Here’s an interesting thought I found in an interview on the SciFi Channel’s web site with prolific sci-fi writer Robert Charles Wilson (The Harvest, 1992, Mysterium, 1994, Darwinia, 1998, Bios 1999, The Chronoliths, 2001.)
Although originally from the USA, you’ve lived in Canada for decades. What do you see as the defining characteristics of Canadian SF, as opposed to the American and British versions of the genre?
Wilson: I’ve been asked this before, and I don’t really have a solid answer. If I stand back and squint … well, it’s obvious there’s been a considerable surge in Canadian SF and fantasy over the past three decades. But the Canadians are a wildly heterogeneous group of writers. You can draw a line connecting, say, Peter Watts and William Gibson, but it hardly intersects with Rob Sawyer or Michelle West.
It’s also tempting to say something political here. Science fiction, whatever the persuasion of its individual authors, has always been a blue-state phenomenon–urban, broadly progressive, religiously skeptical. It thrives alongside liberalism and what used to be called “free thinking,” and it will always be viewed with suspicion by dogmatists and conservatives. It is H.G. Wells in one of our founding works, The Time Machine, who says, “You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted.” Such as the idea that human history is divinely ordained or that the human species is fixed and immutable.
This kind of thinking doesn’t go down too well at Focus on the Family or the Heritage Foundation, and the occasional quasi-SF that emerges from that contingent–say, Tim LaHaye or Newt Gingrich–is laughable.
It also is telling that in most (not all) science fiction, from Star Trek to Return of the Jedi, there’s an optimism that things will get better.
I just saw Revenge of the Sith. Others have made the point about it being an anti-Bush movie even if George Lucas doesn’t quite understand democracy either.
With all the darkness we see in Sith, we know how it ends. And the seeds for the better future are planted there.
That’s one of the reasons why the Focus on the Family crew and the Bush cult don’t like science fiction.
They’re not only anti-science. They thrive on promoting fear, be it nuclear annihilation from the Soviet Union, the Book of Revelations or terrorist attacks. The extreme right which currently controls the GOP are against hopeful, brighter tomorrows.
Interesting and something I’ve never had any occasion to ponder although there does seem to be something to this idea.
Off hand I’d say then that rightwingers and anti-science people are so rooted in their conservative/religious ideologies and fire and brimstone that their brains just can’t encompass any new, grand or sweeping thoughts that make sci-fi so great. Or maybe more simply, that their so narrow-minded that they don’t think except maybe regressively.
I bet the sci-fi they do tend to like is the militaristic, conquer-the-universe subgenre of sci-fi.
Kirk: Is there anyone on this ship who even remotely looks like Satan?
Spock: I am not aware of anyone who fits that description, Captain.
Kirk: No, Mr. Spock, I didn’t think you would be.
Q. Is it not obvious to anyone that the Empire is as strong as it ever was?
A. The appearance of strength is all about you. It would seem to last forever. However, Mr. Advocate; the rotten tree-trunk, until the very moment when the storm-blast breaks it in two, has all the appearance of might it ever had. The storm-blast whistles through the branches of the Empire even now.
[Trial of Hari Seldon, excerpt from Foundation by Issac Asimov. (on American Buddha)].
It’s funny, I’ve never thought of it that way as the only person, other than myself, that reads SciFi is my dad. And, yes, he’s a Dem but I wouldn’t have made the connection.
I thought the part where Wilson says, “…what used to be called “free thinking,” was pretty interesting as that “is” science fiction. No rules, no guidelines, anything goes – it’s whatever world is in the authors head. In fact, one of things about Battlestar Gallectica I enjoyed so much was the religious angle – they have several Gods. And the machines are the one talking about a single God. So cool, so interesting; makes me so glad I’m not rigidly locked into a specific belief that I can’t look outside of.
There’s quite a few of those…libertarian science fiction writers, I mean…
Conservatives do best in cynical comedies. They do better with fear and hate.
Liberals do best in science fiction. They do best with hope.
Heinlen is probably the most notable “conservative” science fiction writer, this is not universally true. He is often authoritarian and sexist, but he is also a major touchstone for the liberal end of the polyamorous movement and religiously skeptical.
Orson Scott Card (Mormon) and C.S. Lewis (Christian apologist) are probably the only major sci-fi/fantasy writers know for their strong religious beliefs, but Card certainly plays with a lot of non-divine sources for religion in his works, and as I child I totally missed the religious slant in The Narnia Chronicles even though I was a church going kid.
I agree that Heinlein wasn’t a conservative like Niven and Purnelle, say. In fact, I usually think of him as a libertarian, like his mouthpiece the Professor in The Moon is a Hard Mistress.
How would you peg Scott Card’s politics? He is hardcore pro-Israel, but that’s not an exclusively conservative trait (in the US). And the Ender saga is full of warnings against an overly hawkish mindset.
As to the Narnia series, I too missed the Christian subtext. I suspect the religious allegory – which Tolkien disdained, by the way – is designed to work subliminally, woven into the dreamlike narrative.