A Place in the Stars, a Place in the Dirt
an Investigation into the Utopian Desires
in Science Advocacy and Science Fiction
written by Ivo Stoop [email protected] toward the completion of the Student ID#: 10850929 Media Studies: Film Studies Master’s Program Completed on: 27 October 2015 at the University of Amsterdam, 2015 23,561 words
Supervisor: Dr. A. M. Geil Second Reader: Dr. M. C. Wilkinson
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CONTENTS
Introduction The Mess We’re In ...……………………………………………………………3
Chapter 1 Utopia: the ShapeShifting Ideology ….…………………..……………………...11 1.1 Thomas More’s Utopia ………………………………………..………………….13 1.2 After More: The Program and the Impulse.……………………….……………....16 1.3 Body, Time, Collectivity …………………………………………..……………...19 1.4 WishFulfillment and The Reality Principle of Science Fiction …….…………....23 1.5 Upon Reaching the (Apparent) Horizon of the SciFi Imaginary …….…………..28
Chapter 2 Cosmos and the Utopia in Scientific Discovery …………………………………..31 2.1 Humanist and Scientific Utopias ……………………………………………...... 32 2.2 A Personal Voyage ……………………………………………………………...... 36 2.3 A Spacetime Odyssey …………………………………………………………...... 40 2.4 Spaceships of the Imagination ………………………………………………...... 42 2.5 Technological Adolescence ……………………………………………………….47
Chapter 3 Interstellar and Scientific Exploration as Utopian Antidote ………….………….54 3.1 The Indomitable “Spirit” of Science ……………………………………………...56 3.2 Scientific Realism ………………………………………………………………...58 3.3 The Other Future ……………………………………………………………….....60
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………...... 65
Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………....67
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Introduction The Mess We’re In
Science fiction in its most general definition concerns itself with fictionalized futures, but under the preconception that that future will be determined by current and yettocome advancements in scientific knowledge and their uses. This predilection toward predictive futurefantasy, which is based primarily in an assessment of current real scientific and/or technological capability, seems to be among the more widely taken premises within the genre — as Peter Fitting puts it, “there is a science fiction which continues to claim for itself some predictive or extrapolative function” (Fitting 136). Works of science fiction thus often work as cultural critique, in that the portrayal of a future antagonistic abuse of the power of science is relevant to its contemporary uses and abuses. The science fiction films of the 1970’s and 80’s often told stories of the bizarre and horrible effect on culture a hypothetical nuclear apocalypse might have; scifi films of the 21st century, in contrast, often portray a future after economic and environmental collapse has decimated human civilization. There seems to be a thread which runs between the constituent qualities of science fiction, apocalypse narratives, and something which can be described as a kind of broad fascination or fear of the ‘moment’ at which humanity teeters between annihilation and triumphant return. Depictions of apocalypse and postapocalyptic settings in film are virtually always placed within the genre of science fiction. It seems that merely the precondition that the world has gone through violent, ‘worldending’ catastrophe is enough to associate a narrative with the imagination of scifi, even if the cause of the apocalypse is vague or unknown — a curious example being the Mad Max series, which despite depicting a markedly antifuturistic and technologically backwards postapocalyptic world is widely considered to be a work of science fiction. Arguments can undoubtedly be made that Mad Max sits well within the genre parameters of sciencefiction for a variety of other reasons, but the association between apocalypse and other scifi constituents is strong enough that it may be considered a scifi element in and of itself. This is obviously not a new notion, as apocalyptic themes have appeared frequently in scifi narratives since the literary genre took off at the turn of the 20th century. However, where apocalyptic events had initially been included to show an extremely long passage of time — as in,
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for example, the strange postapocalyptic farfuture visited in H.G. Wells’s 1892 novel The Time Machine — the apocalypses of scifi films in the 1980’s onward have drawn nearer and nearer to the present day. Pulp science fiction once stood generally as a chronological opposite to medieval fantasy, and contained arguably the same fantasy escapism in a different guise. It was changed fundamentally, however, when apocalypse began to take a more critical role in the narrative: it became social/political critique, as the world ending was almost always the result of an authoritative force getting out of hand. Scifi developed a critical edge over the course of a century, elevating its fantasy element to a more bluntly put reaction to real frustrations and fears in modern life. Apocalypse serves as the ultimate price to pay for the failure to address these anxieties, but also as a morbid catharsis which allows for fantasies of a heroic return. At this point the same could almost be said for Utopia/Dystopia narratives. Once a selfcontained genre of its own right, the concept of Utopia in mainstream narratives is just as readily associated with scifi now as apocalypse is. Apocalypse can provide a useful catalyst for the birth of a narrative Utopia or Dystopia, as is very often the case in contemporary scifi films. In a typical film narrative within the quasigenre of ‘apocalypse films’, political, economic, or environmental catastrophe erupts and results in a new world order. Newly discovered technology or science is usually the cause of the cataclysm — even if that ‘new science’ is an asteroid crashing into Earth (see Deep Impact, 1998). The resulting organization or disorganization of humanity on what’s left of Earth proceed with the same narrative constraints as the older genre of Utopia did: the inhabitants of a time and/or place, spatially or temporally separate from the present known world, are tasked with the chance at a clean slate for humanity. They then either succeed in creating an image of a society which is a correction (according to the ethical leanings of the filmmakers) of our own reallife society, or utterly fail and thus show the folly inherent in Utopian projects. Occasionally, the apocalypticUtopic scifi narrative takes an imaginative leap and presents a scenario in which humans have taken the next “giant step” out into the cosmos as a solution to worldending woes. While not necessarily outright Utopian in the sense that the narrative revolves around a Utopian program, a world imagined in which humanity can organize itself well enough to even attempt such fantastic feats of engineering (especially in contrast to
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our own reallife, comparably inept deep space travel abilities) must hold in its structure at least some elements of what can be considered an achieved Utopia. This type of plot trajectory is more typical of science fiction novels of the 20th century — specifically those of Robert Heinlein, whose vast mythos covers the rise and fall of several Utopias/Dystopias on Earth and in outer space over the course of thousands of years. Perhaps many of these ‘postEarth’ narratives from scifi novels were never adapted to film for historical reasons, namely that the United States was caught up in Cold War anxiety during much of the 20th century, resulting in an excess of nationalism injected into Hollywood filmmaking. It’s easy to imagine why fantasies of the collapse of (Western) civilization and leaving a broken Earth behind might not be popular amongst film producers tasked with bolstering the American morale. This has however not at all been the case for the past several decades. The aftereffects of the softending of the Cold War in the United States were that of a kind of anticlimactic, uncertain victory over (not only the Soviet Union, but) the allencompassing destruction which had seemed so imminent in the previous decades; a shift towards more loosely defined, omnipresent ideological threats has been cemented in American media culture since 9/11 — after which not only are the enemies of the state pursued universally, indiscriminate of national borders, but the general civilian population is aware of (and to a very large extent, complicit in) the farreaching surveillance performed by government agencies into their own individual lives. The resulting confusion has left a disillusioned public which can no longer seek legitimate consolation in the virtuous narratives of scifi Utopian success stories — for it would seem that such visions have already to a certain degree been grotesquely actualized, with the most antiUtopian consequences now glaringly clear. The tonal shift of big blockbuster action films from the early 90’s until the current mid2010’s plots a descent into unprecedented dark territory. It is, for example, hard to imagine
1995’s Independence Day enjoying the same box office success 20 years later in 2015 — its classic Hollywood underdog hero story and gungho patriotism (in one scene the President’s plane emerges triumphantly from the flames of an exploding Washington, D.C.) would come across as comical and unintentionally ironic. By contrast, four of 2014’s biggest scifi box office earners — The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Divergent,
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and Interstellar — all have narratives that negatively critique the status quo and offer bleak representations of a post”event” world broken or corrupted by exaggerated features of realworld cultural, political, and technological trends. Of those four mentioned, Interstellar is the only one that focuses specifically on space travel, which it portrays with deliberate realism. Its sequence of rocket liftoff staging for example has been praised for its trueness to life, and its precise representation of stranger physics (wormholes, black holes) has received equal appraisal from the science community, the merit of which has had no small effect on its critical and general reception. Its apparent endorsement from mainstream scientists (namely, Neil deGrasse Tyson) lends credence to its not so subtle contentious reflection on current global crises and their irresponsible handling by world leaders. Tyson, who I will discuss at length later in Chapter 2, works within a legacy of mainstream science advocacy which can be said to have begun with Carl Sagan in the 1970s and 80s — particularly with his science education television program Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. There seems to be a clear genealogy traceable from Sagan’s hopeful scientific humanism and the kind of faith in and celebration of science in Interstellar and its critical reception. Interstellar takes up the older scifi plot archetype of moving humanity outward into the cosmos, but does so through the most realistic portrayal of currently available and thoughtfully speculative space technology since 2001: A Space Odyssey1. The global crisis at hand in the narrative of the film is also notably topical — the world has simply run out of food, and a runaway greenhouse effect is killing off the remaining crop species on Earth while slowly suffocating humanity at the same time. The film exploits our current era’s broad anxieties of resource depletion and unalterable, deadly atmospheric changes which buzzes in the background of global news media and forces an ultimatum on its viewers: in the face of a slow, tortuous decline towards extinction, are we ready now to begin seriously imagining life beyond Earth? The film also more mildly addresses a somewhat related but less disastrously grim problem familiar amongst its audiences — an educational crisis which sees a decline in what’s become known as ‘scientific literacy’. It’s worth noting that this is primarily a problem discussed in the U.S., especially as advocates of stronger science education (and better education in
1 I am here ignoring Gravity (2013), which despite involving high technology and space flight is not at all speculative and has little to do with the defining characteristics of science fiction.
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general) butt heads ideologically with both religious fundamentalists and the drafters of state education budgets. (But then, Interstellar is also a thoroughly Americacentric film, from the fact that NASA is the sole organization on Earth secretly spearheading a humanrace exodus all the way to an American flag, representing all of humanity, planted on an alien planet at the end of the film.) The same advocates for better scientific outreach programs also strongly argue for the government and the public to accept humandriven climate change as a legitimate and factually based concern that must be addressed soon to prevent disaster in the near future. The film stands clearly on one side of the current ideological rift in the USA over science — and attempts to make its point very loudly heard through a huge blockbuster action film. It’s clear that there is a certain ideological platform that this film is working from, and it takes for granted that its audiences are familiar with the ecological crises referenced in the plot and already have developed a position regarding their severity that matches that of the film’s. By showing a more or less ‘realistic’ depiction of what may be the most likely apocalypse humanity faces, it is an interesting development in representations of apocalypse in scifi film, which have thus far been presented primarily as fantastically weird aftermaths of singular global catastrophes. Whether or not it is entirely successful, the film adds drama to a doomsday narrative which has for the most part evaded effective dramatization, in news media or in Hollywood film (the closest is perhaps The Day After Tomorrow (2004), which portrays global warming and nature itself as a kind of monstermovie adversary to be defended against). Climate change and reduction of biodiversity are perhaps simply too slow to dramatize, as opposed to nuclear holocaust or global domination by foreign power — the sensational world crises which were dramatized successfully in the nuclearfear film tropes of the 50s through the early 80s. Before unraveling into a broad film about love, family, and death, Interstellar begins with a quasipolitical critique of American antiintellectualism and complacency. It depicts a (at least somewhat) plausible apocalyptic scenario which is vaguely understood to be caused by humanity’s carelessness with science, and then offers a heroic reappropriation of science which brings it back to its essential adventurous spirit. This is the kind of defining revolutionary moment common to scifi apocalypse films which betrays the genre’s appeal: it is a reassurance
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that the heroism and ingenuity of humanity will triumph over death, that our intelligence combined with an innate adventurous spirit will always be what saves us from annihilation. Earlier in the same year Interstellar was released, a reboot of Sagan’s by now classic science education program Cosmos was aired on FOX this time presented by Neil deGrasse Tyson, a prominent science advocate and director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York. The original series presented by Carl Sagan was unprecedented in its success at the time of its original broadcast date in 1980, and is often noted for remaining almost completely scientifically relevant today with no information presented needing any amendment or redaction. However, many new discoveries have been made since, warranting an ‘updated’ version of the series in 2014. The updates are not only in the information presented, but also in its style of presentation: Sagan’s calm sincerity, akin to the hosting style of Mr. Rogers, is expanded in the new series into a more robust, stimulating version which pairs Tyson’s charismatic lecturing with eyecatching visuals, which have become increasingly emphasized in television science programming of recent years. Tyson’s series, subtitled A Spacetime Odyssey, essentially reasserts the same narrative historicization as the original series — it charts the heroic growth of science as humanity’s greatest and characteristically defining enterprise while describing its findings with an overflowing sense of wonder and adventure, all with the purpose of (re)igniting public interest in the support and pursuit of scientific advancement and education. Both the new and old series promotes a position that humanity is a species which has evolved towards an end of attaining knowledge about the universe, and urges its viewers to view this evolutionary achievement with immense pride and humility. A Spacetime Odyssey also secondarily tasks itself with criticizing religious fundamentalism and intellectual shortsightedness, and portrays these as the essential challenges to what the series presents as the indomitable, innocent curiosity of humans. Science is here historically slated to have in its most pure form an ultimately liberal, pacifist and humanistic agenda; this is most clearly represented in its glorifying portrayal of Enlightenment era thinkers. This is even more clear in Sagan’s Personal Voyage. His favorite historical anecdote to return to in the series, the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, encapsulates the conflict
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being addressed in his lecturing — the benign, proud efforts of humanity towards learning about the world and the cosmos, and the foolish, narrowminded antiintellectualism which rises periodically to destroy the fruits of those efforts forever. For Sagan, paramount to all apocalyptic ends is the diminution of human intelligence and its collection of knowledge. His compassionate attitude towards science and its role in the identity of the human race indeed contains a kind of
Utopianism, though not in the traditional sense — his is a Utopianism based entirely on a spiritual belief in science, in the hope that it may be used to correct the corruptions in human nature which have cropped up throughout history. Both Tyson and Sagan enthusiastically dip into the scifi imaginary in order to demonstrate their views. Much of their success as educational series is likely due to this: by utilizing a visual language which is familiar to audiences who enjoy fantasies of science and outer space, the viewer is able to impart some of that fantasy enjoyment onto information which is based directly in reality. By doing so, Cosmos goes further than simply holding the attention of the viewer on information which may otherwise bore them — it attempts to make science accessible and unobfuscated by adding a dramatic severity, and imprinting an element of fantasy in the narrative of science history. **** The visual language of science fiction and its narrative tropes are utilized in both fictional narrative and nonfictional educational media, in both cinema and news media platforms, as a way to call upon an underlying source of emotional gravity which is carried with all things futureoriented. The postindustrial age has made humanity aware of its apparent power over nature and its own place within it, and there comes with this power the fear of failure to prevent speciessuicide through reckless abandon. Fantasies of a corrected system (or, in its negative image, the collapse of a corrupted system and its rebirth) at some point in the future constitute a dominant portion of contemporary science fiction. As a species we have come to understand the negative consequences of unchecked technological development: as new fantasies of the possibilities of science fuel its very progress, humanity is faced with the unsettling notion that the speed of technological development has ‘gotten out of hand’ and will continue in a cycle of selffulfilling prophecies even as we foresee its apocalyptic end.
