Why did sci-fi become pessimistic?

[thestars]

A lot of people here and elsewhere have noticed that science fiction nowadays tends to be dark and dystopian. In contrast, 1950s-1960s science fiction predicted a bright future for humanity, one of exploration and discovery as we venture out among the stars. My question is, why the change? It's not like the destructive potential of technology was any less apparent in the 1950s, when WWII had just ended and all major cities were heavily polluted, than it is in 2020, when very few people in the developed world have ever been bombed or lived in smog-filled cities. But yet, doom and gloom is the order of the day. Why?

 

[paeng]

It's possible that it might also reflect readers' and viewers' situation. In the case of the 1950s onward, it was the Cold War:

Science Fiction Films and Cold War Anxiety | Encyclopedia.com

8Science Fiction Films and Cold War AnxietyExtraterrestrial TravelAlien Invasion and InfiltrationMutants, Metamorphosis, and Resurrection of Extinct SpeciesNear Annihilation or the End of the EarthConclusionVictoria O'Donnell Source for information on Science Fiction Films and Cold War Anxiety...

www.encyclopedia.com

Today, it might be influenced by peak oil and limits to growth, global warming, environmental damage, the spread of disease, and multifold increases in arms production and deployment.

 

[Dave]

I would dispute the argument you make. There is certainly less "gee-whiz" science, and many people no longer expect that science and technology can solve every problem anymore, but I don't think that means there is a larger proportion of dystopian stories being written than before.

1950s-1960s science fiction predicted a bright future for humanity

I don't think so, it is merely that those authors and book/short stories are no longer popular today. Many stories from that time were written in a bleak landscape of post-nuclear warfare. For example, PKD stories have become a Hollywood film staple in recent years, and yet a large volume of his work was about people surviving in underground bunkers.

very few people in the developed world have ever been bombed or lived in smog-filled cities

They may not have "experienced" bombing themselves (if you mean in the manner the Blitz or Aleppo) but many have lived with the threat of terrorism, some for generations. There is no doubt that the incidences of terrorist bombings has risen more recently. However, I'd say that the fear of that threat is, and always was, more pervasive than the experience itself.

City air is not clean either. Coal is no longer used as a fuel but smog is no longer defined as a mixture of smoke and fog. It is used for any abnormal concentration of matter in the atmosphere which is sufficient to harm or annoy people. Car exhaust fine particulates, together with nitrogen oxides reacting with low level ozone, are killing people and making them physically unwell. Our rivers may have less raw sewage and industrial pollution dumped in them, but even in unpopulated places, the streams have fertilisers, antibiotics and insecticides (from dog flea collars) in them.

I agree with @paeng that science fiction has always reflected readers, viewers, and also the writers, situation; their hopes and fears. People are still worried about the world, but those worries have changed and may be different. Science fiction was always about the "now" as well as about the future. We no longer discuss current affairs on these forums because people have shown that they cannot argue them calmly, so can I ask that any discussion of world events in this thread is kept to a very general level, without introducing politics. However, that very polarisation of opinions might also be a factor if the stories appear to be more "doom and gloom" than they once were.

 

[hitmouse]

A lot of people here and elsewhere have noticed that science fiction nowadays tends to be dark and dystopian. In contrast, 1950s-1960s science fiction predicted a bright future for humanity, one of exploration and discovery as we venture out among the stars. My question is, why the change? It's not like the destructive potential of technology was any less apparent in the 1950s, when WWII had just ended and all major cities were heavily polluted, than it is in 2020, when very few people in the developed world have ever been bombed or lived in smog-filled cities. But yet, doom and gloom is the order of the day. Why?

I agree with @Dave that your basic supposition is flawed. The shiney 1960s technological optimism of Thunderbirds (for example) might have disappeared, but any critical look at the sf of the day will demonstrate that that was only a very small part of the output of that period.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

The range of SF produced these days is if anything greater than the "golden era."
Fantasy though has remained pretty much where it began, with Tolkien.
Steampunk has been a great new sub-genre.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Personally I think that whilst there was still hope of thriving life on other nearby planets, people were optimistic that sooner rather than later we would be meeting alien races and perhaps even travelling to other worlds. As it has become evident that the other planets in the solar system (other than Earth) are dead rocks/balls of gas and - at best - contain the most very basic forms of life, and that travel beyond our solar system - indeed even with most of our home system - is far beyond our capabilities, it becomes evident that the glorious hope of colonies on Venus and Mars have become a distant dream. The more we know, the less the possibilities of the unknown.

 

[Randy M.]

I fondly recall the optimism of C. M. Kornbluth, P. K. Dick, Algis Budrys, Thomas Disch, etc.

 

[KGeo777]

But yet, doom and gloom is the order of the day. Why?

The taste of publishers is what ultimately determines the trends and themes. Writers that fall outside
that will not get published or promoted.
If all the pizza restaurants in town are owned by Hungarians, expect a generous amount of paprika in the dough.

