science fiction as a reflection of culture and values
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To what extent does science fiction reflect the popular culture and values of its time?
"A strange neurosis, evidently contagious,
on epidemic mass. In two weeks it spread all
over town"
"what causes it"
"worry about what's going on in the world probably"
The previous is an exchange between characters in the movie 'Invasion of the body snatchers' a film which exemplifies the way in which science fiction is heavily influenced by conditions at the time of its conception.
Science fiction, as described by John Boyd is 'story telling, usually imaginative as distinct from realistic fiction, which poses the effects of current or extrapolated scientific discoveries or a single discovery on the behavior of individuals of society.
Science fiction often reflects the popular culture and values of its time, for it is our present context which determines our perceptions of the future. Our experiences, feelings and technologies today shape how we envision tomorrow. This relationship between present and future can be seen in the process of computer aging, without knowing how a person looks now or how they looked in the past the computer cannot generate a likely image of them in years to come. Sci-Fi has been called the "literature of change", "literature of alternatives" and "literature of estrangement". It theorizes about scientific possibility and about the past, present and future. It looks at alternatives in science, history and even human relations...