SF and Politics
Am I the only SF author to find geo-politics so interesting? Maybe not... but then, I've always found SF and Fantasy both very weak on politics. And I don't know why that should be. If anyone was writing Science Fiction in the early 1900s, and projecting forward into likely events of the next century, undoubtedly the biggest single thing they'd have had to get right was the rise of the USA. Sure, they could have taken a pure SF-science approach, and written about the wondrous implications of widespread electricity generation, cars, aeroplanes, radio, telephones and computers... but if you miss the rise of America, you miss the human context within which all this cool technological stuff happens.
Despite currently studying much politics to go with my Bachelor of International Studies, I can find the everyday cut and thrust of politics as boring as the next person. Men or women in suits yelling at each other doesn't excite me all that much. But ultimately, politics is about people, and how people live. And so, believe it or not, is technology. I don't believe you can separate one from the other, when writing about possible futures... which is possibly why I've found much SF lacking in the political dimension. SF is frequently accused of lacking in the human dimension too, so I guess one goes with the other.
But like my early 1900s example -- if you were to jump ahead in time another hundred years, I'd reckon the biggest thing that'd hit you about how the world's changed (apocalyptic scenarios aside) is just how powerful China and India are. This is a very recurring theme of mine, but then, geo-political power is an inescapably important thing... as anyone imagining a world without American dominance today could appreciate. How different would the world have been without America's rise? On the one hand, we'd not have so much American popculture and fast food, which wouldn't be a big loss. On the other hand, western liberalism and democracy probably wouldn't have survived WW2.
So many new technologies were either invented in America, or driven by American political or economic developments. To have some idea of what will be developed in the future, you have to guess who'll be doing the developing, and why, and on what scale. I personally believe that the greatest challenge the USA will face in the mid-future is how to manage it's own relative decline in the world... a bit like arranging your last will and testament. Don't get me wrong, I see no reason a future America can't continue to raise living standards indefinitely (I'm a hopeless optimist like that) and the lives of ordinary Americans will keep getting better. It's just that there's other nations out there, of equal or vastly greater population, who will do even better, because technologies and global economic systems are systematically erasing each of the reasons why one group of people should be richer than another group (geography, cultural isolation, education, access to wealth and technology, etc).
But like arranging your last will and testament, you have to figure which people you want to leave in charge of all the goodies after you're no longer in a position to be calling all the shots -- in this case, merely declined, not dead... but if you leave all the goodies in the wrong hands, that could change fast. This is why democratisation and rule of law are so important to me. America is freedom's guarantor today, however little some people like its methods. America guarantees that democracy and free speech has more guns than the alternatives, and I quite like that situation, as far as it goes. But if China does not democratise as fast as some have hoped (myself included), then that could be a problem, and makes it imperative that India's development works in parallel. I just don't want a authoritarian nation to be the most powerful in the world. I really don't. It's not a racial thing at all, it's a political thing, I couldn't care less if the democrats are Asian, Hispanic, African or Arab, so long as they're real democrats and won't be sending jackboots to kick down my door anytime soon. Or anyone else's door.
So this is the complicated mess that is the future -- an interwoven maze of politics, racial identity and advancing technology, all feeding off and affecting each other's development. A lot of people, when looking into the future, just pick one element and extrapolate from that, without seeming to realise that the real trick is in working out how all the different elements interact. Which is why I'm not a distopian, and distrust those who proclaim 'the end is nigh', because when you examine what they say, you find they've usually just extrapolated from one development and ignored all the others. If Science Fiction has a failing in telling the future, it's this -- too much technology, not enough politics. But on the other hand, I'm sure it's possible to have it the other way around, too.
Despite currently studying much politics to go with my Bachelor of International Studies, I can find the everyday cut and thrust of politics as boring as the next person. Men or women in suits yelling at each other doesn't excite me all that much. But ultimately, politics is about people, and how people live. And so, believe it or not, is technology. I don't believe you can separate one from the other, when writing about possible futures... which is possibly why I've found much SF lacking in the political dimension. SF is frequently accused of lacking in the human dimension too, so I guess one goes with the other.
