Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Translations
- Introduction
- Part I The Great Discourse on the Future
- 1 Utopians and Utopian Thought
- 2 Futurists and Futures Studies
- 3 Utopian/Dystopian Writers and Utopian/Dystopian Fiction
- 4 Science Fiction: The Nexus of Utopianism, Futurism, and Utopian Fiction
- Part II German Science Fiction in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- 5 Some Preliminary Thoughts on German Science Fiction
- 6 First Contact: Martians, Sentient Plants, and Swarm Intelligences
- 7 The Shock of the New: Mega Cities, Machines, and Rockets
- 8 Utopian Experiments: Island Idylls, Glass Beads, and Eugenic Nightmares
- 9 To the Stars! Cosmic Supermen and Bauhaus in Space
- 10 Visions of the End: Catastrophism and Moral Entropy
- 11 Virtual Realities: Caught in the Matrix
- 12 Alternative Histories: Into the Heart of Darkness
- 13 Big Brother Is Watching Us: Who Is Watching Big Brother?
- 14 Artificial Intelligences: The Rise of the Thinking Machines
- 15 Eternal Life: At What Cost?
- 16 Social Satires: Of Empty Slogans and Empty Hearts
- 17 Critical Posthumanism: Twilight of the Species or a New Dawn?
- 18 High Concept: Time, the Universe, and Everything
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Chronological List of German SF Novels—A Selection
- Appendix 2 Chronological List of German SF Films—A Selection
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
10 - Visions of the End: Catastrophism and Moral Entropy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Translations
- Introduction
- Part I The Great Discourse on the Future
- 1 Utopians and Utopian Thought
- 2 Futurists and Futures Studies
- 3 Utopian/Dystopian Writers and Utopian/Dystopian Fiction
- 4 Science Fiction: The Nexus of Utopianism, Futurism, and Utopian Fiction
- Part II German Science Fiction in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- 5 Some Preliminary Thoughts on German Science Fiction
- 6 First Contact: Martians, Sentient Plants, and Swarm Intelligences
- 7 The Shock of the New: Mega Cities, Machines, and Rockets
- 8 Utopian Experiments: Island Idylls, Glass Beads, and Eugenic Nightmares
- 9 To the Stars! Cosmic Supermen and Bauhaus in Space
- 10 Visions of the End: Catastrophism and Moral Entropy
- 11 Virtual Realities: Caught in the Matrix
- 12 Alternative Histories: Into the Heart of Darkness
- 13 Big Brother Is Watching Us: Who Is Watching Big Brother?
- 14 Artificial Intelligences: The Rise of the Thinking Machines
- 15 Eternal Life: At What Cost?
- 16 Social Satires: Of Empty Slogans and Empty Hearts
- 17 Critical Posthumanism: Twilight of the Species or a New Dawn?
- 18 High Concept: Time, the Universe, and Everything
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Chronological List of German SF Novels—A Selection
- Appendix 2 Chronological List of German SF Films—A Selection
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
ACROSS THE WESTERN world, the specter of nuclear war and the growing awareness of impending ecological catastrophe intersected in the 1970s. Following the dire predictions of Danella and Dennis Meadows’s Limits to Growth (1972), with concerns about the environment and fears about a nuclear confrontation between the superpowers potentially erasing all life in Europe growing, apocalyptic media stories abounded. SF, with its long tradition of foreseeing catastrophes, reflected the mood, and it was rewarded with an ever-growing readership. As in its golden age in the 1940s, the genre came to the cultural surface with its chameleon-like ability “to reflect the conscious or subconscious states of the collective.”
In the case of disaster stories, such a reflection of the collective state of mind was criticized by those who held higher hopes for the genre—for example, by Darko Suvin, who branded it “black SF anticipation” and “romantic recoil.” Nevertheless, the attraction for SF writers to romanticize that “inconceivable terror” proved irresistible: by exploring external threats—real, perceived, or imaginary—they, like their Romantic forebears, were addressing the rapid technological change and the fears associated with it. They warned not only of the end of the world; they imagined a phoenix-like rising out of the ashes, one of SF's “most potent icons.” Few writers, however well-meaning and critical, could avoid the danger of romanticizing the apocalypse, or using it for heroic survivalism. Gertrud Lehnert has suggested that while it was only natural to develop fantasies of survival in order to cope with the all-pervasive fear created by a superpower arms race and ecological disasters, such fantasies often produced the opposite of what was intended:
When the catastrophe becomes the mere vehicle for one or more heroic individuals to take possession of this emptied world and to fashion it according to their desires, this “coping with fear” can have an effect that is diametrically opposed to its warning function.
Focusing on Anglo-American examples of disaster stories, Lehnert observed that in such a context, the question of human responsibility for the catastrophe was no longer relevant, and that the catastrophe was often presented as inescapable or as fated. Man, though responsible for his actions, was unable to prevent the consequences.
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- Beyond TomorrowGerman Science Fiction and Utopian Thought in the 20th and 21st Centuries, pp. 133 - 148Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2020