What are today's 'Sacred Cows'?

[Edward M. Grant]

And stories about aliens, clashing cultures, and war in SF tend to touch on those issues, as do the fact that corporate run societies are seldom that democratic but instead just usually have a feudal system with serfdom in place.

Actually, I'd say the corporate world is another Sacred Cow in SF. In the real world, big business and big government are symbiotic organisms: big business collects the income and sales taxes for the government and enforces their regulations, and big government hands the taxes back to the big business in government contracts, provides military protection, and passes regulations to keep competitors out of the market.

If big government goes away, big business costs increase massively, as they have to fund all that infrastructure and defence themselves. They also have to find new customers, as the government won't continue throwing taxes at them. To continue to exist, they basically have to become the government of a proprietary community, and then they have to find people who want to live there, which doesn't really happen if all they can offer is a life of serfdom (and who are they going to sell their products to, if everyone is a low-paid serf?)

In addition, I have a hard time imagining what a big business will do, if anyone can print most of the things they use on a 3D printer in their garage. The only big businesses left in my main SF world are the ones doing big engineering, like building space habitats, and they're fading out as technology advances.

 

[KatG]

Ah, but the believe that gods are beyond science is a sacred cow - exactly what we are taking aim at. So a story could explore scientific breakthroughs such as contacting people after death or actually contacting beings that were thought of as gods in the past. Time travel, as another example could disprove or prove many religious miracles.

No, it's not a sacred cow philosophy that gods are beyond science; it's the definition of the term "god." A god is a supernatural entity beyond the laws of nature. If something you are calling a god turns out not to be a god -- turns out not to be divine supernatural and magic is real, but instead say an alien and magic and divinity are not involved, then it is no longer a god. It's just science. So you can't use science to prove that gods are real because gods exist outside of science. If you can prove they are real with science, then it's not a god. That's how we use language. It doesn't matter if it's Jehovah or Zeus.

There have been quite a lot of SF stories about contacting dead people and gods turning out not to be gods, but instead alien life forms or electromagnetic fields or something like that. In fact, Doctor Who makes a point of it on a regular basis. But then they're not really gods -- that's the SF reveal. So I don't know that's a sacred cow of SF. (An interesting one on the death thing is Connie Willis' novel Passage.)

Uh, no, it's not. In fact, it's so legally well-established that it's not that I'm not sure where you even got that idea from.

I got it from history when they drafted the Constitution. The states demanded the 2nd amendment so that they could keep/have state militias because there was concern that the federal government would insist on a federal army only and they wanted their own armies. That's why it's well regulated militias. And from numerous Constitutional scholars who've explained it. When a sheriff drafted or got volunteers for a posse, he was able to do so because of the 2nd amendment -- he could draft citizens to serve as armed members of a well-regulated militia (the posse.)

Now, it's become a larger legal debate whether the 2nd amendment definitely has the broader mandate to protect citizens' rights to own guns as well as bear them in a militia. (I.e. citizens could serve in the well regulated militia even if they didn't own guns themselves -- they could be given them. The idea was they had the right to use the guns as part of the well regulated militia. They couldn't be banned from serving in the state militaries.) But that debate has been relatively recent to a degree: http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/so-you-think-you-know-the-second-amendment The Supreme Court has backed up the wider mandate only a few years ago, but that doesn't mean that guns cannot be regulated, because there's that well-regulated part of the amendment. The idea that the government is coming to take the guns away from citizens is relatively recent and occurred basically mainly when Clinton was elected.

Something like a gun that can shoot itself would pose a number of conflicts, again, for people in the States. Because the gun issue is not simply about having guns on hand in case you need them. It's about shooting them. It's the image of the gunslinger of the movie version of the Old West. A gun that doesn't need you and you don't get to always control would be of much less interest to a segment of folks than something that could cause a lot of destruction. A gun that could fire against a detected threat would however be of interest to other folks. Law enforcement would certainly have a lot of splits over it, as they increasingly get more military and tech advanced equipment but also have to contend with folks whose guns would go off and kill innocent people.

