Scully-Fu
It's my word o' the day.
Why Science Fiction matters.
As any reader of this blog has noticed. I’m a geek. A big one. Now I could blame my parents; Dad with his Cordwainer Smith fancy and Mom reading us all Tolkien at night and Star Trek being a family event, but there is more to it than that. Laying aside the wonderful fun of space operas such as Star Wars and bug hunts like Alien or Pitch Black, SciFi, real Science Fiction, such Minority Report (which started it’s life a book, BTW), is about exploring the possibilities of what may be, or in some cases, such as The Island, probably will be.
Science fiction allows the author and readers to take a topic such as cloning, pull it out of it modern context and examine all the possibilities unhampered by current social bias. Like taking a animal out of terrarium and setting it on a plexiglas stand so that we may look at all sides of it. It’s hard for someone today to discuss something like cloning and look at the possibilities objectively. Not only are their personal feelings about it (“We could have children!”, “I could keep transplanting organs and live practically forever”. ) wrapped up in the discussion, but the societal mores are as well. (“Oh, we would never do *that*!”, “Clones wouldn’t be real people…”). A science fiction film or novel, novels especially, takes that topic, pushes it to the extreme possibility and looks at all the ramifications, both to society and to ourselves as human beings, of that technology or technique or what have you might be.
May people hated Contact with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey, mainly because “there were no aliens!”, but think about it. Think about how dangerous a society human beings are, how readily we hate, fear and kill. Would you, as an alien, just drop down here and pop open the hatch? I sure as hell wouldn’t. Less important than the aliens in the film, and much more so the book by Carl Sagan, is how we, as a human society and political body, would actually react to the real possibility of intelligent life beyond our planet beyond the dramatic imaginings of H.G. Wells.
(A wonderful book by the way! The film actually changed only by combing various characters into Palmer Joss and focusing on the Arroway character, so the story if much more straightforward. A totally understandable adaptation, though regretful as you miss out on some very interesting speculative science and philosophical conversations. The scene with the pendulum would have been highy entertaining to watch. Anyway…),
Not only does science fiction examine the possible, they examine the structure and mores of our society right now. People read about the Patriot Act and shrug their shoulders. No one making a huge deal out it, “so why should I care whether or not someone can listen to my cell phone conversations?” Read 1984* , and you realize how much privacy issues matter. Think TV is a great way to get all your factual info from? That reading is for the birds? Fahrenheit 451 will change your mind. It’s not that you have to be paranoid, believing that is how far these things will go, but just to examine how important things such as privacy and literature are in our lives today. It’s an example of “you only miss it when it is gone…” without actually losing it. In today’s vacuous self-centered meandering fiction (thank you Mr. Hemmingway), science fiction has taken the place of Dickens and Twain as our social conscience.
(*And then there Animal Farm, which while an excellent dissertation of why Communism is bad, is just harmful.)
Besides, one should never scoff at space ships and aliens. After all, was not the first nuclear powered submarine launched in 1955 named the Nautilus after Jules Vernes 1870 literary creation?
Disclaimer: I’m not saying I’m a full blown SciFi aficionado. Compared to folks like my sister & her husband and my eldest brother, I’m a tourist. Merely following in the paths they blaze through the stacks. But I will readily defend the importance of such work against the elitist snobbery of the benighted “literati”, who insist that such authors like Pratchett and Stephenson are not “lit-tri-CHA”.
(What is amusing is they will, however lay claim to Orwell and Bradbury. In a hot second. I’ve actually heard people saying that Fahrenheit 451 is not science fiction.)
Well, It All Sounds Nice…
Go away, please.
Well, it looks like everything is going well in the “As the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down” routine put out by Bush in his Ft. Bragg speech (though is it just me, or does this statement sound like he had a rolled up newspaper behind his back), but I have to keep my optimism in reserve as Rumsfeld seems ready to place the burden of responsibility on the Iraqui’s readiness to police itself.
According to who, I wonder.
And what about those 14 bases we were building?
Mind you, in all the yelling I do, I do not want to leave the Iraqi people flat footed. I do not think there is anyway to stop the Civil War that has been brewing in Iraq since the Ottoman Empire collapsed and it’s border were drawn by arbitrarily by Great Britain. However, I would like to see us do all we can to prepare them and rebuild what we have destroyed, conducting ourselves in an honorable manner.
This seems to be happening. I don’t think we would be letting them go making a deal for a pipeline to Iran is it wasn’t, However, the interim Oil Minster making these calls is the controversial Ahamd Chalabi, who has spent many years in bed with the CIA and been convicted of bank fraud In Jordan.
It just all sounds very iffy right now.
Add to all this I have to distrust the words of someone who withheld even worse pictures and video from Abu Gharib, in contempt of the court.
It’s not that I want to see such images, but I really want those “It’s just frat-boy pranks! It’s not as bad as beheading!” dickwads to shut up. As if as long as we are just slightly better than the insurgents, we're just greatest thing since sliced bread. No one can excuse what happened there. If we want the Islamic word to condem terrorism and fix problems from within, shouldn't be also be doing the same? BTW-The Blame Game in those trials goes on.
But in case you are wondering what the War on Terror in Iraq has done for the American people?
Not the rich folks mind you. Just us.
“McClellan said Bush depends on his commanders to say how many troops they need, "And they make decisions based on the conditions and the progress that's being made on the ground."
Oh, how nice of him to start doing this now…
Well, I guess it's better than him never listehing to the military period.