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As a vehicle for critical reflection on these matters, science fiction of the late 20th / early 21st century works within the same critical mode as Utopia has as a literary and political construct. In the following chapters I will (1) clarify this parallel using theories of Utopia by Fredric Jameson and Ernst Bloch, specifically in their understanding of the Utopian ‘impulse’ as a certain subconscious mechanism of desire underlying all things futureoriented, (2) perform a comparisonanalysis between Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson’s separate versions of the series Cosmos — including a closereading of their particular separate versions of the “ship of the imagination” — in order to outline a shift from the Utopian/Dystopian fears of the 1980’s to those of the present, and (3) perform an analysis of the film Interstellar by way of Bloch’s hermeneutic (with amendments by Jameson) in order to essentially diagnose the apocalyptic preoccupation in fantasies of science in contemporary science fiction cinema. Before I begin, it is important to make clear my reasons for choosing to perform such an analysis using two objects of quite different mediums and contexts of viewing. It is worth saying outright that the application of Bloch/Jameson’s hermeneutic will not have much to say about its mode of presentation, or even the difference in phenomenological affect elicited by each specifically. I rather am setting out to prove that this particular method is useful in describing a common agenda, or ‘program’, which operates in both cases on the level of ideology. As Bloch’s hermeneutic is tasked with finding threads of Utopianism amongst disparate objects, and Jameson’s adaptation reformats it for more thorough literary analyses of narrative and allegory, I will try to show that this method is equally powerful in describing a base Utopian ideology which seems to work systematically across media. It is in my view necessary to establish Utopianism as a major aspect of all science fiction produced today, which will include its intertextual formulations across all forms of media which make use of the ‘science fiction imaginary’; as science fiction’s effect on real depictions and attitudes towards science has been a focal point of much writing in the field of science fiction studies, I contend that a thorough analysis of contemporary trends in science advocacy and science fiction would be valuable to a larger critique of postindustrial ideologies of science, progress and technology — specifically in its effect on a society’s coordinates of desire.
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Chapter 1 Utopia: The ShapeShifting Ideology
Wie reich wurde allzeit davon geträumt, vom besseren Leben geträumt, das möglich wäre. Das Leben aller Menschen ist von Tagträumen durchzogen, darin ist ein Teil lediglich schale, auch entnervende Flucht, auch Beute für Betrüger, aber ein anderer Teil reizt auf, läßt mit dem schlecht Vorhandenen sich nicht abfinden, läßt eben nicht entsagen. Dieser andere Teil hat das Hoffen im Kern, und er ist lehrbar.2 — Ernst Bloch, “The Principle of Hope” (Bloch 1)
It is clear to me that a tracing of the genealogy of the Utopian origins of the sciencefiction genre is necessary in order for a reliable account of the status of Utopia (as a context for ideological content) in the current era to be considered. The intertextuality between Utopian literature and science fiction has in fact been the focus of consideration for writers within the field of science fiction studies for perhaps as long as that field has existed, and Utopia is understood by many to fill an important position in the varieties of scifi narrative; Darko Suvin has rather aptly recognized Utopia as a “socioeconomic subset of Science Fiction” (Jameson xiv, n. 8). Although the literary genre of Utopia has not been explicitly utilized nearly as frequently as it once was, to say the entire concept as an ideological source for literary imagination died with the genre would be to grossly misrepresent a century of literary and filmic narrative trends which are undeniably Utopian in subject matter — especially if such material purports to be expressly antiUtopian or Dystopian. Upon taking a thorough account of the usage of and attitude towards all things deemed ‘Utopian’, it becomes obvious that any categorically political alignment of the concept does not hold up when moving from one historical period to another. Although it is, without question, an innately political concept, it deftly avoids any
2 “How richly people have always dreamed of this, dreamed of the better life that might be possible. Everybody’s life is pervaded by daydreams: one part of this is just stale, even enervating escapism, even booty for swindlers, but another part is provocative, is not content just to accept the bad which exists, does not accept renunciation. This other part has hoping at its core, and is teachable.” (translation obtained from the Marxist Internet Archive:
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attempt to attach it to other wellunderstood ideologies. Eras of geopolitical ideologies have risen and fallen all under the pretext of a Utopian goal only for the next era to see the concept reincarnated, under different terms, in some new political struggle. In fact, as Ernst Bloch’s research into the matter seems to suggest, virtually all political strife in human history can be understood to be Utopian at its core, inasmuch as all political strife aims towards a corrected state (Jameson 1, 34). Utopia, as initially a fictional construct and a literary genre and secondarily as an intentional, real political program has been significantly altered in terms of its allegorical content since the beginning of the 20th century — around a time at which we may also, through certain perspectives of history, trace the origins of science fiction. It is important to consider that the concept of Utopia (which I will elaborate on and clarify below) carries along with it a kind of timeless motivating factor throughout the course of history. By this I mean that there is a critical core, a fundamental agency of the concept of ‘Utopia’ which up to and past the beginning of the 20th century has adapted itself allegorically to each new era’s concerns and cultural variations. As a political concept, Utopia is as pervasive as it has ever been (Jameson 1), although now so deeply enmeshed in the political sphere that it takes some degree of analysis in order to reveal.
Where it is mentioned explicitly in politics, it is virtually always in an antiUtopian context — with connotations similar to the denouncing of someone as a communist or as anticapitalist in the United States. There is then, as it is often employed currently, the more loosely applied context of Utopia as a component in science fiction fantasy structures. The concept as a literary setting or trope no longer has any serious representation in literature and film as being ‘purely’ Utopian in a genre sense: it is safe to say all contemporary inclusions of Utopia in narrative are examples of science fiction, if not solely because of its use of Utopia. For the enormous historical compendium of Utopian texts to be currently most heavily represented in science fiction warrants a more serious look at how this historically fluid ideological context is portrayed for large audiences; I will thus provide in this chapter a brief overview of Utopia’s literary origins before delving into the interpretive methods provided by Ernst Bloch and Fredric Jameson which
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will prove useful in performing an analysis of the Utopian threads in modern scientific activism and science fiction.
1.1 Thomas More’s Utopia Let us begin by distinguishing Utopia in its various historical transformations, starting with its literary inception Utopia, a novel written and published in 1517 by Thomas More. The book’s exact meaning is something that is still uncertain, and the debate over More’s intention in writing it is ongoing. Fredric Jameson, in his book Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions, offers a chapter (Chapter 3 Morus: the Generic Window) dedicated to providing his own interpretation alongside historical context and other scholars’ differing analyses before continuing throughout the rest of his book with an extensive argument on Utopian ideology and its assimilation into science fiction literature. I will therefore almost exclusively refer in this chapter to his research on More and Utopia before introducing his particular spin on Ernst Bloch’s theory of the Utopian impulse, which I will also use extensively to support my own claims. Utopia is a novel in which a travelhardened and jaded Portuguese sailor named Raphael Hythloday recounts his travels to a forgotten island whose inhabitants live in a ‘perfected’ socioeconomic system. The people of Utopia use no money, rotate members of the government automatically regardless of social background, only go to war when absolutely necessary and avoid casualties at all cost — essentially, they live in a state constituted by all the various components of a ‘free society’ that were being discussed in nascent European liberal political circles contemporaneous with the book’s publication. As noted above, its ultimate purpose is still contested, but the book is unquestionably in some form or another a critique of the political and social climate of the Europe of More’s time3. This is made clear through the structure of novel itself: Book I consists of fabricated correspondences between More himself and other real contemporary scholars for the purpose of adding to the mystique of realism surrounding the island discussed, followed an extensive evaluation of the social, political, and economic strife of
3 Jameson suggests that Henry VIII’s closure of the Christian monasteries, Utopian prototypes in their own right, may have significantly contributed to More’s reasons for writing the text, as More is known to have spent much of his upbringing in and around a Christian monastery outside London (see Archaeologies of the Future, Chapter 3, pp. 2627).
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England and continental Europe conducted through conversation between More and Hythloday.
Book II — the “properly Utopian part of the text” as described by Jameson (22) — describes the visit to the island of Utopia, the social organization of which seems in all its aspects to directly correspond as inversions or corrections of European systems4. In the last lines of the book, More expresses through narration that though he may not agree with everything Hythloday has told him of the Utopians, there are many things of their society that he would “rather wish, than hope, to see followed in our governments” (More 1901). This final note by More notwithstanding, interpretations of the text tend to be polarized between whether the text is purely satire, or meant to be taken as a genuine critique of contemporary life in Europe under the guise of a travel narrative. Considering the legacy the book has spawned ranging from real political revolution to truly satirical usage of the concept of Utopia in fiction, More’s exact intention in writing Utopia is obviously of substantial interest. This problem of interpretation is further complicated by the twopart format of the book. It is known that Book II was written first, which would lead one to believe that it is naturally the primary focus of the entire text and contains the key to its most accurate interpretation (which would be, as many have written, that More has sincerely outlined a hypothetically corrected version of European statehood) (Jameson 22). However, this begs the question of the relevance of Book I are we to regard it, as Jameson asks, as a “kind of afterthought or cautious and politically prudent (but also daring) recontextualization of the account of the island itself[?]” (22). Hythloday is, in Book I, set up as a surly character who enjoys using his extensive knowledge of foreign lands to criticize the states of Europe5, who then tells his tale of the perfect country to his incredulous listeners; More in the end is impressed to some extent by what he has heard, but is careful not to go so far as to endorse Utopia wholeheartedly. It would seem to me that, for narrative purposes, More has created a character of himself who at first scoffs at the notion of Utopia, then is told of it and has his mind changed slightly but not entirely — a rather traditional character arc in such a frame narrative. Nonetheless, the ‘satire’ side of the interpretive argument insists that Book I sets up the text to be read as a work of satire, after
4 See Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future, Ch. 3. 5 “…Raphael had discoursed with great judgment on the many errors that were both among us and these nations, had treated of the wise institutions both here and there, and had spoken as distinctly of the customs and government of every nation through which he had past, as if he had spent his whole life in it…” More, Utopia [London 1901]
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which Book II delves into a more fantasyoriented travel narrative before being grounded in reality once again in the final lines. The opposition between interpretations of this seminal text is revealing in that it lays bare a general paradoxical attitude taken towards Utopia which has persisted throughout history. The question of whether More should be taken seriously, or if the book is merely tongueincheek and actually intends to negatively portray an absurd vision of a ‘perfected’ world can be broadened to a question of the very dual nature of Utopian texts after More: the “fundamental political [question]” of, as Jameson puts it, “whether Utopias are positive or negative, good or evil” (23). Of those who are proponents of the latter assumption we can say that their wariness of any serious indulgence in Utopia is based on the position that the entire concept is in fact founded on a farce — that More never intended his text to be anything more than fantasy with some light political satire, and that any deliberate, real application of the concept of Utopia is a foolish (and in fact dangerous) attempt to render real what is essentially pure fantasy. In my view, this very struggle is ongoing in the ideology presented in scifi apocalypse films of the present. Villainous utopian visionaries of such stories are based on the common understanding that Utopia is, at least historically, a ludicrous enterprise which has failed time and time again, with often devastating results. It is then very simple to use this historically motivated anxiety to present an identifiable pathos for audiences to engage with: Utopian endeavours, however wellintentioned, will produce further unforeseen misery and will have to be corrected (heroically) back towards a state of ‘normalcy’ (in other words, validating the good parts of the system already in place). It is important to note that this is in fact also a form of Utopian ideology, but inverted — by portraying the negative consequences of unchained Utopian reform, the filmmakers themselves perform the task of the Utopian text by outlining the negative constituents of the present system worth correcting in order to avoid a hypothetical future Dystopian state. If the typical apocalyptic scifi film indeed abides by this pattern, to simply let a discussion of the genre rest on the assumption that it is merely performing an antiUtopian stance as a narrative tool for creating the basis of relatable conflict would be to stop short of uncovering a possibly deeper ideologicalpsychological mechanism at work. The fact that such a
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timehonored debate over the good or evil nature inherent in the notion of pursuing Utopia belies a baser motivation worth characterizing — namely that both sides of the argument are based on an innate desire for, first of all, a collective engagement in the process of a social system’s selfimprovement and selfcorrection (meaning, a rewarding investment in the creation of a perfected system over time), and secondly a more general desire directed towards a fantasized version of a life within such a system which may be realistically pursued. The breadth of what such a desire encompasses is, admittedly, virtually allencompassing; for what human endeavour isn’t directed toward progress and advancement and the elimination of undesirable aspects? It is important, however, to ground ourselves in this discussion within the context of the current era and contemporary modes of expression for such desires. Currently, Utopia stands as the primary ideological pathway for addressing this anxiety towards progress. Science and technology currently act as the processes which dictate how such progress unfolds; it is therefore natural that science fiction, the fantasization of such processes, can serve as a window into the less obvious workings of this timeless desire.
1.2 After More: the Program and the Impulse The interpretive problem of Utopia as either good or evil, positive or negative, political blueprint or literary satire, is further complicated with a historical division between its practical application and its use as a purely literary narrative tool — and the innumerable ways in which these two sides cross over. It would seem that after More’s inaugural text, some deeper conflict in the human spirit had been aroused, which clings to the concept of Utopia as its venue for expression (Jameson 10). Jameson attempts to address this illusive emotional content with a methodical approach to its various Utopian formulations throughout history. He bases his arguments on that fundamental division in conceptions of Utopia: that of a practical attempt to realize a state of Utopia (the Program), and a much subtler Utopian quality (the Impulse) which motivates, directly or indirectly, nearly all areas of human desire (Jameson 2, 3)6. The important distinction to be made here is between deliberate attempts to plan a society with a level of organization which can be deemed Utopian, and its other apparently unconscious
6 Although Jameson does not capitalize the terms Program and Impulse, I have done so in order to avoid confusion when referencing his work.
