Just got to thinking about this after those threads on The Expanse and Military Sci-Fi (which admittedly is probably the sub-genre least affected by this trend).
I know the case can be made for the existence of some conservative authors or sometimes conservative themes, of course they exist, but are they “swimming upstream” so-to-speak? Going against the flow of “the mainstream” of Sci-Fi?
I’m not looking for a list of conservative authors by the way, I want to hear if the people here think that Sci-Fi as a genre may or may not have an inherent bias towards the new, the previously unseen, and thus “progressive” ideas and ideologies. Not even necessarily to castigate Sci-Fi, merely to attempt to understand what’s happening.
The “Sad Puppies” folks probably have some insights on this subject but I don’t know much about them beyond their existence and their claim that the Sci-Fi book awards system has been subverted by leftist/progressive ideologues:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Puppies
Sad Puppies activists accused the Hugo Awards "of giving awards on the basis of political correctness and favoring authors and artists who aren't straight, white and male".
I do see the ideas of sci-if and “progressivism” as connected, but I’m not sure if that’s an inherent aspect of the genre, or if that is perhaps a cultural relic. I lean towards the idea that it is likely largely cultural (i.e. well respected sci-fi authors of old put “culturally progressive” themes in their books about Scientific “progress”, and that has carried on to this day) but I’m interested in where everyone else falls on the subject.
I’m just saying dude, one can see certain themes that were, for their time, “progressive” in all these works. The secretary in Ghostbusters, and adding Ernie in 2 come to mind as other examples of “woke-for-their-time”
I think “corporate/Military Industrial Complex america” is one of a few valid interpretations behind “the machine empire”, the agents have a clear “men-in-black”/gmen vibe, while obviously the film was also saying a lot of other things too though.
And that’s without even considering the people behind these works. Lucas is a classical lefty, the Whack-owskis are...well...whatever tf they are these days, and so on.
And besides(!!), from the very beginning I’ve never denied the existence of conservative themes or authors/creatives in Sci-Fi, I simply verbalized the notion that they were “swimming against the current” in the genre, the whole point being to discuss that phenomenon, and not necessarily counter examples (unless you thought the notion was so wrong it should be refuted, but I don’t think anyone can disagree that there is a general leftist slant in the average piece of sci-fi, I just wanted to get at why/what’s going on). I even said I don’t think it’s inherent, the title is mainly a framing for the conversation (though admittedly a far from perfect framing)