Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Science Fiction as a Fascist Enterprise

I am currently making my way through the second V miniseries, after watching the first one. As most of you no doubt know, V is an allegory, rather heavy handed, about fascism. Other science fiction series have conducted similar allegories over the years. Babylon 5's Earth plot thread was largely about fascism, as was the Dalek plot thread in Doctor Who (particularly after the introduction of Davros). Blake's 7, too, critiqued fascism in its own inimitable fashion.

Yet for me, science fiction itself can often be fascistic, particularly in its promotion of crude racialisms. This is most evidently seen in the Social Darwinian aspects of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers and the works of H.G. Wells, both of which promoted a brutal "tooth and claw" philosophy that had more to do with 20th century capitalist ethics than it had to do with true Darwinian biology. Christian social critic James Herrick has called this tendency in science fiction "The Myth of the Spiritual Race" and points out its similarity to Aryan ubermensch philosophies, such as Hitler's. One need not agree with Herrick's personal philosophy to see that their is some validity to his claims. Norman Spinrad, for instance, famously critiqued those same racialisms in his novel Iron Dream. Personally, I am always a little uncomfortable with the wise-Zen like races of science fiction, such as the Dorsai, the Minbarri, and the Vulcans. There is an underlying hint of white worship here that deeply unsettles me. I think it would be better if science fiction refrained from constructing these kind of simplistic racial systems, with the good wise white men and the evil dark skinned aliens, but science fiction, unfortunately, is unlikely to do this anytime soon.

7 comments:

  1. I have never really considered this, but my first impression would be that of Shadow and light. In B5 the shadow where bad and Vorlons almost pure light. It is probably due to judeo/christian beliefs that give power to this symbolism. It it present in a bunch of Genres including westerns where White hat was good black hat was bad, not to mention the fighting with Mexicans and Indians.

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  2. Yea, I sometimes find my love of sci-fi disturbing, because of all the racism and sheer materialism of the genre. It sometimes seems just like an excuse to buy lots of trinkets.

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  3. I find I tend to avoid lots of sci-fi due to this. I've been generally very Cyberpunk-centric which tends to avoid pro-Fascist thinking a bit more.

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  4. Hi Nick,
    Welcome to the blog! How did you find it, by the way? Yea, I've heard cyberpunk has a more anarchist\Marxist bent. It's funny that sci-fi seems to attract both fascist texts (like Starship Troopers - the book, not the subversive movie) and anti-fascist declerations, like Blake's 7.

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  5. I'm a friend of Budd's and he knows I'm a lefty sci-fi fan.

    I think speculative fiction allows you to explore ideas outside the realm of common sense and levelheadedness. It allows you to create or enjoy your own little mythology and express your POV without being called out on specifics for slander or libel whichever the correct term is.

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  6. I forgot to address cyberpunk. Cyberpunk-style can be used for anything but a lot of the themes estabished by William Gibson [my fave] tend to favor lefties.

    The setting is generally near future, early levels of cyborgs/biotech. Corporations essentially run everything [even more than presently] and do so with even greater damage to the average Joe than in current reality.

    It reads somewhat like corporate feudalism almost. Being from the 1980s it mostly focusses on the Japanese as the corporate dominators. These days it would probably be the Chinese, Indians, and/or Brazillians in an effort to try and predict and exaggerate trends.

    The more you move away from Gibson the more the emphasis can change depending on the writer's political predilections.

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  7. Yea, basically Golden Age leaned conservative, while Cyberpunk and New Wave leaned left. At least that's how I see it. I haven't tackled Neuromancer, but I mean to at some point.

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