Editing John W. Campbell (section)

===Slavery, race, and segregation===
Green wrote that Campbell "enjoyed taking the 'devil's advocate' position in almost any area, willing to defend even viewpoints with which he disagreed if that led to a livelier debate". As an example, he wrote:

<blockquote>[Campbell] pointed out that the much-maligned 'peculiar institution' of [[slavery]] in the [[American South]] had in fact provided the blacks brought there with a higher standard of living than they had in Africa&nbsp;... I suspected, from comments by Asimov, among others&nbsp;– and some ''Analog'' editorials I had read&nbsp;– that John held some [[racist]] views, at least in regard to blacks.</blockquote>

Finally, however, Green agreed with Campbell that "rapidly increasing mechanization after 1850 would have soon rendered slavery obsolete anyhow. It would have been better for the USA to endure it a few more years than suffer the truly horrendous costs of the Civil War."{{sfnp|Green|2006 |p=15}}

In a June 1961 editorial called "Civil War Centennial", Campbell argued that slavery had been a dominant form of human relationships for most of history and that the present was unusual in that anti-slavery cultures dominated the planet. He wrote

<blockquote>It's my bet that the South would have been integrated by 1910. The job would have been done&nbsp;– and done right&nbsp;– half a century sooner, with vastly less human misery, and with almost no bloodshed&nbsp;... The only way slavery has ever been ended, anywhere, is by introducing industry&nbsp;... If a man is a skilled and competent machinist&nbsp;– if the [[lathe]]s work well under his hands&nbsp;– the industrial management will be forced, to remain in business, to accept that fact, whether the man be black, white, purple, or polka-dotted.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Editorial |date=June 1961 |magazine=Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact |page=5}}</ref></blockquote>

According to [[Michael Moorcock]], Campbell suggested that some people preferred slavery.

<blockquote>He also, when faced with the [[Watts riots]] of the mid-sixties, seriously proposed and went on to proposing that there were 'natural' slaves who were unhappy if freed. I sat on a panel with him in 1965, as he pointed out that the worker bee when unable to work dies of misery, that the [[moujik]]s when freed went to their masters and begged to be enslaved again, that the ideals of the anti-slavers who fought in the Civil War were merely expressions of self-interest and that the blacks were 'against' emancipation, which was fundamentally why they were indulging in 'leaderless' riots in the suburbs of Los Angeles.<ref name="stormtroopers" /></blockquote>

By the 1960s, Campbell began to publish controversial essays supporting segregation and other remarks and writings surrounding slavery and race, which distance him from many in the science fiction community.{{sfnp|Asimov|1973 |p=xii}}<ref name="stormtroopers" /> In 1963, Campbell published an essay supporting segregated schools and arguing that "the Negro race" had failed to "produce super-high-geniuses".<ref>Campbell, "Segregation" (1963).</ref> In 1965, he continued his defense of segregation and related practices, critiquing "the arrogant defiance of law by many of the Negro 'Civil Rights' groups".<ref>Campbell, "Breakthrough in Psychology!" (1965).</ref> On February 10, 1967, Campbell rejected [[Samuel R. Delany]]'s ''[[Nova (novel)|Nova]]'' a month before it was ultimately published, with a note and phone call to his agent explaining that he did not feel his readership "would be able to relate to a black main character".<ref name="racism">{{cite magazine |url= http://www.nyrsf.com/racism-and-science-fiction-.html |title=Racism and Science Fiction |author=Samuel R. Delany |magazine=The New York Review of Science Fiction |issue=120 |date=August 1998}}</ref>

All these views were reflected in the depiction of [[extraterrestrial life|aliens]] in ''Astounding''/''Analog''. Throughout his editorship, Campbell demanded that depiction of contact between aliens and humans must favor humans. For example, Campbell accepted [[Isaac Asimov]]'s proposal for what would become "[[Homo Sol]]" (where humans rejected an invitation to join a galactic federation) in January 1940, which was published later that year in the September edition of ''Astounding Science Fiction''.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/stream/earlyasimovorele00asim#page/182/mode/2up |title=The early Asimov; or, Eleven years of trying |last=Asimov |first=Isaac |date=1972 |publisher=Doubleday |location=Garden City NY |pages=182–183, 202–203}}</ref> Similarly, [[Arthur C. Clarke]]'s "[[Rescue Party]]"{{sfnp|Nevala-Lee|2018|p=244}} and [[Fredric Brown]]'s "[[Arena (short story)|Arena]]" (basis of the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek]]'' episode [[Arena (Star Trek: The Original Series)|of the same name]]) and "[[Letter to a Phoenix]]" (all first appeared in ''Astounding'') also depict humans favorably above aliens.