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I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it.
All of the ephemera that is far too trivial to be bothered with elsewhere on this site or, depending on your point of view, a meta-commentary on it. This ephemera includes, but is not limited to art, music and literature. Most of the content here will be discussed in terms that are as abstract as possible, reality being a singularly overrated concept.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Charlie Stross writes about the current resurgence in British science fiction and the converse decline in American science fiction:"During the 1947-79 period, an era of British political history dominated by the long shadow of the retreat from empire, there was a definite note of pessimism to SF's vision of the future. Margaret Thatcher's government was a polarizing force in British culture. It shook society to its core, closing off some avenues and opening up others. It was a period of deep uncertainty and stark division, during which the post-war consensus established by the One Nation Conservatives and the Old Labour Party evaporated as if it had never existed... The heavy industries -- coal, steel, shipbuilding, heavy engineering -- went to the wall. Those that survive today are much smaller specialists competing in global markets, not the archaic and historic legacy of the 19th century. And it was during the Thatcher years that the fate of the British Empire was finally sealed -- not with a bang but a firework show, as Chris Patten managed the hand-over of Hong Kong in 1996... Britain's future within the EU was becoming visible, and a new political epoch was dawning in which rather than being a retreating imperial power the culture of the UK would reflect its position as one of the poles of influence within a new, nascent superpower.
The American future is currently uncertain, unpleasant, polarized, regimented, and pessimistic. The American century that dates to VJ Day, August 1945, is more than half over. Much as the shadows lengthened over the coal-driven British Empire during the age of oil, so the shadows are looming over the oil-driven American Empire. Peak Oil is a spectre haunting the corridors of Washington DC, as it haunts the centres of power in every other nation. But the United States is unusual among the industrialized nations in its dependence on oil, and its vulnerability when the price of oil begins to rise. Transportation and climate militate against the easy adoption of other lifestyles, and the demand for stability in the oil market is leading the current administration ever deeper into the morass of Middle Eastern politics."
I'm not convinced. Firstly, Stross both complains that American science fiction was held back by too many certainties in a world where it was the only empire and history seemed to have ended. He also complains that it is currently held back by the vision of an uncertain and troubled future. It seems difficult to have that argument both ways. In practice, the prospect of a troubled future or present should be far from an obstacle to literature; that is after all precisely the conditions under which Brave New World, 1984 and We were produced; Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake proved that such dystopian themes can still create literature in the same way. Given that Stross alludes to him I'd also note that that post-war gloom proved a highly fertile ground for John Wyndham's dystopian imagination. Above all, I can't help but rather concluding that I find it rather difficult to understand why Stross seems to feel that Britain and Europe are excluded from the factors driving American pessimism and don't have reasons of their own to face the future with trepidation.
posted by Richard 9:38 am
