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In Reply to: Re: nope posted by john dem on November 29, 2001 at 12:20:40:
(Did I spell it right?)Mostly, I agree with you John. But not entirely.
I think sci-fi as a "popularizer" of science has been grossly oversold. The fact is that most science in sci-fi is bullshit science that, as much as anything, just perpetuates fantasies. As a predictor of the future, sci-fi is a dismal failure. Exhibit A -- a movie that you like for other reasons, John -- "2001-A Space Odyssey." Well, we're here and the real 2001 doesn't look anything like the movie. Ditto for the British TV series "Space-1999."
However, at its best, sci-fi is the modern iteration of a now-disfavored literary form -- the allegory. Think of Bunyan's "A Pilgrim's Progress" then think of the original Star Trek. Both used stories to make moral points. That was the key to the sucess of Star Trek in re-runs in the late 1960s. It was that the show was an allegory for all of the values espoused by the liberal counterculture that grew up then. Of course the sets were cheesy; of course the acting was terrible; of course the effects were crude. But the message was right for the audience; and they ate it up. They did not laugh at it. The show failed in first run because it was just a few years ahead of its time; but when it went into syndication in the late 1960s, the audience had caught up to it.
Of course, the "heresy of the didactic" was rejected by serious writers even in the 19th Century; so, by that yardstick, sci-fi can never be serious literature. (Ok, we'll have to make an exception for Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. But, I'm sure you'll agree with me that both "Animal Farm" and less obviously, "1984" are allegories. "1984" is allegory in the form of science fiction.) But if we go back to an earlier time, when tales, fables, parables and the like were more respectable in the literary sense (indeed they are common in sacred, religious writings), sci-fi of the Isaac Asimov/Orwell/Huxley/Roddenberry variety would fit right in.
(Of course the successors in the Star Trek franchise have, wisely, moved away from the allegorical mode of the orginal. They are just entertainment, with an occasional nod to Roddenberrianism.
I think it's kind of ironic that 'phlounder, who is so virulently non-religious, has embraced a literary form whose roots are clearly in religion.
How's that for a thought, boys?
Follow Ups:
Hi,
Scifi is doomed to falure. Even when it's right ( and we wind up going somewhere like the Moon); time is unkind. And while I think you are largely right in what you say; why did we go to the Moon? The standard answer, the competition with Russia; is as true as it is superficial. Someone imagined an astonishing, seemingly impossible future, of technical wizardry, and it was those qualities that made it the perfect choice.
This is what Nasa has to say of Verne..."After all, it is as a teacher, a popularizer of exact scientific knowledge, that Jules Verne could and claim consideration among the writers of his time. In Ill' an overview shortly before his
death, he modestly said to the correspondent of the London "Daily News": "You might tell your readers that these books in which I have published prophecies based upon the latter-day
discoveries of science have really only been a means to an end. It will perhaps surprise you to hear that I do not take especial pride in having written of the motor car, the submarine boat,
and the navigable airship before they became actual realities. When I wrote about them as realities these things were already half discoveries. I simply made fiction out of what became
ulterior fact, and my object in so doing was not to prophesy, but to spread a knowledge of geography among the young in as interesting a dress as I could compass. Every single
geographical fact and every scientific one in every book that I have ever written has been looked up with care, and is scrupulously correct. If, for instance, I had not wished to point the
fact that a journey round the world entailed the apparent loss of a whole day, my 'Tour of the World in Eighty Days' would never have been written. And 'The Mysterious Island' owed its
inception to my wish to tell the world's boys something about the wonders of the Pacific."..."
Which could also serve as a recipe for good scifi. The real thing is hard to find; and happens less often than I would wish. But I think it's a wonderful thing, to think we might survive our stupidity, and become something a little better. All the things that people have said about limitations, look up, and they become meaningless. The things that civilisation needs, energy, raw marterials, even the sense of frontier....space has these in essentially infinite quantities.
Yes, you could definitely add Swift's Gulliver's Travels and perhaps More's Utopia (isn't most Science Fiction really social fiction ?) to the list.Hoyle's "The Black Cloud" was also an interesting book for the genre, as much for its description of the philosophy of science as its (at the time unique) speculation on the nature of extraterretrial sentience and complete lack of allegories.
What was it about the 60's that made people think that we'd all be wearing velour jumpsuits nowadays ?
Anyway, your point about displaced/latent religous feelings is well taken- and is a common theme throughout SF (and Fantasy for that matter- Lord of the Rings, despite Tolkein's denial of its allegorical content, is full of obvious parrallels to Christianity)
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