Fantasy Authors Use Existing Cultures for Easy Consistency

Inconsistencies in any fictional world can be jarring to audiences and detract from the narrative; “lacking consistency, a world may begin to appear sloppily constructed, or even random and disconnected.”58 Since Secondary Worlds are increasingly likely to be inconsistent as they grow in size and scope, analogies to the real world are particularly useful to Fantasy authors because they provide a template in which not every detail needs to be either imagined or explained to the audience. G...

 Racial Theory, Science, and Fantasy

Modern concepts of race were formulated as a “widely shared theory of biologically determined, physical, intellectual and moral differences between human groups.”35 Hannah Augstein identifies three key elements in nineteenth century race-thinking: that humanity can be divided into races “whose characteristics are fixed and defy the modifying influences of external circumstances;” that these racial groupings have different “intellectual and moral capacities;” and “that mental end...

 Fantasy's "Unreality" Makes It Safer for Exploring Cultur...

Fantasy is a useful sub-set through which to explore popular culture not only because of its prominent position at the present historical moment,but because its inherently non-mimetic nature creates a space which is at least nominally not “the real world” and is therefore safer for cultural work around fraught issues such as – although by no means limited to – race. This is not to suggest that the imagined worlds of Fantasy are separate from reality, but rather that the inclusion of a...

 The Moynihan Report Characterizes Black Culture as Commun...

Doro is an ideal consumer who is both part of a “race,” “nation,” or “empire” (those terms being as confused and intertwined for Doro as they were for Burroughs) and its predator. This depiction of Doro highlights the ways in which a hyper-extended consumerism and an exceptionalist definition of nation both necessarily bring with them a permanent underclass—without which the empire would collapse—both feeding and being destroyed by those in the dominant position, and who thems...

 The System of Oppression is Still in Place at the End of ...

o, directly opposing Rebekah Simpkins’ assertion that “By removing the control, Neo sets the prisoners free,” the first film ends with those controls still in place.45 At the end of The Matrix, after all, Neo does not awaken everyone to “the real,” but instead exploits the continued functioning of the Matrix, leaving the illusion intact so that he can fly. As Žižek writes, “all these ‘miracles’ are possible only if we remain WITHIN the VR sustained by the Matrix …: our ‘...

 SF Fantasies are in a Mutually Complicating Relationship ...

This general paradigm is offered as a theoretical ground for the specific focus and readings of the rest of this book, which analyses in detail the issues of gender, race, and their representation in American SF. For, while the “cognitive” element of SF may not hold in all or even most cases, still SF, as a specular mode, reminds us that its fantasies are in a mutually complicating relationship with material reality. The categories of gender and race, their mutable histories, and the meta...

 People Attack Increased Options Because They Feel Like Th...

The key to understanding the world today is in this comic right here. this Boomer comic has been making the rounds on Facebook for at least a decade, and it portrays a brave, older Marine in a coffee shop where the barista says, “can I interest you in a soy latte?” he says, no. “just coffee, black.” “caramel Macchiato?” “just coffee, black.” “iced peppermint mocha?” “just coffee, black” “frappe?” now, the first thing you'll notice is that this scenario has never oc...

 Locke's Philosophical Criticism Destroyed the Institution...

We must note two aspects of Locke’s method of analysis. One is that it was primarily a method of criticism, a method which by means of analysis subjected to critical scrutiny the many complex ideas which prevail in a society, and which because of their abstruse nature, cause confusion and misunderstanding. Locke proposed that all such ideas be analyzed into their simple components and examined critically so that the degree of their validity might be determined. The other aspect for us to no...

 Technology is Ideology

...what is happening in America is not the design of an articulated ideology. No Mein Kamp for Communist Manifesto announced its coming. It comes as the unintended consequence of a dramatic change in our modes of public conversation. But it is an ideology nonetheless, for it imposes a way of life, a set of relations among people and ideas, about which there has been no consensus, no discussion and no opposition. Only compliance. Public consciousness has not yet assimilated the point that tech...

 Huxley and Orwell's Portrayed Very Different Dystopias

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What ...