Mulling it Over

We live in a post-science fiction age, and science fiction is necessarily a subset of the avant-garde, which is now properly doing the job science fiction used to do. Perhaps now (for historical as well as generic reasons) it is a job science fiction can no longer do. Our expanded "vision" of science fiction as a subset of the avant-garde movement could represent the beginning of what comes next.

Contemporary novels, TV and movies are for the most part uninspiring, while mainstream academic conceptions and theories have crystalized, have become brittle, have stultified, and, some might argue, have become rotten. The great theoretical leaps and bounds of the 1980s and early-1990s resolved into the shibboleths of historical correction through social engineering, and zero-wealth-gain/zero-knowledge-gain celebrations of multiculturalism and diversity. These represent very fine ideals, but meanwhile there is a universe around us that is determined to struggle, push, claw, consume, procreate, evolve, compete, fight, grow, and--in whatever form--survive.