ronay - science fiction and empire
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Science Fiction and EmpireAuthor(s): Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.Source: Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2, Social Science Fiction (Jul., 2003), pp. 231-245Published by: SF-TH IncStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4241171.
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SCIENCE ICTIONAND EMPIRE
231
Istvan Csicsery-Ronay,
Jr.
Science Fiction
and
Empire
In this essay, I
will make
a
preliminaryattempt
at
cognitive mapping.
I meanto
look at sf as
an
expression
of the
political-cultural
ransformationhat
originated
in European imperialism and
was
inspired by
the ideal of a
single global
technological regime.
I will make
the claim that the conditions for the
emergence of sf
as a
genre
are
made
possible by
three factors:
the
technological
expansion that drove real imperialism,the need felt by national audiences for
literary-cultural
mediation as
their societies were transformed rom
historical
nations into hegemons,
and the fantastic
model of achieved technoscientific
Empire.
A
quick list
of the nations that have
produced
most of the sf in the
past
century
and a
half
shows
a
distinct
pattern.
The dominant f
nations
are
precisely
those that
attempted
to
expand beyond
their national borders
in
imperialist
projects: Britain, France, Germany, Soviet Russia, Japan,
and
the US.' The
pattern
is
clear,
but
not
simple. English
and French sf
took
off when their
imperialprojects were at theirheights, and have continued o thrive long after
their colonies gained independence.2
German sf was
primarily
a
product
of
Weimar-that
is,
after the
collapse
of the short-lived German
imperium.3
Japanese
sf-which is now one
of
the most influential of
contemporary
international
tyles-also producedrelatively
ittle
before the end of WorldWar
II.4Soviet
sf
picked up
a rich Russian radition
of satirical
and
mystical
scientific
fantasy and adapted
t
to its
own
revolutionarymysticism
in the
1920s; after a
long dormancyunder Stalin,
it
revived again during he thaw of the 1960s, only
to evaporatewith the fall of Communism.5
n
the US, sf was a well-developed
minor genre in the nineteenth century; it exploded in the 1920s and has
continued
its
hegemony
ever since. Whetherthis occurred
during
the
collapse
of
imperialism
as a world-historical
project,
or
fully
within
a
pax
Americana hat
can
stand
as
the American
Empire,
we will
have to examine. Our
answers may
not only help
us
to interprethow
the sf
genre functions
in
twentieth-century
cultural
history,
but also make
us sensitive
to
its
functionas a
mediatorbetween
national
literary
traditionsand that chimerical
beast, global technoculture.
To
conduct this
investigation,
we must be
clear about certain
concepts that
it
is
hard to
be clear
about.
By sf,
we
should understand
not an ideal category
with a putativesocial or aesthetic ogic, but what nationalaudiencesunderstand
to be sf-which is less a class
than a
jelly
that shifts
around
but doesn't lose
its
mass. Some
core
elements of the
genre appear
n
every sf culture, and help to
establishan international
rototype
or what
audiencesconsider
sf. But there are
significant
differences
at
the
margins
of the
class.6 We should
also
keep
in
mind that
imperialistprojects
took differentforms in
differentnationalcultures,
depending
on when
they
were embarked
upon,
the character of the home
culture,
and their material
technological
relations.
I
approach
he
matter
as
a
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232
SCIENCE ICTION TUDIES,VOLUME 0 (2003)
complex volution
rom
mperialist
rojects
hatwere
expansions
romnation-
consolidating odernizingrojects-i.e., attaching
erritorieso the
nation-state
with henaivebelief
that he
metropole
wouldnotbe
changed-to
thecondition
ofglobalmarketapitalism
hatMichael
Hardt ndAntonio
Negri,
n
their
book
Empire 2000),treat
as
postmodern
mpire.Sf,
I will
argue,
hasbeen
driven
by
a desire
or the
imaginary
ransformationf
imperialism
nto
Empire,
viewed
not primarily
n
terms
of
political
and economiccontests
among
cartelsand
peoples,
butas
a
technological
egime
hataffectsandensures
he
global
ontrol
system
of de-nationalized
ommunications.
t is in thissense hat
Empire
s the
fantastic
ntelechy
of
imperialism,
he ideal state hat ranscendshe national
competitionseading
oward
t.
For mostcommentators,mperialisms the ideological ustificationor
attempts y a nation-stateo
extend ts
power
over
other,
weaker
erritories,
n
competition
with
similarnation-states
triving
or the same
goals.
Hardtand
Negri'sconceptof Empire,
by contrast,
s
themoreor less achieved
egime
of
globalcapitalism.
