Babel Clash

So, as I wrote previously, it doesn’t seem impossible to write a positive future, where society is actively sorting out its problems instead of creating new ones.  So… Why don’t we?  I’ve been mulling this, as I’ve gotten a certain amount criticism over the years about the kinds of futures that I create.  Generally this criticism runs along the lines of “Bacigalupi writes well, but after you’ve finished one of his stories you just want to go slit your wrists.”

Which actually makes me laugh, because a lot of times, that’s how I feel after I’ve finished writing the story, too.

So what’s wrong with writing a Utopia?  Or at least creating a positive version of a future society? And why don’t more SF authors do it?

My theory is that the real problem with writing Utopias is that it puts a writer’s values front and center. It’s the artistic equivalent of tearing open our shirts and baring our chests while bleating about the need for true love in the universe.   It’s a vulnerable position because in a society that values the the ironic eye over the naive one, you’re basically setting yourself up as the artistic equivalent of Dennis Kucinich.

He’s just so painfully sincere, y’know?

Writing a Utopic vision of the future means you really are going to talk about people working out their differences (yawn), show them living as is if they valued the earth (gag), and worst of all, you’re not even going to make fun of them.  The future awaits, and it’s made of granola.  Nearly everything that you propose (reducing consumption? controlling corporations? making people aware of waste streams?) has that reek of do-gooderism and social engineering that even if you do it well, it still has the whiff of singing The Internationale. It’s not so much that it’s impossible to write a positive future, it’s more the fear of someone making fun of your vision that really sends a writer running in the other direction.

That’s my theory, at least.  Artists want to look smart, and smart and painfully sincere go so badly together.

Hi Morgan,

You say:

“At the heart of storytelling is drama, tension and struggle.  In a world lacking scarcity issues, much of the tension is removed, and it becomes more difficult to tell a traditional story.  Unless the Utopia is an illusion or secretly corrupt, and that makes for good stories, too.  Assuming that the Utopia is real, is it still possible to infuse that story with danger and suspense without creating an outside source to threaten it?”

I think you’re conflating two very different types of story. One is Utopian storytelling.  The other is telling a story set in a society that functions sustainably.  These are two very different beasts.

While I agree that storytelling requires drama, tension and struggle, I’m not certain that I can think of all that many “traditional” plots which actually depend on questions of scarcity to function.  Most conflict plotlines I can think of actually tend to revolve around human struggles–politics, relationships, power, obsessions etc.–I’m thinking Shakespeare here–none of which are precluded by a society which handles its day-to-day affairs in a sustainable way. A Romeo and Juliet story isn’t off the table just because both families recycle.  A society that burns very little carbon, reuses its waste efficiently, and recognizes its interdependence with its resources isn’t necessarily Utopian in the perfected sense, it’s just a less stupid society.

Being a smarter society doesn’t preclude power struggles, feuds, and though you take it off the table– outside threats.  In many ways, 21st-century America is Utopian. Compared to earlier points in history (and to many countries around the world today) we live in an astonishingly luxurious society. We live longer, are better educated, eat better, have more toys, have more leisure options than at any point in human history.  But that doesn’t mean there aren’t intensely human stories going on within it. Wealth does not end conflict and human drama, nor do I think does sustainability equal the death of story.

The question of writing a genuine Utopian story is a different thing.  Utopian world-building not only assumes that you’ve solved resource problems, you’ve also solved human conflict problems, social and health problems, education problems….  This sort of world is more an exercise in political theory, an exploration of how societies might organize themselves in more rational or positive ways than we do spontaneously, and often based on the assumption that people at root could also be radically different in behavior and outlook than they are in reality. They’re deliberately stories of perfected worlds, where all children are above average.

To the extent that a Utopian story has conflict, I think that it’s contained in the tension between how *readers* react to this very differently ordered world, and how they then consider their own world with the new lens that a Utopian theory provides.  My sense is that Utopian novels tend to focus on ideas rather than plot, and that’s okay because they’re a conceptual exercise rather than a story per se. They’re just a different beast and provide different satisfactions.

But even then, I suspect a clever writer could find a thread of conflict if they were motivated. Certainly looking at past Utopian novels, I can see ways of rewriting everything from Bellamy’s Looking Backward to Callenbach’s Ecotopia that might provide a better thread of story than the one that was chosen by the authors.

Paolo, we’d all like to predict a better future.  The Grand Society or New Golden Age.  Environmental problems are fixed.  Diseases are cured.  Wars have ended.  I’m not sure if it is a realistic vision for some far future day or not.  My question is how does a predictive Science Fiction genre tackle an idealized future, even if that idealized future is logical or reasonable?

At the heart of storytelling is drama, tension and struggle.  In a world lacking scarcity issues, much of the tension is removed, and it becomes more difficult to tell a traditional story.  Unless the Utopia is an illusion or secretly corrupt, and that makes for good stories, too.  Assuming that the Utopia is real, is it still possible to infuse that story with danger and suspense without creating an outside source to threaten it?

Any comments from the Rogue’s Gallery of Babel Clash readers?  Can you recall any great Utopian Science Fiction visions where we see both a grand future and drama and suspense?