Two or three kids die each week in the States from gun accidents already. Then there's the two year old who pulled a gun from mom's purse while in the grocery cart and shot and killed her with it accidentally and the kid who shot both his dad and his pregnant mother. So what if a kid gets ahold on a smart gun, turns on its computer, and that computer decides the nearby parent is a threat and shoots? So it would be a very tricky technology for the U.S., embraced and feared by different groups.

the commonplace tools of the not-too-distant future will make the whole thing seem quaint. No, you can't have a .22, but you can have a spaceship that throws nuclear bombs out the back for propulsion...

I don't think we're ever going to make a spaceship as cheap as a car. But of course, the Jetsons may end up being very prophetic. We don't know where we're going with the new tools, which has been a long time SF interest. That includes the Singularity, which is about tech outstripping our current understanding, and much of related cyberpunk SF.

I haven't read that one, but I wouldn't really class most post-apocalyptic stories as SF.

It depends on whether they have fantastic elements in them or not. If they have magic, they're fantasy. But most post-apocalyptics are SF -- no magic, just various degrees of lost tech or tech existing but a very different social structure. They are a long time part of SF, and they are SF, just like time travel stories and alien contact stories and space pirates. They are part of the body of SF literature. They do not belong to the body of fantasy literature. Fantasy fiction does not mean SF stories you don't like. It is an actual, specific term.

If big government goes away, big business costs increase massively, as they have to fund all that infrastructure and defence themselves. They also have to find new customers, as the government won't continue throwing taxes at them. To continue to exist, they basically have to become the government of a proprietary community,

That's the way it used to work when we had capitalism. But now we have global raider capitalism, which isn't the same thing. Corporations are massive global entities with little allegiance to any country. They don't have to be in a symbiotic relationship with any government and the finance sector can crash the currency of nearly any country and make money off of doing it. They are largely for the privatization of infrastructure, energy, communications, defense, space exploration, schools, etc., and they prefer desperate, impoverished labor forces (serfs) but since they are global and can move their interests, there's no need to really provide government services for that labor force. And because executives and major shareholders are invested in raider fortune building, they also frequently cannibalize themselves, with executives taking massive payouts and doing share buybacks to scoop value out of the company or acquired sub-companies rather than invest capital in the company. So that becomes an interesting set-up for future projections. That's something that Paolo Bacigalupi explored in The Wind-Up Girl, and Richard A. Morgan in a different direction in Black Man.

For the 3-D area, you might find Charlie Stross' Halting State and sequel Rule 34 interesting novels on that.

 

[Gsonderling]

Multiculturalism, at least in Europe one can not challenge it without being called Nazi.
In fact I don't remember reading a science fiction book portraying diversity (of cultures, faiths, whatever) as anything but beneficial.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Multiculturalism, at least in Europe one can not challenge it without being called Nazi.
In fact I don't remember reading a science fiction book portraying diversity (of cultures, faiths, whatever) as anything but beneficial.

Similarly the idea that intelligence (or stupidity) is (even in part) inherited and not (mostly) a product of environment and nurture.

 

[Gsonderling]

Similarly the idea that intelligence (or stupidity) is (even in part) inherited and not (mostly) a product of environment and nurture.

Exactly.

Another one that comes to mind is even distinct possibility of corporation not being evil or corporate executive not being corrupt.
Only example of this I can remember is in Deus ex:HR.

 

[KatG]

Whether you think it's beneficial or not, multiculturalism is reality. Several billion of us exist, we are diverse and we have many, many cultures and sub-cultures and those cultures are not limited to any one locale. Multiculturalism simply describes the actual human species. Whether the government/law makers of a particular nation -- a nation being a created cultural concept -- decide to limit the appearance, biology, religion, language, gender, etc. of who can live within that nation's artificial borders or not, is an entirely different issue to the simple fact of the multicultural make-up of humans. Science fiction plays with the latter concept all the time. Usually it is done with aliens, but it can also be done with human societies, such as Anne Leckie's recent Ancillary series. So it isn't a sacred cow at all for SF.

Likewise, science has clearly shown that some intelligence factors are inherited and genetically linked -- a portion, not the whole, with then nutrition, resources, education, cultural discriminations, etc., affecting the rest. And science fiction has done an enormous amount of stories about genetics development and manipulation and the creation of new types of human who then reproduce and continue those traits, especially intelligence and the development of super brains. Nancy Kress' Beggars in Spain series, for instance, Anne McCaffrey's Talents series, etc. So that's not a sacred cow in science fiction either.

