Science Fiction Today and Tomorrow

by Reginald Bretnor

  A master of characterization and style, he has been called (by Damon Knight) "the most accomplished technician the field has produced, bar none." His dominant theme is love, which he has examined in all its imaginable possibilities and permutations.

  Besides all this, he is a singularly acute and perceptive critic, with the rare ability to illuminate that which he discusses, and has reviewed books for National Review, The New York Times, and Galaxy.

  Without Sorcery, 1948 (Prime Press) with introduction by Ray Bradbury E Pluribus Unicorn, 1953 (Abelard Press)

  More Than Human, 1953 (Farrar, Strauss & Young)

  A Way Home, 1955, selected and with introduction by Groff Conklin (Funk & Wagnalls)

  Caviar, 1955 (Ballantine)

  I, Libertine, 1956 (Ballantine); under pseudonym Frederick R. Ewing A Touch of Strange, 1958 (Doubleday)

  The Cosmic Rape, 1958 (Dell)

  Aliens 4, 1959 (Avon)

  Beyond, 1960 (Avon)

  Venus Plus X, 1960 (Pyramid)

  Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, 1961 (Pyramid)

  Some of Your Blood, 1961 (Ballantine)

  Sturgeon is Alive and Well, 1971 (Putnam)

  The Worlds of Theodore Sturgeon, 1972 (Ace)

  Sturgeon's West, 1973 (Doubleday)

  Alan E. Nourse

  Science Fiction and Man's Adaptation to Change

  More than at any other time in history we are living today in an age of furious and bewildering change. Awareness of this fact, with all its disorganizing implications, is thrust upon us daily from all sides. Change permeates every aspect of our lives. In less than a single century we have moved from horse-and-buggy travel to supersonic transports and interplanetary vehicles. Simple bullets and limited battlefields have given way to hydrogen bombs and genocidal warfare. Our insular and agrarian society is rapidly vanishing, swept away by a burgeoning technology that spans oceans and continents. Our political institutions are in turmoil, our social values are shifting radically, and our ethical standards are under continuing attack. The environment of our planet is changing so rapidly that our very existence is threatened. Serious men are seriously questioning our ability as a race to survive at all for very long; others question whether we deserve to survive, or even want to, considering the fearsome nature of the future world we may have to endure. Still others, more optimistic (or more stubborn), search diligently for ways to surmount the problems of change which seem increasingly insurmountable with every passing year.

  We know that much of this relentlessly accelerating change is rooted in the vast scientific and technological revolution that began three centuries ago and is still expanding today in exponential progression. We also know that different peoples have suffered differing impacts. In the underdeveloped nations today, change is suddenly uprooting whole societies and hurling millions of people overnight into an alien world they cannot begin to comprehend, much less adapt to. In such areas it has become the function of governments, for better or for worse, to force adaptation upon whole populations, and if the results have often been grisly, the need has been desperate. In our Western world the impact has been less catastrophic. For decades and centuries the winds of change have been accelerating slowly enough that orderly adaptation has been possible— up to a point. But now even here our capacity to adapt is being outpaced. We no longer have time for a slow, evolutionary assimilation of change into our daily lives. Multitudes of people are scrambling ever more frantically to find some kind of foothold, some place to stand, as they try to deal with a changing world which they can neither control nor comprehend. The popular term "future shock" is singularly appropriate: we are staggering beneath a rain of blows, both physical and emotional, as the juggernaut of technology grinds forward ever faster.

  There are two ways that man can respond to the change that is thrust upon him: he can resist it, or he can try to adapt to it. Throughout history there have always been some who have found change to be challenging and exhilarating. These people, stimulated by the challenge and regarding change as beneficial, or at the very least inevitable, have searched for ways to adapt to it—that is, to alter their lives in such a way as to accommodate or even utilize the changes that have occurred. The vast majority of people, however, have always found change to be frightening, bewildering, or demoralizing. These people, typifying the forces of reaction or conservatism within the society, have sought to ignore, prevent, or control the forces of change in order to maintain a status quo. In times when change was occurring in a slow and orderly or evolutionary fashion, these opposing forces of adaptation and resistance were more or less evenly balanced, and adaptation was comparatively easy. People had time to assimilate the changes, time to adjust themselves, time to work the implications of change into their lives, and then gently alter the way they were living to conform to the demands of change. Often the same individuals met change with both adaptation and resistance: they would adapt to change a step at a time, resisting further change until earlier change had been fully assimilated and then moving a small step further to assimilate the next change.

  We can see this type of successful adaptation to change exemplified in the manner in which the automobile, with its internal combustion engine, edged out the horse and carriage as a primary means of transportation from place to place—an evolutionary process that took place with comparatively little dislocation over a period of decades in the advanced industrial societies, and which is still proceeding today in less developed areas. But as the pace of change has accelerated with bewildering swiftness in recent decades, such orderly adaptation has become progressively more difficult. More and more people regard change as threatening and catastrophic. Without sufficient time to assimilate change in an orderly fashion, even the more adaptive individuals have drawn back into a shell of conservatism, consciously or unconsciously fighting change tooth and nail, seeking desperately to maintain the status quo, however precarious it might be, and responding to the changing world with a vast conservative inertia.

