The Fish's Brain
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The revenge of the incredibly scary quantum genemod dystopian fear!
posted Thursday, 4 December 2008
Once upon a time the people of the world got a peek at the future, and didn't much like what they saw. Now, there had been "science fiction" around for a long time before this, but Jules Verne and his cultural offspring admired and marveled about science, grew a genre from that queasy excitement you get at the beginning of a courtship with science.
Then a weird thing happened to science in popular culture when the world burst out of the closet into the Nuclear Age with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now, we all love Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The Creature with the Atom Brain, and of course The Day the Earth Caught Fire but there it has been noted that they come from a distinctly different voice, wondering if the technology we almost understand will be dangerous enough to turn us all into monsters, or mayhaps even destroy the world. Our only hope is that some good scientist will be able to stop the creation of reckless and evil scientists and return the world to normal
Same thesis that's been around since Frankenstein really. BE AFRAID OF SCIENCE. I'm vastly simplyfying, but the subtext is there in the whole B-movie Genre of the 50's and on into the 60's. We've never really shaken it.
And of course the Japanese really took to the genre with Godzilla and the like, but they had a good excuse for fearing nuclear radiation.
But we live in a more enlightned time, right? We're at peace with harnessing the atom and decoding the genome and developing a world wide communication infrastructure.
I was noticing a thing about prime time TV this season though. Two shows, Fringe and 11th Hour, which entail... good scientists protecting the world from the frightening power or reckless arrogance of bad scientists. The science has changed of course, the plots are about genetic manipulation, quantum mechanics, charging dead brains back into life and... well the same sci-fi schlock that B-movies were about, just fancier explanations.
My point is, the tone of fear is there. The shadowy conspiracy that can bend the laws of physics and upset the harmony of our everyday life, but for the vigilance of good scientists (who know so much more than the rest of us, because they hold the revered status of "scientist")
And of course there are more in the lineup on TV. Terminator (Artificial Intelligence computers destroying the world) Heroes (genetic manipulation formula is the focus of this season, which will lead to the destruction of the world)
Okay, I may be reading too much into it. You have to have science, conflict, and something to fear to make a sci-fi story, right? Yet I just can't shake the vision of the majority of the world, uninterested and uneducated as to the truth about modern advances and research, looking at these shows and being afraid of genetically altered crops because it may mutate them, or of super-colliders because they may create a black hole. People really are irrationally afraid of these things.
So, be afraid... that's what the TV says. Science and technology will turn us all into genetically modified quantum dystopian slaves!
Then a weird thing happened to science in popular culture when the world burst out of the closet into the Nuclear Age with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now, we all love Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The Creature with the Atom Brain, and of course The Day the Earth Caught Fire but there it has been noted that they come from a distinctly different voice, wondering if the technology we almost understand will be dangerous enough to turn us all into monsters, or mayhaps even destroy the world. Our only hope is that some good scientist will be able to stop the creation of reckless and evil scientists and return the world to normal
Same thesis that's been around since Frankenstein really. BE AFRAID OF SCIENCE. I'm vastly simplyfying, but the subtext is there in the whole B-movie Genre of the 50's and on into the 60's. We've never really shaken it.And of course the Japanese really took to the genre with Godzilla and the like, but they had a good excuse for fearing nuclear radiation.
But we live in a more enlightned time, right? We're at peace with harnessing the atom and decoding the genome and developing a world wide communication infrastructure.
I was noticing a thing about prime time TV this season though. Two shows, Fringe and 11th Hour, which entail... good scientists protecting the world from the frightening power or reckless arrogance of bad scientists. The science has changed of course, the plots are about genetic manipulation, quantum mechanics, charging dead brains back into life and... well the same sci-fi schlock that B-movies were about, just fancier explanations.
My point is, the tone of fear is there. The shadowy conspiracy that can bend the laws of physics and upset the harmony of our everyday life, but for the vigilance of good scientists (who know so much more than the rest of us, because they hold the revered status of "scientist")
And of course there are more in the lineup on TV. Terminator (Artificial Intelligence computers destroying the world) Heroes (genetic manipulation formula is the focus of this season, which will lead to the destruction of the world)
Okay, I may be reading too much into it. You have to have science, conflict, and something to fear to make a sci-fi story, right? Yet I just can't shake the vision of the majority of the world, uninterested and uneducated as to the truth about modern advances and research, looking at these shows and being afraid of genetically altered crops because it may mutate them, or of super-colliders because they may create a black hole. People really are irrationally afraid of these things.
So, be afraid... that's what the TV says. Science and technology will turn us all into genetically modified quantum dystopian slaves!P.S. in thinking about this issue I ran into AtomicMonsters.com... great waste of time. Enjoy.
P.P.S. does "The Day the Earth Stood Still" remake not make my point for me?
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