I'm sure that some of the old SF stories went entirely the inheritance route, which was proven later to be scientifically not accurate. So if you tried to do a story where intelligence was only genetic now, I don't think it would fly with the science crowd. But mixed environment-genetics stuff with concentrating on the effects of inheritance of genetic changes does.

Corporations/executives who are not corrupt are trickier, but not exempt from SF. A significant portion of SF writers are very pro-business and libertarian, so SF stories in which those running corporations are successful and the government is the problem are not that unusual for SF. For other types of fiction, I would say it's a lot rarer than SF, because the authors aren't as widely diversified politically as they are in SF. I would agree, though, that in sci-fi movies, you'd be harder-pressed to find businessfolk in a non-corrupt light. However, in the cult satire film, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, the title character and his aides have a corporate think tank that also doubles as a rock band and they are the heroes and not corrupt. And in last year's Transcendence, a corporate scientist uploaded into a network is considered corrupt but turns out not to be. Small business people tend to fare better than corporate execs overall. So I guess it would be a partial sacred cow, maybe, but less in written SF than in other areas.

 

[Patched]

In fact I don't remember reading a science fiction book portraying diversity (of cultures, faiths, whatever) as anything but beneficial.

Hamilton's Nights Dawn universe does. The earliest planets settled by humanity were multicultural and eventually developed into worlds with competing nations, warfare and poor planetary economies (e.g. Nyvan), most of them (and the successful ones, certainly) were settled along nationalist / monocultural / religious lines. He makes a point of referring to worlds in the trilogy by their origin culture as "[origin-culture]-ethnic".

 

[Werthead]

Hamilton's Nights Dawn universe does. The earliest planets settled by humanity were multicultural and eventually developed into worlds with competing nations, warfare and poor planetary economies (e.g. Nyvan), most of them (and the successful ones, certainly) were settled along nationalist / monocultural / religious lines. He makes a point of referring to worlds in the trilogy by their origin culture as "[origin-culture]-ethnic".

Hamilton was writing the series against the backdrop of the war in the Balkans. He later said he was probably way too depressed about the whole thing and may have overcompensated a bit. In the NDU, Earth is by far the single most powerful world (maybe excepting the Edenist civilisation at Jupiter, which certainly had a vastly greater quality of life) and that's still firmly multicultural even in the 27th Century. His Commonwealth universe does feature more multi-ethnic worlds and populations.

Whether you think it's beneficial or not, multiculturalism is reality. Several billion of us exist, we are diverse and we have many, many cultures and sub-cultures and those cultures are not limited to any one locale. Multiculturalism simply describes the actual human species. Whether the government/law makers of a particular nation -- a nation being a created cultural concept -- decide to limit the appearance, biology, religion, language, gender, etc. of who can live within that nation's artificial borders or not, is an entirely different issue to the simple fact of the multicultural make-up of humans. Science fiction plays with the latter concept all the time. Usually it is done with aliens, but it can also be done with human societies, such as Anne Leckie's recent Ancillary series. So it isn't a sacred cow at all for SF.

What is interesting is the idea that multiculturalism could result in homegenity, where eventually the whole world ends up in a similar cultural place due to the melting pot of what came before, an evening out over centuries. You can see that with the USA having a distinct culture now despite it consisting of people descended from Europeans, Africans, natives etc. Star Trek shows Earth being a fairly culturally homegenous place (and even a little dull) in how people view things, although they haven't forgotten the history of each distinct region.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Likewise, science has clearly shown that some intelligence factors are inherited and genetically linked -- a portion, not the whole, with then nutrition, resources, education, cultural discriminations, etc., affecting the rest.

I quite agree but the OP asked about society's sacred cows not science's or science fiction's. It would be a brave politician or educator who stood up and said to a parent (or a wider public) "your kids are stupid because you are".

 

[Gsonderling]

Whether you think it's beneficial or not, multiculturalism is reality. Several billion of us exist, we are diverse and we have many, many cultures and sub-cultures and those cultures are not limited to any one locale. Multiculturalism simply describes the actual human species. Whether the government/law makers of a particular nation -- a nation being a created cultural concept -- decide to limit the appearance, biology, religion, language, gender, etc. of who can live within that nation's artificial borders or not, is an entirely different issue to the simple fact of the multicultural make-up of humans. Science fiction plays with the latter concept all the time. Usually it is done with aliens, but it can also be done with human societies, such as Anne Leckie's recent Ancillary series. So it isn't a sacred cow at all for SF.