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workings which inform futureoriented ideological content in all forms. On the one hand, the Utopian Program includes revolutionary politics and “intentional communities” as well as “written exercises” in the mode of fictional Utopian literature, which act as supplements to the development of actually attempted Utopias; the Utopian Impulse, however, covers areas in which Utopian ideology is not immediately made explicit but is nonetheless present as a working procedure (Jameson 4). The latter branch includes political theory in general and liberal reforms specifically, as well as the Utopian qualities which, through a certain perspective of analysis, present themselves in an infinite variety of commodified forms. This methodology for investigating the Utopian impulse is built upon the work of Ernst Bloch as it is presented in what is regarded by many as his most important book, The Principle of Hope — a threevolume work containing his Utopian philosophy of human history. The premise of Bloch’s theory of utopianism is the contention that the longing for Utopia has had a formative, fundamental agency throughout the history of humanity; or, as it is introduced by Jameson, insists that Utopia is “a good deal more than the sum of its individual texts” (Jameson 2). Rather than working solely from the Utopian literary genre and its reallife applications, The Principle of Hope seeks to excavate the Utopia embedded in all areas of everyday life. According to Bloch, anything futureoriented a term which is then stretched to its most abstract applications
— can be found to be ideologically “Utopian” at its core. Jameson structures the generic split between the Program and the Impulse in order to bring attention to a categorical problem in Bloch’s work — namely, that “Bloch’s interpretive principle is most effective when it reveals the operations of the Utopian impulse in unsuspected places”, and avoids entirely the area of deliberate Utopian programs (Jameson 3). This structural clarification is a necessary step to approaching the Impulse, because the Utopianism of what will fall under the Impulse category will be by definition unintentionally Utopian. He suggests from the outset that a distinction between the “Utopian form” and the “Utopian wish” is necessary for a complete understanding of the concept (1). However, since we are investigating the latent Utopian anxieties within the scifi imaginary, the branch of this methodology that will be most useful for this discussion is his clarification on Bloch’s hermeneutic for revealing the “hidden”
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impulse, as it will provide the theoretical machinery for uncovering the sometimes difficult to elucidate Utopian threads which run through contemporary science fiction media. Before moving on in that direction however, a final point must be drawn from Jameson’s definition of the Program which will further solidify its distinction from the Impulse. The key difference between the two, he writes, is in the properly Utopian program’s “commitment to closure” (Jameson 4). This follows his preference to understanding deliberately implemented Utopias in spatial terms. He cites More’s Utopia as the first pure example of this kind of spatial closure/totality in his setting of the perfected society on an island isolated from the rest of the world. It is this spatial separation “between the island and the mainland [...] which alone allows it to become Utopia in the first place”(5): only through the autonomy of a closed, selfsufficient system can a place be considered a generic Utopia. This necessary component is already inherent in all lay understandings of the concept, such as in the typical arc of the Utopian revolution leading to the formation of the commune/village/city/nation, sundered unto itself apart from the larger society which its founders deemed necessary to remove themselves from. That Utopian projects all work towards such a spatially closed system poses a problem for understanding the Utopian impulse, in which Jameson rightly notes such totalities are “virtually by definition lacking” (5). However, he has in his overview of the history of Utopian literature noted an important shift from Utopias of space (as in More’s island) toward Utopias which are positioned in the near to far future (1); this temporal shift in fact can be said to have arisen from the purposing of Utopian programs as blueprints for future revolutions to work towards. Here Bloch’s focus on the impulse within “futureoriented” ideas and materials can be understood in Jameson’s terms of the qualification of closure and totality. While Utopian programs either imagine or legitimately plan for a physical secession in order to fulfill themselves, areas which are saturated with Utopian impulsion socialist reform, for example, or commercial advertising which promises a life changed for the better are desirable in that they imply the possibility of a future state which is wholly different from the undesirable present.
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1.3 Body, Time, Collectivity However, the Impulse cannot simply be left to constitute ‘unconscious’ Utopianism; to do so brings up a problem between ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic’ Utopias and leads to a tedious digression. The Impulse can rather be understood as an allegorical mode of Utopian expression, which Jameson has refined into three additional categories: body, time, and collectivity. This extra level of specification is meant to add to Bloch’s existing hermeneutic for uncovering the Impulse so that it corresponds, in Jameson’s words, “more closely to the levels of contemporary allegory” (6). Bloch’s interpretive method is a twostep process, whereby first “fragments of experience betray the presence of symbolic figures” abstract experiences such as beauty and energy which are then identified as “forms whereby an essentially Utopian desire can be transmitted” (6).
(fig. 1.1) Varieties of Utopia A diagram provided by Jameson in the text, which shows the initial bifurcation between the Program and the Impulse as well as his additional levels of the Impulse: body, time, and collectivity. (Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future, pp. 4)
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Bloch’s own investigations rely on classical ideals, such as beauty and energy, which make it difficult to directly transfer his methodology to a contemporary context in which such aesthetic categories are complicated at best, irrelevant and outdated at worst. Therefore, Jameson’s addendum resituates Bloch’s hermeneutic in the context of what he deems the more ‘postmodern’ modes of allegory used in contemporary culture; by doing so, Bloch’s work can be appropriated towards a sharper method of investigating the Impulse as it works in media and culture today. Understanding the Impulse in a contemporary context can be best understood by moving through Jameson’s allegories in a linear fashion, beginning with the level of the ‘body’, through ‘time’ and on to ‘collectivity’. This movement through the levels charts a kind of path of ascension that Utopian desires move upwards along, from materialist satisfaction towards a pseudospiritualist transcendence of materiality. It is important, however, to first establish this materialism through which the Impulse first expresses itself, especially in its initial role in removing spiritualism in favor of a materially grounded image of the self. The tripartite categories of body, time and collectivity can be seen then as also materialist allegories, in that the Impulse finds its modes of expression through the semiotics of material desire. “Materialism is already omnipresent”, he states,
in an attention to the body which seeks to correct any idealism or spiritualism lingering in this system. Utopian corporeality is however also a haunting, which invests even the most subordinate and shamefaced products of everyday life, such as aspirins, laxatives and deodorants, organ transplants and plastic surgery, all harboring muted promises of a transfigured body. (Jameson 6)
Bloch refers to such commodities of the body as “Utopian supplements”, because their consumption links the body to a symbolic chain in which a corrected system, in the Utopian sense, is offered through material means. But as the process of correcting the body system implies a safeguarding against degradation plus the added incentive of a progressed state in the near future, we find ourselves placed within a temporal thread along which we move towards a
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(still vague) future Utopian state. It would make sense to suggest, as Jameson has, that such Utopian supplements also carry “overtones of immortality” (6), leading us to towards that second level of allegory, time. Just as Utopian supplements address the body’s perceived tendency to decay and degrade against the will of the futureoriented, progressive mind, it can be said that such supplements also imply a symbolic gesture against mortality itself. Indeed many, if not most, medical supplements such as vitamins and surgeries are explicitly used in order to lengthen human life — to both correct or stabilize the body and allow the individual to experience the steady (yet still largely allegorical) movement towards a Utopian state of the body. This implicit desire for longer life is represented constantly in science fiction fantasies in which medical supplementation of the body has the pointed effect of allowing the people of the future to experience longer periods of history. Jameson explains that the two opposing levels of temporal experience — historical and personal time — are “reunited” in Utopia, and that “existential time is taken up into historical time which is paradoxically also the end of time, the end of history” (7). Jameson offers as an example the immortal “elders” of John Boorman’s film Zardoz (1974), who in their arrested state of youth also live in a ‘frozen’ state of (historical) time, inasmuch as historical time no longer has meaning in such a situation (the film makes this point more obvious by including the fact that in their Utopian village, the elders have an uncaredfor museum cluttered with artistic and scientific artifacts from the entire history of humanity). Zardoz portrays this state of affairs, in which humans’ minds are programmed into a magic crystal and people are continuously reborn into bodies grown in plastic sacks, as markedly perverse and thus is thoroughly antiUtopian in its intention; I would offer another, less polemic example with Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain (2006), in which a man is frozen in existential time within a genuinely ‘closed’ Utopian system (in that it is in a literal bubble floating in space) containing only some water, soil, and a tree whose bark is a kind of medical fountain of youth. Though spatially separated by astronomical distances from Earth, where one assumes historical time (whether experienced immortally or in mortal generations) continues as it was, he is in that separated and timeless system able to pour over the chronology of his own personal timeline (portrayed through a series of flashbacks) while simultaneously participating on a grander scale
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with the historical time of the cosmos as he flies at lightspeed towards his destination (a nebula which, as the film explains, symbolizes the continuous death and rebirth of history). Through the main character’s flashbacks, we are shown that what started as his attempt to cure cancer (an ambition fueled by his sick wife) accidentally leads to the discovery of the deathcuring benefits of one particularly rare tree. His wife dies before he is able to give her his new medicine, after which the true meaning of his life’s work is revealed to him — to not simply cure the body of degradation, but to find a cure for the inevitable departure of his wife from his own existential history. As a cruel twist of this Faustian exchange, he achieves his goal of immortality, but then must seek further closure to the episode within the explosive death/rebirth spectacle of a supernova in the heart of a distant nebula. We can see through this example (as well as in Zardoz) the place that ‘totality’ aforementioned by Jameson as a requisite for Utopia takes up in materialist Utopian allegory. Though lacking the concrete, physicallyapparent closure of the island or geopolitical secession, the Impulse is directed towards a state which is instead closed temporally. Utopian supplements hint at the promise of a transfigured body, but the symbolic chain moves us further towards broader fantasies of a kind of mastery over time, in which the assimilation of historical time into individual time is the ultimate goal. As in the examples of Zardoz and The Fountain, time then loses its meaning just as the body does once it is cured of entropy, at least in the sense that time and body traditionally delineate the boundaries of human experience. As time ‘freezes’ and the body made incorruptible, we approach a state of closure and totality, insofar as the system is essentially removed from the endless stream of historical time7. It is here, through the closure of time and the historical permanence of the self, that we come upon the last of the three allegories — collectivity. Indeed, in this hypothetical progression towards the ultimate Utopia the individual is faced with a strange paradox — namely that in this time and place where the difference between individual experiences and world history no longer has any real meaning (in such a world, the history of the Utopia is indistinguishable from the
7 In Jameson’s words, “it is worth pointing out that at some point discussions of temporality always bifurcate into the two paths of existential experience […] and of historical time, with its urgent interrogations of the future. I will argue that it is precisely in Utopia that these two dimensions are seamlessly reunited and that existential time is taken up into a historical time which is paradoxically also the end of time, the end of history.” (Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future, pp. 7)
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personal life experiences of every individual in the system), existential experience “fold[s] back into the space of the collective”(Jameson 7). It is at this stage, according to Jameson, that Utopian impulsion ceases to be an ‘unconscious’ project and reaches its apparent end/goal as a realized Utopian Program; he explains that Utopian investments prior to this stage “were still locked into the limits of the individual experience” and thus confined to sporadic instances of impulsion (8). Just as the conventional meanings of the body and time no longer apply, the achievement of apparent historical closure through such bodily mastery also renders the boundary between the individual and the collective irrelevant. Though perhaps the most obtuse of the three, this level is certainly explored imaginatively in science fiction, as in the collective hivemind networks which often seem to address the problem of mortality through the preservation of minds on computers or as the inevitable final form of hyperadvanced civilizations. We now have a clear idea of what the Jamesonian impulsive Utopia (for lack of a better description) consists of: it is an ingrained striving towards a time and place where the desiring individual attains a level of closure which unifies personal experience with large scale historical experience, so that the individual is left to experience all that there is to experience without risk of missing out on further improvements to the system. To put it bluntly and in the broadest sense, the Utopian time and place desired by the individual is simply the end of history in and of itself— for, if there were some history to be that would alter the system of the present moment fundamentally, the present system would cease to be Utopia and the process of impulsion would continue to strive towards yet another Utopic horizon.
1.4 WishFulfillment and the Reality Principle of Science Fiction It would seem that the chain of impulsion theorized by Jameson, beginning in the correction of the body through Utopian supplements, is historically conflated with scientific progress. By this I mean that, in a culture dictated by materialism, the material results of scientific enterprising (as that human enterprise which seeks to describe new things, new ideas) are the objects which are imbued with the symbolic weight of Utopia. If, as Bloch’s hermeneutic dictates, the symbolic contents of human experience (beauty, energy, perfection, etc.) are the
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avenues for the transmission of Utopian desire, then modern day science is certainly saturated with it — especially as science advocacy pundits such as Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson make it their clear intention to port those classical notions of abstract experience into a scientific worldview8. This is not to say that the ‘goal’ of science (if we must say that it indeed has one) is to address Utopian desire — it is rather that the fantasies in which these desires are expressed are most satisfactorily played out under the umbrella of science and technology, as the realization of some aspects of these (materialist) fantasies are dependent upon the speed at which science and technology advance. Utopian impulsion fantasies are thus most naturally played out in the theater of science fiction, as the symbolic process (if we trust Jameson’s allegorical model) begins with a materialist project focused on the physical sustainability of the body system — an area which (barring traditional forms of medicine) falls entirely within the realm of scientific research. In our search for a modern contextualization of Utopian ideology, we must shift our attention primarily to a dissection of the science fiction genre, as we can safely assume that it is the primary venue for our Utopian expectations and fantasies of science and technology. In any standard appraisal of science fiction’s ultimate value, the adage ‘science fiction inspires real scientific progress’ is often rephrased in some form or another as a concrete proof. Those who invoke this notion will point to a variety of currently existing technologies which do indeed seem to be traceable back to conceptual origins in some scifi trope or invention; the prediction of GPS and satellite TV by scifi author Arthur C. Clarke, the continued development of ‘cloaking devices’ by the US military, and arguably the entire enterprise of robotics are just a few which come to mind easily. Science fiction is most often noted for its uniqueness in maintaining this prophetic quirk, and it is easy to see why the aesthetic formulation of guiding concepts such as robotics, cybernetics, lasers, etc. is especially interesting. We may even fantasize a plausible scifi scenario in which a bored scientist is surprised to find that some seemingly impossible technology in a favorite scifi fantasy is in fact possible in reality, thus rendering the fantasy content in its realworld approximation. The resulting technology, concept or material product is thus both an (apparently) actualized object of desire as well as a practical ‘benefit’ of what was otherwise mere fantasy.
