Will fantasy outlive Science Fiction? I think so. Fantasy is timeless. Science fiction is based on futurism, a particular view of how the future stands in relation to the present.
I am here distinguishing ‘futurism’ from ‘millenarianism’. The world view of futurism is the view that the future will be to the present as the present stands to the past: but it is “the past” of Darwinian evolution, not the past of the Book of Genesis. In futurism, if the past was more primitive, the future will be more advanced. The past was the horse-and-buggy; the future is the flying car. The past was the ape-man, the future is the bald, dwarf-bodied big-brained superman, perhaps jaunting around in a three-legged war machine. Or maybe the future is Mad Max jaunting around in his gasoline-starved car with his meat-starved mad dog, depending on where the speculation thinks the world is heading: but in any case, it is a natural, not a supernatural.
In the millenarian world view, on the other hand, the past was The Golden Age, the Age of Saturn, and the future is the Kali Yuga. The future is the promise that the Armies of Light will destroy the Sons of Darkness that rule the present world, all harms will be healed, all tears wiped away, and New Jerusalem descend from the clouds, or, if you prefer, Baldir the Good return from his exile in Nastrond. The end of history is accomplished by a supernatural agency.
With no offense to my fellow Christians, I propose that an audience whose view of the future is millenarian has no real reason to be curious about the speculations of science fiction: if it is an article of faith that the Twilight of the Gods will take place as prophesied, reading about The Invasion of the Living Brains of Mars has no appeal. If you already know that the World Tree will be burned by Surtur, what do you care about a story where Earth is pashed to bits by some wandering planet like Zyra, Bronson Alpha, Nemesis, or Mongo?
Millenarianism is not confined to Christianity. If you are a good and loyal Marxist, any depiction of the future that did not contain the prophesied socialist utopia would strike you as wrong-headed and perverse.
Science Fiction’s attitude toward the future is much the same as its attitude toward other planets. Before the industrial revolution, stories of voyages to other planets were trips to spiritual heavens–for example, when Astolfo flies by Hippogriff to the Moon in ORLANDO FURIOSO, he meets St. John of Patmos, who rules over a realm where all the lost memories and vanities of mankind rest. On the other hand, when Cavor flies to the Moon in FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, in an antigravity sphere no less impossible than a hippogriff, he arrives at a material world inhabited by rational beings no less physical than men of the antipodes, or some island visited by Gulliver.
Likewise here, science fiction in general assumes the future will not hold the New Jerusalem, the new heavens and new Earth of the Apocalypse, but men like us. When HG Wells’ THE TIME TRAVELER traveled to the year 802701 AD, he meets the race that is the outcome of Darwinian evolution acting on current social divisions. The whole appeal of the book is the message that history is a soulless, mechanical force, and that we humans cannot stand above or aside it. In science fiction , if the future-men are changed into immortals or godlike creatures, it is through science and technology that the change is made: even if the change is a spiritual one, the magic power that changes the souls of men must be called “psionics” or “parapsychology” to fit it within the assumptions of the science fiction genre.
I have not read the popular “LEFT BEHIND” series, but from what I hear of them, it sounds like they are not science fiction, even though they take place in the future. The world-view of the Apocalypse of John is not the world-view of the consensus of science fiction readers.
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
August 2, 2007 @ 2:38 pm