I'm afraid that you have only proven my case.
First of all, Multiculturalism is not what you are describing. In fact the proper definition is:

Multiculturalism is a body of thought in political philosophy about the proper way to respond to cultural and religious diversity. Mere toleration of group differences is said to fall short of treating members of minority groups as equal citizens; recognition and positive accommodation of group differences are required through “group-differentiated rights,” a term coined by Will Kymlicka (1995). Some group-differentiated rights are held by individual members of minority groups, as in the case of individuals who are granted exemptions from generally applicable laws in virtue of their religious beliefs or individuals who seek language accommodations in schools or in voting.

By Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy


Your strong reaction merely serves as confirmation of its "Sacred cow" status.

 

[jason10mm]

Likewise, science has clearly shown that some intelligence factors are inherited and genetically linked -- a portion, not the whole, with then nutrition, resources, education, cultural discriminations, etc., affecting the rest. And science fiction has done an enormous amount of stories about genetics development and manipulation and the creation of new types of human who then reproduce and continue those traits, especially intelligence and the development of super brains. Nancy Kress' Beggars in Spain series, for instance, Anne McCaffrey's Talents series, etc. So that's not a sacred cow in science fiction either.

I'm sure that some of the old SF stories went entirely the inheritance route, which was proven later to be scientifically not accurate. So if you tried to do a story where intelligence was only genetic now, I don't think it would fly with the science crowd. But mixed environment-genetics stuff with concentrating on the effects of inheritance of genetic changes does.

This is VERY MUCH coming under fire now. Read Peter Watts. He dives deep into concepts where there is no human "conscience" and that our thoughts are just the product of evolutionarily programed responses. Cutting edge neuroscience is gonna shatter this sacred cow (and, like any sacred cow, I expect most folks will block it out). While I certainly think environment plays a part, I think the "inherited" portion swamps it. Then of course the entire concept of "intelligence" is probably a flawed myth anyway.

Same with multiculturalism. When things are going well we can permit a wide range of behaviors, but when the chips are down humans self-segregate themselves into distinct herds and I suspect we are gonna see this happen again this century. But I agree that the topic must be VERY delicately handled because it will trod upon some well justified reactions.

Another interesting sacred cow was put forth by Dan Carlin. Given enough distance of time, will folks like Hitler lose their demonized status and possibly come 'round to being a revered figure? How many other historical figures saw their reputations flip-flop based on (in)accurate future recollections and changing values? Always reminds me of the Futurama episode with dinosaur riding cowboys in the 20th century museum

 

[Gsonderling]

Another interesting sacred cow was put forth by Dan Carlin. Given enough distance of time, will folks like Hitler lose their demonized status and possibly come 'round to being a revered figure? How many other historical figures saw their reputations flip-flop based on (in)accurate future recollections and changing values? Always reminds me of the Futurama episode with dinosaur riding cowboys in the 20th century museum

There are people thinking Hitler was right now all over the world, mostly in Middle east. I can certainly see that at some point in the future he will become semi-mythical figure, like Vlad Tepes. Maybe will some tourist write a popular book about him, giving him supernatural powers and henchmen with skulls on their hats.

 

[JunkMonkey]

There are people thinking Hitler was right now all over the world, mostly in Middle east. I can certainly see that at some point in the future he will become semi-mythical figure, like Vlad Tepes. Maybe will some tourist write a popular book about him, giving him supernatural powers and henchmen with skulls on their hats.

I think a better example would be Attila the Hun.

 

[Gsonderling]

I think a better example would be Attila the Hun.

Or Temujin

 

[JunkMonkey]

Or Temujin

Even better. Temujin, aka Ghengis Khan, responsible for the death of millions in the 12/13th centuries, hero of John Wayne movie, and comedy sidekick in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure in the 20th.

 

[KatG]

I quite agree but the OP asked about society's sacred cows not science's or science fiction's. It would be a brave politician or educator who stood up and said to a parent (or a wider public) "your kids are stupid because you are".

