Click Here to Read Part I – As I said in the previous post, science fiction isn’t just a genre, it isn’t just a community, or a hobby. It’s a tool, it’s a weapon in the war against our dystopian reality. We can weaponize this power to slay these monstrous problems, and it’s why I think we can use scifi to build our future together.
While scifi needs commerce to exist, it can’t forget it’s role: scifi is about entertainment, curiosity. Science fiction is also about being a public service. In the same way the news was once considered a public service, but now since it’s ‘chasing an audience’ the nature of what gets reported is directly connected to what will get that audience. If science fiction understood its role as a public service of entertainment AND enlightenment, we’d get better stories and a better society.
So while I think big business and scifi can coexist peacefully, I am making the case for autonomous science fiction. Real, authentic science fiction has to exist as an art beyond commerce if it’s going to be anything that looks like genuine, legitimate hope. If we’re going to build the future we want, if we’re going to become the people we know we can be, it has to come from inside. Science fiction is actualized imagination and determination.
If we’re going to build the future we want, become the people we know we can be, it has to come from inside.
Yes, I know this is a huge lift. Yes, I realize it’s going to require cooperation from millions of individual people. But what other choice do we have? Since difficult roads lead to beautiful places, we need a roadmap to getting on those roads. We need to know how to do it. How will we get to the future we want if we don’t build it ourselves? How do we build our future if we don’t understand that we can? How can we understand that we can, if our cultural myth is ‘you can only be powerful with a superpower that randomly falls into your life?’
Let’s take it a step further. Further, how do we teach ourselves, and the next generation, the value of self-determination over passive acceptance? How do you make a civilization of self-actualized people if they’re bombarded by cultural myths that scream ‘random chance is your only hope for success?’ Unchanged: Further, how do we teach ourselves, and the next generation, the value of self-determination over passive acceptance? How do you make a civilization of self-actualized people if they’re bombarded by cultural myths that scream ‘random chance is your only hope for success?’
Look, Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars are fine in their place. I’m suggesting that civilization suffers when our attention is clogged with scifi tropes like ‘mild-mannered nobody suddenly stumbles into superpowers’ (Looking at you, Spiderman, Hulk, Human Torch, and Carol Danvers). We need something that brings us back from the suicidal brink of cynical compliance.
That thing is autonomous science fiction. ‘Sage Scifi,’ ‘autonomous scifi,’ call it what you want. We need actualized imagination and determination if we’re going to build the future we want, become the people we know we can be.
My job is to rise above their cruelty, show empathy when circumstances change. Rise above the reversals of fortune peeled back the layers to reveal the dismal and lonely world I’ve been navigating since birth. I could have turned my back like they did, but instead I’m trying to reach out. So my light shines by writing stories for people. Science fiction is a weapon in the war against our dystopian reality.
Yes, it takes a certain amount of bravery and willingness to take risk, but that’s what our heroes do! Isn’t it time for us to do the same? Since science fiction ‘can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends.’ Let’s use it to those ends!
Craftspeople and makers have been doing this for centuries. Not only do they think about *what* they make, they think about *how* they make it. That craftsmanship Like any other art form, scifi is important to us. If it follows that we want to live lives of purpose and values, we should want to make science fiction better, correct? Passively or actively, scifi has ‘gotten better’ since the 1930s. We improve what we value, and science fiction is valuable to all of us. I’m suggesting we continue that path, and apply some ‘best practices’ of improvement.
On a social level, if you don’t like bad things happening to you, don’t let it happen to other people. Call it out, support the victims, recognize opportunities to right the wrong. Uncancelling people takes time; commit yourself to being a long-haul supporter. Commit to recognizing how painful it must be to be judged before being understood, and recognize opportunities to eliminate those kinds of prejudice for others.
How do we get there? We can ask ourselves some important questions:
- Am I consuming scifi or do I produce scifi, or a little of both?
- Am I helping scifi improve?
- Am I a values-driven scifi community member?
- Am I helping scifi build resiliency in itself and its members?
These are rhetorical questions, but they can illuminate powerful answers. My point is that we exist on the backs of previous generations’ commitment to maturity. Their courage, curiosity, and passion got us to here. Now it’s time for us to take the next step. Let’s build the future we want, let’s be the people we know we can be. Let’s use scifi to build our future together!
