We're on the Road to Nowhere

I just finished Matter by Ian Banks and enjoyed it tremendously. I was browsing some reviews though, and someone said something along the lines of "why does this novel exist? Anything that needs to be said about the Culture has already been said." I was immediately reminded that while I love books, I do not always love the way the culture around books talks about books.

I think there is this idea, which I consider ill-advised at best, pretentious and snobby at worst, that thinks ideas in SF have to be new and fresh. New and fresh ideas are a grand thing and they certainly drive important things to the continuation of publishing houses like sales, but I'm not entirely certain every story has to contain a vital uniqueness to be worthwhile. There is this sense that the ideas in SF. They are going Somewhere and we can't muck about with things we have already discussed when we have to Get There.

Is this true? Are we Getting Somewhere in SF? Are we progressing to an Important Revelation before we die? Is it urgent we get there, mortality still an undeniable reality for biological organisms on this planet? Is "I like this world and like to linger here a while" not sufficient? It is for me, but maybe my tastes are simple. At least, it works for me at the moment. In general I think it's wiser in reviewing books (as Austin Kleon once advised) just to say "this wasn't for me." if you didn't like it. This Didn't Move the Genre Forward in Ways I Think are Important is a fine to argue I suppose, but it rests on more precarious pedestal and obligates more argumentation in support. You basically need to define the start and end points in order to argue for the concept of "forward" for one thing. Where do you think all this is going? Why do you think it is important?

This is all small beans of course. Just part of the greater We Are Getting Somewhere mindset that our civilization is steadily marching towards in a hundred different directions. Progress! Well, iteration, the concept we most like to confuse with progress. Progress of course is a term we like to leave as nebulous as possible so it can reasonably be applied as a descriptor to "the Next Thing I Want to Do."

Are cell phones progressing? Does each new iteration of the iphone get us somewhere? Will the Ultimate iPhones eventually save us all? Is new always better. Is 2.0 generally a categorical improvement of 1.0? Technically it's just the thing that came later, isn't it?

Medical technology is advancing, but what does that mean? We are surely more adept at saving and extending life that we used to be, which is great. But for everyone? Are we better at delivering medical care to more people? If we save their life but leave them bankrupt have we not just destroyed their life in another way? Is it possible that is the more important measure of progress in the medical field?

The sciences in general seem more amenable to a straightforward definition of progress in the steady accumulation of knowledge. Bringing this back around to literature, how would you define progress in literature? How does SF progress? How does Fantasy progress? How does Romance progress? How would you possibly define progress here anyway? I mean theoretically you might say it helps increase our knowledge of the human condition by relating aspects of the same. So maybe it helps us be better people, although, of course, not necessarily!

So how are we progressing as People? What's the point of iterating concepts or technology towards some nebulous goal if we are still petty jerks about everything? What's the point of anything if we aren't better people by the end of it? And how would we define that? Do we all need to agree on what that means or just have a defensible definition?

What are we building here? What important goal are we working towards before we die? In what ways would trying to answer those questions be counterproductive? People talk about it like they know, but I don't think they do. We're too busy talking about what's next instead of what's good.