1950 Syndrome?

[Interference]

I'm hoping there are more imaginitive people out there than me

Don't worry, Tansy. We're here

Sounds to me like you over-thunk it. SciFi at its best is about today taken to its presumed logical conclusion. Clones and Robots sit beside you on the train and on the bus, with just the minor distinction that they are born of woman and not through lab techniques. Aliens and monsters are aggressors in any culture, any who seem to want to usurp our rights and unseat our powers. Star ships are villages and towns and communities either threatened by or threatening their near and distant neighbours. Language is just how we communicate, and the author communicates with their audience in whatever way their audience is comfortable with. (Sorry, lost count of the prepositions, there, might be one too many ... )

Maybe there's no real significant difference between fantasy and Sci-Fi, I'm nowhere near qualified enough to comment, but surely any novel aspiring to be a Novel is dealing with human issues, whatever the background; with goals and dreams in whichever guise. There can surely be no real difference between a great Civil War romance and a great Space Opera or Wizard Tome.

Regarding the question heading this thread, once we get through the 1950s syndrome, maybe we should get ready to grow weary of the 60s syndrome and any other decade/era you care to throw a dart at. Personally, I've long been weary of the Arthurian Syndrome of most fantasy writing I've ever encountered. Or maybe I'm just missing the point.

 

[Tansy]

hmm i'm nowhere near quaLIFIED TO COMMENT EITHER - WINE MAKES ME BRAVE

grr and my caps lock has a mind of its own

I do tend to over thunk things but then with fantasy it should be familiar - based ye olden days gone by kinda thing, or even if set in the future based on what we know

sci fi to me should be totally alien and it isn't its still set in the mindset of the age is was written in no matter how imaginitive the author, Thats why I don't get it.. well that plus all the physics (down to preference not lack of understanding.. so I tell myself)

Maybe a alien world with nothing familiar would render us incapable to understand it .. I.don't know??


but to me the sci-fi I'd consider reading would not be based on assumptions from 21st centuary earth?

 

[Interference]

There is good Sci-Fi out there that delves into realities beyond our understanding, but it's pretty damned near incomprehensible Some modern authors do tend, I think, to get caught up in creating alternative psychologies for their alien races and, you know what? That's still modern-thinking. The 21st Century is definitely and unequivocally the age of New Thought, so that in a couple of decades these New Thinkers will seem pretty old-fashioned and dated, too. There's just no winning against future history, so the best we can do is do our best.

Oh, I love a good home-spun homily

 

[Tansy]

i think we should take this out of this thread

good luck and just keep doing it.. its all experience

 

[Interference]

Okay.

(IwinIwinIwin )

 

[Tansy]

too tired (drunk)0 to argue lol

and not much experience of sci fi lol

 

[Interference]

Awwww, never mind ...

(IstillwinIstillwinIstillwin - who, me? competitive? Never!)

 

[Xelebes]

You're right. I don't like where our society is heading and I don't feel like writing a story where current social trends continue.

I think (here's where I get controversial) we are headed towards a godless future where human life is cheap, medical ethics has been tossed out the window, medical care is denied to those deemed "useless" to society, and churches have all been converted to offices or retail stores.

I understand (this may offend you but here goes) that Europe is a lot further down this road than the United States, but it's only a matter of time. If the United States adopts socialized medicine it will be a big leap "forward" because the bill before Congress sets up a system where medical care would have to be rationed, and the old and handicapped may end up denied healthcare.

I don't want to start a political debate because this is a not a political forum. I am simply telling you how I feel so you can understand why I hate the future and feel reminiscent about the past. I know the past had problems too (discrimination against women and blacks), but there were many good things that have been lost, one of them being respect for the marriage vow and cohesiveness of the nuclear family.

Now you might advise me that I should write a story where I warn people about the future I fear. The problem is, it's too late. Abandonment of the old ways is now irreversible. Any warning I might raise would be considered reactionary and would not be welcomed.

On the other hand, I cannot write a story where my characters routinely engage in the immoral conduct that has now become the norm because it is so discouraging to me. In my world, people would not fall in the sack on a first date. There would be a certain respect for women that is lacking in the world today. So yes, it would be like 1950. I'm not sure what I can do about that.

Here comes the flames...

That's a good start. Is it possible to think of a new moral life done in a futurist setting? Maybe that is worth exploring, heck it might be even fun to write. Figuring out what is moral and what is not might turn up some surprises as you write it, you never know.

