The Self vs The Off The Shelf Life

Finally! I understand 'science fiction',
how as a genre, its themes neatly divide.
At one extreme it is about clean utopias
run by distant rulers through machines
in which the populous know their place,
because 1) society is one big machine.
2) The machinery that fixes human roles
also defines an inflexible and complex utilitarianism,
the warping of which provides any plot in these books.

Books in this mode adapt well to film franchises,
with pick 'n' mix pseudo-religious/mythical foundations
which perpetuate a lot of the conservative orthodoxies
of their day. Co-incidentally this makes the films
easy to explain, lends them a false air of 'being prophetic',
and finally with the the profit from product placement
and toy licensing comes the financial reaffirmation.

Given how cohesively the political, philosophical
and monetary are bound together, I can see how easily
this type of fiction can replace religions,
where the faith utterly fails to make reality just or fair.

At the other end there is the human and ethical dystopical-
where there is just as much technology, but human alienation
provides the plot material. This has made for some great
difficult books where the portrayal of discomfort is leavened
only by deepest shafts of black humour.
Very few films are made from these books-the subject
of the terror of a mind trapped inside a system adapts uneasily.
It fails all branches of politics, though it can illuminate insanity.
So, no franchise there then, though the odd radio play has worked.

These are the authors who's work has marked me most deeply,
George Orwell, William Burroughs, Will Self, Kurt Vonnegut III,
Margaret Atwood and J. G. Ballard-there are many others.
They have taught me more about myself vs life
than I could have prepared to learn before I read them.   

The Facebook Generation,

who define themselves by their multiple on-line identities,
are said to be the first generation to have multiplied reality.
This is simply not so, what they see as ever more identity
is more likely increased division and compartmentalisation.
I know from my limited little past, my likes and choices,
and even more the many decisions made for me,
how unaware I was when I let others make my life,
the way young make up their on-line life now.
In my present relative maturity I prefer my life
to be singular. In my past each of my likes was made
into a separate identity, and the likes of others-
the fantasies of virtue from the previous age-
where innocence meant being empty, a blank page-
reduced me to an unwholesome nothing.
Aged 25 I turned, against the old divisions
and against the parental lies. I walked away
from the bundled of hypocrisies called 'heterosexual marriage',
which reduced the self to the idea of two people staying together
to become each others property.
Instead I sought unity outside of property, the hard way.
Through that well known dystopia 'The Gay Community'
where life (like commitment) is always somewhere
over the rainbow, and like Heaven,
nobody ever reports back from being there.

Liberal Elites

are tight cabals in rich countries
who plot the life of the masses
and plan the future poverty
of the developing world,
by ignoring the caution of recorded history
and denying how easily utopian plans
become dystopian realities
with the slightest paradigm shifts
in circumstances they don't own
and never controlled.