8 See Chapter 2
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This loop of prophesying between science fiction and real science can be thus described in terms of a wishfulfillment process. In creating entertaining, gripping fantasy visions of the future or of scientific achievement, scifi authors and filmmakers project personal wishes and desires into their work, which then plants seeds of that wish in the minds of their audiences. The genre of science fiction holds a rich, vast imagination constituted by conceptualizations of each contributor and consumer’s desires projected into the future. The exact functioning of science fiction’s modes of wishfulfillment, however, are markedly different from that of classical fantasy (as in magic, pastoral settings, etc.), a genre which it is otherwise fairly similar in terms of fantasy construction. All fantasies conducted in works of science fiction emerge from a fundamentally materialist backdrop — namely, they are all rooted in the possibilities of science, however fantastically distorted. The terms in which these fantasies are played out correspond, with some amount of rigor, to the narrative’s particular laws of science; they are in this way regulated, or kept in check, by the imagined scientific reality of the narrative, which in turn is at least partially based on scientific reality. Jameson describes there being a “hollow absence” at the heart of every wishfulfillment process; it is that psychoanalytic baitandswitch of the objet a which without fail frustrates every desire bound in wish. A kind of awareness of this factors into the process, a “reality principle,” which keeps the process in check. By keeping expectations low or ‘believable’, the wish is prevented from fully revealing itself for what it is — as unrealistic, “hollow”, and fabricated through fantasy (Jameson 83). He cites Proust’s fantasized love letter in In Search of Lost Time as exemplary of this principle: the Narrator, in fantasizing the words he would like to read in a love letter written by his romantic interest, realizes with dismay that he ought not imagine such words, as they would inevitably never be written in such a way should any love letter be received at all (Jameson 8384). To varying degrees, there is already a measure of disappointment worked into the process of wishfulfillment, and a reality principle helps to mitigate it by keeping the wish within a flexible boundary of what could realistically occur in its potential fulfillment. The reality principle that is built into science fiction is an integral aspect of the genre, as it is the overarching principle defining the boundaries of the genre itself. That the pretense of real
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science acts as the foundation of this principle, and that real science in fact does seem to be at times ‘influenced’ by science fiction, sets the genre’s particular modes of wishfulfillment apart from those of classical fantasy. Jameson nails down the specific point at which the two become fundamentally different: the difference between the spiritual “ecstasy” of magic and the sober, calculated effects of fantasized technology and imagined future scenarios which are based in reality (74). The literary language of fantasy (peasantry, platonic values, growth, nature, struggle between good and evil forces), though still incredibly popular today, presents a problem in compatibility with industrial era society. Industrialism has altered cultural systems of ethics and desire to a point where the moral virtues of fantasy require a more strained suspension of reality in order to engage with. Nonetheless, the quaintness of fantasy seems to continue to have an appeal well into the current era regardless of disenchantment in modern life; its continued success is most likely due to its crystallization of the values of a “simpler time” which, in the classic Moric Utopian sense, can work as a framework for critical reflection on the despairing nihilism which seems to pervade postindustrial societies9. In any case, the fantasies of science fiction are by definition supported by a degree of scientific realism which can be held in check with reality. It is the (however remote) possibility that the contents of the fantasy could possibly become real which gives the fantasy contents their “doses of Utopian excess” (Jameson 6), much in the same way that Bloch’s Utopian supplements function. The fact that science fiction also appears to ‘predict’ scientific advancements further bolsters this function of the genre’s wishfulfillment process. Empirical, historical evidence can be and has been amassed in favor of this notion’s truth; for example, journalistic pieces have been written to show striking similarities drawn between futuristic prediction of the past and their corresponding current realities10, as well as the deliberate efforts by technological industries to mimic, or in increasingly more cases practically replicate, the technological fantasies of scifipast. However compelling the evidence, this process is nonetheless very clearly one of selffulfilling prophecy: it perhaps can be thought of as a function of the reality principle which uses such examples as proof of the reality that the fantasies are based in. The process of
9 See Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future, Chapter 5, “The Great Schism” (pp. 5771) for a more thorough comparison between fantasy and science fiction. 10 For a recent example, see Justin Parkinson “Strange predictions for the future from 1930”, BBC News Magazine, 26 Dec 2014
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collecting evidence in support of this claim can be understood as an additional layer of the scifi wishfulfillment (selffulfillment) process — in fortifying the reality principle that scifi is based upon with apparent empirical and historical evidence, the desired outcome at the end of the wishfulfillment process appears to be already halfachieved. From a historical perspective, this current state of affairs can be described as such: in the ‘precomputer age’ (most of the 20th century) a cultural, collective wish for the convenience and sheer excitement of a future defined by advanced technology took form in the sciencefiction imaginary. In creating the imagery necessary to give form to such fantasies the progress of technological advancement, already in motion under the power of its own historical inertia, was not just superficially (e.g.: aesthetically, and in terms of form and material purpose) altered but ideologically guided by the motivating factors of 20th century wishfulfillment processes. The argument could be made that science fiction, at least in part, is responsible for the way we use technology today. This is however an altogether different discussion about our current views and reflections on contemporary uses of technology and the byproducts of scifi fantasy, especially the negative effects currently perceptible and describable. It may be said that such negative consequences had also be prophesied in science fiction of the previous century — yet now that we have reached the apparently anticlimactic (unsatisfying) fulfillment of many scifi visions, what now do we have in terms of imaginative solutions to these problems that we may prophesy for the future? The current fixation of scifi films on apocalypse and ‘new world order’ scenarios is a clear indicator of this imaginative impasse. It seems that the reality principle which has more or less regulated the content of the genre since its beginnings is currently overcompensating with a kind of morbid cynicism, which runs parallel to the level of skeptic paranoia that marks the current decade (Edward Snowden’s revelatory leaks and the ideological schism created between civilians outraged by the contents of the data and the authorities who condemn him was instrumental in bringing about this baselevel mistrust). The history of science fiction is notably rife with visions of futures full of invasive surveillance and authoritarian control. But we are now at a point where many of those Dystopian predictions appear to be becoming reality to a significant degree, to the confused horror of many. Scifi currently offers very little in the way of
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pragmatic Utopian idealism; many of the original scifi film narratives of the past 10 years seem to have stopped at the nearfuture and cast a critical stance backwards in history, searching for answers to how things ended up this way.
1.5 Upon Reaching the (Apparent) Horizon of the Scifi Imaginary The apparent disarrayed status of contemporary science fiction can perhaps be accounted for in this respect: as we approach the constructed horizon of scifi imagination and turn back in an attempt to clarify its history, the wishfulfillment processes which have previously worked to critique and/or fantasize the possibilities of the future have all more or less panned out in one way or another. It’s as if the future has finally ‘arrived’, and there is nothing left to do except wait for the results to come in and see how the wishes of the past have betrayed us, or lent a hand in our selfdestruction. There is in this attitude a sense of waiting around for the final prophecy yet to be realized — that of some major, perceptible fall into Dystopia. This anxiety has as much to do with predictions of Dystopia in scifi as a more generalized apprehension toward the eventual fall of the United States from global superpower status; hence the preponderance of films such as The Sum of All Fears, Olympus Has Fallen, and The Day After Tomorrow, which all depict the cataclysmic doom and destruction of American symbols of power (the White House and all of Washington D.C., the Statue of Liberty broken into pieces, etc.). After many years of rehearsing the possible futures of Western civilization through radical historical events, there is the sense that ‘history is calling’ for that explosive moment — except, we don’t know when or why, nor by what means this apocalypse will come. Scifi seems now to be in a phase of historicization in which it attempts to make sense of history in order to construct a clearer picture of what went wrong so that the apocalypse can at least be mitigated by some fantasy foresight. That Utopia works on the level of historical critique as well as being futureoriented fantasy is now much more obvious: scifi apocalypse films, in being based on the guarantee on an upcoming, gamechanging event or series of events, are now writing what are essentially alternate histories of the future in order to preemptively avoid disaster through poor planning (such as in Interstellar, discussed in Chapter 3). This idea that historical ‘mistakes’ could have been avoided by making better decisions at key moments is what
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Slavoj Žižek has referred to as a “retroactive illusion” (Žižek 88) — he discusses the anxiety surrounding the notion of an imminent collapse of American dominance by making note of the recent historical interest in the fall of Rome, particularly in historical revisionist attempts to restage the fall as progressive and formative rather than actually plunging Europe into the Dark Ages11. I would add that a chronological inversion of this same kind of historicizing is occurring in science fiction, a kind of preemptive writing of history. For in fact, the realization of many of the scifi fantasies of the past century have been dependent on the continued prosperity of the United States and the Western powers in one form or another, and as such a scenario is at least slightly more likely to happen sooner or later; here emerges a difficulty for contemporary science fiction to describe a futuristic American Utopia. All this speaks of a general desire amongst audiences for a critical account to be taken of what has happened, or ‘what went wrong’ to bring us to our current state of morbid confusion as well as what can be done (or what can be imagined to be done) to mitigate the current challenges faced in order to emerge on track again for the Utopia of the future. As these challenges are often poorly understood, hugely complicated, and debated heavily by authorities with contradicting versions of reality, there is a growing distrust in the abilities of authorities to prevent further disaster; at this time, critical analysis of politics and global events in media is fraught with (at best) unanimous skepticism which seeks to uncover hidden ideological agenda and (at worst) a sullen paranoia that breeds fantasies of conspiracies against the public that are hopeless to defy. Our postmodern era has a much broader and realistically bleak definition of apocalypse than its initial modernist reification during the Cold War. As opposed to the nuclear fear of the late 20th century, the cataclysmic dooms to be avoided in our current era are the slow suffocations of economic, environmental, and political systems, and each crisis unfolds slowly enough that we spend most of its development arguing the degree of its severity, or even its existence as a problem at all. ****
The latent Utopian Program of 20th century scifi — in the image of a technologically enlightened ‘endgame’ scenario of the future — seems to have been at this point squandered, its
11 See Žižek, Living in the End Times, Chapter 2 , “Anger: The Actuality of the TheologicoPolitical”, pp. 8890.
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potential all but entirely exhausted; the fantastical, triumphantly realized futuristic materialism once enjoyed by the science fiction imaginary now exists awkwardly, as in contemporary scifi drama, as a superfluous mockery of the farce it represents. The materialist approach employed thus far has finally led to its disappointingly vain actualization. The propensity of scifi materialism in both the real world and in our fiction has betrayed its own intentions, and the simple pleasure in the magic of futuristic science is overtaken by a resurgence in a deep suspicion of unchecked progress. A sinister element has creeped into science fiction which brings the dichotomy of Utopia and Dystopia as a struggle of good and evil to the fore. As Utopia has become enmeshed in ideological discussions of science and progress as well as in our fantasies of science, we are now at a point where we find ourselves, as a civilization, working towards goals which waver between Utopian and Dystopian.
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Chapter 2 Cosmos and the Utopia in Scientific Discovery
In the last few millennia, we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the cosmos and our place within it. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos, in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky. Carl Sagan, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage Episode #1: “The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean”
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980) and its sequel series A Spacetime Odyssey (2014) are educational television programs whose goals are to inspire awe in nature and the mechanics of the universe. They borrow the visual language of scifi film as the vehicle for their presentations, which turned out to be an enormously successful consideration. Perhaps in Tyson's version is this usage most abundantly clear — its larger budget and commercial network sponsorship allowed for the use of expensive special effects and fastpaced action editing, mimicking the postproduction styles of contemporary scifi blockbusters. Sagan's, produced in 1980, is by comparison hyperminimalist (in part because of the limitations of video technology) and more poetic in its ways of engaging the viewers. Both Cosmos's together speak to a deeper level of satisfaction that is found in the consumption of scifi: the kind of hope that it gives some of its audience that such fantastic futures may indeed one day even be possible, because of our own ingenuousness and unending technological development. The common pathos of ‘hope’ conveyed by both versions of Cosmos runs parallel to Ernst Bloch’s principle of hope at the heart of Utopia and its various forms. In Cosmos this hope is attached to the broadly addressed idea of a wellmeaning intelligence and compassion for knowledge, which guide humanity above all other ideals. The widely differing styles employed in either version suggests, in my view, a possible reading of the series which goes deeper than aesthetic difference. In order to extract such a reading, we must however begin with a stylistic comparison between the two; after taking such differences into account and their historical
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contexts considered, we may begin to see a shift in the ways Utopian impulse is expressed and addressed since A Personal Voyage was first broadcast. In each of their particular styles of presentation (which includes visual aesthetics as well as rhetorical nuance), both Sagan and Tyson offer distinct narrativizations of scientific history which intentionally trace a path of intellectual ascension on the grandest (cosmic) scale. Though both programs follow the formulaic constraints, to a large extent, of televised science programming (the charismatic professor in a dynamic lecture hall, who visually fortifies otherwise dry information), the dramatic gusto with which the material is presented and the bold (and often blunt) polemic assertions made throughout both series denotes the presence of a wellformed ideological position being offered and defended. The phrase “these are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution” spoken by Sagan in A Personal Voyage (ep. 13: “Who Speaks for Earth?”) and echoed by Tyson in A Spacetime Odyssey (ep. 2: “Some of the Things That Molecules Do”) is exemplary of a kind of implicit spiritualism evoked, one in which intellectual acuity is offered as the cosmic measure of progress. Although obviously neither are works of science fiction, the fact that both rely heavily on scifi imagery in order to engage their audiences provides us with a unique perspective on the connection between the science fiction imaginary and genuine efforts to engage the public intellectually with science — the latter of which, as we will see, can be subjected to the Bloch/Jameson Utopian hermeneutic. However, since Cosmos is obviously not a true work of science fiction, in order to analyze the series’ in this regard we must first establish the mode(s) of scifi Utopianism that Sagan and Tyson are working within. In doing so, we may establish a crucial link between literary/filmic modes of Utopianism in science fiction with the allegories of Utopia expressed within their respective pedagogical modes.
