My biggest concern about American life as we know it is not gay marriage, the economy, our dependence on foreign oil, or the apathy that has spread across our political institutions.
It's our imagination.
Look at the products our imagination has produced in the past 20 years, especially with regards to our future. There's Blade Runner, the father of modern cyberpunk (and hardly a happy look into what will be...), the Mad Max movies, Terminator, Children of Men, Babylon A.D... The list could go on.
What about our video games? Video games have thrived on sci-fi and fantasy tropes. Post-apocalypse is what we do. From Fallout to the Metal Gear Solid series, video games hardly have a positive vision of the future. It almost seems as though humanity knows and/or fears that we are nearing the end, that we're not going to make it without some serious cataclysm.
What happened to the Jetsons, cheesy as they were? Or Star Trek? These shows captured our imaginations and showed us that the future, despite what the present seemed to indicate, will be bright.
Which brings me to my fear: if we cannot even imagine a solution to the multitude of problems our generation faces, how will we overcome them? Without even an unrealistic solution, how can we begin to work towards anything?
In part, I think the problem lies with post-modernism. (No, I am not a post-modernism hater. Actually, I am sort of post-modern to post-modernity.) Post-modernism has (justifiably) rejected the hope that modernism had in the progress of man. But at what cost? When will we allow ourselves to have hope in anything again?
This thought has become somewhat of a conviction. I've mostly stopped working on one of my favorite story ideas because it is more post-apocalyptic than I'd like it to be. I believe it is the task of the storytellers and artists to craft a more positive vision of the future, giving us, if nothing else, the hope that we can go on.
3 comments:
hmm... very interesting. and I agree.
It's hard though... it seems the story possibilities are endless when it comes to post apocalyptic stuff... maybe my imagination is limited as well... dang it.
Yes, I think there needs to be hope...but realistic hope. We can't have ignorant hope thinking that everything is just going to turn out ok. We have to work at those things to make them ok.
We do need creative solutions to the problems, especially since we are Christians and we recognize that the ways of the world are not good enough.
I'm not sure I'd say that the BIGGEST problem is our lack of imagnination though...
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