Science Fiction as Modern Myth - Part III

Science Fiction as Modern Myth - Part III : The Power and Scope of Science Fiction

 

 

This is the final part of the posts on science fiction and modern myth.  In this brief post we examine the enormous impact science fiction has on culture and how broad a reach it also has across culture.

Science fiction has continued to increase in popularity and grow as a genre at a phenomenal rate.  It has grown globally, forming a vast global network or global fandom culture in its many forms ( literary/ filmic ).  A vast variety of themed conventions are held annually and continually throughout the course of a calendar year around the globe. They celebrate authors, artists, and others involved in literary or filmic science fiction. They celebrate both classic works as well as current materials.  Fans partake in the culture and participate in it more fully when engaged with others at a convention event.  Seattle, Washington is home of the Science Fiction Museum, a phenomenal display of all aspects of the genre across time.  Science fiction is perhaps the most influential contemporary form of what is referred to as futuristic thinking in pop culture. Science fiction and its fandom are truly a culture of their own. 

 

As can be gleaned from the history of the genre, science fiction encompasses quite the array of social themes and provides an abundance of insight into the human condition while also offering solutions to contemporary problems for the here and now as well as for the future. It offers insight into the various potential outcomes of the paths humans travel today. 

 

Some examples of themes in science fiction include:

 

1.  Future cultures

2. Science and Technology, the good and the not so good

3. The human relationship with technology

4. Cultural paths for humanity that could be outcomes of actions in the past or present.

5. The role an individual can play in cultural evolution

6. Human evolution - biologically, psychologically, and culturally

7. Biotechnology

8. Ecology

9. Robotics and Androids , as well as computer intelligence in human culture

10.  Space exploration

11.  Contact with other lifeforms

12. Time Travel

13. Philosophy, Religion Spirituality

14. Morality and Values, morals vs ethics

15. Love in the future

16. Reality

17. War

18. Politics

19. Defining and exploring the nature of Progress

20. The end of humanity

21. The transcendence of humanity - survival of the species

22. Meaning of life

 

Science fiction both embraces and questions the ideals of religion and spirituality, as well as those of a secular world.  What really can lead to a better world? Science fiction explores all aspects of the human condition within such framework. It offers challenges to long held morals, ethics, and values. If offers predictions based upon contemporary times and the paths humanity finds itself on.

Science fiction also explores human emotions in as much as they play a role in decision making processes. Science fiction excites and explores the human emotions of fear, hope, exhilaration, sadness, joy, and humor. Science fiction can be said to be the one art form that offers an understanding to both humanity and human emotions as well as to science, technology, and exploration via its attempt to imagine the future in both narrative and aesthetic forms. In Science fiction, the future of humanity is a series of stories, speculative stories about the future.

 

Science fiction also utilizes a mythological or religious approach to its exploration of the human condition through its stories and archetypal characters that humans can readily identify with. These stories inspire thought and ideas which can aid in altering the future and help to better ensure the survival of the human species.  Science fiction educates its followers. It explores all aspects of humanity through the minds and experiences of characters in order to personify the journey of the human future. 

 

Science fiction has many different functions indeed, which provides strength to the stories that are told and helps solidify the place of science fiction in human culture on a global scale.  it stimulates thought via exercising the critical and rational intellect and stretching the speculative/creative imagination. It does so by drawing upon all aspects of human inquiry and study and integrates such things into its stories.  Science fiction holds much power to influence the future and the future paths humanity takes. 

 

Science fiction is a holistic exploration of the future of humanity, impacting humanity along the way and offering solutions to help propel humanity into a more evolved future to help ensure its survival. In general, science fiction unites what appear to many as opposites - it combines the strengths of religious inspiration with rational and scientific understanding to create thought experiments on a personal level while also striving to relate a narrative on a broader scale. 

 

Science fiction strives to predict and help us understand the future while it also inspires and entertains us with its stories and characters that mirror us and our world in the present.  It is in that futuristic fiction that truths of humanity exist for the past, present, and future. It is also where individual truths exist.  In mirroring ancient mythology, science fiction creates a contemporary mythology that ties together past , present , and future for all of humanity. 

 

This concludes the broad discussion on science fiction as modern myth. The next blog will focus on super heroes and comics as a form of contemporary mythos.