This
regime atally
restricts
he
power
of
nation-states,
nd
maintains tself
through
nstitutions f
global governance
and
exchange,
information
echnologies,
and
the de facto
military
dominance f
the United
States.
I
am not concerned
with
whetherHardtand
Negri's
model
accurately
describeshe realconditionsf theglobalcapitalist egime.7ts thesis s being
put
o the
test
at this
very
moment,
s the US
pursues conquest
hatresembles
classical
mperialism
t
leastas muchas
it
does
global
onflict
management.
We
will
see
in
time whether t has irreparablyisturbedhe
Pax
Americana n
which o muchof Hardt nd
Negri's heory ests,or whethert hasdramatically
expanded
he
power
of
the
American
mpire
o
enforce world
eace. Formy
part,
Hardt
and
Negri's
notion s thin stuff
upon
whichto base a
critique
f
globalcapitalism. t is, however, mmensely sefulas a tool for understanding
contemporaryeopolitical
mythology,
s a
cognitivemap,
n
Jameson'serms,
of thepresent. tmanageso combine rucial deasaboutglobalizationhared
by
multinational
apitalism
ndMarxist
ritiques
f
imperialism;
nd
by doing
so
it
describesan
imaginaryworld-picture
n
which fundamental
istorical
transformationsreconceptualizedndrationalized.
s
a
politicalmodel, t has
the flavor
of sf-and thus
joins
other such
politicalsf-mythsas Haraway's
cyborg,
Baudrillard's
imulacra,
and
Deleuze-Guattari's
opologies.8As
a
world-model,
it is
simultaneously n ideological fiction and a way of
experiencing
he
world.
It is also what
PeterStockwellcalls an architext:
complex ognitivemetaphorntowhichcanbe
mapped eaders' enseof reality
andalso themanydifferent artsof thescience-fictional egatext-theshared
body
of
worksand
assumptions
f the sf
genre 204).
In
this sense, the ideaof
Empire
s like
that
of
utopia.
Indeed,
will
argue
hat he
utopian rchitexts
closely
linked o the
model
of
Empire.
will
emphasize
his in science
iction
by treating
eal
imperialism
s
the
growingpains
of
imaginary mpire. will
treat
Empire
s
the
entelechy,
he embedded
oal,
the
conceptual
ulfillment
f
imperialism.
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SCIENCE ICTIONAND
EMPIRE
233
SF and
Imperialism.
The role of
technology
n
propellingmperialist rojects
is
often
neglected.9
And
yet technological
development
was
not
only
a
preconditionor the physicalexpansionof the imperialistountriesbut an
immanent
riving
orce.
It led to
changes
of
consciousnesshat acilitated
he
subjugation
f less
developed ultures,
wove
converging
etworks f
technical
administration,
ndestablished
tandards
f
objective
measurement
hat ed
inevitablyo myths
of racialandnational
upremacyAdas 145).
It stands o
reason hat
f,
a
genre
hat xtols
and
problematizesechnology'sffects,
would
emerge
n
those
highly
modernized
ocietieswhere
technology
had
become
established
as a
system
for
dominating
he environment nd
social life.
Imperialist
tateswere at
the
wavefront
f
technological evelopment.
heir
projectshadwhatThomasP. Hughes alls technological omentum 111).
The
tools of exploration
nd coercionformed
systems,
as
did the tools of
administrationnd
production
n
the
colonies,
and these
systemsgradually
meshed.Colonial erritories
were
treated
s
free
zones,
wherenew
techniques
and nstrumentsould
be triedout
by companies
nd
bureaucracies
ar
from he
constraintsf
conservative
ational
opulations.
hese
nnovationshen
ed
back
into
the
metropole, nviting
more
andmore
nvestment,
echnical
laboration,
andnew
applications.
he
exponentialrowth f mechanical
roduction
nd
he
production
f
mechanismontinually
idened
he
gapsbetween mperial gents
and theirsubjectpeoples. Supremacyecamea function f thetechnological
regime Adas
134).
There
can be
no
doubt
hat
without onstantly cceleratingechnological
innovationmperialism ouldnot have
had
the force it
did,
or
progressed o
rapidly.
Without
teamships
nd
gunboats,
epeating
ifles and
machine
uns,
submarine
ables, telegraphines,
and anti-malarial
edicines,
he
power
of
imperial
dventurers ouldhave been
greatly
imited,
and
perhaps
ot
even
possible.10
But
imperial echnology
was not
only
a
set
of
tools
used for
exploitation
f
the colonies.
