Luckhurst and the American Technological Sublime

I'm working on a short essay on Earth Abides to post later, but until then, here's another sample from the Luckhurst text:

"Leo Marx crystallized the integral role of the machine in the formation of American Republican identity. The central section of his Machine in the Garden samples public discourse from the 1830's and 1840's, particularly as the railroad pushed the frontier West into so-called wasted land. In a direct reposte to Carlyle's prediction of spiritual calamity in the Machine Age, Timothy Walker elided technological with democratic extension, Mechanism bringing liberation from demeaning labor and Enlightenment to the wilderness. Exponents of the railroad always invoked the shedding of light across dark lands, a classic legitimation of colonial expansion via the progressive movement of technologized modernity. David Nye observes: 'in the American imagination first there is an empty space traversed by a grid of surveyor's lines, followed by the dramatic imposition of human will on this space.' The development of the 'American technological sublime' deliberately 'does not endorse human limitations,' thus empowering an awesome sense of mastery. It out-sublimes the sublime of Nature, as it were. By the late nineteenth century, these spectacles were 'becoming part of a hegemonic system in which the nation merged with its most impressive technological and natural works' (51)."

-Roger Luckhurst, Science Fiction

I'm not gonna lie: there's something about the idea of the imagination being filled with the "empty space traversed by a grid of surveyor's lines, followed by the dramatic imposition of human will on this space" that is incredibly fascinating and at the same time mildly horrible for me. I've read about how American sf is permeated with a lust for a frontier and a sense of entitlement to that frontier (a Christian ethic of predestination probably plays a huge part in this), but until reading the Luckhurst text, it never occurred to me to connect that with technological development and society as a whole. This past school year I've been taking political philosophy classes that discussed the development, influence and consequences of capitalism, but any mention of technological developments were always set in a political frame. Even the one instance where we talked about the potential political and cultural ramifications of human cloning was geared toward the idea of topics that should be discussed in politics. 

What Luckhurst touches on goes further than politics: he's talking about the psychological impact of technology on a culture. Sf goes over this quite a bit in various forms, but as far as cultural history goes, a theory that proposes a link between cultural change and technological development as a primary influence on the psychological development of a community, is incredibly interesting to me. And maybe it should have been obvious, because it does seem that way now that I've had it presented to me, but it wasn't. I've loved nineteenth century fiction for years because I identified with the sentiment behind it -- the difficulty of adjusting to a rapidly changing world, I mean. I'm still baffled by the fact that we've created things like cars, or doors, or cellphones. Literature that explores the 'fascination and trauma' we experience in a world drastically and rapidly changed by advances in technology is especially interesting to me because of this disassociation I often have from the things that make up my American human life in this point in history. I have always associated that fascination, though, primarily with literature and not as a cultural or social phenomena.

What is this thing Nye calls the "American Imagination"? Am I really a part of this tradition, influenced in subtle and pervasive ways to believe that I am one of the elect and that all territory, on our planet or in the universe, is there to be taken, is there to be bent to my will? I'm not sure, but it is food for thought.

Luckhurst and Mechanism

"For me, SF is a literature that concerns the impact of Mechanism (to use the older term for technology) on cultural life and human subjectivity. Mechanized modernity begins to accelerate the speed of change and visibly transform the rhythms of everyday life. The different experience of time associated with modernity orients perceptions towards the future rather than the past or the cyclical sense of time ascribed to traditional societies. SF texts imagine futures or parallel worlds premised on the perpetual change associated with modernity, often by extending or extrapolating aspects of Mechanism from the contemporary world. In doing so, SF texts capture the fleeting fantasies thrown up in the swirl of modernity. (3)"

-Roger Luckhurst, Science Fiction 

Indigestion, and -Earth Abides-

I've said that I love sf, and this is true, but part of loving the genre for what it is involves accepting that sometimes the reading of the classic stuff is a bit like taking cough medicine when you're a kid (and have no idea that Tussin has those other recreational effects). Which is to say, you kind of have to hold your breath and swallow really fast, and even then, that slimy aftertaste of 'blech' remains. Despite the 'blech' aspect, though, the ingestion is worth it. You stop coughing. You can finally sleep. You might even be able to breathe through your nose for the first time in several hours.

I may have taken this metaphor too far.

The point is, sometimes reading classic sf gives me mental indigestion. I do it anyway, because I'm one of those crazy people who is in love with something that sometimes makes me want to beat my head against a wall (which probably makes me like every other human being out there, which is to say, we're all a little nuts), and because, like taking cough medicine when you're sick, I think it's good for me. The reading, not the insanity. Well, maybe the insanity a little bit, too, but I guess that comes with the territory.

The particular book that is currently driving me crazy is George R. Stewart's Earth Abides. Published in 1949, and chalk-full of all that lovely pretension, misogyny, racism and masturbatory escapist language that is so much a part of the early genre. The book is a ponderous exploration of a post-apocalyptic world in which we get to see how the main character, Isherwood Williams, deals with having survived an epidemic that has killed off most of the human race.

The novel is less an adventure story and more of a thought-experiment, and so a lot of it reads like Robinson Crusoe, big on the technical details, less so on action. Which is funny, because Stewart has Isherwood borrow Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss Family Robinson from the library early on in the text, and then writes Isherwood as being annoyed with both books. Inter-textual irony, woo!

I've stuck with it despite the indigestion, and as what usually happens with these older sf texts, it was worth the effort. Part of what helps is looking at the novel as kind of cultural history artifact. The action of the text and the philosophies it espouses are all reflective of the time it was written in, and this makes the book fascinating. Especially considering that Stewart is remarkably thorough in his exploration of how people might handle an apocalypse, and even moreso when you take into consideration just how quietly he handles the whole concept. This is not a high-energy adventure story, with damsels in distress, a clear human (or alien) villain to fight, or the blood, gore and ridiculous thrill of Mad Max. This is the banality of apocalypse, and now that I'm almost done with the book, I'm a little pleased to have read this kind of an approach.

The payoff of sf is always that it tickles my brain, because at the end of every story, however frustrating it might be or however much I disagree with its ideologies, the fact that we're dreaming these things up at all is kind of wonderful. It's somehow reassuring.

I'll go into more critical detail about Earth Abides in another post, but this gives you an idea of what I'm working with. The irritating part is working through being offended by all the sexism, racism and narcissism in the text in order to get myself to the point of being able to critically analyze it. But then, that's part of what this blog is for. :D

Genesis

I love sf.

I should probably start off by saying that I don't mean San Francisco when I say 'sf.' Sf can mean 'Speculative Fiction,' 'Science Fiction,' 'Speculative Fantasy,' 'Science Fantasy' and so on, and from what I'm told, if you want to talk about any of those with a hard-core fan or scholar of sf, it's safest to just say 'sf' unless you want to draw a line in the sand.

Part of the purpose of this blog is to document my transition from sf student to sf scholar. Some people are wonderfully self-contained and have no need to share their experiences, frustrations and fascinations with an audience. I'm not one of those people. I wish I were, because I'm sitting here quivering with self-consciousness at the reality of what I'm doing by creating a blog that revolves around my experience of sf, terrified of making a public ass of myself. The truth is, though, I do need to share it. Not the 'making an ass of myself' bit, but my love for and fascination with sf. I need a place where I can talk about what I'm reading and watching, where I am forced to refine those thoughts and impressions into coherency, and, hopefully, where I can connect to other people who are fascinated by sf and everything sf has to offer as a genre. I needed that place, and rather than waiting to find it, I made one for myself.

Welcome to my middle ground.