Society's sacred cows in terms of science fiction writing, which is why we're letting the conversation take place in the science fiction literature forum. And why we were talking about the Singularity, which was the OP's chief interest. The issue is, does science fiction tackle social issues that are considered touchy? And the answer is, yes, they do, and that SF has a wider political spectrum to their authors than most other areas of fiction. Having a multicultural society as a negative, the discussion of how much nature and nurture is involved in intelligence -- and simply how intelligence can be effectively scientifically measured, which is in a constant state of evolution, including having more emphasis on genetics -- and even corporations as beneficial rather than corrupting forces, have all been used in science fiction. So they aren't untouchable subjects.

Nor are they in society. There are politicians and educators all over the world who say all the time that kids are stupid because their parents are, and sometimes because of the race or culture their parents are. In the U.S., we just had a principal scream at special education students. But we also have clear scientific evidence that environment and socioeconomic status also greatly affects academic performance and performance on assessed tests, which is why the tests are regularly being revised to deal with those biases. To give you a funny story, my husband was actually tested as a kid because on an early "intelligence" test, among other things, he identified a donut as a healthy breakfast because he thought it was a bagel. There are gender bias issues, nutrition issues, etc., all being studied, but genetic issues are also being studied. SF has a strong love of playing around with the genetics ones and having super-humans.

I'm afraid that you have only proven my case.
First of all, Multiculturalism is not what you are describing. In fact the proper definition is:

Multiculturalism is a body of thought in political philosophy about the proper way to respond to cultural and religious diversity. Mere toleration of group differences is said to fall short of treating members of minority groups as equal citizens; recognition and positive accommodation of group differences are required through “group-differentiated rights,” a term coined by Will Kymlicka (1995). Some group-differentiated rights are held by individual members of minority groups, as in the case of individuals who are granted exemptions from generally applicable laws in virtue of their religious beliefs or individuals who seek language accommodations in schools or in voting.

By Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Your strong reaction merely serves as confirmation of its "Sacred cow" status.

Words often have multiple meanings. I was referring to the first meaning, which figures in the debate, but is a separate issue and one that often gets ignored. You are looking at the social issues regarding the second definition, which is a separate issue from the existence of multiple cultures. See dictionaries:

1. Of, relating to, or including several cultures.
2. Of or relating to a social or educational theory that encourages interest in many cultures within a society rather than in only a mainstream culture.

1. the state or condition of being multicultural.
2. the preservation of different cultures or cultural identities within a unified society, as a state or nation.

1. relating to or including many different cultures

In reference to both meanings, we do have multiculturism here because we have members from all over the globe and so we do have a multicultural policy: we have in the rules everybody agrees to follow when they sign up that members have to be civil to one another, and therefore cannot make personal comments including about race, religion, etc. When we touch on those topics concerning society, I do indeed have to moderate it to an extent so that forum rules are followed, and the conversation can be allowed if it is civil (which we have been,) doesn't get into personal slurs (which we haven't,) and is related, in this forum, to science fiction literature (which we've managed more or less.)

The second meaning of multicultural/multiculturalism is not a sacred cow in world society. In some countries, it is. Your assertion was that it is a sacred cow in Europe. I think it varies more by country in Europe. Significant political position of anti-immigration and multicultural political parties in countries like the Netherlands, Hungary, Italy and until recently in Greece do not produce it across the board, although the Eurozone itself may have specific policies on the economic front. And in some countries like France, it's complicated. For France, multiculturalism as philosophy is treated as doctrine, but at the same time, France outlawed religious symbols and clothing, and has put very non-multicultural bans on things related to Judiasm, Islam, Roma, etc. So what is said and what is done seems to vary a good bit in Europe.

I don't know of any novels or stories that specifically deal with multiculturalism politics in Europe, for or against, but there probably are some. (Although the U.S. issues tend to dominate English-language science fiction.) Maybe Charlie Stross. In science fiction in general, multiculturalism issues get tackled usually using aliens again, or humans who have developed different cultures or even species traits. Iain M. Banks dealt with multiculturalism a lot in his Culture novels, generally in a non-against manner. But some of the novels by authors like John Ringo, for instance, take the opposite view and are not in favor.

Even better. Temujin, aka Ghengis Khan, responsible for the death of millions in the 12/13th centuries, hero of John Wayne movie, and comedy sidekick in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure in the 20th.

Also comic sidekick in the Night at the Museum movies.