"Fan of sci-fi? Psychologists have you in their sights" Topic

"Science fiction has struggled to achieve the same credibility as highbrow literature. In 2019, the celebrated author Ian McEwan dismissed science fiction as the stuff of "anti-gravity boots" rather than "human dilemmas". According to McEwan, his own book about intelligent robots, Machines Like Me, provided the latter by examining the ethics of artificial life – as if this were not a staple of science fiction from Isaac Asimov's robot stories of the 1940s and 1950s to TV series such as Humans (2015-2018).

Psychology has often supported this dismissal of the genre. The most recent psychological accusation against science fiction is the "great fantasy migration hypothesis". This supposes that the real world of unemployment and debt is too disappointing for a generation of entitled narcissists. They consequently migrate to a land of make-believe where they can live out their grandiose fantasies…"
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Amicalement
Armand

When shrinks can examine people with the same predictive value as engineers looking at engines or bridges, they will be entitled to have their opinions taken seriously. But so far, that time is still in the realm of science fiction.

It a race between the Neurologist and psychologist.

"Science fiction is an existential metaphor, that allows us to tell stories about the human condition." -Douglas Anders

Isaac Asimov once said, "Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all."

So they can suck it

No more than romance novels featuring covers of idealized (and shirtless) young studs with lean muscles and ripped abs provide bored and unfulfilled housewives with a much needed diversion from their otherwise mundane and unhappy love lives.

All this psycho-babble says is that sci-fi, like most genres in fiction, provides us with a form of escapism. Not exactly a "novel" concept, pun intended.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Does he really think sci fi doesn't deal with those themes?

Or does he just lose interest when the characters mention anything to do with physics?

The story goes that someone once said to Roger Zelazny that 99% of science fiction is crap. Zelazny replied that 99% of all writing is crap. So the story goes; I leave it as an exercise to the reader to document it.

I generally agree with Robert Piepenbrink's comment about engineers.

I didn't really start writing until I got over the stumbling block of other people telling me how to write. My attitude towards those people is LOLGF. I write what I like… ;-)

Robert +1 The psychological 'sciences' today are about at the same place the medical sciences were in the 1600s. A lot of fanciful ideas and no real clue how it all works.

I think it was Sturgeon's Law that 90% of EVERYTHING is crap.
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This being Theodore Sturgeon the science-fiction writer's reply to the charge that 90% of science fiction is crap.
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I wouldn't be surprised if Zelazny said something similar.:)

This supposes that the real world of unemployment and debt is too disappointing for a generation of entitled narcissists. They consequently migrate to a land of make-believe where they can live out their grandiose fantasies

It's impressive that at 13 I knew that I was set up for a life of unemployment (never) and debt (nope again).

Most people I know start with Science Fiction as teenagers, so it is hardly going to be about adult woes.

where they can live out their grandiose fantasies

Have they read any modern Sci-fi? Grandiose fantasies might cover some of Star Wars, but even most of the Sci-fi films these days aren't big on the grandiosity.

Not to sure that they could want to to talk with me.

I just might drive them crazy.