Please discuss. >>We assume people are worse than they are, and have worse intentions towards us than they do. The trouble with this thinking is, whenever the idea is challenged, its easily dismissed by pretending that anyone who thinks otherwise is out of touch with the real world, and its ugly truth. Of course the people we lock up forever are trying to kill us. Of course a rival government is just making empty promises to get us to drop our guard. If you dont think so, you have no idea how bad other people are. Whether this is true in the wider world is a matter of debate, but its certainly happening in the world of sci-fi and fantasy. Thirty years ago, the most famous sci-fi (and arguably fantasy) trilogy in the world included a cosmic source of pure goodness that people could tap into by controlling their own urge toward hatred, a group of dedicated and loyal freedom fighters, and the whole thing wrapped up when the bad guy decided hed rather bond with his son than see his cause win. Today in genre fiction, everyone is corrupt and youre lucky to make it through a wedding alive. This isnt necessarily a criticism. Each successive group of writers naturally write variations on the themes explored by previous generations. Giving a genre more complex societies, and more complex characters, isnt bad. Moreover, fantasy and sci-fi genre writers arent necessarily trying to reflect reality. The relentless darkness of their stories works as a theme and an aesthetic. The problem comes when we confuse the aesthetic with reality, and say any departure from it is unrealistic, instead of merely unfashionable. Pure evil is no more realistic than pure good. Could we use a little more hard-nosed, realistic optimism in fiction these days?
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 15:34:53 +0000
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