Science Fiction Is About Politics
Real Political Leaders and Events Often Written Into Space Opera
Aug 1, 2007
Readers who don't enjoy science fiction often dismiss it because they consider it simply a frivolous fantasy of robots and spaceships. While it is highly entertaining to imagine what it would be like to explore far-away worlds and see races exotic beyond our imaginings, there are actual, real-world applications for the science fiction genre. Science fiction – as well as its not-so-distant cousin, fantasy – is one of the most political of all literary genres.
It is easy to spend hours speculating about why this is so. Perhaps it is because science fiction works as a clever disguise for broaching subjects and planting messages in the public psyche that would otherwise be ignored. After all it is a lot more fun to watch Doctor Who's Davros attempt to take over the cosmos with his master race, the Daleks, than to watch a documentary about Hitler. It is no secret, after all, that many of the master races that sprung up in science fiction after World War II were inspired by Hitler and the Nazis. Whether that was conscious or not is another matter for speculation but, nevertheless, it is there.
Or, perhaps it is necessary to consider politics when writing about how different races and classes of people get along. Many science fiction stories are, after all, more sociologically than psychologically based. They tend to look at the big picture and attempt to answer big questions, such as, “What if the human race had star ships?” which is the big question of Star Trek. The answers, according to Star Trek writers is, “They would be used by the military as part of a benign exploration program – but of course war would erupt through no fault of our own.”
Science fiction, though a great getaway tool for escapists, does not tend to be terribly frivolous, heavy reliance on shiny materials and neat-looking aliens notwithstanding.
There are, in fact, instances in which characters have been taken almost entirely from the pages of history. According to the website http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102975/trivia, the Klingon Chancellor Gorkon of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, is actually a mix of two political leaders, Mikhail Gorbachev and Abraham Lincoln. Gorkon’s last name is even a blend of Gorbachev and Lincoln. Luckily, Lincoln's beard fit right in with Klingon fashion.
Just what sort of politics the authors of science fiction generally subscribe to is the subject of much debate. The post Politics and Science Fiction at http://www.snarkout.org (look in the Archives under July 24, 2001) suggests that, while some fans consider science fiction generally leftist, that tends to be true mainly of television and movies, at least the movies that aren’t based on leftist written literature. But the idea that science fiction is a highly political animal never once comes into question.
Therein lies the value of the genre. By considering the dynamics of the relationship between the clearly defined groups of beings within the pages of a story, readers are better able to understand the relationships between groups of real human beings, of real governments. Writing the future helps the human race better understand its own present.
