When it comes down to it, the reason that science fiction endures is that it is, at its core, an optimistic genre. What it says at the end of the day is that there is a tomorrow, we do go on, we don't extinguish ourselves and leave the planet to the cockroaches.
Interpretation
Science fiction persists because it embodies hope for the future, affirming human resilience.
This quote by J. Michael Straczynski highlights the essential optimism inherent in science fiction as a genre. It suggests that despite the challenges and uncertainties that humanity faces, science fiction ultimately conveys a message of hope and continuity, encouraging us to believe in a future where we endure and adapt rather than succumb to despair or extinction. The mention of 'tomorrow' symbolizes the potential for progress and survival, suggesting that science fiction inspires us to envision a world beyond our current struggles.
In practice
This quote could inspire attendees at a science fiction convention to discuss the themes of hope in their favorite stories.
There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender.
Avoid the tyranny of the reasonable voice...it will guarantee a complacency of never trying anything adventurous.
You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
The point of mythology or myth is to point to the horizon and to point back to ourselves: This is who we are; this is where we came from; and this is where we're going. And a lot of Western society over the last hundred years - the last 50 years really - has lost that. We have become rather aimless and wandering.
The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible in-between. But there is still time to seize that one last fragile moment.
When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree by the river of truth, and tell the whole world - No, you move.
Understanding science and pushing the boundaries of science is what makes me immensely satisfied.
Science has a culture that is inherently cautious and that is normally not a bad thing. You could even say conservative, because of the peer review process and because the scientific method prizes uncertainty and penalises anyone who goes out on any sort of a limb that is not held in place by abundant and well-documented evidence.
Disease is not something personal and special, but only a manifestation of life under modified conditions, operating according to the same laws as apply to the living body at all times, from the first moment until death.
Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense...
One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.
I'm enormously interested to see where neuroscience can take us in understanding these complexities of the human brain and how it works, but I do think there may be limits in terms of what science can tell us about what does good and evil mean anyway, and what are those concepts about?
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