Imperial
uture
hock
blew back
into
the
home
country,consolidating new ideaof politicalpower inked o technological
momentum,
ssentially olonizing he homeland
oo,
andat a
speed hatmade
all resistanceutile.Each
global echnological
uccess
brought ower
and
money
to
technologicalprojects, creating
a
logrolling
effect that
drove irrational
political
and economic
exploitationbeyond
its
tolerances,
n
grand-scale
uncontrolled
ocial
experiments.
t also fueled
evermore
ocusedandcomplex
technologicalmomentum-until ocial
conflicts, both withinandbeyond he
national
borders,
could
only
be seen as
politically manageable hrough
technological
means.With
mperialism, olitics
became echnological.
Letus look at thispropositionrom heperspective f literary istory. t is
generally ccepted
hat
he novel
was an instrument
or
establishing ourgeois
national
onsciousness.
n
Benedict
Anderson'swell-known ormulation,he
novel was one
of
the
tools for
constructing
he
imaginary
ense
of national
community
n
modernizing
ocieties.The
Marxist
GeorgLukacs, or his part,
argued
hatthe novel
developed
n
every
national ulture n more
or less the
same
way
because modernizationolloweda
single
historical
rajectory.
A
society
was eitheron the
bus-indeed,
like
England
nd
France, itting
behind
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234
SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES,
VOLUME
30
(2003)
the wheel-or
off the bus
and in
the dust. The fact
that
novels
were written
in
national
vernaculars,
relying
on
certain collective
memories and
myths,
was
irrelevant o Lukacs. However, studentsof the Westernnovel can't ignorethat
novels
were also projects of national consolidation and
normalization.
Novels
were
attempts to reconcile at least two
great
competing
cultural
desires: to
preserve the
specific
knowledge
of a
society's present
in
its
language
and
collective
memory (what
Balzac called the
archeology
of the
present ),
and to
ascend into the world
community
of modern
players,
to
join
the
Club of Nations
at the forefront of historical
progress.
If
the
popularity
of a
literary genre
is a
sign
of its
power
to
mediate real
social
dilemmas
through
maginaryresolutions,
what is
sf's
role? Whatand
how
does itmediate?Sf is generallyset inmarkedcontrastwiththebourgeoisrealism
of
the novel. It has been linkedto a
variety
of
anti-realist,
and so
anti-bourgeois,
literaryforms (most
frequently, pastoral,
romance,
and
utopia).
In the
US,
sf's
most
enthusiastic
audiences
were
originally
on the
margins
of the
bourgeoisie:
recent
immigrants,
working-class
readers,
and
students
of
technical
schools;
for
them the
fantasies
of
physical
mastery
and
engineering
know-how
offered an
imaginary
alternative source of social
power
to
the norms of
middle-class
existence
(Stockwell
99).
In
Weimar
Germany, by
contrast,
sf
was directed
primarilyto the middle
class,
but a
class
preoccupied
with
national
resentment
and revenge fantasies (Nagl 30-31). In both cases, the fantasies were quite
similar
to the
ideologies
of
mastery
that
inspired
he
imperialist
adventurers nd
colonists. Historians treat
Cecil Rhodes's sublime
statementof
regret
as the
consummate
expression
of
imperialist
desire:
The
world
is
nearly
all
parceled
out,
and
what there is
left of
it,
is
being
divided
up,
conquered
and
colonized. To think of
these stars that
you
see
overhead at
night, these vast worlds which
we can never reach. I
would
annex the
planets
if
I
could;
I
often think of that. It makes
me sad to
see them so
clear and yet so far.
(qtd
in
Hardt and
Negri 221)
To
paraphrase
Philip
K.
Dick's Palmer
Eldritch:
mperialism
promises he stars;
sf
delivers.
I
am
not
arguing
that sf
replaces
bourgeois
realism as the
main
mediating
agent of
late
modernist national
culture
in
the West.
That
would too great a
claim.
(Even
so,
some
versions
of that
argumentwill
make
sense, if insteadof
sf we
put
forward a
larger
class of
fantastic
writing that
incorporates sf's
traditional
devices and
world-pictures,
a version of
slipstream
writingin which
bourgeois
realism,
the non-Western
fantastic, visionary
satire, and
sf are
blended.1 )Aspiring technocratic audiences did not replace the bourgeois
national
publics
wholesale.
If
sf took on some
of the
role of mediating
between
the
national
pasts
and the late
modern
futurepresent,
what
role did national
traditions
have
in
the
cultural
work of sf?
Studentsof
imperialismknow from
the work
of Hannah
Arendtand
Edward
Said
that
imperial
expansion
had a
profound
effect on
culture in
the home
countries,
even
when the
effect was hardly
noticed
at the time.
