Sour Grapes: A Rant
Jun. 20th, 2008 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexxkayI am far from the first person to observe that American-written SF has been getting gloomier and gloomier over the last few years.
Some theorize that this is post-imperial malaise; now that a future dominated by America seems less and less likely, writing about the future becomes less fun for Americans. This seems plausible to me, as there seem some similarities between the tone of what's going on here and now, and the tone of British SF through most of the twentieth century. (Though they seem to have finally gotten over it a few decades ago.)
Politics isn't the only cause of malaise, of course. Economics is another big one. Not only do we not have flying cars, our ability to use *ground* cars has become more and more restricted by economics. Science itself often disappoints: every year, another crop of visionaries who predicted immortality die of old age.
Whatever the causes, there are now a burgeoning number of stories of a type that has always annoyed me. I call these 'sour grapes' stories. They are typified by a basically luddite and reactionary attitude, showing how some particular piece of technology would have negative consequences, and we should be glad we don't have it.
Now, I fully admit that "if this goes on..." warning-story is a long-established and valuable sub-genre of SF. But the good examples of such stories at least attempt logical rigor in thei extrapolation. The 'sour grapes' stories, by contrast, rely upon emotional appeals to hopefully make you overlook the lack of logic in them.
I like to read best-of-the-year SF collections. I realized t'other day that I was falling behind on this, so picked up last year's Hartwell/Cramer (#12). This was published in '07, containing stories originally published in '06, and presumably written in '05.
The first story in it, Nancy Kress's "Nano Comes to Clifford Falls" actually made me angry, and inspired this rant. (The rest of this post contains massive 'spoilers', though I obviously think that there's little in it worth saving.)
The story is set in an old-fashioned midwestern American town. Right away that's a strong signal that a story is going to be nostalgic and backward-looking. They have just received a bunch of nano-machines that can produce food, clothing, and consumer goods (up to and including houses) absolutely free. (There is a brief background mention that this culture already has too-cheap-to-meter power.) At first, everyone (except of course our conservative protagonist) thinks that this is wonderful. Now nobody has to work if they don't want to!
Most people quit their jobs. But the nano provides only goods, not services; with no one working, society collapses into anarchy. (Well, *America* at any rate. Another sign that this story may be motivated by post-imperialist malaise is that there is no mention whatever of the rest of the world, despite it depicting world-changing events.) The government doesn't step in because (as established in a throwaway aside), apparently it decided to dismantle itself!
Our protagonist joins a plucky group of anti-nano-luddites who grow all their own food, and start to build a new society, composed solely of people who understand the value of work for work's sake. (In an attempt to be 'balanced', Kress shows that they allow small uses of nano for things like advanced agricultural research -- but even that is clearly grudging.)
Man, there are so many holes in this story, I hardly know where to start. Yes, this tech would cause some major economic disruption, and there would be some adjustment period. But nothing remotely like what she depicts. Assume, just for a moment, that everyone *did* quit their job, essentially simultaneously. Soon, the guy who used to be an electrician gets a broken toilet. He goes to the ex-plumber and says, hey, if you fix my toilet, I'll fix your house next time you have a wiring problem. Then they both make similar barter deals with the ex-sxhoolteacher in exchange for teaching their kids. Before long, the web of interdependent relationships is so complex that it needs some lubrication. Oh wait, we *have* a technology for that -- it's called money!
While it is conceivable that technology can eventually provide full coverage for the first few levels of Maslow needs, it can't ever cover them all. Even in the most utopian of visions, status remains something that can't be manufactured. While many physical goods may become free, I don't see humans ever giving up the basic notion of money, nor of wanting to work in order to get more of it. (Even Cory Doctorow's Disnryworld fantasia was based around a currency, albeit a highly abstracted one.)
Hm. I wonder why I react in such a strongly negative way to these stories. I mean, I don't just dislike them, they piss me off. Maybe it's because they are *opposed* to my reasons for reading SF for in the first place. They have no sensawunda; they try to *reduce* wonder. They are not enjoyable escapism; they are invariably depressing. They don't show innovative new uses for technology; they are regressive and luddite. They don't show plausible extrapolation; they are always full of huge logic holes in order to make their polemical points sound true. I don't claim that my motives are the only valid reasons for reading SF, but I would have thought them to be common ones. And yet, these stories often get nominated for, and even win, awards. Go figure.