But like my early 1900s example -- if you were to jump ahead in time another hundred years, I'd reckon the biggest thing that'd hit you about how the world's changed (apocalyptic scenarios aside) is just how powerful China and India are. This is a very recurring theme of mine, but then, geo-political power is an inescapably important thing... as anyone imagining a world without American dominance today could appreciate. How different would the world have been without America's rise? On the one hand, we'd not have so much American popculture and fast food, which wouldn't be a big loss. On the other hand, western liberalism and democracy probably wouldn't have survived WW2.
So many new technologies were either invented in America, or driven by American political or economic developments. To have some idea of what will be developed in the future, you have to guess who'll be doing the developing, and why, and on what scale. I personally believe that the greatest challenge the USA will face in the mid-future is how to manage it's own relative decline in the world... a bit like arranging your last will and testament. Don't get me wrong, I see no reason a future America can't continue to raise living standards indefinitely (I'm a hopeless optimist like that) and the lives of ordinary Americans will keep getting better. It's just that there's other nations out there, of equal or vastly greater population, who will do even better, because technologies and global economic systems are systematically erasing each of the reasons why one group of people should be richer than another group (geography, cultural isolation, education, access to wealth and technology, etc).
But like arranging your last will and testament, you have to figure which people you want to leave in charge of all the goodies after you're no longer in a position to be calling all the shots -- in this case, merely declined, not dead... but if you leave all the goodies in the wrong hands, that could change fast. This is why democratisation and rule of law are so important to me. America is freedom's guarantor today, however little some people like its methods. America guarantees that democracy and free speech has more guns than the alternatives, and I quite like that situation, as far as it goes. But if China does not democratise as fast as some have hoped (myself included), then that could be a problem, and makes it imperative that India's development works in parallel. I just don't want a authoritarian nation to be the most powerful in the world. I really don't. It's not a racial thing at all, it's a political thing, I couldn't care less if the democrats are Asian, Hispanic, African or Arab, so long as they're real democrats and won't be sending jackboots to kick down my door anytime soon. Or anyone else's door.
So this is the complicated mess that is the future -- an interwoven maze of politics, racial identity and advancing technology, all feeding off and affecting each other's development. A lot of people, when looking into the future, just pick one element and extrapolate from that, without seeming to realise that the real trick is in working out how all the different elements interact. Which is why I'm not a distopian, and distrust those who proclaim 'the end is nigh', because when you examine what they say, you find they've usually just extrapolated from one development and ignored all the others. If Science Fiction has a failing in telling the future, it's this -- too much technology, not enough politics. But on the other hand, I'm sure it's possible to have it the other way around, too.
3 Comments:
"On the one hand, we'd not have so much American popculture and fast food, which wouldn't be a big loss."
True...but we'd have someones. Though it would be interesting to see what the world would be like with Australia as the major cultural hegemonic influence.
Heh! With twenty million people, that's not likely. Like I said, if America weren't here, likely our pop culture would be standing to attention before a communist flag of some description singing to the glory of some mass-murdering tyrant. Or before a Japanese Imperial flag praising the glory of the Emperor. Or before a great swastika, singing the praises of whoever the new Furher was.
Which is why I don't complain too much about American pop culture, it's a very small price to pay.
Speaking of which, another reason to hope India outpaces China in the battle for global supremacy -- music! There's a lot of Chinese culture I love, but the karaoke virus had caught on terribly last I was there, and I don't think there's a cure. Indian pop music isn't as good as their pure classical (which can be incredible) but it beats the heck out of Chinese karaoke-pop (most of their pop songs seem to be created on the precondition that they be singable to drunk businessmen after work). Sitting in a Chinese restaurant in Shanghai, listening to the latest karaoke-pop at 130 decibels reminded me of Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect being forced to listen to Vogon poetry...
karaoke: Japanese for "you only think you won WW2"
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