 

[Tansy]

deleted

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But of course that original quote was not meant to be just about the 1950's and 1960's -- it applies just as much to the 1990's and the 2000's. The editor is talking about a reluctance or inability to extrapolate from recent and present trends a credible image of what human (or alien) societies might look like in the furute. It's refusing to consider that society will continue to evolve in the centuries ahead as it has evolved in the centuries past.

All of which adds up to a failure of the imagination, which the writer probably doesn't even recognize.

We are products of our times. It stands to reason that the people of the future will be products of their times. Good science fiction imagines how scientific, social, or other forces might shape those people of the future, mentally, emotionally, and culturally. Bad science fiction -- the kind that editor would reject -- simply plugs in people of the writer's own era where they don't belong.

Of course the same thing can happen with fantasy, when writers refuse to give full consideration to how their characters would be shaped in much the same ways by the worlds and societies in which they have placed them.



If you want to write a story that takes place in the 1950's, or in an alternate history 1950's, or in a future where society has become so nostalgic for whatever it imagines the 1950's were really like that it tries to duplicate the 1950's -- any of those would work, as, no doubt other scenarios that escape me at the moment would also work. At this point, the 1950's are far enough in the past, details of that era would provide a pleasing exoticism, and would provide a number of imaginative opportunities if you can spot them and use them.

But if you write about the year 2050 and the world shows no signs of social change since the year 2000, then you'll be falling prey to that syndrome the editor deplores, whatever name you want to give it.

(Myself, I've always called it Flintstones/Jetsons Syndrome, for what I hope are obvious reasons.)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Tansy and Interference, please remember what section this thread is located in, and keep conversations more suited to the Lounge in the Lounge.

 

[reiver33]

I personally don't have a problem with the classic Noir hard-bitten detective in a futuristic setting as - from a Jungian perspective - he exists as a classic architype.

Regardless of social setting there will always be cynical loners (possible sociopaths) operating in a variety of professions - depending on the degree of active social conditioning and mental health screening that culture deems acceptable.

Similarly there will 'always' be the need for private detectives in a society where conventional policing is constrained by resources to focus on obvious (or at least plausible) explanations for a given crime.

In terms of adopting 'bygone' social expectations and the attendant morality in the face of current and implied furure reality then this is, I believe, more a question of how you perceive the role of the individual in that society. By that I mean that much 'bad behaviour' is the result of an exposure to pier group pressure before the individual has had time to form their own sense of self-worth and personal ethics.

The 1950's saw the rise of 'teenagers' as a social subgroup in which sharing their own (limited) experiences reinforced those limited points of reference to the active exclusion of other sources. Effectively if some 'outgroup' source (eg your parents) disagree with one of your own (preconceived) standpoints then you stop listening to their opinion on all matters.

Paradoxically most dystopian future views also strip away this self-referential 'support group' and thrust the individual into the gaping maw of cynical exploitation. Those that survive without the benefit of any clear moral or ethical guidelines derived from their own society may well adopt those of a bygone age - if only as a psychological prop.

On a personal note (and sorry for rambling on so) - I believe that if as a society we are unable or unwilling to treat children as children then we had better raise our game when preparing them to act as young adults.

 

[Nik]

FWIW, we still have the twin archetypes of the 'Western' and 'Gothic/Victorian' from the 1850s.

Never mind the real 'WildWest' barely lasted two decades. Never mind Mr. Dickens' & Arthur Conan Doyle's books, Mary Shelley's 'gothic tale' and 'Jack The Ripper' seem responsible for our popular view of the other period...

Harking back to the comparative simplicities of the 'GoldenAge' 1950s seems reasonable...

Um, I'd still suggest Blackrook went with the 'locked into character by shock' approach...

 

[dustinzgirl]

I'd have been stoned in the 50's. By rocks. The other kind in the 60's, kind of always bummed me out that I missed that era.

 

[Pyan]

The other kind in the 60's, kind of always bummed me out that I missed that era.

It doesn't really matter, Dusty - even if you lived through the 60's, you probably wouldn't remember them anyway...

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It doesn't really matter, Dusty - even if you lived through the 60's, you probably wouldn't remember them anyway...

Or if you did remember them, you might not remember them quite so well when you are sixty.

The On Topic point of this post appears below. Those who want to get to it without the big lead-in can skip the italicized part:

I have heard a lot of people go on about how terrible the 1950's were because everyone was so horribly repressed, sexually speaking, especially the teenagers. I was not a teenager myself in the 50's. But those I observed seemed to be having a very good time. The big oppressive thing was that everyone was afraid of the Bomb.