 

[Parson]

I also feel that there is a lot more gloom and doom in S.F. today. But I'm not sure my feeling would hold up to statistical analysis. I suspect that part of the emotional calculation which goes into this feeling is that stories like The Hunger Games and Mad Max are wildly popular and other more hopeful S.F. like (and I had to think a long time to think of one widely seen) Avatar is panned as not a good story. Also I think you have to consider the age of the people creating the S.F. In the 50's and 60's a lot of your authors writing then grew up in an age where most problems were deemed solvable by applied science, whereas those growing up in the 70's onward often grew up believing the end of the world is immanent and there isn't a thing we can do about it and that "progress" (a kinda science) is to blame.

 

[Bick]

I also feel that there is a lot more gloom and doom in S.F. today. But I'm not sure my feeling would hold up to statistical analysis. I suspect that part of the emotional calculation which goes into this feeling is that stories like The Hunger Games and Mad Max are wildly popular and other more hopeful S.F. like (and I had to think a long time to think of one widely seen) Avatar is panned as not a good story.

I'm not sure Mad Max supports your contention that SF today is more doom and gloom - it was made 41 years ago!! It supports the counter-argument, surely.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Also I think you have to consider the age of the people creating the S.F. In the 50's and 60's a lot of your authors writing then grew up in an age where most problems were deemed solvable by applied science, whereas those growing up in the 70's onward often grew up believing the end of the world is immanent and there isn't a thing we can do about it and that "progress" (a kinda science) is to blame.

One could certainly construct a narrative of progress through science from the Victorian period through to the 1950's and 60's, especially if you were a white male SF writer in the US - the country that was (and still is) the most powerful superpower where a sizeable proportion of its citizens enjoy some of the best living conditions in the world (Not all of course, but compare yourself to other countries in the world). However I think a lot of the 'bright future' SF was terribly naive that science could easily solve problems. Sometimes it can, but usually it brings along new problems and it doesn't always solve the old ones!

I don't have the stats to back me up, but I'd guess that if you looked at SF from other parts of the world at the time, say Britain, you'd find less 'Bright Future' and more 'Gloom & Doom'.

 

[Vince W]

I would say dystopian fiction is closer in tone to fantasy than science fiction. Technology becomes closer to magic than science and the few that know how to operate it are the wizards. Given the popularity of fantasy these days it's no wonder dytopians are more popular at the moment.

When Samuel Delany and M. John Harrison started writing space operas that had 'used' futures the chrome started coming off and then Star Wars and Alien helped the general population to start seeing science fiction in this way. Star Trek remained true to its roots though and kept the clean high chrome future.

To sum up, I think science fiction as we think of it is still, at its core, about positive futures to varying degrees, and dystopians need to be reclassified as a subset of fantasy.

 

[Astro Pen]

A good question. Here are my initial thoughts to agree or disagree with:

These days protagonists, it seems, need something to fight against. Utopia can need to be fought against if it is a "dark underbelly' quasi utopia, but generally a dystopia delivers with ease reasons for gun toting action. This makes for a lazy writing and plotting style focused on action and devoid of character depth, "roles, not well rounded people". (An axe I often grind on here.)

I have said before that much postwar sci-fi was a reflection of the optimism of modernism and hope through technology. The modernist era is over.
Current sci-fi is often not science specific, the plot devices- ships, empires, battles etc. can be transposed to Romans, World war two, whenever. All you need to do is change the uniforms and mode of transport and rewrite the darned thing in the era of your choice. Was 1968's 2001 A Space Odyssey the last story in which no one got a gun out or blew anything up?

So many articles say "you must have conflict on every page/scene." It is that kind of advice that has led to the relentless misery of contemporary writing. Too much 'goes wrong' to maintain credibility. Sure it works for a 90 minute Arnie movie. I like the rivers my books to flow at a gentler pace, then when the action does arrive it has something to counterpoint.

 

[hitmouse]

I fondly recall the optimism of C. M. Kornbluth, P. K. Dick, Algis Budrys, Thomas Disch, etc.

Yes. And John Wyndham, the British New Wave, Sheckley, Vance, Frank Herbert. Nauseating optimists all.

 

[Toby Frost]

It depends what people mean by "pessimistic". A film like Mad Max: Fury Road is violent and set in a bleak world, but has a clear moral viewpoint and an optimistic (if not exactly cheerful) ending. You couldn't call it a happy film, but it isn't downbeat in that way. Similarly, is fiction that tries to warn people pessimistic? 1984 is extremely gloomy, but Orwell explicitly stated that it was a warning, not a prediction (and that's from the late 40s).

I don't see why dystopian SF should be considered fantasy, unless you're going for a strict "the only real SF is hard SF" approach.

I'd accept that there's a certain type of Campbell/Gernsback type SF that is less popular now, but perhaps people have a slightly more sophisticated view of technology now. I think the concept of some large galactic federation or world government that is wholly benign and not corrupt has faded, but perhaps that means that readers are more nuanced and worldly now. Perhaps, to follow Venusian Broon's comment, there was a faith in the future in the 1950s USA that wasn't shared in the rest of the world, and perhaps some of that faith was lost in the 60s (Stephen King points to the Vietnam War as the point where he realised that the leaders were about as skilled as he was.)