2.1 Humanist and Scientific Utopias As a genre constituted by fantastic visions of a future point in spacetime, scifi is normally grounded in a particular shared aspect: that the narrative involves the imagining of a wide arc of history which attempts to stretch beyond our own personal and collective human
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histories, usually into the future. The visions generally assume some kind of imaginative leap in the power of technology — either in a singular scientific breakthrough resulting in a machine which allows us to manipulate space and/or time in a fantastical, previously impossible way (time machines, warp drives, etc.) or simply a vision of a distant future at which point, given that science and technology continues to develop into more complex forms, we are capable of scientific and engineering feats which seem to us to be fantasies in our current era. As mentioned in the previous chapter, it can also be said that much scifi is similar to Utopian literature of the previous centuries in at least the fact that both genres are at their base a kind of reflexive sociopolitical critique. It is easily seen that Utopia in a wide variety of applications and manifestations is integral to the core of scifi’s affective power, as long as we follow Bloch and Jameson’s hermeneutics for discovering Utopia in the everyday. The idea that Utopias function not only as a literary critique of current world affairs, but also as an ideological basis for governmental programs, revolutions, commercial endeavors, and indeed scientific development implies that there is something at the ‘core’ of Utopia as an idea that is intrinsically wrapped up in the mechanics of human desire and wishfulfillment. In the modern and postmodern eras, the ideological formulations in Utopian literary thoughtexperiments have become conflated with actually implemented initiatives of science, industry, and government: in a world in which the most technologically advanced are undeniably understood to be the most powerful, Utopian wishes are confined to our own scope of imagination within what is possible with industrial power and scientific understanding. Now more than ever, the genre of scifi is dominated by imagined futures directly correlating to the technological and political crises of today; fears of what new horrors might develop as a result of our uses and abuses of science and technology are central to the contemporary generic narrative. Just as scientists appear in the news and television giving forlorn warnings of a slow and painful decline as a result of scientific/technological negligence, these fears are transmuted into the narratives of Hollywood scifi action films, which offer morbid realizations of such fears. If we are to reassert Bloch’s foundational philosophy that all things futureoriented hold at their ideological roots a Utopian impulse, then we can deduce from the current tone of science fiction Utopia that this impulse finds less and less avenues for
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satisfaction, as the tools for realizing these wishes (science, technology) are apparently held out of reach by a sinister, Dystopian authority. Only two years before the first iteration of Cosmos was broadcast, Raymond Williams offered a compelling argument for a clear distinction between “humanist utopias” and “scientific utopias”, which may well be seen as having to do with the unease surrounding Utopia’s postindustrial conceptions12. By comparing More’s Utopia with Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (1627) — a later work of Utopian fiction — he points out a strikingly different approach to Utopia conceived within the century following More’s publication. The “humanist” Utopia of More, he writes, “projects a commonwealth, in which men live and feel differently”, while Bacon “projects a highly specialised, unequal but affluent and efficient social order” (Williams 206). The key difference, beyond the presence or absence of a focused attention toward the contentedness of all individuals within the Utopia, is that the latter portrays a coolly calculated scientifically “efficient” Utopia, in which society is regarded as a machine to be optimized. Bacon’s approach flows naturally from the materialist perspective of the scientific revolution in the early 17th century, during which the influx of experiment and discovery “becomes research and development in an instrumental social perspective” (Williams 206). This notion that scientific method can be applied successfully to the realization of Utopian programs has stuck; scientific method has in fact offered a qualifying basis for the formation of many deliberate Utopian programs13. It does, however, also provide reason for the antiUtopian positions which see all Utopia as Dystopia — which would at the same time see earnest attempts to achieve technoUtopian systems as inherently negative and against the better interests of those who would be subjected to such a project. Williams describes, among several others, two typical modes of science fiction Utopianism which correspond to the Utopias portrayed in Utopia and New Atlantis respectively. The first, which he attributes to the humanist Utopia of More’s island, is a “willed transformation” in which the spirit of the people has lifted them towards a “simpler” state of commonwealth and cooperation (Williams 204). In science fiction, this is accompanied by a
12 Raymond Williams, “Utopia and Science Fiction”, Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Nov., 1978), pp. 203214 13 See Chapter 4 Utopian Science versus Utopian Ideology (pp. 4256) of Jameson’s Archaeologies of the Future.
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willful directing of scientific resources towards ultimately humanist ends, to create a status quo in which all inhabitants of the system are equally content and their contentedness is dependent upon their cooperation with one another. Bacon’s scientific Utopia, on the other hand, is typical of a “technological transformation”, which would see an ailing society in need of correcting as if by technical finetuning, and existing science and technology is reorganized towards the creation of a more efficient system in total — which, crucially, includes a restructuring of “social machinery” that would have inevitable but necessary negative consequences on some demographics of the society (Williams 204206). It is important to understand, as Williams also states, that either mode can be written as either Utopia or Dystopia, depending on the intentions of the author: the willed transformation is “the characteristic utopian or dystopian mode, in the strict sense”, while the technological transformation “is the utopian or dystopian mode narrowed from agency to instrumentality” (Williams 205). These modes of science fiction writing can be seen to correspond, unsurprisingly, to ideologies which motivate certain approaches to progressive social and political endeavours. At the very least, the kind of progressive idealism promoted by Carl Sagan (and later Neil deGrasse Tyson) swings between either modes outlined above, and ultimately can be said to be a kind of fusion of both14. At first glance, Sagan appears to be delivering a message which is humanist through and through: he would like to see a world in which we are first unified in our appreciation and love for the cosmos, after which we may begin to see the foolishness of our ways and revert to a “simpler” state of cooperation and commonwealth while we work towards common material ends of science and technology. He does not shy away from accessing those classical abstract ideals upheld by Bloch (Jameson 56) — namely beauty, but also notions of harmony and a sense of glory in scientific achievement — and rather fortifies them as ideals which can only truly be fulfilled through the pursuit of knowledge; it is the same kind of remolding of classical virtues which characterizes the revolutionary thought of the Enlightenment period. In his presentation of the humanist Utopia he wishes for, he outlines the adversarial, negative system which seems to impose itself on the goodnatured people of Earth —
14 Williams in fact notes the historical fusion of two two modes in his article Utopia and Science Fiction, though it’s not altogether clear if he is specifically critiquing only science fiction writing or the actualized ideologies as they function in reality.
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a system which would see the use of science and technology for the benefit of an affluent few and at the expensive of an impoverished and poorly educated many. But even as he posits Williams’ technological transformation as the Dystopian future to avoid, he does not wholly avoid falling into that second mode; though he professes his humanist desires, his treatment of society is in fact through the same scientism with which he discerns the cosmos, however lovingly he regards them both.
2.2 A Personal Voyage Jameson and Williams both write that even overtly Dystopian narratives must be considered to follow the ideological patterns of Utopian wishfulfillment, and perhaps even more so: by creating a negative image of the future, the author posits their own antidote, their own wishes and hopes for the future. The fact that Dystopia seems to dominate contemporary mainstream scifi should clearly be read as a shift in the priorities of Utopia as it functions in our society: from a more general fantasy wishfulfilment to a fearful, neurotic, and in many cases hopeless prediction of what is to come. During the Cold War, the Earth seemed to many to be almost certainly on the brink of utter and complete annihilation; there was a kind of heroic call to action to stop such imminent destruction. The world has moved past that era into a more complicated, and indeed neurotic era of fears the threats of global climate change, food crises, and economic collapse are slow and tortuous deaths which are much more difficult to encapsulate into easily understood preventative initiatives. It is almost as if, now that the threat is less immediate and more gradual (and for many, still up for debate) we are more powerless to stop it than we were under the threat of nuclear annihilation. These are the two eras which span the two different versions of Cosmos: the first during the late Cold War and the latter at our current position in world history. Sagan, appearing in his series like a prophetmessiah, bears what he presents as the only worthy solution in the face of complete obliteration. Using subtleties of poetic presentation and metaphor, the tone amounts to something familiar to audiences who have sought refuge in Utopic scifi visions of the future as well as the dubious astrological guidance which Sagan goes to great lengths to discredit: a kind of guruesque spiritual treatment of science, a body of knowledge which the Sagan's viewers
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knew to be truthful but had since felt betrayed by its deadly applications and obfuscated representation in schools and the media. With overtones of the ‘New Age’, he guides his audience, as if towards a trance, into a participatory experience together with him on a "ship of the imagination". This scifi vehicle, which occasionally takes the point of view of an alien observer of other alien civilizations, satisfies the viewers' craving for a sense of adventure to be felt with such a journey as well as assuring them that such a mastery of perspective is, at some point, possible. The reason for the success of his series can be largely attributed to this particular calm, entrancing demeanor which has offered a perspective that reaches beyond the anxiety of the viewer's point in history. By offering the fruits of science through rich scifi imagery and a sense of wonder conveyed all the while, it’s easy to see how he sets up his argument for better education of science through having the audience feel that they have somehow been swindled out of a more wholesome appreciation of the cosmos. The apathy that he detects in the general American population towards scientific discovery is his entryway into every (offCosmos) statement about the state of education in the United States, as he laments the fact that such a powerful nation lacks such a fundamental curiosity in nature and what is currently known about it. He implicates “pseudoscience”, “newage beliefs”, “fundamentalist zealotry” as the culprits of this intellectual poverty, though maintains that these things “are nothing new” — that they are corruptions of human culture that have been present since the dawn of humanity (Sagan, Rose 1996). He pointedly remarks on the foolishness of such beliefs by asking the viewer to consider what empirical knowledge we do have of, for example, the planets and constellations of stars upon which astrology readings are based: “there are two ways to view the stars,” he says in the opening lines of episode 3, “The Harmony of the Worlds”, “as they really are, and as we might wish them to be.” He describes with poetic detail the reality of the celestial objects of our solar system while colorful, moving graphic representations fly past — which are then juxtaposed with comparatively quaint Medieval drawings of astrological deities. He then tells a story of Johannes Kepler and the heroic “escape” of astronomy from the “confines” astrology. He makes reference frequently to leaps in scientific understanding by individuals and scientificallyminded communities during the Enlightenment period and older times of antiquity, often by narrating
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over periodized dramatizations — his favorite of course being the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. Multiple times throughout the series, we see Sagan traipsing ecstatically through a greenscreened set of the Library, overflowing with his admiration for the institution’s commitment to the collection of knowledge and his own personal devastation at its loss. His plea to the American public to devote more efforts to education and the advancement of scientific knowledge is very clearly his deepest intent. In his final interview before his death in 1996 with Charlie Rose, he explains that the global crises faced in the modern era are the result of a complacency with the usurpation of intellectual power by authorities with dubious motivations, and that this climate of apathy is maintained and made possible by the preponderance of superstitious world views and scientifically uninformed beliefs. He calls for revolutionary social and political action to reverse the decline in education and instate a more scientifically guided path to the future:
There has to be a new way of looking at the future, and that is that we’re all humans, members of the same species, on one fragile little planet; we’re all in this together, and we have to work together. That’s kind of the silver lining of these crises they are forcing us to become a planetary species. (Sagan, Rose 1996)
Though bearing the markings of the kind of humanist Utopia through a “willed transformation” as described by Williams, there is a kind of mechanical attentiveness towards the whole of humanity which amounts to something along the lines of a kind of scientific Utopia which would necessarily apply scientific method towards a reworking of “social machinery”. Again, the scientific method is here stressed to be of utmost importance as the instrument by which the corrupted social system may be revised. Also important is his reference to a “planetary species”. At the end of each argument for change through a new scientific revolution, he posits a positive unification of the planet as the ultimate goal of such an event; without saying so explicitly, he comes close to describing such a
15 planetary oneness as a completion of the authentic state of the human race — not unlike
15 His most ecstatic and impassioned phrasing can be seen at the end of “Who Speaks for Earth?”, the thirteenth and final episode of A Personal Voyage.
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Williams’ scientific Utopia, as it sees the instrumentality of science and technology as the essential pragmatism of humanity which must be used to perfect the mechanical, scientific (i.e.: ‘natural’) harmony of the human race. It’s clear however that the humanist intention prevails in
Sagan’s vision, as any of the negative implications of a scientific treatment of social issues — such as the forcing of a more ‘efficient’ composition of social hierarchy for maximum industrial and technological output — would be a serious betrayal of the foundational Utopian desires his vision is formed by. Nonetheless, by way of description through Williams’ modes of science fiction utopia we have a clearer picture of the mode Sagan works within the scifi imaginary in order to express his views: something like a humanistscientism which emphasizes a benign, philanthropic essential nature of science and technology. Sagan’s Utopian impulsion comes through strongly in A Personal Voyage. Though perhaps not qualified as a true Utopian supplement, his treatment of education and the understanding, appreciation of science and the cosmos is loaded with the “Utopian excess” which underlies the material commodities that Jameson has shown through an allegory of the body to address Utopian impulsion. In fact, Sagan portrays knowledge, and humanity’s capacity for and pursuit of it, as a bodily trait (in that it is a scientifically identified trait of the human animal) which must be nurtured and developed in order to reach an optimized state of being human. If human intelligence is cultivated with the intention of bringing all of humanity under a unified condition of intellect, we as a species may begin to dissolve shortterm, avoidable conflict issues and move onto projects which would address largescale, longterm and more globally concerning crises — the important shift being from the fragile instability of present history onto longterm progress and growth towards an improved state (the improvement being that of a greater wealth of knowledge and a sustained capacity to gain more knowledge). The “willed transformation” of the human race into an educated, cooperative global community can be accomplished, he would suggest, if scientific discovery were decided to be of universal benefit and interest and global resources were pooled towards “benign high technology, reaching out into the next century” (Sagan, Rose 1996). We see now how Carl Sagan’s vision, expressed through A Personal Voyage, can be analyzed to a certain degree of success with Jameson’s allegories of the Utopian impulse. There
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is, however, a problem in reconciling Sagan’s real views and wishes for the future with the kind of Utopian fantasy that he is constructing through his strong use of scifi imagery in the series — in other words, in comparing the dramatic flair and poetic treatment of science and global issues that his character portrays in Cosmos, and the more pragmatic, activist approach he takes offset in television interviews, for instance. His personal Utopian desires are most clearly expressed when he is presenting Cosmos; he weaves a comingofage narrative in his poetic accounts of scientific advancements throughout history, in which a sense of dramatic urgency surrounding the recurrent theme surrounding the loss of knowledge, history and culture is recurrent — which is ultimately culminated in an impassioned lecture on the (then) immediate danger of worldwide nuclear devastation. There is a Utopian promise hinted in the attainment of knowledge which as Sagan presents it would have the power to unify and stabilize the Earth (he is at that moment regarding the entire Earth, a totality closed unto itself in outer space, as the society whose possibility of a Utopian future is in question). In appropriating scifi imagery and thematics into his series and his particular dramatic spin on history and contemporary global crises, he is operating within a mode of Utopian narrative that is typical of science fiction at the time. His series was successful (and in many ways, still is) in bridging the dramatics of science fiction and its modes of Utopian fantasy construction with real issues in science and society.