Then in the 60's sexual restraint began to go out the door. I didn't notice that anyone was the happier for it. So, someone is not a slut if they have sex on the first date, but are they missing something because of it? What happens to anticipation (which can be a very powerful thing) if it's all pretty much a foregone conclusion that you'll end up in bed?

Now my generation has children, teenagers and adults -- these were the ones we were supposed to be creating such a perfect world for, the ones we were supposed to be such perfect parents for, avoiding all of our own parents mistakes -- and I always hear people making excuses for them, because it's such a horrible world, and because they are so wired and unhappy, so over-stimulated and always looking for greater stimulation. Not that I think this is true for all of them, but it's the excuse I hear for a lot of destructive behavior.

Kids are having sex younger and younger, and growing more and more jaded, and doing some rather awful and dangerous things (dangerous especially for the girls), presumably to bring back the thrill -- or in pursuit of the thrill that was never there -- and so bringing us finally to the point of this post ...

At some point I think there is going to be a revulsion of feeling and a major backlash in terms of morals, and many other matters as well. Society has gone too far in one direction, and it will probably correct by going too far in the other, and become so totally puritanical that even the most sedate parts of the twentieth century will look like an endless debauchery in comparison.

But it is conceivable that the correction could simply lead to a society much like the 1950's. And there could definitely be a science fiction story in that.

 

[Vladd67]

At some point I think there is going to be a revulsion of feeling and a major backlash in terms of morals, and many other matters as well. Society has gone too far in one direction, and it will probably correct by going too far in the other, and become so totally puritanical that even the most sedate parts of the twentieth century will look like an endless debauchery in comparison.

Wouldn't be the first time there had been a major swing in public morals and behaviour, take for instance the transition between morals and attitude, in public anyway, between Georgian and Victorian Britain.

 

[Vladd67]

Of course you could always write about a 1950's type advanced society, I guess you could call it 'Transistor Punk'

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I guess you could call it 'Transistor Punk'

What a beguiling idea.

Now that the genre has a name, it gives it a certain amount of credibility doesn't it? Now Blackrook just has to write the book.

 

[The Pelagic Argosy]

Wouldn't be the first time there had been a major swing in public morals and behaviour, take for instance the transition between morals and attitude, in public anyway, between Georgian and Victorian Britain.

Well, just look at the past hundred years in America. The Gay '90s, the Roaring Twenties, the Baby Boom, Hippies, the gay '90s again. WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, the 50s, Vietnam, the Great Recession. There's always been a great pendulum swing. Actually, depending on what historian you listen to, there are several pendulums swinging all over the place.

I never thought I'd live to see the day that we'd elect a black president. Now, without missing a beat, the opposition drew a Hitler mustache on him. And, if I'm not mistaken, the irony is lost on them. These are, indeed, strange times we live in.

Homosexuality is mainstream. It's already done. What are gay people demanding these days? More parades? No, they want to get married, have kids. They want nuclear families, 1950's style, with one tiny tweak. They want to serve in the military. They're actually fighting for conservative values. It's just a matter of getting the paperwork through now. Iowa legalized gay marriage a couple of months ago. Iowa. (California voted against it. Strange times.)

It's hard to say which way the pendulum is swinging at the moment. Personally, I think the culture wars are going to quiet down for awhile. I think the changes that will come in the next few years will be economic and political. The political parties are realigning. That's actually what all the health care noise is about. Liberals are going to push to make America more like the modern socialist countries of Europe. It will be the Libertarian party that rises in opposition. Meanwhile, the GOP as we know it today, will go down in flames, fighting anachronistic culture wars, death panels, and other figments of their collective imaginations.

And, at some point in the future, China will replace the United States as the world's superpower.

The point is, I think the options for any SF writer are wide, wide open, if you only have some imagination. You could definitely write a story about a future time when, culturally speaking, we are in the midst of a conservative pendulum swing. History repeats. It's been pointed out, for example, the similarities in rhetoric against gay marriage today and interracial marriage a generation ago. The arguments will be the same, but what we are arguing about will be totally different. The question is how to keep a story from being ridiculously didactic. For example, a story about alien or robot rights being a too-obvious commentary about immigration or racism or whatever.

I guess the advice I'd offer is the same advice I offer about everything: draw compelling characters.