Later: Another type of story that's gaining popularity in recent years is the Alternate History. Quite a lot of these, to my annoyance, are essentially plotless. They are just a thin narrative veneer which allows the author to speculate about how things might have gone differently; all of their significant action is in the past, long over before the story even starts.
It strikes me that this is probably also a symptom of post-imperial malaise. These 'stories' allow one to either say, "I wish things had gone better," or, more commonly these days, "Cheer up, things could have been worse." That is their sole emotional message, and a lot of Americans seem to want to listen.
Call me crazy, but I like my SF forward-looking.
Some theorize that this is post-imperial malaise; now that a future dominated by America seems less and less likely, writing about the future becomes less fun for Americans. This seems plausible to me, as there seem some similarities between the tone of what's going on here and now, and the tone of British SF through most of the twentieth century. (Though they seem to have finally gotten over it a few decades ago.)
Politics isn't the only cause of malaise, of course. Economics is another big one. Not only do we not have flying cars, our ability to use *ground* cars has become more and more restricted by economics. Science itself often disappoints: every year, another crop of visionaries who predicted immortality die of old age.
Whatever the causes, there are now a burgeoning number of stories of a type that has always annoyed me. I call these 'sour grapes' stories. They are typified by a basically luddite and reactionary attitude, showing how some particular piece of technology would have negative consequences, and we should be glad we don't have it.
Now, I fully admit that "if this goes on..." warning-story is a long-established and valuable sub-genre of SF. But the good examples of such stories at least attempt logical rigor in thei extrapolation. The 'sour grapes' stories, by contrast, rely upon emotional appeals to hopefully make you overlook the lack of logic in them.
I like to read best-of-the-year SF collections. I realized t'other day that I was falling behind on this, so picked up last year's Hartwell/Cramer (#12). This was published in '07, containing stories originally published in '06, and presumably written in '05.
The first story in it, Nancy Kress's "Nano Comes to Clifford Falls" actually made me angry, and inspired this rant. (The rest of this post contains massive 'spoilers', though I obviously think that there's little in it worth saving.)
The story is set in an old-fashioned midwestern American town. Right away that's a strong signal that a story is going to be nostalgic and backward-looking. They have just received a bunch of nano-machines that can produce food, clothing, and consumer goods (up to and including houses) absolutely free. (There is a brief background mention that this culture already has too-cheap-to-meter power.) At first, everyone (except of course our conservative protagonist) thinks that this is wonderful. Now nobody has to work if they don't want to!
Most people quit their jobs. But the nano provides only goods, not services; with no one working, society collapses into anarchy. (Well, *America* at any rate. Another sign that this story may be motivated by post-imperialist malaise is that there is no mention whatever of the rest of the world, despite it depicting world-changing events.) The government doesn't step in because (as established in a throwaway aside), apparently it decided to dismantle itself!
Our protagonist joins a plucky group of anti-nano-luddites who grow all their own food, and start to build a new society, composed solely of people who understand the value of work for work's sake. (In an attempt to be 'balanced', Kress shows that they allow small uses of nano for things like advanced agricultural research -- but even that is clearly grudging.)
Man, there are so many holes in this story, I hardly know where to start. Yes, this tech would cause some major economic disruption, and there would be some adjustment period. But nothing remotely like what she depicts. Assume, just for a moment, that everyone *did* quit their job, essentially simultaneously. Soon, the guy who used to be an electrician gets a broken toilet. He goes to the ex-plumber and says, hey, if you fix my toilet, I'll fix your house next time you have a wiring problem. Then they both make similar barter deals with the ex-sxhoolteacher in exchange for teaching their kids. Before long, the web of interdependent relationships is so complex that it needs some lubrication. Oh wait, we *have* a technology for that -- it's called money!
While it is conceivable that technology can eventually provide full coverage for the first few levels of Maslow needs, it can't ever cover them all. Even in the most utopian of visions, status remains something that can't be manufactured. While many physical goods may become free, I don't see humans ever giving up the basic notion of money, nor of wanting to work in order to get more of it. (Even Cory Doctorow's Disnryworld fantasia was based around a currency, albeit a highly abstracted one.)
