Hi Emrah
On Thu, 28 Aug 1997, emrah goker wrote:
> There is a paper in my head to write about ecologist utopias in science
> fiction and their cultural, ideological, or who knows, political-economic
> implications. I consider criticizing the "gaiaist" position in ecology
> which holds that the human species is a point -rather a big one- in the
> organic continuum of Nature, being no different than, say, an old oak tree
> or a pretty badger.
Your post was fascinating. I'm also starting academic work on sf utopias
and ecology, although less concerned with Gaian ideas than with current
discourses to do with the concepts 'sustainability' and sustainable
development that have gained currency since the Brundtland Report.
> I plan to analyse first the theoretical aspects of "Mother Earth" kind
> of ecological thinking, relating to the deconstructionist and metaphysical
> touches on the paradigm. Next, I think, I will use the SF texts to hold my
> point.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here; my own feeling is that Gaiain
thought is open to criticism on a range of points, from essentialism to
fuzzy mysticism to its tendency to describe a utopian desire for 'one
world' rather as if it were a material actuality... I don't know
how different
types of sf deal with that. You probably already know that the sf writer
John Varley has an interest in Gaiain thought (see especially _Titan_
1979) ), and I'd also have thought that Vonnegut's _Galapagos_ would be
interesting here?!
> Specifically, though I have made up a long list of ecological SF books
> and stories, I ask to those who are interested to help building on my
> list.
Maybe we could compare sources?
> And for my argument here.
> I believe what Theodor Sturgeon has told us is true: 95% of all SF is
> junk (or has he said "thrash"?). The majority of SF books, stories, films,
> computer games, journals, zines, etc. have successfully been integrated
> into the capitalist market for culture. The "cultural industry", now
> preaching that "the end of ideology", "the end of history" has come, and
> that there is no alternative to capitalist world-system, is making a
> perfect use of SF: Just think about the millions of imbecile "Trekkies",
> or those incurable Star Wars fans, buying, watching, CONSUMING every junk
> big firms throws at them.
Your point is well taken; it's not difficult to see how one would theorise
sf as satisfactorily coopted into some postmodern frenzy of cultural
consumptioon. I'd be loathe to say that was the end of the story though.
Those kinds of left cultural criticism that divide culture into
non-consumerist = good = oppositional and mass culture = consumerist =
coopted tend to be flawed along the lines of their inability to understand
(sociologically!) the difference between a cultural *product* and people's
diverse, unpredictable and often subversive *uses* of culture. You can't
read off the latter from the former. It's got to be more subtle than that?
That's why I'm unsure that the question of "literary value" as abitrator
in the question of what sf 'counts' is a problematic one.
> SF utopias, to be good fiction, to have literary value -though "literary
> value" is dangerous waters- must not be in _stasis_. They must not lose
> their dynamism.
If you don't know it already, you should read Tom Moylan's _Demand the
Impossible_ on theorising the non-static, non-blueprint sf utopia. It's a
little old now (published in 1986) but still relevant. If you know it
already, I'd be interested in what you (or anybody else) thinks about
Moylan's stuff - and just to drag it back to list-relevance, the
relationship between a new kind of 'critical' utopia and feminist sf he
posits?
Lisa Garforth
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