Rethinking (and overthinking!) sci-fi/fantasy

(A little bit of rambling here. Don't anyone feel compelled to read all the way through. I'm just thinking out loud and working through some ideas on "paper," if you will (and even if you won't!) I reserve the right to change my mind!)

I offer for your consideration a few choice scenarios that I actually witnessed. You're walking down the Infinite Corridor and pass a group of pudgy bearded guys walking around in black cloaks and speaking to each other in a jargon comprised of a mixture of Monty Python quotes, unix shell commands and assorted geek-speak. You round a corner and have to dodge a couple of guys chasing and shooting each other with neon orange toy tracer guns. Then, bleary eyed from an all-nighter problem set you catch this interesting scene unfolding in a darkened corner of an atrium outside a lecture hall: there's a shirtless dude curled up in a fetal position on the floor, cowering from and apparently being guarded by another dude in a bad intergalactic policeman uniform featuring too much silver duct tape.

Now admittedly these are rather extreme and out of context examples of "Geeks Gone Wild", but their seeming absurdity gives you some idea what my reaction to sci-fi/fantasy/role playing has been in general. That stuff has just never made any sense to me. I never watched Star Trek or Starwars or read Tolkien, Asimov, Bradbury, etc. (Actually, I think I may have read a little of those guys like in elementary school and was turned off by it.) I've even been hostile about that stuff. I'm still not sure why it's rubbed my the wrong way. My best guess is that I feel like building alternate worlds is a way of running away from this one and it irks me because there's so much to say about, explore, explain, talk about, enjoy, about this one. And with respect to sci-fi I get the feeling the author is sometimes too eager to say "Check out my futuristic technology. Ain't it swell?" No, it usually ain't. I'm surprised a lot more technically-minded folks don't feel like I do: it rankles my scientific sensibilities when authors take liberty with laws of physics, junk science, incomplete or inaccurate explanations, exaggerated technologies, etc. I'm as willing to suspend disbelief as the next literature buff, but with respect to science/technology?! How come so many techies are so willing to do that? That would be like finding that priests are disproportionately eager to "suspend their disbelief" over the various inaccuracies and criticisms of the Catholic church in The DaVinci Code. Just doesn't make sense.

Well, here's the rethinking part. Maybe creating alternate worlds is a means for some folks to relate to this one. After all, I understand a lot of sci-fi/fantasy is allegorical in nature. It's still not something I would voluntarily indulge in, but I'm better understanding those that do. A couple examples/ideas come to mind.

First, consider all the symbols and metaphors used in holy scriptures, the Bible for example. Those kinds of writings treat subjects that are transcendent and unworldly in nature. So, imagine the author that's given the task of sitting down and using inevitably worldly words to describe out of this world phenomena. He is forced to use metaphor and, indeed, words like "light," "holy," "darkness," and "evil" are used to represent things which exist on a spiritual level and are not amenable to perfect description and understanding. So, you have to resort to a kind of fantasy or at least metaphor in describing some things. (Indeed, in a sense you have to do this when describing any thing. As I've said elsewhere, all words are merely metaphor--depending on your epistemological bent I guess.) What I'm getting at here is that the delineation between fantasy and what I called "this world" is not so distinct as I assumed. I can turn my earlier statement on its head and say with some truth that perhaps insisting on "realistic" literature is a way of running away from the fantastic which is a means for exploring real and important things about this world which can't easily be described otherwise.

The second idea I had is related to that last statement. Fantasy provides a way for folks to relate to phenomena which is difficult to understand. I just watched that Chronicles of Narnia movie today with my kid sister and mother. Wow. Very impressed. It was clearly an allegory of the story of Jesus and the redemption of man. The movie features all sorts of fantastic creatures and witches and talking lions and what have you. Strange stuff. Yet, I don't suppose it's any stranger, in a way, than the story of the gospel. Any way you slice it, it's supernatural stuff. So, just as the gospel uses fantastic elements--raising of the dead, the concept of God in human flesh--to help us understand God's purpose why can't literature resort to fantastic elements to describe some phenomena? The truth is, some things just can't be described in any other terms.

So there you go. My convoluted and not quite ready for prime time thoughts on fantasy/sci-fi and assorted topics. I'm still muddling my way through these thoughts. I'm not sure I really believe everything I say here. This is just a window into how I'm thinking about these things right now.