Hm. I wonder why I react in such a strongly negative way to these stories. I mean, I don't just dislike them, they piss me off. Maybe it's because they are *opposed* to my reasons for reading SF for in the first place. They have no sensawunda; they try to *reduce* wonder. They are not enjoyable escapism; they are invariably depressing. They don't show innovative new uses for technology; they are regressive and luddite. They don't show plausible extrapolation; they are always full of huge logic holes in order to make their polemical points sound true. I don't claim that my motives are the only valid reasons for reading SF, but I would have thought them to be common ones. And yet, these stories often get nominated for, and even win, awards. Go figure.
Later: Another type of story that's gaining popularity in recent years is the Alternate History. Quite a lot of these, to my annoyance, are essentially plotless. They are just a thin narrative veneer which allows the author to speculate about how things might have gone differently; all of their significant action is in the past, long over before the story even starts.
It strikes me that this is probably also a symptom of post-imperial malaise. These 'stories' allow one to either say, "I wish things had gone better," or, more commonly these days, "Cheer up, things could have been worse." That is their sole emotional message, and a lot of Americans seem to want to listen.
Call me crazy, but I like my SF forward-looking.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-21 02:16 am (UTC)(word slip! edited now)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-21 03:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-21 10:54 am (UTC)So the story you're talking about has a giant logical problem in it: that the technology, in the context mentioned, could not possibly produce the negative effect that it does in the story. As the story starts heading down that path, my brain starts rebelling: no, it says, this is stupid. This is not even a reasonable guess about how things would work. But if I continue reading (which I almost always do), the plotline slowly drags through the inevitable consequences of something that wouldn't ever happen, and the whole exercise seems ludicrous and vile. It's because the author has an end in mind, and is /forcing/ the events of the story to that end rather than subtly guiding you to that end; it's a magic trick where the magician has accidentally shown you the hidden pocket in his coat ahead of time, but stumbles through the rest of the act anyway even though you know damn well where the doves are coming from.
Come to think of it, this is the same problem I have with reading Ayn Rand.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-21 03:31 pm (UTC)So, here's a question - does the equation change if it could not produce the positive effect that it does in the story?
I mean, look at Star Trek - one of the most beloved chunks of the Sci-Fi genre. It is just chock full of holes of just the same sort, but with positive spin rather than negative. Do these cheese you off, too?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-21 04:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-22 02:37 am (UTC)Honestly, authors can usually work around this with vagueness. Star Trek once did things this way; we know about the society, but we didn't used to know where that society came from, so it was hard to say how unrealistic it was. That's a common trick, and it's a good one. Don't want to explain how your FTL drive works? Don't! Who cares? The important thing is the effect. Obviously you have to strike a balance there so that people can make some kind of connection between their current state and the state in the story, but you can definitely get away with not explaining a few important plot elements per story.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-21 04:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-22 02:55 pm (UTC)That being said, what could you see me doing for you in barter for some of your nummy strawberries? ; D See you at the Buttery, I hope!
I am still reading historical SF, so I can't speak to the gloominess of contemporary SF. I usually avoid the latter anyway because my intuition tells me there's too much crap to bother. Always hoping someone will point me to something worthwhile that's been written recently.
Cheers,
WGG
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-22 03:53 pm (UTC)Pick them.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-24 05:08 pm (UTC)This is actually one thing I'm really curious about WRT the upcoming election. I've got a theory that the relatively bleak and navel-gazing state of SF today is partly due to political pessimism. If that's true, then I would *expect* an Obama win to make a non-trivial difference there: regardless of what he accomplishes, his message is deliberately optimistic, and I would expect that to cause some bounceback in the tone of SF. It'll be interesting to see if that happens...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-28 10:14 pm (UTC)This pissed me off. The idea that rather than looking forward at what the human mind can achieve by developing tech (and itself), the main thrust of the section was looking back to a golden age where things were achieved by magic struck me as wrong and deeply symptomatic of our political problems.
Now you're describing a type of story that I didn't know existed and getting me all pissed off again. *G*
I think there needs to be some underlying political or cultural hope for good forward-thinking science fiction to be produced.