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San Francisco, 11:25 PM
Sun Nov 22
10 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/10/09
-Kle. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/10/09
A great utopian fiction also covers all of the problems in society. But intellectually, subtly, subversively. It's not prescriptive except in the way that it teaches you how to look at the subtle currents in society as a whole, and examine the meanings in larger pictures.
Robinson is right that it's harder to do, but he doesn't fully get at why it's so much harder. Which is fair. He's an author, and author's don't study literature. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/10/09
25 years ago, two French writers, Michel Jeury & Philippe Curval, worked on an anthology of utopias short stories which was never published. But having talked with both writers, having read some of the stories written for this project, having myself written one, I'd like to say that the main idea, or feeling, that rose from this aborted project was that utopia could only be movement towards (unatainable ?) perfection, not stillness frozen in an eternal perfection. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/09/09
11/09/09
+1, Kim. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/09/09
11/09/09
Also there are science fiction stories where one civilization has spread out to include many cities, planets, or colonies where some are virtually utopias while others are very much dystopian factory worlds.
Also, a lot of stories I've read about utopian societies often suggest that there is something terribly wrong with the utopia at it's secret inner core or the author portrays a world where somehow people are no longer responsible for their own well being while still somehow retaining a great degree of personal freedom and growth while having almost no external challenges to overcome whatsoever. I think it'd be great if humanity could be so greatly self motivated but I imagine in such a world we'd look a lot like the fat people in WALL·E .
11/10/09
I'm not trying to be snide here, but those are actually dystopian stories. They illustrate the abject failure of a utopian project. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/10/09
Another thing occurred to me though; not everyone's utopia would be the same now would it? What may seem like a blissful society to some may be felt as stifling and oppressive to others. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/10/09
But in broad terms, Utopian fiction is a type of fiction in which although the project seems largely successful, underlying tensions and currents in the story and in the people involved reveal difficulties, fragilities, even subtle tyrannies in the structure. No Utopia is perfect. As a classical scholar More knew this well when he named his book. In Greek u topos means both "perfect place" and "no place". It's still a "good" place, but where you find difficulties in that "goodness" is where thought is provoked.
A dystopian book is the chronicle of the total failure of that kind project. An outright tyranny, or a miserable population, or one chemically controlled, etc. etc. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/09/09
11/09/09
I won't take my sci-fi from my economists if I can avoid taking economics from my sci-fi authors. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/09/09
Don't get me wrong; science is cool, geology is cool, but at the end of the day, rocks are just rocks, and the challenge of creating a better society is much more interesting. #kimstanleyrobinson
11/09/09
I mean, come on: SPACE. ELEVATOR. WRAPPING. AROUND. MARS.
And you like the econ???
;-) #kimstanleyrobinson
11/09/09
It wasn't that I found his political or economic explanations any more interesting. It was more the human interactions involved--the different motivations behind the political and economic discussions--that I found appealing.
Not sure I'm making sense, but...
:D #kimstanleyrobinson
11/09/09
' Pacific Edge', part of the 'Three Californias' set, was a really memorable utopian piece. The society in the book had overcome it's quest to consume, and put limits on personal wealth.
I think part of the problem with coming up a Utopian society is making it seem plausible that human beings would ever overcome their inherent selfishness.
11/09/09
WOOOOHOOOOOO YAY SPACESHIPS #kimstanleyrobinson
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11/09/09
Count me in.
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09