Why You Should Read Sci-Fi

Article

I’m far from the first to have noticed that the books taught in school are awful. The few classics that make it into the curriculum are drowned out by an endless slurry of propaganda for the regime. The most egregious example in my own education was The Awakening, a bold feminist tale about a woman abandoning her husband and children and then killing herself. 

It should be obvious to everyone that these works are not being selected for their literary merit. These books are taught because they push the right messages and thus academics have labeled them “important”. Unfortunately, it is only recently that the Right has begun to ask the much needed question: important to who, exactly? 

And while all this happening, certain genres have been cordoned off as fundamentally unserious. Fantasy and Sci-Fi in particular have been utterly neglected in education. While a few slip by such as 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, these books do so despite their genre. They got in because they fit the regime’s narrative on totalitarianism. This is not to say that they aren’t brilliant works in their own right, only that they are an exception to an otherwise ironclad rule. 

All of this isn’t to argue what should and should not be in a curriculum. The school boards wouldn’t listen to me anyway. But this view of Sci-Fi and Fantasy being unserious has trickled down to the larger population. The elites have dictated what is important literature, and most have followed in step.

I have noticed a growing pushback against this in the Dissident Right. Many voices are rising for Fantasy, and many are resurrecting the intellectual foundation for the genre with the brilliant essays of Tolkien and Lewis. However, I have seen no one make a justification for Sci-Fi, and I wish to amend that. 

To start, there needs to be an understanding of what Sci-Fi is. Science fiction is an inherently modern genre. While some academics point to The Epic of Gilgamesh as the first Sci-Fi work, I disagree with that notion. Fantastical elements, even if they bear resemblance to modern Sci-Fi, do not necessarily make a work science fiction. 

What defines Sci-Fi is a particular attitude towards technology and the future—namely that technology can fundamentally change the human experience and that the future is defined by humanity’s relationship with technology. 

For the first point, I do not necessarily mean that technology is changing human nature, though there are many Sci-Fi authors who have argued as such. What I mean more broadly is that the way human beings interact and perceive the world changes with technology. That might seem like an obvious point, but this is a thoroughly modern concept. Before the 17^th century, there would’ve been little to no perception that technology could have had such an impact. Most people were farmers, would stay farmers, and that’s how it was for most of history. If there was a nascent understanding of the progression of technology, it could only exist in a tiny part of the already small upper classes. 

However, even defining time by a progression of technology is also thoroughly modern. The medievals wouldn’t have thought of themselves living in a dark age. Christianity had arisen out of pagan Rome. This was the time when God had established his kingdom on Earth and brought humanity out of the darkness of sin. To them, Rome would’ve been the dark age. 

Sci-Fi as a genre simply couldn’t exist without the scientific revolution. It is a categorization defined by the consequences of the Renaissance and later Enlightenment. To apply the label to works born outside of that worldview is fundamentally misunderstanding those texts and the beliefs that shaped them. 

Now, I can already hear some cries about their favorite works not included under what I just defined as Sci-Fi. The best example that comes to mind is Star Wars (even though that is science fantasy). But I don’t want to get pedantic about this. Genres are broad categorizations by nature, and there will always be works that stretch or even break the definition. However, what I just outlined is the spirit embodying Sci-Fi. It is the fundamental thrust behind the genre, and you can find these ideas playing out in most works under that label. 

So, why should you read Sci-Fi? Well, I think for the reasons I just outlined above. Sci-Fi is a tool for authors to explore humanity’s relationship with technology. This is perhaps the most important insight science fiction has to offer—technology can change the human experience in radical ways. Whereas once generations lived much the same for over hundreds of years, we do not even lead similar lives to that of our parents. 

Sci-Fi is a genre that seeks out the future to explore the potential pitfalls and possibilities that technology has to offer. However, it is also a reflection of the times we live in now. Many classic authors believed that technology could liberate man from his present evils and thus wrote futures of utopian settings. When that was later proven wrong, dystopias became far more pronounced. Cyberpunk was born in the collapse of the utopian vision. 

You can look at the broad genre of Sci-Fi and see the civilizational pulse of a society. The futures we can imagine define us just as much as we do them. Is it any coincidence that in collapse, most writers can only paint nihilistic portraits of the future? As we delve further into the rabbit-hole of the technological singularity, I think that Sci-Fi will become an ever more important genre—especially in the hands of the Dissident Right. 

I wrote about this in an earlier Twitter thread, but I think this sentiment bears repeating. The utopian vision is exhausted. The nihilistic vision is self-destructive. The future of Sci-Fi is in the middle-ground, and I think this is where it will reach a turning point. Humanity must uncover what level of technology is acceptable and what is destructive. We need to draw a line in the sand between what is beneficial and what is currently devouring mankind. 

As we tread further into an unknown future, I think that the next iteration of Sci-Fi will be instrumental in drawing that line. The next great works will be ones that explore just where “progress” stops. In this area, dissident artists distinctly have the advantage. We are the only ones who have any coherent understanding of technology. It will be us who see the first inklings of what’s coming down the road. 

So, keep your eyes out for Sci-Fi. I think that this genre is primed for a new generation of artists. And always remember, the future is not as bleak as it seems.