  Today we can see manifestations of this inertia on all sides of us. We see it, for example, in the continuing growth of huge and sprawling urban centers, spreading out unchecked into the suburban areas, while the city centers are increasingly beset with poverty, crime, and decay. We know, of course, that the cities have been vital to man's development throughout most of his history, but the city of today is unlike anything ever before witnessed. There is ample reason to suspect that the sprawling metropolis containing tens of millions of people is no longer a serviceable or even a viable social entity, but rather that such cities today are in fact anti-survival and largely unnecessary considering the current state of our technology. Yet with enormous conservative inertia our society not only struggles to maintain existing megalopoli but allows them to enlarge further and seeks even to create new ones. In a related area, the forces of environmental destruction march on virtually unchecked by the token measures we have raised so far to block them, and any truly radical or imaginative approach to stemming or reversing these forces is met with a massive resistance. At the same time our society adheres doggedly to antediluvian values, complacently tolerating corrupt political institutions and ineffective or hypocritical ethical standards which cry out for reevaluation and true reform if the society that is founded on these principles is to survive.

  There was a time when conservative inertia and resistance to change were successful in maintaining a status quo; such change as there was came slowly, was bargained with, and was assimilated a bit at a time. But unfortunately the forces of change in our society today can no longer be negotiated. Change is occurring in an ever-accelerating cycle. There is no longer time to bargain, no quid pro quo possible. Change is going to continue no matter how man reacts to it, and it is going to change lives ever more swiftly and massively, whether men want their lives changed or not. It is no longer even appropriate for us to ask whether change can be prevented, minimized, or controlled; the appropriate question is how change can be de
alt with in such a way that individuals and society can survive and prosper in the midst of it. Thus it is hardly surprising that in this past half century of accelerating change a singular popular literature has emerged which deals specifically with change and its impact on human lives.

  This popular literature, which we now know as science fiction, is by no means virgin to the twentieth century. Scholars can demonstrate that a literature of romantic fantasy has occupied its own special niche over the centuries. With its curious and rather special outlook on man's relationship to nature and the world, it has always stirred the imagination and evoked a sense of wonder in the face of phenomena that were not clearly understood. But it was only in the first quarter of the twentieth century that science fiction began to distinguish itself by its recognition of science and technology as key factors molding our society. It was at the same time that science fiction became acutely concerned with rational speculation about the impact of science and technology on mankind, as opposed to the supernatural or mystical dream worlds previously explored in romantic fantasy. And just as modern science fiction has evolved side by side with the twentieth century's scientific and technological revolution, it has begun to serve as an increasingly important and singularly effective device for adaptation to changes brought about by that revolution. Science fiction today is an excellent means for pinpointing and identifying the potential hazards that may face us in the future because of accelerating change; in addition, it is also an excellent means for testing or exploring possible future solutions. And it is in this area that science fiction has a surprising potential for preparing its readers to adapt to the swiftly accelerating speed of change, to survive the future shock that this change is bringing about and to modify the untoward effects of change.

  Science fiction today is still essentially a popular escape literature, unsophisticated and amusement-oriented. What, then, makes it so useful as a device to ease and abet man's adaptation to change? First, as opposed to mystery novels, western novels, popular love novels, sports stories, or other forms of popular fiction, science fiction is primarily a literature of ideas. Quite aside from its entertainment value, science fiction stimulates the speculative imagination. The reader of a science fiction story is invited to suspend his disbelief and embark upon an adventure dealing with events and propositions that have not yet happened but which might very conceivably occur at some time in the future, be it tomorrow or a thousand years hence. Typically a science fiction story begins with a premise which may be untrue but is at least plausible. One story, for example, might contend that the earth has been invaded by invisible aliens who can only be detected with the aid of a galvanometer. Another story might predicate that certain otherwise normal individuals can and do exercise completely unconscious disruptive mental influences over the law of averages. Yet another story might assume a manned space flight to the planet Jupiter, and take as its premise the proposition that one of Jupiter's larger moons has engendered a life form totally different from our own yet equally intelligent. In each case the science fiction story then proceeds from its initial premise to explore what such a premise might mean, what might be expected to happen in such circumstances, how people might respond to such a turn of events, and how it might influence their lives. Once the reader has been induced to suspend his disbelief it is the idea in the science fiction story that becomes paramount, and "what would happen if—" becomes the main thrust of the science fictional entertainment.

