On Sat, 30 Aug 1997, L Garforth wrote:
> 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.
Though I do know nothing about the Brundtland Report, what I have in mind
is not to criticize ecopolitical implications (be they workable or not) of
Gaian ideas. I plan to deal with their philosophical implications and to
try to establish a marxist critique (but yet I do not know if it will be
worthy or meaningful). I will be happy to know more about the report you
write about, perhaps in a personal message.
> > 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?!
I have heard about Varley and have put him in my list, yet I have not read
anything from him. You are quite right about that there are many ways of
critical approach to Gaiain ideas, and I will choose the (post)marxist
route I think. I can send you my list once I compile it in a meaningful
way.
You say about my argument on SF and cultural industry:
> 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.
I may not have explained myself clearly, and I accept that my criticism
has been a bit rapid and not well-thought. I am not in favor of
constructing conceptual "dualities" like consumerism(bad) vs.
non-consumerism(good), or capitalists(pretty bad) vs. socialists(pretty
good), and taking hostile action against one side. Yet I am anti-systemic
in my approach to the capitalist society, and to the place of the
Entertainment Industry in it. You are right about a dualistic approach
leading to misinterpreting what a cultural product is and what people's
unpredictable uses of culture are.
However, before thinking on the different ways people give meaning to
culture, there is an undeniable fact that they PAY for the cultural
product, for the art object which they are going to interpret, which
they are going to *use*. Following Althusser, some thinkers also hold that
those interpretaions, meaning givings are manipulated systematically by
some Ideological State Apparatuses of culture, but I am doubtful of that
theory. So let's turn to the moment of CONSUMING, that is, providing the
required amount of economic capital for the cultural product.
I have criticized Trekkies for this. Trekkism began as a multinatinonal
corporation sales-pumping policy and millions of fans followed it
sheepishly. I do not here talk about the social, cultural meanings many
people make from Star Trek movies (and series and books, etc.), I believe
they are wonderful sociological insight. Yet the old Earth is not a better
place when we pay more bucks to a Star Trek video, but Paramount Pictures
is a richer firm.
Non-consumerism or vulgar sociological attacking is not a solution. The
whole paradigm of the capitalist world-system (on all levels: cultural,
political, ideological, economic) must be abolished.
> > 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
Very regretfully, I have not been able to read Moylan's work, not even
have heard about it.
Once again thank you for the insights you have brought.
Best wishes,
Emrah
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:37 PDT