What SciFi tells us, again and again.

I propose you this reflection, published in November 2012 -an Eon ago, if you want- on the “Indice dei Libri del mese” (an important literary review published in Italy) by Edoardo Villata -“La guerra di Star Trek“.

It draws an (easy?) parallel between a Star Trek Episode (the author does not quote but it refers to “A Taste of Armageddon” by Robert Hamner e Gene L. Coon, 1967) and the casualties produced by the economic crisis we’re still crawling in.

And, among the casualties, the works of art and the elements of culture that disappear because of the budget cuts. Or by the choices of budget cuts done with a warfare mindset.

Now, 1967 Star Trek was good Science Fiction, of course was no economic science. However, it included a quality that lacks to so many future-tellers of today: common sense, memory, in a word, humanity.

That’s why Science Fiction told about “future”, while Standard & Poors publications talk about “outlook”. Imagining might be very scary, if you take imagination seriously.