2.3 A Spacetime Odyssey Tyson's Cosmos, taking a point of view from the present, has different fears to address. Compared with Sagan’s heroic call to action against nuclear armament, his are not as easily rallied up against: he is aware of the kind of wary apathy amongst his audience towards the kind of reproachful optimism of environmental activists (and a general apathy towards scientific discovery which seems to have grown since Sagan’s time), as well as the vocal demographics of the U.S. population who reject science (namely evolution and the existence of a climate change threat) in favor of religious fundamentalism or contrary ideas touted in conservative politics. His task is thus to both encourage younger generations to ignore conservative, religious dissent and
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annoy, patronize those who already subscribe to those views. His jovial, straightforward manner when presenting his show is very successful at accomplishing both those tasks at the same time. He nonetheless appeases the tastes of a wide denomination of viewers more blatantly than Sagan: he appropriates the fastpaced, slick editing and special effects of contemporary scifi action flicks to give his viewers more of a reason to pay attention. More effort is given to the portrayal of Tyson as a kind of ‘space warrior’, exploring the cosmos at all levels of scale in his own soupedup version of the “ship of the imagination”. Even the difference in titles conveys a more robust approach to scientific discovery: Sagan’s title (A Personal Voyage) implies introspection and a kind of transcendental movement through the cosmos by learning science, while Tyson’s (A Spacetime Odyssey) is meant to invigorate us about the idea of understanding science by treating it as an epic heroic journey — to say nothing of its reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Between special effectsheavy segments of his spaceship careening through time and space, we are shown 2Danimated, historically periodized sections most commonly centered on one or another great scientific mind in history being persecuted by religious authority. The message is clear and simple in the end: we are much smarter (or perhaps maybe ‘cooler’) than this, and we should make an effort to take advantage of our intelligence now to avoid losing it to degeneration by fanaticism and apathy. A strong effort is made to show a continuation of Sagan’s legacy in the current era. Bits of Sagan’s narration from A Personal Voyage are often interjected between segments, and locations/sets used by Sagan are revisited; at one point in the first episode “Standing Up in the Milky Way”, Tyson tells a personal anecdote of his first inspiring encounter, as a prospective student at Cornell University, with Sagan as he gave him a tour of the campus — at the end of which Tyson says, “I already knew I wanted to become a scientist […] but that afternoon, I learned from Carl the kind of person I wanted to become.” For general audiences mostly unfamiliar with Carl Sagan and the original Cosmos series, this retrospective glorification of Sagan and his work communicates a kind of subversive heroism of science from the past that must now be reinvigorated to tackle the problems faced globally today. There are heavy undertones of a kind of paternal mentorship assigned to Sagan (especially explicit in the aforementioned personal account) which is extended through Tyson to the viewer.
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Although different in his more forceful insistence of the power of science over all other belief systems, he relies on Sagan as the compassionate source material; his image is never shown, only his disembodied voice, which lends to a sympathetic posthumous characterization of Sagan that casts him as a visionary whose passionate approach to science has been all but forgotten in the 21st century. Sagan’s legacy is like a lost script from the Library of Alexandria, whose previously overlooked wisdom can be revitalized now and presented as the saving grace of our generation. This is especially potent because of the Utopian narrative now engaged by this kind of historicization: the stage is set for science, like a forgotten way of life, to be used to overcome the “mess we are in” (as both Sagan and Tyson broadly refer to multiple global crises as) and pave the way to a more progressive, exciting future where our disenchantment with Utopian wishfulfillment may be dissolved. While Sagan’s softer approach touches on areas of controversy with a pretense of objective consideration and measured skepticism, Tyson presents his material as if it has been obvious all along and he is here now to bombastically debunk any and all opposition while simultaneously selling his own brand of scientism as the infallible path to true reason. His confrontational style (which sparked a substantial amount of criticism from conservative and religious publications) is perhaps not out of line with the tone of such debates as they are played out today, especially in the rapid crossfire exchange of ideologies in news and social media. Although there certainly was urgency to Sagan’s pleading lectures on the lunacy of nuclear warfare, there is perhaps even more urgency warranted for Tyson’s more forceful treatment of nearly identical scientific material (such as evolution and the Big Bang theory) now. The tantamount problem is no longer to avoid nuclear apocalypse but to win an ideological war, the outcome of which will shape what kind of Utopian configuration will be pursued in the coming century.
2.4 Spaceships of the Imagination As both series are as much activist as they are educational, a comparison between the filming styles of both can reveal interesting information about the audiences for which they were prepared for in two separate eras. A comparison of each of their "spaceships of the imagination"
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seems an apt starting point; as the only real narrative component in either series, they are representative of the distinct personalities of Sagan and Tyson as well as offering a useful key for understanding the structure of each series’ particular style. As literal manifestations of their imagination, one can assume by the show’s quasiscifi logic that the ship is a kind of outward representation of their personalities. As the sole scifi artifact in either series, it conveys the simple science fiction journey element that makes it a ‘voyage’ or an ‘odyssey’ through the attainment of knowledge. Sagan’s introduction of his spaceship begins as a rhetorical segway between visual scales: he begins by describing the persistent fascination of the human race with “the awesome machinery of nature”, and proclaims our innate desire to “return” to the cosmos. He then identifies a significant leap in technology and understanding of nature that looms before us — it is exactly the kind of “moment” of revolutionary change that denotes all fantasies of Utopia. He goes on:
The journey for each of us begins here [pointing to his head]. We’re going to explore the cosmos in a ship of the imagination unfettered by ordinary limits on speed and size; drawn by the music of cosmic harmonies, it can take us anywhere in space and time. Perfect as a snowflake, organic as a dandelion seed, it will carry us to worlds of dreams, and worlds of facts. (Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Episode #1: “The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean”)
After explaining the ship’s spectral physicality, he lets a dandelion seed get carried away on the wind from the tips of his fingers — at which point the image transitions to a similar shape, the ship of the imagination, slowly floating in space. He is at this point grounding the possibility of a real, personal engagement with the cosmos on an intellectual level in an archetype of the science fiction imaginary: a spaceship, departing the known world and venturing into new territories of both fantastic speculation and legitimate discovery. Sagan's ship is not seen clearly from the outside, except as this dandelion shaped flare of light. We instead spend most of the time with the ship on the inside — and in much of these most of the shot is taken up by the interior, with smaller windows built into the set framing the content
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in question. From the brief view of the dandelion/snowflake flare floating in space, our view transitions to a simulated movement through branching structures of galaxies and static images from the Hubble Space Telescope — then finally fading to the beigewhite interior of the ship, the camera slowly backing away to reveal a large, mostly empty space with high vaulted ceilings. Sagan sits at a kind of control panel in the centerfront, opposite a large hexagonal viewport (or television, perhaps) looking out into space. We see what Sagan is looking at across the room through this smaller framing device, which forces us to refocus our attention on that screen as the camera pulls back. By creating some distance between the camera and the second screen, the ship becomes a kind of metaphor for the inside of a mind, pushing us to make a literal ‘stretch’ of imagination. The scenes spent inside Sagan’s ship are overall imbued with the quality of a dream through its misty interior atmosphere, the use of minimal ambient music, and the calming tone Sagan reverts to in his narration.
(fig 2.1) Sagan’s “Ship of the Imagination” Two views of Sagan’s ship: (l) the exterior, noticeably similar to a dandelion seed but absent any other physical description, and (r) the interior. Sagan is often positioned at the other end of this long, navelike passage. (Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Episode #1: “The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean”)
Though Tyson’s does not introduce his own ship as elaborately as Sagan does, it appears even more frequently than in A Personal Voyage, and we see much more of its exterior as it flies around. The interior of Tyson’s ship is much more sleek and recognizably ‘sciencefiction’ than
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that of Sagan’s: the circular room is furnished by just one chair; the walls, ceiling and floor are composed of gray, curving surfaces. Tyson trades Sagan’s warm, hazy interior with cathedral like arch features for a small, cockpitlike room dominated by a cool gray fluorescent lighting. He addresses the audience frequently from inside his ship, using it as an intimate classroom setting; in contrast, Sagan is never seen directly speaking to the audience from inside his ship, and silently operates the vehicle while his voiceover narrates the material.
(fig. 2.2) Tyson’s “Ship of the Imagination” (l) the more clearly represented exterior of Tyson’s ship, and (r) one interior viewing port, which opens onto various cosmic objects addressed in Tyson’s lecturing. The eye motif (the orbshaped cockpit inside the elongated oval as seen from the exterior, and the pupil/iris construction of the viewing ports on the interior) is apparent in these images. (left, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Episode #2: “Some of the Things that Molecules Do”; right, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Episode #1: “Standing Up in the Milky Way”)
While in Tyson’s ship we are left with a vague, somewhat downplayed and underrepresented interior, we do see exactly what the outside of the ship is like, which resembles any number of recognizable scifi space craft. Like Sagan’s dandelion, it too maintains something of a metaphorical appearance, though it’s a bit more vague: we can perhaps infer that it’s a kind of eye based on its elongated eye or teardrop shape, and by the pupil and lenslike viewing ports on the top and bottom of the circular room — which Tyson often uses as framing devices for celestial objects under consideration. Tyson’s ship also has taken more of a front seat as a more consistently recurring visual motif, and features prominently in the opening credits. As
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Sagan’s introverted, spiritual exploratory approach suits the use of such a gentle metaphor as the dandelion seed with its dreamlike depiction of its interior, Tyson’s ‘wakeup call’ initiative is characterized in his thoroughly futuristic spaceship. Its loose symbolic likeness to an eye (and by extension, optical viewing) communicates his view that the truth in science must be simply viewed and understood in order to brush aside the intangible “idealism or spiritualism lingering”, as in Jameson’s body allegory of Utopia (Jameson 6). Sagan’s Cosmos, as stated, was aired at a time when the threat of a sudden and complete annihilation by nuclear warfare seemed to many to be very near and even likely. The series was as much an encouragement to want to learn and participate in scientific thought as much as a plea to its viewers to fully appreciate the madness of nuclear war, by offering an optimistic vision of what continued existence in the cosmos might hold. His restrained, minimalist and sometimes amateurish presentation is seen by many to be endearing, framing Sagan as a sincere lecturer whose honesty is assuring and engaging — this is, at least, the kind of characterization of Sagan that is reconstructed and channeled into Tyson’s series. By asking us to imagine seeing the wonders of the universe in the comfort of his dreamy mind ship, Sagan offers intellectual enlightenment and blissful fantasy enjoyment as the antidote to the dystopian fears of nuclear fallout. Tyson is more concerned with making people urgently aware of scientific fact while spending a lot of time showing how the ignorance resulting from religious fanaticism and violent confrontations diminishes our wholesome understanding and enjoyment of these facts. He is no less sincere in his presentation of the cosmos, but the intensity of the effects and severeness of the interior of his ship imply a kind of selfassured mastery of what is being viewed: he knows these things to be true, he only asks us — in a kind of Promethean gesture — to see and to accept. People who enjoy the scifi fantasies today go to imax 3D films for a more ‘real’ experience; Tyson appropriates that popular desire to show that such intense spectacles are everywhere in nature, if one only thinks of them in the way he presents them. The moralistic overtones of Tyson’s series are present clearly in reaction to the current confrontation between religion and science in the United States, particularly in regards to evolution and the origin of the universe. But the strong use of action scifi imagery seems directed at an audience who needs such stimulation to be interested in learning about any world,
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cinematic or real. With the imminent threat of nuclear warfare in the past, the global crises of today are slower, more complicated, and many; activists in the field often complain of a general apathy towards these problems. Tyson’s fast moving, exciting eye ship may be his way of rousing a declining interest in science, which is now attaining the signified status of a hopeless, pessimistic pursuit which bears mainly bad news.
2.5 Technological Adolescence Sagan and Tyson, through their expositions in the Cosmos series, make continuous and pointed reference to a turning point in history unfolding which will either launch the human species into a new age of scientific enlightenment or plunge us once again into an intellectual dark age, or much worse. Sagan has coined the current condition of humanity as a stage of “technological adolescence”: a historical period of rapid growth across all areas of human existence, but specifically in our technological capabilities, which will be known to future historians as the time that the human race ‘grew up’ should we survive the intermittent turbulence. He most aptly sums up this term in his book Broca’s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science, in which he states:
There are some who look on our global problems here on earth — at our vast national antagonisms, our nuclear arsenals, our growing populations, the disparity between the poor and the affluent, shortages of food and resources, and our
inadvertent alterations of the natural environment — and conclude that we live in a system that has suddenly become unstable, a system that is destined soon to collapse. There are others who believe that our problems are soluble, that humanity is still in its childhood, that one day soon we will grow up. The receipt of a single message from space would show that it is possible to live through a technological adolescence [emphasis added]; the transmitting civilization, after all, has survived. (Sagan, Broca’s Brain, 275).
