Exactly. If society can't progress how do you expect the genre to progress? They are one in the same.
I disagree. Genre is a specialized subset of literature, and literature is
one aspect of culture. Not the same, not equal, but related.
The issue I take is that you seem to be presenting it as a question of equal causality. As if taking up issues in your writing will progress the culture (using art as the lever) on the same scale as changes in culture changing writing. I don't think it works that way. Nor do I think it makes sense to talk about progressing genre.
Broadening the genre, perhaps -- but it's already about as broad as it's likely to get (you can find anything you can imagine in the genres if you know where to look or who to ask). But what you're saying isn't really about broadening it so much as addressing its
focus and using it to push. And again, I don't think it works that way.
In a few specific instances, an example of a given art may have a fairly wide causal cultural relationship, but I still think the effect is
significantly less than anything near total. Literature being only one small part of culture, the potential for a far reaching effect on culture is small. And beyond that I doubt that any art, no matter its space or power in a culture, has a particularly large effect on the nature of that culture individually, or often even a small one. In most cases, it is causally localized only to that particular art, and even then limitedly.
In literature, for example, a huge number of people in the English speaking cultures are exposed to Shakespeare's works, and Shakespeare took up/included
numerous issues in his works -- some contemporary to his time, but many perennial, timeless issues, including all of those you listed. The fact that he did so doesn't seem to have had much, if any, measurable effect on the current culture -- we're still doing much the same things he wrote about, with the same tendencies, with the same story structures.
If we're examining it as a question of progress, of causal relationships, then we're looking at it as a question of historocultural narrative -- a long, multi-generational social learning curve, in other words. If the assertion is that "progressing" writing "progresses" culture, then we would expect that people would have learned the lessons there to be learned in Shakespeare's works sometime over the past 400+ years -- who I'm mentioning only because he's the author pretty much everyone knows of, beyond most societal boundaries, for a long long time, covered a plethora of issues, and is basically the ultimate example of an author who did things that progressed the language, the art, the medium, etc.
So, what progress? Neither the culture, nor the art, "progressed" from Shakespeare in any really measurable way. And, if we go further back chronologically, there is likewise no real progress. Since Chaucer, about all we've done is move to standardized spelling, punctuation, and grammar -- which, funnily enough, still has nothing to do with
writing -- and, because the technology allows it, devised some additional media to deliver writing (particularly the novel) -- still, really not the writing, and the novels we write today are little different from the first true novels, though there are many, many more of them.
More often, as with Shakespeare, Chaucer, or any other more recent SF author, the causal relationship in the arts remains primarily internal -- which is the process of how genres emerge. Even the Modernist, avant garde lit of the the late 19th century is better understood as a genre resulting from social and technological changes than a developmental period of writing in literature's history. These things are a kind of internal mimicry, and limited to sets of static qualities that define and delimit those genres.
These qualities are phenomenological, emerging from specialized interests within the culture that appear, grow in popularity, and eventually wane. The Western being the classic example. The core of the genre can't really change, but interest in that core in the dominant culture shifted, and now there isn't really a Western genre in its own right.
Is
that progress?
I just think that it's important that we don't overstate the importance of literature. For the record -- I do believe that literature can be influential to a person's core beliefs. But, it's one thing amongst many -- and the many other influences are often from more important and more oft repeated.
IMO, Literature (most specifically creative entertainment literature, but most literature in general too) is far, far less a cause of the dissemination of ideas than the
collector of disseminated idea.
By the time a book is published, it's already an historical artefact of a past culture.
I'm not saying "don't include issues" -- but I am saying, don't do it because you're trying to change the world. Do it because you're trying to tell a good story about something important to you.
I'm sorry but I have to say screw that. I want magic in my sci-fi.
That's all well and good, but you'll most likely find that your work will be classified as some subtype of Fantasy then. Refer to the neverending Star Wars debates over in the SF forum!
(Yes, Kat, if you're seeing this, I think I'm finally siding with you for good on this one.)
No. It will never be that way. There are always more followers than leaders.
Then I have to ask: what is the goal of this progress? Or are we talking progress for progresses sake?
Just so you know, "Issue Lit" is considered a genre in some circles.
