Today we seem to have trouble picturing the future, except in cataclysmic terms or as the present gone worse.
–Simon Reynolds, “Back to the future,” a review of Where’s My Jetpack?: The Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Happened by Daniel H. Wilson, Ph.D., Salon.com
That’s certainly true. I really can’t think of the last non-Star Wars science-fiction film I saw that wasn’t dystopian or downright apocalyptic, post- or otherwise, in nature. Children of Men, Starship Troopers, The Matrix, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, War of the Worlds, A.I., Minority Report…and jeez, those last three were from America’s Director, Steven Spielberg, for crying out loud. Even the comparatively down-to-earth Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind had nothing uplifting to say about scientific progress. Then there’s books like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Stephen King’s Cell, comics like Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead and Paul Pope’s Batman Year 100, albums like nine inch nails’ year zero, TV shows like Heroes and Battlestar Galactica and even Lost, which is actually based in large part on the failure of an optimistic futurist utopia.
I found this link via Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds (“no relation”), who offers Quote #2 in response to Quote #1:
That’s a cultural thing, I think, brought about more by the values of filmmakers, etc. than by anything inherent in reality.
Now, I’m tempted to agree with him out of my long-held opinion that a belief in the imminent apocalypse–best exemplified by religious millenarianists, although as the excellent Children of Men and most of the other aforementioned films would indicate, that lot by no means has a monopoly on the doctrine–is 100% pure vanity, a reflection of the deep-seated conviction that one is part of the Most Special Generation EVAR. But really, there’s nothing inherent in present-day reality to make people feel pessimistic? Perhaps not for Reynolds, who doffs his rose-colored glasses only to look at Islamism, gun rights, and the Democratic Congress’s approval ratings, but for the rest of us, a lot of things do look mighty grim.
But Simon Reynolds takes the pessimism too far:
Race, gay rights, drugs, socioeconomic equality, religion — on just about every front, things either are not nearly as advanced as we’d have once expected or have actually gone into reverse.
Again, really? Look, there’s a difference between “as we’d have once expected,” and “as we’d like,” unless the “we” refers exclusively to hippies and little kids. I’ll admit that the Sesame Street watcher in me is kind of amazed that racism even exists, but the notion that we’re backsliding as a culture (as opposed to via certain current policies that stand to be subsequently backslid themselves) across a broad spectrum of socially progressive issues just doesn’t ring true to me. Maybe this is just more optimistic futurism, but for example, don’t statistics indicate that gay marriage will be a widely accepted reality within a generation? And, for another example, don’t we stand a better-than-decent chance of electing either a woman or a black man president the next time around? Don’t let’s give up on the metaphorical jetpacks just yet, folks.