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He is here referencing his repeated assertion that other technological civilizations have a mathematically high probability of existing on other worlds in our galaxy, and that the detection of such a world would in fact lay bare a determinable possible future in which we transcend our bondage to Earth and move outward into space. All of the crises faced globally, barring the possibility of such a spacefaring future scenario, would otherwise suggest an eventual termination of human civilization if, in fact, it is not already underway currently; this basic assumption is the backbone of A Personal Voyage. Tyson’s series, oddly, only briefly touches on the notion of extraterrestrial civilization and the efforts put forth to detect them. Something could perhaps be said about why this aspect is so prominent in Sagan’s and not Tyson’s; however, I tend to believe that it may be due to a difference in interest or optimism in such matters between the two. In response to Stephen Hawking’s recently expressed wish for humanity to become an interplanetary species, Tyson responded “if you have the power to turn another planet into Earth, then you have the power to turn Earth back into Earth.” (Real Time with Bill Maher: Overtime, 2 October, 2015.) Though clearly borrowing from Sagan’s enthusiasm in all other regards, Tyson seems not to be wholly in sync with his optimism for spacefaring fantasies and extraterrestrial diplomacy either out of personal disagreement with such goals or in an attempt to ground science fantasies in a pragmatism more agreeable with the general public’s interests. Tyson is far more concerned with the development and sustainability of Earth civilization as well as the assumption of a kind of stewardship over our own solar system. Sagan was as well, of course — but the prospect of other civilizations and the gravity of the possibility of their existence is a major component of the scientific spiritualism which he has infused in his own series. The key aspect of such a notion is the extension of the “Otherness” of nature to outer space and to the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence, the discovery of which (according to Sagan, at least) would have profoundly humbling effects on the human race’s consideration of itself and its place in the universe. To make such a discovery would have the effect of instilling a
“closure” or “totality” upon the Earth — the prerequisite, as Jameson has noted, for the fulfillment of a Utopian program (Jameson 4). To Sagan, this closure has been apparent since the photographing of the Earth from space, and more recently since the famous “Pale Blue Dot”
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photograph — a photo of Earth taken from 6 billion kilometers away — was taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1990. In the extended “Cosmos Update” ending to Traveller’s Tales (ep. 6) on the 1990 home video release of the A Personal Voyage, Sagan remarks on this image by once again asserting that “we humans are one species, and this is our world […] it is our responsibility to cherish it […] of all the worlds in our solar system, the only one, so far as we know, graced by life.” (the final lines of the “Unafraid of the Dark” [ep. 13, final episode] of A Spacetime Odyssey are a recording of Sagan reciting a similar passage from his 1994 book, Pale Blue Dot). Until this apparent turning point in history, humans have regarded nature as the big other force, outside of human existence, which we inhabit, change, and hold out at arm’s length for examination. Through Sagan’s and Tyson’s presentation styles, the viewer is pushed to calibrate this big Other to the vastness of space outside of the closed system of the Earth, so that we as a species can begin to represent ourselves distinctly as a planet against the whole of space — for, as Sagan notes in the final remarks of “Who Speaks for Earth?” (ep. 13, final episode), “our loyalties are to the species and the planet […] we speak for Earth”. The acceptance of the Earth system as the kind of universality that Sagan portrays it as also works to neutralize or mitigate the negative connotations of Nature as that Other which threatens humanity. Žižek has commented on this Otherness of Nature in his book Living in the End Times, specifically on the possibility that the negativity assigned to nature is perhaps actually a reflection of a the negative essence of humanity itself projected onto nature. It this idea “of nature as not only forming the stable background to human activity, but also harboring an apocalyptic threat to the human species” (Žižek 336) which seems central to the environmental crises of the Earth that Sagan seeks to address through his scientific/humanistic Utopian solution. Just as Žižek’s idea would suggest, Sagan does in fact position a human cause, and a human cure, to our grievances with Nature; and it is through the acceptance and responsible treatment of such conflicts with the environment that, he seems to say, we may assimilate that Otherness of the Earth into that of humanity under one totality — from which we may begin to investigate the much bigger Other of space and, most importantly, of the existence of other civilizations. Though Tyson practically altogether avoids this area of discussion in his version, Sagan incorporates the notion of the extraterrestrial Other as an integral component of his particular
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vision for the future; this is especially apparent in its demonstration through his ship of the imagination. In the emotional, heavily poeticized final episode “Who Speaks for Earth?”, Sagan recounts a nightmare he has had in which, as an alien observer aboard an interstellar craft, he pours through his onboard encyclopedia of advanced civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy (illustrated, while Sagan narrates the dream, by Sagan himself onboard his ship of the imagination). He comes across one — Earth — and notes its “potential to become one planet”. After his computer tells of its likelihood of selfdestruction (“Probability of survival (per 100 yr): <1%”, we read) his communications are interrupted: the planet Earth had destroyed itself through nuclear warfare at the very moment of his observation. As this scenario is presented as a dream, we may feel free to analyze as if to uncover its ‘unconscious’ meaning. Its purpose is primarily to express Sagan’s personal doom fantasy for Earth: that at the cusp of accessing that level of cosmic freedom enjoyed by the alien observer he takes up the role of, the human race extinguishes itself — rendering millennia of slow technological progression utterly meaningless, all for naught. The positive inverse of this particular interpretation is Sagan’s dream for humanity: to overcome the current period of deadly internal conflict, the achievement of which would signal the passing of technological adolescence into a long, prosperous path through humanity’s ‘adulthood’. There is some extra significance, however, in Sagan’s assumption of the role of the alien — namely that he forms the psyche of an imagined ‘advanced’ alien being as one whose benign gaze views all of the cosmos (but in particular, other intelligent beings) with equal somber contemplation. This is of course Sagan’s personal wish for the future Utopian human condition, which proceeds directly from a deeply held belief (despite his hesitance toward the term) in the essential benign character of humanity: a kind of natural state of being human which is defined by, and can only come about through the embracing of, a humanistic application of science and technology towards exploration of the cosmos. This fantasized scientific voyeurism of the human race through alien eyes can be thought of in the same terms as the way in which a certain kind of pleasure is derived from observing animal and plant life, either in nature on through nature documentary. Žižek remarks that animal documentaries and television channels devoted to observing nature “provide a glimpse into a
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utopian world where no language or training are needed, in other words, into a “harmonious society” [...] in which everyone spontaneously knows his or her role” (Žižek 83). The animal kingdom, obviously, faces none of the intraspecies threats that humans do, and their natural ‘ability’ to simply live and die within selfsustained ecosystems is simultaneously baffling to humans while also providing a natural analog by which many Utopian programs have been based upon. At the same time, animal life falls squarely within that Otherness of Nature: wildlife is merely a component of the larger Utopia of Nature (in that Nature has no regard or use for history, is virtually by definition a “collective”, and has no need of reform — except when altered by human activity). Human Utopian projects, it can perhaps be assumed, are attempts to unify that frustratingly ineffable Utopianism of Nature with the emotional values held by human beings. Thus Sagan’s insistence on the “planetary society” includes such a union in which the Earth and all its nature are regarded and operated as one system, demarcated against the Otherness of the cosmos beyond the boundaries of the planet. By resituating the Earth as a closed system and by postulating a future in which Earth must represent itself in a galaxy full of other civilizations who have reached similar states, the possibility of a humanistic Utopia, in which science and technology give meaning to our continued existence and progress, begins to take form as a tangible path to be taken. Sagan and Tyson position the current era as that critical moment at which point this future may begin to be fulfilled, or tragically avoided due to our continued reliance on antiscientific belief systems — as Sagan stated in his 1989 interview with Ted Turner, “the problem is that technology has reached formidable, maybe even awesome proportions, and so the dangers of thinking this way [in rigidly fundamentalist belief systems] are larger” (Sagan, Turner 1989). Although ‘faithbased’ reasoning has been with us for all of human history, we have reached a point at which such “magical” thinking is unsustainable and dangerous: in a world ruled by technology, if the people do not understand it, Sagan asks, who is in control of it? The Dystopian nightmare presented in the Cosmos series is one in which the power of science is withheld from the many purely through ignorance and apathy, whereby the powerful and knowledgeable few can take control. The inverse, the Utopian dream of science, is a global Utopia in which knowledge is held as its defined purpose — the pursuit of knowledge, and the organization necessary to award this
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privilege to everyone on Earth, would bring about a state of harmony and stability which denotes the hope inherent in every Utopian desire. **** Deathcuring drugs, immortality, and a historical closure through a combination of immortality and something like a collectedyetseparate unity of the individual with a closed whole of the human species remain, and will possibly forever remain, the stuff of science fiction. But these fantasies speak unquestionably to deeply held ideals of progress towards which much of the efforts of science and technology are aimed, and allegory has shown to at least partially satisfy such desire (see Utopian supplements and the commodification of Utopian excess,
Jameson 6). The worldview of Sagan and Tyson — one in which human history is viewed as a neverending quest for knowledge and the potential for this quest to unify all of humanity in the collective endeavour to understand and describe the vast Otherness of the cosmos, is one which operates on all three levels of Jameson’s allegories of the Utopian impulse. Here we see science fiction’s true wishfulfillment prophecy in action: something like Williams’ willed transformation of the human species through technological advancement, which guarantees a future in which a program of progress guided by scientific Reason is collectivized and gives purpose to a human project — the closed Utopia of the Earth against the vast unknown of outer space. The Sagan/Tyson vision is one which attempts to recast the Utopia of science fiction past the horizon, at a time when that previous horizon is disappointingly near. And yet, on the whole Western culture seems as fixated on the imminence of its own demise more than ever; our fictions of the Utopias of the future have become alltoofamiliar reflections of the Dystopian qualities of the present. Tyson’s (and before him, Sagan’s) task — to collect the views of opponents of scientific Reason as one wholly flawed, outdated and toxic ideology — is a formidable one: the general public, faced with fundamentally polarized worldviews, must choose sides, and both sides promise of a future of harmony once the other side is diminished. All the while, the shadow of that big Otherness which denotes the multitude of crises faced globally today, in its indifference to ideological interpretation, looms ahead. From the scientific side of the argument, we know well how we “got into this mess”, but to get out, as Sagan explains in his
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last interview with Charlie Rose, remains to be a choice (or a series of choices) between the seemingly hopeless prospect of bipartisan agreement on the nature of global crises and an allout domination of the one ideology over the other.
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Chapter 3 Interstellar and Scientific Exploration as Utopian Antidote
We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down, and worry about our place in the dirt. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), Interstellar (2014)
Interstellar is a film that takes place at an undetermined point in the future where, despite there being “no more wars”, the human race struggles to maintain its fading domain over the planet. All landscapes have been transformed into endless farmland due to a prevailing global food crisis, and the remaining crop species on Earth are slowly being killed off by blight.
Cooper, a former spaceplane pilot for NASA — out of work after NASA was officially shut down for refusing to “drop nukes on innocent people” — is a farmer living with his two children and his deceased wife’s father. After following binaryencoded navigational coordinates spelled out in dust by some mysterious gravitational anomalies in his daughter’s bedroom, he locates NASA’s last remaining top secret underground facility, where his old boss Professor Brand is coordinating a manned journey through a wormhole near Saturn to colonize a new world for the human race, and asks Cooper to lead. In many ways, the film falls along the same science advocacy thematics as Cosmos and the public polemics of Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson, notorious for nitpicking scientific inaccuracies in film, in fact tweeted a series of commentaries on the film at the time of its release which seem to amount to a more or less positive endorsement — especially noting its heroic portrayal of scientists and its commitment to scientific realism16. The film supports the kind of adventurous spirit in science (i.e.: the “scientific spirit” [Williams 204]) pushed in both versions of Cosmos, and the adversarial threats to this ingrained human trait stacked up in the series are imaginatively reconstituted in Interstellar. The film in a sense retroactively validates
16 In appraisals of Interstellar, it is often commended for having hired the astrophysicist Kip Thorne (who had previously provided scientific consultation on other films) to develop the mathematics upon which the software that designed the wormhole and black hole special effects was built.
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the narrativization imposed onto the history of humanity by Sagan17 and Tyson through its awaited portrayal in Hollywood film: it combines Tyson’s ‘cinematic spectacle’ approach with Sagan’s cosmic spiritualism, which together work as a kind of fantasy antidote to today’s dystopian woes.
(fig. 3.1) Interstellar’s black hole The film has been praised for its dedicated scientific realism, such as in its depiction of warped spacetime around a black hole (pictured here). (Interstellar, 2014)
The ultimate intention of the film, however, becomes greatly complicated once the main characters leave Earth. The film’s pragmatic realism established in the first act at some point begins to unravel, exposing an emotional, irrational core which ultimately (and to the confused distaste of some of the film’s critics) forms its overarching message: love is introduced as a pseudoscientific force which, once established as having a physical existence, begins to work as a vehicle for bridging the insurmountable vastness of space and time — a connection (or “collectivity”) of bodies through “gravity” across history and unlimited distance. Such a mastery of body, time and collectivity, working well within Jameson’s stated allegories of Utopia,
17 “It has the sound of epic myth, but it’s simply a description of the evolution of the cosmos as revealed by science in our time.” Sagan, Cosmos, A Personal Voyage, EP13: “Who Speaks for Earth?”
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constitutes an attempt to form an allinclusive Utopian allegory for the future as a solution to the stagnancy of Earth’s slow decline towards death.
3.1 The Indomitable “Spirit” of Science
The narrative premise — which can be more briefly summarized as an exploratory adventure story in outer space and on new worlds, with the hope of finding one suitable to relocate the human race — is one that seems generally very typical of a space travel scifi narrative of the 20th century (particularly in the mythos of Robert Heinlein). There are certain ‘classical’ components of the genre which are all touched on in Interstellar: an external threat to humanity, a reason for daring adventure into deep space, and the exploration of new worlds with fantastically imaged landscapes. The film is however somewhat unique for its time, in that it imports these classical elements into the present era and addresses them as realistically as possible — though the film takes place at some undetermined point in the future, space travel (and specifically, NASA) is similarly derided as wasteful today as it is in the film, the look of the various space vehicles and equipment is comparable to current space travel designs, and (most importantly) painstaking effort was made to make the physics of the film as close to scientific reality as possible. It also can be aptly analyzed through Williams’s modes of science fiction Utopia: it shows simultaneously aspects of a “technological transformation” (in that the Utopia to be had is to be attained through “new technology which, for good or ill, has made the new life”) as well as a “willed transformation” (because it is “inspired by the scientific spirit, either in its most general terms as secularity and rationality, or in a combination of these with applied science which makes possible and sustains the transformation”) — in addition to a third mode described by Williams, an “externally altered world”, in which the fictional Utopia “can be related, construed, foretold in a context of increased scientific understanding of natural events”, through which “the element of increased scientific understanding may become significant or even dominant in the fiction” (Williams 204). Faced with the threat of human extinction, NASA funnels all of its efforts towards the construction of a large interstellar craft in orbit around Earth — the plan being to send reconnaissance missions through the wormhole (which has mysteriously appeared on its
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own and, as the film explains to us, must have been willfully constructed by some intelligent being) in order to begin colonization while Professor Brand finishes his “gravity equation”, with which a much larger ship containing the remnants of the human race could be lifted into space. Thus, due to external alterations to the planet which threaten the species, NASA, “inspired by the scientific spirit” works to establish “the new life” through a dramatic application of frantically developed new science and technology. The nearapocalyptic setting of the film reflects a certain attitude of pessimism which suffuses the current discourses on environmental crises — namely, that once the struggle between opposing worldviews subsides and there are no longer any personified “enemies” (which the film sets up by proclaiming a universal end to warfare), the enemy will be finally, ultimately displaced back onto the ancient opposition of that ‘Otherness of Nature’ referred to in the previous chapter. Of this newly introduced mode of Williams’, the “externally altered world”, he says this: “The common emphasis is on human limitation or indeed human powerlessness: the event saves or destroys us, and we are its objects […] [in its Dystopian form] the natural world deploys forces beyond human control, thus setting limits to or annulling all human achievement” (Williams 205). This scenario is, in a sense, Carl Sagan’s worst Dystopian nightmare: even after avoiding destruction by its own hands, humanity has more or less reached its “planetary society” status, but only in its death throes, and out of desperation. About halfway through the film, a twist is revealed which challenges the basis of the humanist Utopia pursued by the protagonists: While Cooper and the interstellar crew struggle to continue their mission of precolonization, Professor Brand — whose “gravity equation” holds the final, crucial element to the program — admits on his deathbed that he had solved his equation years prior, and had found it inviable: information which could only be recorded from inside a black hole is needed to finish the math. This leaves their last remaining option, “Plan B”
— to “seed” a new world with fertilized human eggs and artificially establish a new human race, leaving the rest of humanity to die on Earth. This new obstacle can be viewed in terms of the opposition created between Williams’s “willed transformation” and “technological transformation” in that Plan B assumes a mechanical regard for the human race, stripped of the attention given to emotional fulfillment present in the humanist Utopia formula through a willed
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transformation. The humanist agenda, however, reemerges triumphant in the end through an external alteration: Cooper, after falling into a black hole around which some of the worlds they visited orbit, is able to miraculously communicate back in time (through “gravity”/”love”) the data necessary to solve the equation.