Since most
bourgeoisnation-states
had
completed
heirpolitical
consolidationonly recently,
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SCIENCE ICTIONAND EMPIRE
235
and heir ocialconsolidationotat all in
many ases, theirunderlyingonflicts
were often still activeandmenacing.
mperialismttemptedo resolve iving
domestic roblems y exportinghem
beyond heborders f the Homeland.As
these offworld olonial onstituenciesstablishedhemselves, heyputgreat
pressureon the metropoles o give up
certain onstraintshatwent with the
nation-state, ndto adjust o the facts
f occupied erritories:echnological
violence was justified by ideologies of
supremacy Arendt 136-38). The
corrosive ffect hathis ustification,nd hereliance n
technologicaliolence,
had on the most positive institutions
nd values of the nation-states seen
climactically
n
the attempt y
the home
powers
o
reproduce
heiroffworld
successes n the OldEarth
f
Europe
n
the
FirstWorldWar
Adas365-66).
At
thatpoint, hecollidingwould-bempires evealedhat heir echnosystemsad
determinedheir dentitiesmore
han heir
histories
ad.Their
nationalraditions
couldnot extend o the outerplanets,
mainlybecause he colonists hemselves
refused o accept heconstraintslacedontheir iberty.Foradventurersuchas
Rhodes, he national lag
had been
merely
an asset in the work of
imperial
accumulation;
or the home
populations,
t had
represented
he
very
reason
or
that
accumulation. or mperialists,
he
twentieth-century'sorldwarsproved
merely
hatnational
dentity
s
a volatile nvestment
nstrument;
or
national
populations
t
catastrophically
ndermined
he
politics
of
reality
tself.
Sf raisessomevery specificquestionsnthishistoricalontext.One s: are
the differences
n
national raditions
f sf due
primarily
o
the desire
o retain
traditional ultural values historicallyestablished
against
the
engine
of
technological xpansion?
s
this why
we notice
the
significant
ifferences
f
tone, of genericaffiliation, f conventions
f
representation,
hatmarkFrench
sf
fromBritish,US fromGerman, apaneseromRussian? f
so, then
sf
may
havemuch he samefunctionhatnovelistic ealismhad n
bourgeois ational
modernization:managing he abstract
echno-politicaleap forwardout of
domestic
ulture,
rom
a nation
among
nations o a
global
culture.
Another uestions:hassf beenaprivilegedhematicenre perhapsn the
way that film has been a privilegedmaterial
medium)
or
expressing
and
representinghe dialectics
of
this imperial
process, becauseof its central
fascinationwith
technology?
Has
sf
labored o
manage
the
technological
momentum
nherent
n
imperialism,
by infusing
it
with nationalcultural
dialects -symbol ystems, iterary
orms
and
formulas,
rtistic
echniques,
and
discourse
ractices?
To
study
his
genealogy,we
will
have
to
correlate t
least hreedomains:
1)
the character f the
imperial
moment-whatdifference
did
it make
whether heexpansionwasa gradual ndarticulatedrocess,as with heBritish
and
French;
or
intense, short, highly
artificial,
and self-reflective
ike the
Germanand the
Japanese;
or a
smooth accessionand
aggrandizement
f
economicand
military ower,
as
in
the case of the US?
2)
the
character f the techno-culture-wast
widely
diffused
n
social
ife,
as in
the
US, Britain,
and
France,
was
it
a
foreign mport
s
in
Japan,
was it
associated
with
revolutionary ysticism
s
in
Russia nd he Soviet
Union,
was
it an
expression
f romantic
onging
andresentments
in
Germany?
rom
he
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236
SCIENCE ICTION TUDIES,VOLUME
0
(2003)
rear-view
mirrorof achieved
Empire,
what role did a
given
technoculture
play:
dominant
agency, marginal late-coming,
adversary
counter-imperialism,
or
historicalsublation?
3) finally, the character of the
literary-cultural
raditions
that infused
the
fiction
of
sf. This
is
the zone
of science fiction's
literary
unconscious.
National
literary or
artistic forms
may
lead us to the traditions hat
distinguish
he
styles
of different nations'
sf.
Clearly,
sf is identifiable
by
the
icons it uses:
the
spaceship,
the
alien,
the
robot,
super-weapons,
bio-monsters,
and the
more
recent
additions,
wormholes,
the
net,
the
cyborg,
and so on.
It
is not difficult
to link these to colonialist
and
imperialist
practices.
