I read a lot of Harlan Ellison (worked on The Outer Limits, 80’s Twilight Zone, Babylon 5), and I was wondering what people thought of this quote from him:
[S]cience fiction is the only 100% hopeful fiction. That is to say, inherent in the form is, “There will be a tomorrow”. If you read a science fiction story, it says, “This will happen tomorrow”. Now that’s very positive, that’s very pragmatic, “We’ll be here tomorrow. We may be unhappy, we may be all living like maggots, but we’ll be here.” So that means it’s 100% positive.
Ellison has even said that his short story I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is optimistic, because in the climax, there is still room for self-sacrifice and defiance to authority.
I guess it comes down to whether you think a bleak future is better than no future at all.
Shameless plug for my work if you like Ellison or want to learn more: https://ndhfilms.com/ellison
The only hope I see in it is the idea that humans will survive, and even a few of them will still mean well/have morals, ethics, sincerity, conscience, or any self-awareness … things that make the continuation of the species something resembling a good or even okay outcome, as opposed to an outright blight upon the universe.
The amount of suffering portrayed is of little consequence to this, as we have plenty of suffering historically and in the now. Very, very few of those suffering the worst seem to prefer not existing, outside of the affluent countries, and I don’t accept value judgements on such things from any but the first-person perspective.
That’s a good point, thank you.