3.2 Scientific Realism
The film also touches upon the other bane of the Cosmos series — that of a general diminishing intellect amongst the public and a gradual decline into complacency (in this case, out of a necessarily shortsighted survivalism). This is most explicitly addressed in a scene in which Cooper attends a parentteacher meeting at his children’s school: after being told that due to limited placement his son has no chance of going to college, he learns that his daughter got in a physical fight with another student who laughed at her insistence that the Apollo moon landings really happened, and weren’t “brilliant piece[s] of propaganda” designed to bankrupt the Soviet Union. The future history in the world of Interstellar is set as such: as the human race struggles to survive and deny a clearly approaching fullapocalypse, complacency and stagnancy are enforced over curiosity and intellect — suppressing, according the philosophies of Sagan and Tyson, the core of human desire (as Cooper notes, “it’s like we’ve forgotten who we are”). The implication that in the face of death, the policy is still denial strikes a strong sympathetic chord amongst audiences who feel this exact policy is in effect in response to current environmental crises. This affect is executed initially through its wholehearted support of scientific fact, both in narrative and in the filmmakers’ extensive efforts toward scientific veracity. The film is in this sense (somewhat indirectly) coming out in support of Tyson’s most recent calls for better science education; this is also evident in the numerous scenes devoted almost exclusively to expository science dialogue (a point of negative criticism for many), which can be taken as oblique attempts to inject the kind of dramatized science lessons in A Spacetime Odyssey. There is also the sense that a reality principle is at work in the particular fantasy constructed in the film, which supports its wish for interplanetary Utopia through its careful attention to astrophysical realism and its (more or less) believable future Dystopian setting. We must first, however, take into account the wholly unrealistic — and to a certain degree, absurd —
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ending to the film: Cooper is kept alive inside of a black hole through the grace of the “bulkbeings” (more on them later) so that he may communicate the deus ex machina of 5th dimensional physics to his daughter through a wristwatch; he’s then spat out at the exact spacetime location of the space station (holding the remnants of the human race, completed thanks to the black hole data) orbiting Saturn, where he meets his now elderly daughter. However comically improbable this section of the film is, such wild suspensions of disbelief are, in fact, quite in line with the generic tradition of science fiction. As opposed to classic fantasy, science fiction emcompasses narratives in which the fantasy elements are validated through the pretense of a scientific reality, creating the potential for an extra investment of desire to be addressed through wishfulfillment (see pp. 25 of Ch. 1); thus, so long as some measure of this realism within the narrative is maintained, other areas — such as character arcs, motivations, and the underlying “message” of the film or text — are free to be more unrealistic. In this sense, the function of the reality principle as described by Jameson makes up for the fallibility of the wish (which is always an overestimation) by giving the impression of realism (Jameson 83). By the end of Interstellar, the film’s bloated wishtobefulfilled is staggeringly broad, which perhaps necessitated such extreme efforts towards realism in all other appearances. Recently, scientific realism has become a trending factor in the critical esteem of science fiction films. It is possible, to briefly return to a previous point, that the reality principle of science fiction in general seems to be, in this decade, pushed to compensate for much larger, perhaps more unrealistic, wishcontent — for as the ‘future’ appears to be forced upon us in all areas of life, and all areas of life saturated with Utopian supplementation, that the hope once projected through scifi Utopianism is wearing thin as the initial wish (the Utopian desire) reveals itself as that hollowness described by Jameson to be at the bottom of each wishfulfillment process (Jameson 83). Or, to put it another way, as humanity seems to have all but fully achieved the status of a technological civilization once prophesized in 20th century science fiction, there can be little faith in any fantasy for tomorrow’s Utopian achievement through science and technology, as those very endeavours seem to be instrumental in our multitude of present crises. This, I believe, is not merely speculative; the lackluster desire for
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space exploration can perhaps be seen as symptomatic of such an attitude, and perhaps even Tyson’s abandonment of Sagan’s dream of extraterrestrial contact can be understood as such in that he recognizes the naiveté (and even childishness) of the notion considering the current state of affairs on Earth. Interstellar is at least very clearly grappling with this postmodern cynicism with certain tact — namely by designating it as a behavior complicit with the downfall of humanity, and the reemergence of the fantastical as the ultimate redeemer.
3.3 The Other Future Interstellar flirts with a scifi idea entertained passionately by Sagan18 which will bring us to a final assessment of the film’s content under Jameson’s allegories of Utopia — that of its consideration of a state of civilization so advanced technologically that all three levels are unified in a total mastery and transcendence of the material universe. The “bulkbeings” — who are explained in exposition as the mysterious beings who must have placed the wormhole — are initially thought of to be some alien Other, who in an act of cosmic altruism have decided to lift humanity from its deathbed to join them as a spacefaring civilization; it is at the end of the film when Cooper, finding himself in a threedimensionally fractalized version of his daughter’s bedroom within the black hole (we are told this is a “threedimensional representation of their fivedimensional space”), realizes that the bulkbeings didn’t bring them there, but “we” did, and that the bulkbeings are in fact some future form of humanity: “not you and me, but a people, a civilization that's evolved beyond the four dimensions we know”. Thus, baffling causality loop notwithstanding, we are left to understand this development as such: that a future state of people, who have transcended time and space, have ultimately been the architect of their own salvation retroactively. If we must interpret this more generally so that it can be extrapolated toward an overall ‘message’ of the film, it can perhaps be said that the image, fantasy of a humanity that has surpassed all material constraints (rendering it, through Jameson’s hermeneutic, an actualized Utopian program through impulsion) is in fact what will save humanity from its ‘natural’ entropic decline. In other words: the bulkbeings represent, as
18 See ep. 8, “Travels in Space and Time” in Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, wherein Sagan compares recently designed future interstellar craft to da Vinci’s flying machines too early for practical execution perhaps, but bound by history to be eventually actualized in forms unimaginable today.
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closely as possible, the essential nature of all Utopian impulse desires, namely a future state of humanity in which the Utopian allegories of body, time, and collectivity are actualized in a state (unsurprisingly) literally unimaginable.
(fig. 3.2) Inside the black hole Inside the “fivedimensional” structure (also referred to in the film as a ‘tesseract’) within the black hole, created by the “bulkbeings” as a way to demonstrate the malleability of time to Cooper. (Interstellar, 2014)
The bulkbeings also take the place of the intelligent Other, which in this case extends benign contact with Earth; it is interesting, then, to work out what becomes of this Otherness once the viewer is asked to identify the Other and the human as one and the same. We can think of this kind of alien Otherness, not infrequently written of in science fiction (as well as being often invoked in real science as in, for example, the SETI project, which scans the otherwise ‘lifeless’ state of the cosmos for any signs of such spectral blips of humanity amongst the nothingness of space), as if Nature itself extended from its nothingness a tangible greeting, an action which can only be recognized as thoroughly human. To recall Žižek’s notion of a
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Utopianism inherent in Nature (Žižek 336), it can perhaps be said that any earnest investigation in the existence of Other peoples in the universe, fictive or real, is an attempt to identify the possibility of human’s reunion with this progenital Utopia and thereby fortify the Utopian desires of the present. It is worth making a comparison to a similar ‘conclusory’ stage of humanity reached in
Asimov’s short story “The Last Question” — in which a supercomputer, which disseminates the unlimited ‘free energy’ collected by a massive orbital solar array, is casually asked: “How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?”, the answer simply being “INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER” (Asimov 236). It is coincidentally asked the same question repeatedly (the story is staged in proceeding chronological sections) over the subsequent trillions of years of human evolution — for, after stellarenergy was first exploited, humanity expanded outward to harvest other stars, eventually utilizing whole galaxies until their stars begin to burn out after billions of years — and each time the answer is the same. With the progressing points of history humanity steadily undergoes the actualization of Jameson’s Utopian allegories: their health and longevity gradually advance, mastery over spacetime is achieved through first warpdrives and then something like a disembodied astral projection, and eventually the finalstage collective mindmeld: “Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one” (245). As the universe reaches its maximum state of entropy and all matter and energy are dissipated, the consciousness of the machine (which had long since merged with “Man”), floating in timeless nothingness, is able to finally give its answer — “LET THERE BE LIGHT!” (246). If put seriously to task under Jameson’s hermeneutic, the story’s ending suggests that a total enclosure of the universe’s history is reached upon the absolute achievement of the “Impulsed” Utopia, and as such the Utopia becomes both the final, true Utopia and an ultimately false Utopia — for as history is closed onto itself, the process of impulsion necessarily begins once again. It is likely then that the ongoing project of Utopian desire is essentially a desiring against entropy, which must necessarily be stretched ad infinitum towards ever larger scales. If this is the case it can then be said that Interstellar’s bulkbeings are effectively retroactively working against this tension between entropy and Utopia, through radiating “love” across
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(historical) time and space from an outside perspective similar to the nothingness at the end of Asimov’s story.
That the bulkbeings are in fact human — guaranteeing a deterministic temporal path toward that state while simultaneously transcending or negating temporality as such — signifies in Interstellar the closure of history and a fulfillment of a historical collectivity of the human species, satisfying all levels of Jameson’s allegories. This cosmic guarantee works as an antidote to Sagan and Tyson’s anxiety towards the cyclical rise and fall of high culture and scientific exploration and the apparent imminence of yet another fall: it effectively corrects that “grand narrative of entropy and devolution” (Jameson 123) out of the system through fantasy, and reformulates the true nature of Utopianism in the postmodern era: the correction of such historical circularity would ultimately be the achievement of the Utopia of the Impulse. **** That Interstellar begins as ‘hard’ scifi adventure and ends in an eccentric, almost cathartic frenzy of what must explained as a kind of spiritual resolution — in which love is discovered to be a quantifiable force — betrays a vision of the future in which two hitherto incompatible abstractions of the human experience merge: the spiritual (or perhaps, emotional) and the materialism of scientific understanding. Moreover, the spiritualism is a newfounded one, which must be transplanted from its classical idealism into a concrete materialism. Although perhaps the film speaks on a more simplistic level, I would suggest that this striving for legitimate spiritualism in the material does not merely denote an empirical quantifiability of classical ideals such as love as the final, pragmatic solution; rather, the rediscovery of love in the scientific worldview is here expressed allegorically.
By literally equating love with gravity — an elusive, littleunderstood force of the universe — Interstellar combines the social and cultural (which are here understood to be thoroughly emotional in content) crises with the pragmatic, scientific crises which are presently faced globally into a simplified equation of sorts. A mastery of gravity, in the film, is what has prevented them from escaping their demise on Earth and from achieving a kind of actualized state (in the spirit of Sagan) of humanity as a spacetravelling species. This struggle is made all
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the more relatable and immediate once the “problem of gravity” has been revealed to be really the problem of love. If we substitute, for a moment, the melodramatic designation of “love” with Bloch’s notion of “hope”, this allegory begins to fall neatly within the boundaries of consideration for the Utopian Impulse. Hope, when understood to be that elusive force which motivates the Utopian desire, is what is sought in the imagining of Utopia. The “explaining away” of love as something ultimately unobservable by science is deeply unsettling to some characters in Interstellar; hope is similarly unquantifiable, and yet so enmeshed in the human experience, that it is easy to understand how this could be the cause for the antagonism towards science today and for our inability (or unwillingness) to invest hope once again in technologically devised futures. It is perhaps with this in mind that some solutions to the apparent bankruptcy of Utopian fantasy, and the pervasiveness of Dystopian death drive which characterizes the current social climate, may be devised.
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Conclusion
It is my hope that, through the identification of the particular strain of Utopian impulsion conceived in A Personal Voyage and reified in Interstellar, the contemporary disruption in Utopian fantasy production can be seen as indicative of a larger cultural shift at hand. If Sagan’s impassioned lecturing on the utmost value of science and the imminent possibility of apocalypse is taken as an enthusiastic call for a new scientific revolution with broad political and social implications, the argument could be made that his Utopian vision has begun in some respects to posthumously gain traction. Jameson writes of the historical “vanishing mediator” who conceives of the revolution, then (necessarily) vanishes before or at the time of the revolutionary event (Jameson 86). Would it not be appropriate to suggest that Sagan may perhaps prove to be one such mediator (of perhaps many) for a coming Utopian revolution? Tyson’s loyalty to Sagan’s ideology, as well as its very apparent incarnations in the scientific advocacy present in contemporary scifi films such as Interstellar, seems to suggest that he is at least being considered by his followers to have the potential to fulfill the role of such a revolutionary mediator. I do not wish to suggest something so bold as to say that revolution on Sagan’s terms is underway; rather, the widespread cultural anxiety surrounding the increasing reality of true apocalypse has to some extent found solace in the ideological legacy of humanistic, scientific Utopia provided by this kind of calltoarms activist approach to science. It seems that the usefulness of such an approach is to some extent being rehearsed in blockbuster cinema (admittedly, most pointedly in Interstellar), where apocalypse scenarios provide the means for the ‘clean break’ necessary for the start of a new Utopian Program as well as offering a chance for the reinvestment of hope in the power of science and technology free of its previous abuses. It is for this reason that to analyze such fantasies at the level of allegory, as Jameson has already done for science fiction of the past century, we may begin to piece together a general image of the present cultural status of Utopian desire.
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Jameson’s levels of Utopian allegory provide a strong interpretive method for tracing the cultural manifestations of Bloch’s Impulse amongst not just science fiction literature, as Jameson had initially shown, but across a much broader scope of the cultural imaginary regardless of specific medium. It is in my view that Bloch’s primary hermeneutic, with which he sought out the Utopian Impulse in all its omnipresent forms, had necessarily to undergo the revisions provided by Jameson, which constrain his sweeping array of objects covered to a concise application to science fiction — the genre specifically comported toward visions of the future. It is through Jameson’s contemporary recontextualization of Bloch’s utopianism that a greater understanding of the implications of his theory can be gained: for, as the possibilities of a crossmedia genealogy of allegorical utopianism begin to unfold, Bloch’s initial assertion of Utopia’s foundational role in the history of human desire is granted a renewed sense of urgency.
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