[scifinoir2] Science Fiction and the Politics of Catastrophe

[Kelwyn]

http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/P/paik_utopia.html


The pitfalls and limitations of utopian politics as revealed by science fiction

Revolutionary narratives in recent science fiction graphic novels and films 
compel audiences to reflect on the politics and societal ills of the day. 
Through character and story, science fiction brings theory to life, giving 
shape to the motivations behind the action as well as to the consequences they 
produce.

In From Utopia to Apocalypse, Peter Y. Paik shows how science fiction generates 
intriguing and profound insights into politics. He reveals that the fantasy of 
putting annihilating omnipotence to beneficial effect underlies the 
revolutionary projects that have defined the collective upheavals of the modern 
age. Paik traces how this political theology is expressed, and indeed 
literalized, in popular superhero fiction, examining works including Alan Moore 
and Dave Gibbons's graphic novel Watchmen, the science fiction cinema of Jang 
Joon-Hwan, the manga of Hayao Miyazaki, Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, and the 
Matrix trilogy. Superhero fantasies are usually seen as compensations for 
individual feelings of weakness, victimization, and vulnerability. But Paik 
presents these fantasies as social constructions concerned with questions of 
political will and the disintegration of democracy rather than with the 
psychology of the personal.

What is urgently at stake, Paik argues, is a critique of the limitations and 
deadlocks of the political imagination. The utopias dreamed of by 
totalitarianism, which must be imposed through torture, oppression, and mass 
imprisonment, nevertheless persist in liberal political systems. With this 
reality looming throughout, Paik demonstrates the uneasy juxtaposition of 
saintliness and cynically manipulative realpolitik, of torture and the 
assertion of human dignity, of cruelty and benevolence.

Re: [scifinoir2] Science Fiction and the Politics of Catastrophe

[Martin Baxter]

rave, thanks for this. I'll be chasing it down the minute I walk into
Borders.

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 11:12 AM, Kelwyn ravena...@yahoo.com wrote:



 http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/P/paik_utopia.html

 The pitfalls and limitations of utopian politics as revealed by science
 fiction

 Revolutionary narratives in recent science fiction graphic novels and films
 compel audiences to reflect on the politics and societal ills of the day.
 Through character and story, science fiction brings theory to life, giving
 shape to the motivations behind the action as well as to the consequences
 they produce.

 In From Utopia to Apocalypse, Peter Y. Paik shows how science fiction
 generates intriguing and profound insights into politics. He reveals that
 the fantasy of putting annihilating omnipotence to beneficial effect
 underlies the revolutionary projects that have defined the collective
 upheavals of the modern age. Paik traces how this political theology is
 expressed, and indeed literalized, in popular superhero fiction, examining
 works including Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's graphic novel Watchmen, the
 science fiction cinema of Jang Joon-Hwan, the manga of Hayao Miyazaki, Alan
 Moore's V for Vendetta, and the Matrix trilogy. Superhero fantasies are
 usually seen as compensations for individual feelings of weakness,
 victimization, and vulnerability. But Paik presents these fantasies as
 social constructions concerned with questions of political will and the
 disintegration of democracy rather than with the psychology of the personal.

 What is urgently at stake, Paik argues, is a critique of the limitations
 and deadlocks of the political imagination. The utopias dreamed of by
 totalitarianism, which must be imposed through torture, oppression, and mass
 imprisonment, nevertheless persist in liberal political systems. With this
 reality looming throughout, Paik demonstrates the uneasy juxtaposition of
 saintliness and cynically manipulative realpolitik, of torture and the
 assertion of human dignity, of cruelty and benevolence.

  




-- 
If all the world's a stage and we are merely players, who the bloody hell
wrote the script? -- Charles E Grant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUxw9aUVik