Comments on: Constructing Cultures

By: ER

ER — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 11:52:24 +0000

Reading Heinlein’s later books (post-”Stranger”) is like watching an orgy in a Bible movie.

There’s a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on, but if you look closely, nobody is actually getting laid.

By: ER

ER — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 11:11:49 +0000

But there is no reason why social and behavioral sciences concepts can’t be expressed in fiction instead of as scholarly monographs or philosophical essays. And if fiction can be used to explore an individual human soul, it certainly can be used to map a society or a culture. Historical fiction can be used to speculate about what really happened in the past, and science fiction can do the same for the future.

There is plenty of historical precedent where serious fiction has been used to explore societal possibilities; The Republic, Erewhon, Utopia, Brave New World, 1984, even Lord of the Flies qualifies. Some of these are even used as textbooks today precisely because of their social commentary.

The author uses, as you point out, a contrived or exaggerated fictional situation to show what can go wrong, or what mechanisms are at work behind the scenes. You don’t need to believe livestock can talk to benefit from “Animal Farm”.

Of course, there is always the SF writer who devises an elaborate future society or alien culture in their mind using his or her own political mythology to prove how their paradise would work if only people got smart and accepted it unquestioningly and evildoers quit trying to frustrate it. This is not an exploration of a possibility, but an attempt to establish a probability. The writing is not critical or questiioing, it is laudatory and reassuring. They create a fantasy world that shows how if their ideas were adopted, things would suddenly become wonderful. Heinlein and Rand fall in this category.

At least, with Heinlein you got a little physics with your catechism.

By: alcaray

alcaray — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 08:31:50 +0000

…have some protagonist from a culture similar to ours who is thrust into another culture that is built on applying some principle to an extreme degree. What happens if businessmen, or Roman Catholics, or garbage collectors or ??? rearrange society to suit themselves? The thing about these stories is that they are written by people who have a political point to make, or more likely they just want to tell a story that will sell books. I don’t think that we can mine them for lessons on how to live. Looking at puppeteers does not tell you what happens when you choose a herd-based lifestyle. It just tells you what Niven thought would make a cool story.

On the other hand, if we go Heinleinian, then maybe there’s a chance I can hook up with a gorgeous young woman.

By: bowser

bowser — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 00:35:45 +0000

And I don’t think this edition of Homo Sapiens Sapiens will ever get to the stars for the very reasons you mention. The ideas of division, competition and fighting for territory are built into our very genes. Mankind must grow through that stage of growth, and the adolescent fighting stages appeals to egos.

When has mankind not engaged in war, if not foreigners then internally with sects and some other divisions. Life has been cheap.