NOT using the Programme Guide of the 2022 World Science Fiction Convention, ChiCON 8, which I WOULD have attended in person if I had disposable income, but I retired two years ago, my work health insurance stopped, and I’m now living on Social Security, Medicare, and Savings…I WILL NOT use the Programme Guide to jump off, jump on, rail against, or shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…
While this is absolutely OFF topic, it is strangely, at this time, point on Topic.
Some years ago, my wife and I started watching a Netflix series called “The Crown”. Apparently, it took the television world by storm – and generated an immense amount of criticism because, while taking History as a firm foundation, it (apparently) flew off the handle more than once.
Wikipedia summarized it thus: “The first season covers the period from Elizabeth's marriage to Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in 1947 to the disintegration of her sister Princess Margaret's engagement to Group Captain Peter Townsend in 1955. The second season covers the period from the Suez Crisis in 1956 to the retirement of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1963 and the birth of Prince Edward in 1964. The third season spans 1964 to 1977, includes Harold Wilson's two periods as prime minister, and introduces Camilla Shand. The fourth season spans 1979 to the early 1990s and includes Margaret Thatcher's tenure as prime minister and Prince Charles's marriage to Lady Diana Spencer. The fifth and sixth seasons, which will close the series, will cover the Queen's reign into the 21st century…” and as of nine days ago, I imagine it will now also cover her passing.
At first glance, it seems that the queen of a rather small island nation would have virtually no impact on the world.
At second glance, no only did the country she “ruled” have an impact on the planet – invading and claiming for its own uses every continent on the planet, it also claimed to rule some fifty-eight countries, including the Thirteen British Colonies, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, and had effectively a monopoly on the planet’s economy for some time – creating and expanding a Slave Trade that still sends shock waves across the Human homeworld today…
So, what does this have to do with science fiction?
Ask George Lucas about the roots of the Empire…or Isaac Asimov about the roots of the Empire…or Frank Herbert about the roots of the Empire…or Lois McMaster Bujold about the roots of the Cetagandan or the Barrayaran Empires…or…how many science fiction writers have created Empires to rule Humanity et al? Or Phillip K. Dick?
How about Police States? George Orwell? Phillip K. Dick (again)? Cory Doctorow? Suzanne Collins? Yevgeny Zamyatin? Margaret Atwood?
Consumer States? Paolo Bacigalupi? Ian McDonald? Max Barry? Robert A. Heinlein (TANSTAAFL, anyone?)
And how many have created Republics…that have lasted? Ursula K. LeGuin…sometimes. Kim Stanely Robinson, certainly. In fact, he’s become something of a hero of he Future. THE NEW REPUBLIC journalist Jeet Heer wrote almost a decade ago, “Robinson, in effect, sees science itself as a kind of utopia: a collaborative, cooperative, international, disinterested attempt to understand the world and make it a better place. He doesn’t deny that, in practice, science might be corrupted by everything from petty rivalry to cupidity, but the act of doing science carries with it values that need to be broadened out and made a part of political life.” And yet, we have a republic; we have the spotlight on the world stage, but the dysfunction of government can hardly be laid solely at the feet of obtuse Republicans. In fact, there seems to be dissent in the Party of Al Gore on how to do science and apply it to our lives. Jeet Heer concludes the article with the following: “To paraphrase Jameson once again, the lesson of [Robinson’s book] 2312 is that it is easier to terraform Venus than to reach an international climate accord. Even the most splendid utopian imagination has its limits.”
Yet, the statement seems to assume that scientists will save the day (as usual), but makes no mention at all of HOW THE NEWLY TERRAFORMED VENUS WILL BE GOVERNED… In Robinson’s RED MARS, BLUE MARS, AND GREEN MARS, there are troubles in paradise because people STILL don’t know how to get along.
As a science teacher for 40 years, and a science fiction reader and writer for fifty-three years, I can say with a bit of authority that the PROBLEM is not the science. The problem is – and always will be – the PEOPLE.
Oh, and in case you didn’t see it? In the NEW Star Wars, the New Republic is DISINTEGRATED by the New Police Order…
Resource: https://newrepublic.com/article/123217/new-utopians, https://best-sci-fi-books.com/21-best-political-science-fiction-books/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire
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