Is it any wonder, then, that so many people like to read books about people who have to depend on themselves, who are required to draw on their own resources of courage, determination, compassion, endurance, willpower, intelligence, self-respect, self-reliance -- books that remind us that we are not to be measured by the things that we own, but by what we are and what we do -- books that encourage us to believe that when something comes up that we can't fix with a new widget or a trip to the nearest electronics store (a divorce, a death in the family, caring for an aged and ailing parent, a serious injury) we might find within ourselves, if we dig deep enough, those same resources of courage, determination, compassion, endurance, willpower, intelligence, self-respect, self-reliance?
But, Teresa, wouldn't you agree that this is one of the major themes of a great deal of sf as well? The sort of sf which put technology and the dependence on it (rather than rather ambivalent feelings about it) at the center of things -- a la George O. Smith, for instance -- is a very tiny portion of sf as a whole; and even the "hard" sf writers have always delved into the human side of things, albeit sometimes as affected by some alteration in techonology and its social implications (again, frequently with some ambivalence).
And, of course, the older writers, such as Heinlein, dealt almost exclusively with the very qualities you denote above; these are at the very core of all Heinlein's juveniles, for instance, or
Double Star,
Stranger in a Strange Land,
Beyond This Horizon, etc., etc., etc.; not to mention Leiber's work, or Brunner's, or Joanna Russ', or Tiptree's, or....
As I've said before, I think that the lack of good science education and critical thinking has a lot to do with it, combined with a resurgence in general in mystical rather than rationalistic thinking... though I do think this is due, in part, to the way technology has far-too-often been used to produce destruction in the twentieth century; an aspect of things which is often magnified in such a way to obscure the even greater amount of benefit we have gained from science and technology -- longer life-span, greater quality of life (generally speaking), a sharp decline in infant and child mortality, a broadening of possibilities with education, jobs, choice of where to live, what to eat, drink, see, hear; increasing access of communication between the individual people of the world (allowing for communities of people with shared interests who are physically scattered all over the globe, and thus potential -- and frequently realizable -- friendships which would have simply been impossible before); better, safter methods of transportation; etc., etc., etc.
But... alongside all these benefits has come knowledge which questions our place in the universe, and our uniquity even here on our home planet; not to mention the undermining of traditional religious paradigms whose authority has seldom (if ever) been so seriously questioned; the very nature of what we are as human beings has been called into question by the effects of increasing understanding of evolution and the role it plays in not only our physical but our mental/emotional makeup. We are not, I think, at a point where we can yet take this sort of thing with a great deal of equanimity, so a large number of people feel threatened by it and retreat from or deny it, turning instead to that which is emotionally comforting, but not necessarily based in truth or reality.
I would say there's more than a little truth to Lovecraft's statement when, in "The Call of Cthulhu", he has his narrator Thurston say:
The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go ma from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
As has been noted before, this is not a deploring of science, but of humanity's inability to handle the implications of such knowledge; the damage such wreaks on our fragile little egos. And I would argue that this also has much to do with why we are seeing a resurgence of belief in various systems of magic and superstition which have long been proven to be without genuine basis in the workings of the physical universe. It is thus natural that such a trend would also see its reflection in the choice of reading matter, I would think.
Add to this the fact that an increasing number of readers, even, are influenced by what they see on the screen, and Hollywood -- never terribly concerned with scientific accuracy or intellectual rigour -- has always found it much easier to purvey either science fantasy (which uses many of the surface trappings of science fiction, such as spaceships, other planets/galaxies/dimensions/universes, robots, and the like) or fantasy outright; while the casual readers are influenced to an even greater degree. (And, in fact, when Hollywood has tackled "sf", it has been more guilty than any other outlet of promoting the emphasis on technology rather than the human aspect of the tale, as the "gosh-wow" aspect is much more visually exciting, however vacuous intellectually or emotionally.)
Put all these factors together, and....
As for me... I can't really say I have a favorite between the two, as I see both as perfectly valid and indeed excellent for addressing the human condition from different perspectives. (Though I will admit that I got more than a little sick of the preponderance of a limited stereotype of fantasy which virtually hijacked the field for such a period... something we now, thankfully, seem to be once again emerging from to see a wee bit more balance in allowing different types of fantasy fiction on the shelves.)
