Aspirational fiction and cautionary tales
Aug. 15th, 2011 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyThis may seem like a strange thing for an admitted enthusiast of post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction to admit, but I rather wish there were more science fiction stories about institutions that actually worked versus institutions that were one crisis away from shipping off half the populace to concentration camps. Even if the latter sorts of institutions are the ones that we actually have, the result is an individualist narrative where humans in large groups inevitably behave in terrible ways and that the only people capable of saving us are inherently more powerful and special than the downtrodden masses.
I really like Star Trek for the reasons David Brin frames in this essay. Despite all of its flaws, it was a progressive show. Most of the time, the stories amounted to "big energy thing causes a problem, the ingenuity of a group of talented humans and aliens from diverse backgrounds working in a cooperative way solves it." In a contemporary context where a big energy thing is causing a problem, it might prove instructive to have more stories where people work cooperatively, using the scientific method, tobring jetpacks to the masses improve the living standards of the majority.
We can solve the energy crisis by reversing the polarity and remodulating the—WTF IS UHURA DOING? I love you, 1960 TV.
On the other end of the spectrum is Torchwood. Russell T. Davies is apparently convinced that any organization consisting of more than five people is out to destroy the world. This isn't a spoiler, by the way; this is a recurring motif throughout the series that has gotten progressively more annoying in the last season. The thing is, a sci-fi story about how America's healthcare system is fucked beyond belief is an awesome idea. It's ripe for social critique. I love the concept. What I don't love is every government in the entire world behaving exactly the same, and no one objecting other than a few family members who are unable to organize any sort of mass resistance. It waters down the satire so that it's not about evil pharmaceutical companies blocking universal healthcare, but rather the tendency of all social and political institutions towards corruption and sadism. Hope, if it exists at all, comes only from the actions of mavericks who buck the system for purely personal reasons.
There is no problem so large that it cannot be solved with an RPG.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with a well-written cautionary tale. Those are great; I love those. The best of those, however, allow for a glimmer of hope and encourage their audience to do something before the dystopia comes to pass. In the universe of Torchwood, I'm beginning to think, there is nothing to be done but for the audience to sit passively and hope that the people with power will do something before it's too late.
It's a completely unfair comparison, I'll admit, but Jose Saramago's utterly brilliant Blindness is a similar story to Miracle Day. A mysterious medical crisis—an epidemic of blindness in the former case, a halt to death in the latter—takes the world by surprise. The government cannot react properly. The afflicted are segregated and stripped of their human rights.
Does this remind you of anything?
The difference (aside from storytelling skill, consistent characterization, and stylistic originality) is that nowhere in Blindness do the protagonists rush into a concentration camp with guns blazing and no plan, hoping to shoot their way out of a paradigm shift. Blindness is, as much as it is about failed institutions, about creating the sort of social structures that actually work. It's about human compassion and solidarity. The characters don't give up on society; they create society. That, to me, is not just a political virtue but a narrative one as well; it's a way more interesting story.
Also, I can't get over how awful the acting is. Was I just spoiled by watching Treme or can absolutely no one on that show act?
I really like Star Trek for the reasons David Brin frames in this essay. Despite all of its flaws, it was a progressive show. Most of the time, the stories amounted to "big energy thing causes a problem, the ingenuity of a group of talented humans and aliens from diverse backgrounds working in a cooperative way solves it." In a contemporary context where a big energy thing is causing a problem, it might prove instructive to have more stories where people work cooperatively, using the scientific method, to
We can solve the energy crisis by reversing the polarity and remodulating the—WTF IS UHURA DOING? I love you, 1960 TV.
On the other end of the spectrum is Torchwood. Russell T. Davies is apparently convinced that any organization consisting of more than five people is out to destroy the world. This isn't a spoiler, by the way; this is a recurring motif throughout the series that has gotten progressively more annoying in the last season. The thing is, a sci-fi story about how America's healthcare system is fucked beyond belief is an awesome idea. It's ripe for social critique. I love the concept. What I don't love is every government in the entire world behaving exactly the same, and no one objecting other than a few family members who are unable to organize any sort of mass resistance. It waters down the satire so that it's not about evil pharmaceutical companies blocking universal healthcare, but rather the tendency of all social and political institutions towards corruption and sadism. Hope, if it exists at all, comes only from the actions of mavericks who buck the system for purely personal reasons.
There is no problem so large that it cannot be solved with an RPG.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with a well-written cautionary tale. Those are great; I love those. The best of those, however, allow for a glimmer of hope and encourage their audience to do something before the dystopia comes to pass. In the universe of Torchwood, I'm beginning to think, there is nothing to be done but for the audience to sit passively and hope that the people with power will do something before it's too late.
It's a completely unfair comparison, I'll admit, but Jose Saramago's utterly brilliant Blindness is a similar story to Miracle Day. A mysterious medical crisis—an epidemic of blindness in the former case, a halt to death in the latter—takes the world by surprise. The government cannot react properly. The afflicted are segregated and stripped of their human rights.
Does this remind you of anything?
The difference (aside from storytelling skill, consistent characterization, and stylistic originality) is that nowhere in Blindness do the protagonists rush into a concentration camp with guns blazing and no plan, hoping to shoot their way out of a paradigm shift. Blindness is, as much as it is about failed institutions, about creating the sort of social structures that actually work. It's about human compassion and solidarity. The characters don't give up on society; they create society. That, to me, is not just a political virtue but a narrative one as well; it's a way more interesting story.
Also, I can't get over how awful the acting is. Was I just spoiled by watching Treme or can absolutely no one on that show act?