:P
Double :P
Why Science Fiction matters.
As any reader of this blog has noticed. I’m a geek. A big one. Now I could blame my parents; Dad with his Cordwainer Smith fancy and Mom reading us all Tolkien at night and Star Trek being a family event, but there is more to it than that. Laying aside the wonderful fun of space operas such as Star Wars and bug hunts like Alien or Pitch Black, SciFi, real Science Fiction, such Minority Report (which started it’s life a book, BTW), is about exploring the possibilities of what may be, or in some cases, such as The Island, probably will be.
Science fiction allows the author and readers to take a topic such as cloning, pull it out of it modern context and examine all the possibilities unhampered by current social bias. Like taking a animal out of terrarium and setting it on a plexiglas stand so that we may look at all sides of it. It’s hard for someone today to discuss something like cloning and look at the possibilities objectively. Not only are their personal feelings about it (“We could have children!”, “I could keep transplanting organs and live practically forever”. ) wrapped up in the discussion, but the societal mores are as well. (“Oh, we would never do *that*!”, “Clones wouldn’t be real people…”). A science fiction film or novel, novels especially, takes that topic, pushes it to the extreme possibility and looks at all the ramifications, both to society and to ourselves as human beings, of that technology or technique or what have you might be.
May people hated Contact with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey, mainly because “there were no aliens!”, but think about it. Think about how dangerous a society human beings are, how readily we hate, fear and kill. Would you, as an alien, just drop down here and pop open the hatch? I sure as hell wouldn’t. Less important than the aliens in the film, and much more so the book by Carl Sagan, is how we, as a human society and political body, would actually react to the real possibility of intelligent life beyond our planet beyond the dramatic imaginings of H.G. Wells.
(A wonderful book by the way! The film actually changed only by combing various characters into Palmer Joss and focusing on the Arroway character, so the story if much more straightforward. A totally understandable adaptation, though regretful as you miss out on some very interesting speculative science and philosophical conversations. The scene with the pendulum would have been highy entertaining to watch. Anyway…),
Not only does science fiction examine the possible, they examine the structure and mores of our society right now. People read about the Patriot Act and shrug their shoulders. No one making a huge deal out it, “so why should I care whether or not someone can listen to my cell phone conversations?” Read 1984* , and you realize how much privacy issues matter. Think TV is a great way to get all your factual info from? That reading is for the birds? Fahrenheit 451 will change your mind. It’s not that you have to be paranoid, believing that is how far these things will go, but just to examine how important things such as privacy and literature are in our lives today. It’s an example of “you only miss it when it is gone…” without actually losing it. In today’s vacuous self-centered meandering fiction (thank you Mr. Hemmingway), science fiction has taken the place of Dickens and Twain as our social conscience.
(*And then there Animal Farm, which while an excellent dissertation of why Communism is bad, is just harmful.)
Besides, one should never scoff at space ships and aliens. After all, was not the first nuclear powered submarine launched in 1955 named the Nautilus after Jules Vernes 1870 literary creation?
Disclaimer: I’m not saying I’m a full blown SciFi aficionado. Compared to folks like my sister & her husband and my eldest brother, I’m a tourist. Merely following in the paths they blaze through the stacks. But I will readily defend the importance of such work against the elitist snobbery of the benighted “literati”, who insist that such authors like Pratchett and Stephenson are not “lit-tri-CHA”.
(What is amusing is they will, however lay claim to Orwell and Bradbury. In a hot second. I’ve actually heard people saying that Fahrenheit 451 is not science fiction.)
Well, It All Sounds Nice…
Go away, please.
Well, it looks like everything is going well in the “As the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down” routine put out by Bush in his Ft. Bragg speech (though is it just me, or does this statement sound like he had a rolled up newspaper behind his back), but I have to keep my optimism in reserve as Rumsfeld seems ready to place the burden of responsibility on the Iraqui’s readiness to police itself.
According to who, I wonder.
And what about those 14 bases we were building?
Mind you, in all the yelling I do, I do not want to leave the Iraqi people flat footed. I do not think there is anyway to stop the Civil War that has been brewing in Iraq since the Ottoman Empire collapsed and it’s border were drawn by arbitrarily by Great Britain. However, I would like to see us do all we can to prepare them and rebuild what we have destroyed, conducting ourselves in an honorable manner.
This seems to be happening. I don’t think we would be letting them go making a deal for a pipeline to Iran is it wasn’t, However, the interim Oil Minster making these calls is the controversial Ahamd Chalabi, who has spent many years in bed with the CIA and been convicted of bank fraud In Jordan.
It just all sounds very iffy right now.
Add to all this I have to distrust the words of someone who withheld even worse pictures and video from Abu Gharib, in contempt of the court.
It’s not that I want to see such images, but I really want those “It’s just frat-boy pranks! It’s not as bad as beheading!” dickwads to shut up. As if as long as we are just slightly better than the insurgents, we're just greatest thing since sliced bread. No one can excuse what happened there. If we want the Islamic word to condem terrorism and fix problems from within, shouldn't be also be doing the same? BTW-The Blame Game in those trials goes on.
But in case you are wondering what the War on Terror in Iraq has done for the American people?
Not the rich folks mind you. Just us.
“McClellan said Bush depends on his commanders to say how many troops they need, "And they make decisions based on the conditions and the progress that's being made on the ground."
Oh, how nice of him to start doing this now…
Well, I guess it's better than him never listehing to the military period.
:P
Double :P
posted by KiplingKat | 9:41 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home