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LITR 4368 Literature of the Future  |
Sample answers
for Essay 1:
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Karin Cooper
7/8/15
In Denial of the Future
This course has shown me how scared I am of the future. Not the scared
that gives me goosebumps, and an adrenaline rush, but the scared that is so deep
seated I did not even know it was there, and I cannot really even feel it. The
reason I have come to this conclusion about myself is that all of the high tech,
and virtual reality literature that we studied in the class either completely
lost me, or irritated me. I am sure I am not alone in this feeling from
discussing with some of the other students in class, but also I know that some
people are embracing what seems to be inevitable. The future is coming, a
virtual reality, and a high tech world are already here. However my denial
flourishes, even as I type this on my Bluetooth keyboard, and my brand new
tablet. I still push it all away. When reading the low tech, and actual reality
scenarios I love them, I can follow them, and I also have a sense of "I told you
so," that of course I knew heading into this high tech world things would go
wrong. Any time a utopic world turns dystopic I feel justified in my denial.
This is something I need to get over. In this essay I will compare low tech and
high tech scenarios and the pros and cons of each (even if I do not want to
admit that there are pros of high tech).
Virtual reality is coming whether we like it or not. In "The Onion and I"
by Thomas Fox Averill it shows a world where virtual reality is a great saver of
resources, and can give people experiences that they never would have been able
to have otherwise. This conservation of resources in stories about virtual
reality is an amazing thing. Literature about virtual reality gives answer to
conservation problems in a way that is interesting to the reader, and makes it
an appealing option. People can travel the world without wasting the resources
they would need to use to travel at this point in time. Also a virtual world
would be much safer than our world is now. You could send your child on trips
without the worry of someone in another country abducting them. The high tech
world is already heading in the direction of virtual realities. Yes there are
faults in some of the details that a virtual reality is able to provide as shown
in"Onion": "A cyber onion' said my father, 'is not a real onion.' He liked to
call one up, peel it, try to enjoy its Cybersmell and Cybertaste. 'A real onion
can make you cry.'" (Averill 15). I tend to side with the dad in this story, and
say, "yeah a Cyberonion cannot make you cry". However in reality I hate that
onions make me cry that is something I would not miss at all. Plus the virtual
reality shown in "Onion" was a just a beginning version of virtual reality.
Virtual reality would get better, and I am sure with the advancement of
technology you could eventually decide if wanted your onion to make you cry or
not. Virtual reality could be a good thing, and it would not surprise me if it
was in the future of our reality.
While virtual reality, and the high tech world are an inevitable, and
probably good thing that is coming to our world, there are definitely things
that could go wrong. "Chocco" by Ernest Callenbach shows a possible look at what
will happen to us if we let our high tech world go wrong. In "Chocco" an
ecotopia is presented to us where there is no overpopulation, and everyone works
together for the good of the community, almost entirely without technology. This
is typical of ecotopias in literature. Although some technology is still used in
"Chocco", like the sun panels for example, most of what we rely on day to day is
not shown to be necessary in an ecotopia. The Socratic discussion between the
characters in "Chocco" calls attention to many of the negative things about high
tech that we depend on. Aside from the fact that in "Chocco" our civilization
led itself to its own demise because of its dependence on technology, the thing
that was blaringly obvious to me as a negative about high tech was the lack of
actual history that could be found. Because everything was being kept on
computers, and on virtual devices when all of that was gone all of our
information was gone. Imagine how much we would know if suddenly there were no
Google, or no computers at all. How much of our history would we know? In
"Chocco" Jon thinks that we did not
know many things about the world around us: "They were ignorant of biology-- all
our excavations and analyses have revealed no knowledge" (Callenbach 193)". If
something goes wrong with this high tech world our society is running into
unaware of the consequences, we will have lost all access to our knowledge. This
thought is terrifying. Low tech and actual reality literature often show what
can go wrong in a high tech world. High tech literature has the potential to
show us ideas that are beyond our wildest dreams, while stories of low tech and
actual reality can shove us into our worst nightmares.
Low tech literature is not all scary, it also provides a hope. Low tech
literature provides a hope that no matter what does happen in this high tech
world we will find a way to survive. Low tech and actual reality stories are
often post apocalyptic tales of survival. These have appeals, such as humans
being the underdog, and prevailing no matter how terrible the world around has
become. In "Speech Sounds" by Octavia Butler the reader is thrust into a
disease-ridden, post-apocalyptic world, and the focus is placed on human
interactions, which is typical in low tech literature. Another aspect pointed
out on the low tech website is that actual reality and low tech stories often
focus on women and children, which is definitely done in "Speech Sounds".
Low-tech also often focuses on the importance of relationships and family. Low
tech often shows relationships in families you choose yourself, the ones you are
born into, or both. The idea in "Speech Sounds" that there would no longer be
language is the scary setting the story places the reader into. The part that
brings hope is the fact that even without language, human relationships, and
families can still exist. Even when all seems lost we will survive. This hope in
actual reality has a draw that comforts the reader while the rest of the story
is scaring the reader with its sometimes horrific ideas.
While high tech stories scare me with the idea of the unknown, and
uncontrollable, they in their own way can offer hope to the reader. The
possibilities that high tech, and cyberpunk literature offer are endless. In
"Burning Chrome" by William Gibson the narrator has a robotic arm. This an
amazing possibility, that gives hope to those who do suffer from the loss of a
limb. However, those with such a great loss would not be the only ones affected
by this hope. In that world there is a level of security that can be felt
because humans are not limited by just the bounds of their physical bodies. In a
high tech world maybe a physical handicap will be unheard of because of
cybernetics. This technology is already being developed to some extent, although
there is still a long way to go in regards to replacing human body parts with
robotic ones. One of the ways that high tech literature brings in, and handles
so many high tech ideas that could overwhelm the reader, is often by depending
on the romantic narrative as a story structure. Doing this allows readers to
follow a familiar pattern in the overall plot, so that they can attempt to take
in all the new technology, and the differences in the settings that can be found
within the pages of high tech, cyberpunk, and virtual reality scenarios. These
high tech stories can sometimes be precursors to what really happens, and
sometimes be completely off. However an appeal of high tech science fiction is
that anything is possible, the imagination can run wild with the possible
outcomes of our future.
In science fiction there are no limits to what can be written. Whether
the author wants to paint our future in a positive light, or a grim, and scary
one, no one can contradict what will, or will not happen because there are no
boundaries to science fiction. It is scary for me to think about how much
everything will change, and the lack of control that I have in what does change.
As Elizabeth L. Suffron wrote in her final exam in 2013 "lives forever
change"The idea of change is what is actually scaring me when thinking about
high tech futures. In reality change is already here, and has been present my
whole life. Things exist now I could never have imagined when I was little. So
maybe I need to exchange my apprehension of the rapidly changing world that
science fiction presents me with, for excitement of the possibilities that high
tech has to offer. The assurance that no matter what turn the future takes, if I
look at the actual reality scenarios, low tech stories and the ecotopias
presented, there will be families, survival, and hope no matter what happens in
the future.
