouth.

I come into this really liking steampunk. I come to steampunk by way of punk culture (as it functions in my area) and a love of history. Most of my steampunk experience, I admit, is through Steampunk Magazine, which doesn't seem to always be representative of the culture (as I discover as I write a steampunk piece).

Given, the tagline of Steampunk Magazine is "Putting the punk back into steampunk," and my original positioning, but I enjoy the steampunk that deals with the anxieties of the Victorian age - what happens when the masses rise, etc. - Essentially placing punk into the Victorian Age.

(This also said, I'm writing a steampunk piece in the thirteenth century. It is the Mongolian empire in this piece that has the steam power. The punk is the Europeans who are the oppressed under the Mongolian empire and interact with the powerful and gadgety Mongolians and Chinese. Some Central Asians also have the traditional steampunk-i-ness. This is to say - I think steampunk *can* be utilised to examine problems, even if many don't choose to use it that way.)

[naraht]

Punk is not a culture in which I'm particularly involved, so my grasp of that side of things may be a bit lacking. I've watched The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle, and made what was perhaps the mistake of believing it. So from that standpoint I guess I do worry whether steampunk is authentic or aesthetic rebellion, and whether it's possible to do both at once.

(Now I'm sure I've put *my* foot in my mouth... feel free to tell me off!)

(This also said, I'm writing a steampunk piece in the thirteenth century. It is the Mongolian empire in this piece that has the steam power. The punk is the Europeans who are the oppressed under the Mongolian empire and interact with the powerful and gadgety Mongolians and Chinese. Some Central Asians also have the traditional steampunk-i-ness. This is to say - I think steampunk *can* be utilised to examine problems, even if many don't choose to use it that way.)

I definitely like the idea of alternate versions of history where the Europeans didn't end up on top. I do wonder, though, whether your version of history might still privilege the Europeans *within* the story by letting them be the interesting and cool rebels. Obviously I don't know how it actually plays out. Just something to think about...

[arch]

Here via metafandom -- I just wanted to say that this post is really fantastic, and highlights a lot of issues that I had been hoping I would not discover if only I read more steampunk. Thanks for posting and for hosting such a great discussion.

[mizuno-caitlin.livejournal.com]

I'm.... baffled. There are people who take steampunk seriously? I suppose there are a lot of replies citing the literature branch of steampunk. I approach it from the (American) hobbyist costume and prop maker's point of view and can't speak to that at all.

Alright. Going to try and put into words my perception of this genere. Here goes.

The blogs I read are full of people creating their own characters and realms. Pure and total ESCAPIST FANTASY. Truthfully,I've never perceived steampunk in any other way. It has about as much to do with Victorian England as the Elegant Gothic Aristocrat/Elegant Gothic Lolita fashions have to do with French history (or for that matter actual lolita fetishism). Same as my local renfest (dead in the middle of Kansas), full to the brim with fairies and elves and hundreds of princes/princesses/kings/queens. About as medieval England as the average 80's film about magic. Actually, that's exactly what my vision of it has been since I was made aware of it some 2+ years ago. It is like renfest rendered with a different loose set of fantasy props. Replace the shiny flowing dresses and store-bought-pattern tunics with leather pants, button up shirts, and frill/lace. Throw in a cameo. Replace your crowns and tiaras with goggles and pocket watches. Replace your swords and daggers with fanciful guns covered in gears and brass. A dozen each princes, princesses, kings, and queens walk the renfest mud-laden paths each weekend, and the net is full of self imagined aristocrats and scientists, adventurers. They exist purely in their own fantasy realms. I'd guess so few people getting into steampunk address the social issues of the Victorian age because, well, they don't REALLY perceive the two as being that connected. And, why should they? The fantasy genre seems to rarely limit itself to Europe's map or cultures. Or, hell species. It isn't just shiny gears and pretty, but it isn't reality either. It's something new that's building itself as it goes along.

As for the lack of attention you perceive towards the other elements of society.... I'm of the opinion that this will work itself out in time. Right now there's such a lack of identity and structure people latch onto the adventurer identity first. As the community continues to grow, other elements will emerge. People will continue to mish mash their fantasies with the literature and film they most identify with the genre and will graft on bits and pieces from the history books as decoration. You want a place for you in steampunk? Build it. Make it up. Run with it. When I first discovered steampunk, I didn't see much beyond the aviator/engineer stereotype you speak of. Now, the aristocrats are coming in hard core. How much longer before new elements and personas emerge? Before whole genres become common and then dominant. At the renfest I mentioned above, royalty isn't the dominant force. You're just as likely to see knights, bar wenches, bards, fairies, elves, craftsmen, jesters, etc. And then people who show up in tartans to continue to push the boundaries of the fantasy.

I also find fault in the notion that any adventurer or explorer has to discover something for a greater imperialist society. Why not themselves? Their personal adventure. Their personal discoveries. Seeing the world for their own eyes. Not every explorer has to conquer.

And, I wonder about the German influence in names and such that you mention. I guess it's just a UK thing. So much of what I see is steampunk elements tied into the American identity with names and cultural elements shoe horned in appropriately. It is what each person makes it. Each person invents their own place in the framework and continues to stretch it and redefine it.

But, what do I know? I'm just a costumer. I suppose I'm superficial by nature.

[roseblight.livejournal.com]

Agreeing with every word of this.

[logovo]

Great post. Nothing to add really, beyond thanking you for a good read :)

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry; I don't know how to post via OpenID and I haven't got a Dreamwidth account yet. I'm chelseagirl47 on LJ, here via metafandom.

My grad degree is in Victorian lit and I've been dancing around the edges of Steampunk, thinking "this is something I could write" and yet not really getting very excited about it. I suspect it's for precisely the issues you raise; Steampunk is so tech-oriented, and my response to the 19th century is mediated through a whole series of other issues. Perhaps a post-colonial, feminist take on steampunk is needed, an sf equivalent to Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies.

[dancinglights]

Okay, I started out intrigued enough by naraht's bit of the dialogue that I wandered over here and you are awesome. Thank you for a good read (several, in fact, scrolling back) and for poking holes at something I like but needs poking holes in.

[azdaja-dafema.livejournal.com]

I'm really enjoying reading all these discussions on Steampunk. I've been interested in it as an idea for a while now and having to explain it as a term has always been tricky. Someone linked above to The Steampunk Magazine (http://www.steampunkmagazine.com), and I'd recommend a brilliant essay in the first issue of it (page 4-5), a passionate discussion as to the nature of Steampunk. It tries to emphasise the /punk/ aspect, the revolutionary angry at the society in which they live.

In many ways it is escapism, but there are degrees to which people take it, making it hard to generalise about denizens of the Steampunk aesthetic and ideology. Admittedly there are problems in harking back to a culture that was flawed, but it also brings to light parallels with the contemporary: and not just in how much we've improved, but also how far we need to go.

[leighton]

I will admit a fondness for steampunk aesthetic, but I haven't really given much thought to the implications of the movement besides the idea that it's a reaction to the fast pace of technological progress by repackaging it with aesthetic signifiers of antiquity and imperialism. Which seems sublimely ironic to me.

I think you make a lot of good points, and it seems that as a subculture movement it's trying to claim the ethos but not the ideology when they can't really be separated.

[chocolatepot]

I might have had a different reaction a year ago, but since reading the many fantastic posts during RaceFail I must agree. "Problematic" is probably the kindest way to describe it.

[naraht]

Yeah, I have this tendency to say "problematic" when I really mean "icky" or "made me want to throw my laptop across the room." But you'd be surprised at how badly people respond even to "problematic."