  Second, science fiction stories deliberately and specifically look to the future. This is not, as many believe, an attempt at prophecy or specific prediction; rather, it is an attempt at rational speculation about the various patterns the future might assume, given what we know about the present. Writers and readers of science fiction accept as an unspoken premise that what might happen tomorrow is directly related by cause-and-effect to what is happening today. The invisible aliens are discovered among us only because our scientific and technological advancement has provided us with an instrument—the galvanometer—by which we can detect them. Perhaps these invisible aliens have been among us for centuries without our having any awareness of their presence before this momentous discovery is made. Conceivably this unsuspected presence could explain multitudes of phenomena which hitherto were recognized but totally unexplained. But the story's concern is what the discovery may mean in human terms tomorrow and what human beings tomorrow are going to do about it. Similarly, in the story of the man whose mind unconsciously influences the law of averages, the story is concerned not so much with the phenomenon itself as with implications, speculating as to what influence such an individual might have on the world at large. It is assumed that the hero's extraordinary mental powers have evolved from certain characteristics or qualities already known to be present in humans, or else to have appeared according to the rules of genetic variation and mutation; there is nothing magical or supernatural about it. And granted this cause-and-effect premise, the story then concerns itself primarily with what this suddenly appearing mental power might mean to its possessor or to other human beings around him, what changes it would necessitate in society, and how man might adapt to the appearance of such a phenomenon if it were to occur.

  Thus science fiction is predominantly a speculative literature in which the reader is invited to ponder in some detail the effect that a given advance, change, discovery, or technological breakthrough might have upon society as we know it and upon human beings as we know them. While engaging in such speculation, however, science fiction clearly recognizes the importance of future variables in the lives of men. In particular it takes into account the appearance of unpredictable variables, such as might arise as a result of rapidly accelerating and unexpected change, and then seeks to predict where such unpredictable variables might reasonably lead. For example, it is not at all implausible that a virulent mutated virus might appear as an unpredictable variable in our own immediate future, and could lead to massive changes in the lives and health practices of whole societies. Science fiction can imagine such an unpredictable variable and then, given the premise that such a mutated virus had appeared, can ask what our society would and should do about it, how we should deal with it, and how we might work to resist it or to adapt to it. Similarly, the unexpected discovery of physical principles that could make faster-than-light travel possible by one means or another might very plausibly appear as an unpredictable variable in the world we know today. Such a variable would have a profound effect upon man's ability to explore and possibly better understand the universe. Science fiction has long been speculatively concerned with precisely such exploration, even when its concepts of what such an exploration might mean and the conclusions it might arrive at may be extremely provincial and naive.

  But how can a popular literature which is often regarded as "crazy" or "fantastic" by those least acquainted with it actually equip its readers to adapt to social, cultural, or technological change? First and foremost, science fiction prepares the minds of its readers with certain concepts or attitudes toward change that are not always widely shared by others. For example, the science fiction reader is powerfully acclimatized to the underlying idea that change is going to come about, come what may. There is no nonsense in his head about resisting, thwarting, or evading change. The science fiction stories he reads dwell upon future societies that have changed from the present. In these stories change is regarded as inevitable; indeed, science fiction frequently predicates rapid, radical, or abrupt change as probable in the pattern of the future. From his experience with the simple process of extrapolation—taking current trends and patterns and tracing them to their possible logical future implications—the science fiction reader knows that the changes proceeding about him today, however sweeping they may be, are as nothing compared to the changes that may be expected in the near and distant future.

  Second, the science fiction reader is encouraged by his reading not to fear or dread change, but rather to accept it as a fresh and exciting
challenge. After all, science fiction seems to say, the winds of change—however violent they may seem—are of man's making in the first place, and it should be within man's power to temper them. This is not to say that the science fiction reader necessarily likes the idea of change, or welcomes it, or even approves of it. He may well react quite negatively. He may elect to move heaven and earth in an effort to modify its impact, but total rejection is unlikely to enter his head. Rather, his thinking will be directed to identifying what might be wrong with a specific direction of change, which kinds of change to resist and which to applaud, what deleterious influences might come about as a result of change, and how those undesirable effects might be prevented from happening. Indeed, there are a number of prominent science fiction writers, and multitudes of their readers, who quite actively detest the process of technological change and the direction in which technology seems to be drawing mankind. But even the most adamantly pessimistic of these "antiscience" writers nevertheless recognize the inevitability of change and seek in their writings to modify its impact rather than to attempt to turn the clock back. And even at that, these writers and their readers are the exception rather than the rule. Most science fiction writers and readers approach the idea of change not with the negative mental set of "what can we do to halt it or minimize it?" but rather with the more optimistic mental set of "how can we use it, adapt to it, make our lives with it, around it, or in spite of it? How can we deal with it most effectively?"

  Third, science fiction readers in general are equipped by their reading to accept scientific and technological discovery and advancement as a major and potentially beneficial instrument forcing change. Rather than ask, "Why do we need this advancement?" they are asking, "Why haven't we had this advancement sooner? Why aren't we applying it more widely? Why didn't we recognize its potential twenty years ago, and why aren't we using these changes to better advantage?" There are very few "back to nature and the simple life" thinkers among science fiction readers, very few hand-wringers, very few indeed who are concentrating on past faults, failings, and frailties of mankind.