Brief Look at Ray Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian”

Recurrent socio-political issues in Science Fiction

Having narrowed down the list of SF sub-genres in which Political issues are relevant, the next logical step is to look at the socio-political issues that have been recurrent in SF in the past 60 or 70 years (after world war II). One would think that in all these years the socio-political concerns of SF authors, and readers, would be strikingly different, but oddly enough they are quite similar (if not identical), and in a sense that validates them.

So far I've determined the importance of a given issue by the number of stories dealing with a specific issue, as well as the time span covered by the publication of said stories. The higher the number of stories, coupled with a longer lifespan of the issue (not the popularity of the story); this lifespan is measured in terms of a given issue being treated on several stories published in different years.

The following is the list I work with, but if you have other issues that should be included in it be sure to let me know about them.

1. Personal freedom
2. Totalitarianism
3. Economic control of government
4. Bigotry
5. Religious zealousness

Each of these recurring issues has been featured in more than one of the politically relevant sub genres of the previous post. There can also be a cross between these issues in a single story, therefore this list is not as clear cut as the sub-genres; I will expand on each of these issues in subsequent posts, but for now this enunciation is sufficient.

Comments