I don't think that it's to do with one political group now having editorial control over the genre because (a) there isn't such a group, (b) publishers want to make money, not push propaganda and (c) if that was so, one idealistic future would have been swapped neatly for another in the public eye, which hasn't happened.

 

[Parson]

However I think a lot of the 'bright future' SF was terribly naive that science could easily solve problems. Sometimes it can, but usually it brings along new problems and it doesn't always solve the old ones!

I believe that's the general feeling today. If you believe that somehow tomorrow will be better than today you are easily seen as naïve. This is terribly ironic when in almost every measurable way today is the best time the world has ever known. These is less hunger. There is more literacy. There is better health care. The rate of extreme poverty is at its lowest level ever. etc. See Steven Pinker Enlightenment Now for the figures and much more proof that these are the best of times. (Climate Change and the pandemic are exceptions, but Science looks to have solved the pandemic at this point and I for one, see hopeful movement on Climate change.)

Was 1968's 2001 A Space Odyssey the last story in which no one got a gun out or blew anything up?

I'm assuming you mean S.F. movies. In that case there is Passengers (2016).

 

[Paul Meccano]

A lot of people here and elsewhere have noticed that science fiction nowadays tends to be dark and dystopian. In contrast, 1950s-1960s science fiction predicted a bright future for humanity, one of exploration and discovery as we venture out among the stars. My question is, why the change? It's not like the destructive potential of technology was any less apparent in the 1950s, when WWII had just ended and all major cities were heavily polluted, than it is in 2020, when very few people in the developed world have ever been bombed or lived in smog-filled cities. But yet, doom and gloom is the order of the day. Why?

We are arriving at a time of societal breakdown; this is sadly the end of a systems vialbility, where one dies another will be born of the ashes...
Need I say more?

 

[BAYLOR]

We are arriving at a time of societal breakdown; this is sadly the end of a systems vialbility, where one dies another will be born of the ashes...
Need I say more?

Upgrade 2018

 

[Venusian Broon]

I believe that's the general feeling today. If you believe that somehow tomorrow will be better than today you are easily seen as naïve. This is terribly ironic when in almost every measurable way today is the best time the world has ever known. These is less hunger. There is more literacy. There is better health care. The rate of extreme poverty is at its lowest level ever. etc. See Steven Pinker Enlightenment Now for the figures and much more proof that these are the best of times. (Climate Change and the pandemic are exceptions, but Science looks to have solved the pandemic at this point and I for one, see hopeful movement on Climate change.)

The optimist in me agrees with you!

However the pessimist also points out that, for example, less hunger does not always mean positive outcomes - the rise in obesity and all the various health problems that decrease average life span and seem to be spreading ever larger. Add to that, that sort of diet that the world aspires to is ecologically not sound, given the number of humans on the planet.

Literate people can decide to believe ridiculous conspiracy theories (in increasing numbers).

Better health care can be locked out for the poor. (Although in general, I do think our medical knowledge is a vast improvement on even 30 years ago and is in general 'progressive')

I think, and this is beyond the original scope of the OP, climate change and ecological collapse may actually move faster than our ability to 'technology it better'. We may just be in a special time where there is still enough leeway to allow our short-sighted decisions just about look alright, maybe soon we reach a tipping point that will take us into disaster.

But taking it back to SF. It makes sense to me to have some authors explore the giddy heights of progress and some the gloomy depths of disaster. They are making us aware of flaws and evils, or possibilities and goals to guide us going forward. Such authors will come out of the zeitgeist of the time. At the moment I think we are in a bit of a anti-scientific, anti-progress moment. Who knows, in a decade it could all change!

 

[thestars]

I'm definitely not as well-read in science fiction as most of you, so it's possible my premise is just wrong. But it does seem that lots of other people have the same impression. For example:

• Dear Science Fiction Writers: Stop Being So Pessimistic!
• Has anyone else noticed how pessimistic Science fiction is about our future nowadays?
• Where Are Our Bright Science-Fiction Futures?
• Paradise Lost: The Mysterious Case of the Missing Utopian Novels
• Lots of people in our own community

I don't have statistics to prove the premise right or wrong. If anyone does, please let me know. I'm thinking of taking the top 10 science fiction novels from 1950-1970 by sales, and comparing them to the top 10 novels from 2010-2020 by sales.

I agree with @KGeo777 :

The taste of publishers is what ultimately determines the trends and themes. Writers that fall outside
that will not get published or promoted.
If all the pizza restaurants in town are owned by Hungarians, expect a generous amount of paprika in the dough.

So my question is, are the pizza restaurants in town really increasingly owned by Hungarians? If so, why are there so many more Hungarians now? Was there a war in Hungary? Did immigration law become more Hungarian-friendly? Do Hungarians have a higher birth rate?