Positively positive that positive SF doesn't have to be positive to be positive

Despite having fun with that headline, I'm talking about a serious subject. Over on his Twitter account, Jetse de Vries--editor of the upcoming Shine anthology of positive SF--says the genre is failing the people of the world, who are suffering from global warming, disease, hurricanes, job losses and so on. These people are looking for answers on how to improve their future, and "SF isn't telling them: SF only tells them how excriciably horrible the next apocalypse will be. Trust me: they *know*!"

Jetse adds: "I'm extremely tired of the argument that projecting the 'if-this-goes-on' future will prevent it from happening: people want *solutions* too. So yes, Paolo (Bacigalupi), make fun of me all you want, but while calling out FIRE, FIRE is one thing (SF is great at that), it's the firefighters who extinguish the fire & the foreseeing planners who try to *prevent* future fires. SF lacks the latter, unfortunately."

In closing, Jetse says that because SF isn't providing these answers, the genre has become marginal.

Since the biggest movie event of the year is a SF film--and people embrace all things SF in video games and Hollywood blockbusters--I wouldn't use the term marginal to describe the genre. Has literary SF become marginal? Yes, that could easily be argued. But even this lesser marginalization isn't due to a lack of positive forecasting of answers.

First off, I'd like to know what "solutions" the Golden Age of SF actually projected, or indeed any age of SF ever successfully projected. The most famous example given for the genre projecting positive answers was dealing with nuclear holocaust, as in Walter M. Miller Jr's classic A Canticle for Leibowitz. But these stories didn't provide answers on how to avoid destroying ourselves with nuclear weapons. Instead, the genre gave a warning. Humanity had to find our own way (and we still are).

Likewise with SF from all ages. Yes, the genre dealt very well with showing us how technology was changing, and how human could adapt and change with our technology. But on all of the major issues of the last century, SF either missed the boat or played catch-up once the issues were already being dealt with. For example, the Golden Age of SF of the 1940s and 50s took place when a lack of equal rights for women and people of color were pressing issues around the globe. But you do not find the classics of Golden Age fiction offering solutions to these issues (or even acknowledging they existed except in a off-handed manner). By the time the genre began to write about environmental and population issues in the 1960s and 70s, our society was already trying to deal with these problems--and again, the genre merely showed the problem, not the solution. Same with the current problem of global warming. While writers dealing with global warming show what could happen, I haven't seen one offer a valid solution that doesn't already exist in some way among the advocates and politicians trying to deal with the problem.

The truth is SF rarely gets in front of human understanding on the problems we create for ourselves. As such, it is difficult for the genre to provide answers for what ails humanity--especially problems created by social issues, which again is where I'd place global warming and most of the other items mentioned here.  We create our own messes, and we must find a way to clean up the mess even as we create ever more messes.

So what is positive about the genre? That's simple: SF's outlook on humanity's future. That humanity is able to always find a solution to the problems we create. That we as a species do not give into despair and give up. I would argue that this positive outlook is what is missing from SF these days, and also explains why the literary SF genre is in such trouble. SF found in video games and on the big screen generally keeps to the classic positive attitude of SF; while this doesn't totally explain their success, I believe it is part of it.

I'm all for positive SF, even as I also see a need for SF with a less positive outlook on life. And if SF can provide some positive answers for our future, even better. But based on the genre's track record, I'm not holding my breath.

Comments

[SMD]

I've never understood what it is that makes an SF story "positive." Isn't a happy ending positive? Most science fiction has that, even if everything building up to it seems bad. There are obvious exceptions (1984 didn't end happy, though the 1984 movie left us with a slightly more positive note). I'm going to read the anthology when it comes out, but right now I can't imagine how to write a story that is positive all through. What would the conflict be? Solving a problem? That wouldn't work for me. I'd be bored out of my mind. I need conflict and bad guys.

I guess I'll wait and see when the anthology comes out.

[James Bloomer]

I'm not sure that analysing the past of SF helps much, there are too many variables: literature is a product of it's time, maturity of the genre, the technology of the world when the novels were written etc. So whilst you can look back and make valid comments about the Golden Age of SF, I personally don't think that they will be particularly relevant to now.

However when you say "..SF's outlook on humanity's future. That humanity is able to always find a solution to the problems we create." that's exactly how I interpret Jetse's manifesto (for want of a better word).

It seems to me that it's actually easier to pull some optimism out of a dystopia, because you can say "look the worlds gone to hell and we still delivered letters" or something. And that's fine, and it can give us hope in humanity. Harder is starting from now, near future, and thinking how on earth (literally!) can we make this better?

Although it is undoubtedly difficult for SF writers to be ahead of scientific solutions for problems, there is one advantage: SF Writers can make stuff up! Science can be glacial at times, waiting for consensus and statistics and evidence (well, unless you're a theoretical physicist ;-) ). Writers can make a few assumptions and head off on a journey of fiction. The fact that not many people seem to be doing it (or rather, getting published doing it) is actually surprising.

SMD: Optimism doesn't negate conflict. You can still have a conflict, bad guys and a problem. Pacific Edge by Kim Stanley Robinson is my favourite example of this.

[Rachel Swirsky]

I agree with what you're saying. Science fiction isn't actually science, much as we like to tout our genre's influence on scientists via things like cell phones/communicators. Science fiction writers are probably not going to provide the means for solving the world's scientific ills. Utopian fiction sometimes provides ways for thinking about how social problems could be solved, and here I'm thinking of fiction like Woman on the Edge of Time which imagines both positive and negative futures. But the real solutions to social problems are unlikely to look exactly like utopian fiction as I'm sure everyone basically agrees.

My issue with Jetse's bizarre diatribe was his insistence that the only fiction that was "grown up" was his own hobby horse of optimistic SF. Feh on this stupid carping about other subgenres. It was stupid when the mundane SF folk did it and stupid when Jetse did it. I hope Jetse reconsiders this silliness.

[Rachel Swirsky]

(and I did want to add that I think the project of optimistic SF is inherently a good one. Jetse is right to say that there's room for more of this, and a need for more of this. It's a good idea and should produce good fiction. It's just the *only* kind of good fiction...)

[Jason Sanford]

Great points all around.

I should add that I'm really excited about Jetse's anthology and hope it lands as much attention as it deserves. I know it's the one anthology I'm certain to purchase next year.

[Rachel Swirsky]

"I should add that I'm really excited about Jetse's anthology and hope it lands as much attention as it deserves. I know it's the one anthology I'm certain to purchase next year."

Ditto.