They represent
he
power
tools of
imperial
subjects,
the transformations f the
objects
of
domination,
and
the ambiguitiesof subjectswho find themselves with split affinities. In these
terms,
sf's icons
are
abstract
modem
universals,
free of
any specific
cultural
associations. Yet when we view or read sf of different
national
styles,
we feel
marked
differences. The
same
icons are cast in
the mode of
political
and/or
visionary
fantasy
in
Soviet
sf; scientific romance
n
British sf and its slapstick,
dance-hall Red
Dwarf inversions;
as fanciful ironic
surrealism
in
post-Verne
French
sf
and its
vertiginous
inversion,
the
camp
of Metal
Hurlant;
as
supersaturated
ationalistromanticism n
German
sf
and its
militantecophile sf
descendants;
as
catastrophism
n
Japanese sf
and its hidden
puppet-theatre
traditions;and as galactic Edisonianproblem-solving n US sf and its wired-
beatnik
bourgeois-bashing
twin of
tech noir. These
are,
of
course,
crude
characterizations.National
styles develop along
with
social
life,
and
change
constantly
n
response
to
influences,
both domestic and
foreign.
There are also
clear
signs
that these currents are
converging, precisely
because
of the
delight
in
diversitythat
Negri
and
Hardtconsider
characteristic f
capitalistglobalism.
SF
and
Empire.
If
we look
at
sf's
connectionwith
technoscientific
empire
only
from
the
perspective
of
historical
imperialism,we
will
see an
exoskeleton, the
genre as the interface between the pressures of global capitalistevolutionand
national
technoculture.To take a truly
dialectical view,
we also have to look at
the
internal
space of the
genre, its
world-model,
its
assumptionsof
conceptual
design
through
which it
makes politics, society,
ontology, and
technology
science-fictional. I
believe that this
imaginary
world-model is technoscientific
Empire-Empire
that is
managed, sustained,
justified, but also
riven by
simultaneously nterlocking
and
competing technologies
of social control and
material
expansion. Sf artists
construct tories aboutwhy
this Empire s
desired,
how it is
achieved,
how it is
managed,how it corrupts for
corrupt t
must), how
it declines andfalls, how it deals withcompetingclaims to imperialsovereignty,
or
how it
is
resisted. The
history of sf
reflects the changingpositionsof
different
national
audiences as
they
imagine
themselves in
a
developing world-system
constructedout of
technology's second
nature.
To see this
connection
concretely, let us
take a quick
ook at thequalities hat
Hardt and
Negri attributeto Empire.
Where imperialism
is aboutunlimited
growth,
embodied in
unlimitedexpansion
(of capital,
markets,
and
production),
empire
is
also
about the
consolidation
of
the
expansions of the past,
and the
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SCIENCE FICTION AND EMPIRE
237
irresistible attraction o imperial order.
Its expansion is driven not by greed or
national pride, but by the putatively superior ability of the imperial order to
deliver peace and security.
Empire seeks to establish a single
overdetermining ower that is located not
in a recognizable territory, but in an
ideology of abstract right enforced by
technologies
of
control.
Its
characteristic
space
is
horizontal, expansive, and
limitless; it exhaustsand suspends
historical ime, pragmatically i.e., cynically)
taking up typological justifications
from the
past
and the
future
as
the occasion
demands. Its goal is the management
f
global conflict, worldpeace. Empire
continually reproduces and revitalizes itself
through
the
managementof local
crises, and indeed by the transformation
f potentially global challenges into
administrativeconflicts. It eschews dialectics and transcendence(which are
inherentlydestabilizing) n favor of
constant ntervention.It intervenesboth in
the social world and
in the minds
of
private
individuals,
two
spheres
it fuses
throughpervasive communications
echnologies.
Its
physical space
is
limitless,
open
to
perpetualexpansion,
and
its social space
is
open
to
variety, hybridity,
and
relentless denaturing.Empire is
the
consummatereplacementof natureby
artifice.
In its
ontology,
all
existence
is
derived from a
single, infinitely varied
immnanence-withrules
that
allow for infinite
exceptions, but
not
repudiation.
Empire
s the fusion of force
and
legitimacy.
Since
order s its
drivingvalue,
its driving motive is enforcement. Its laws are not the laws of God, but of
science. These are theorized globally,
but they are enforced locally,
as
exceptions. Technology pervades
Empire;
it
constructs a power grid through
which it distributes its force and, by doing so, converts the line of
communication nto
a
power-cord. It
rules,
write
Hardt
and
Negri, through
he
bomb, money, and ether (345). Its centers of
power are
the
ganglia we know as
global
cities. To
these,
we can
add Haraway's privileged sites
of
biopolitical
virtuality: the gene, the fetus, and the
lab-distributed interfaces where
the
essential conflicts of
capitalism
between social control and unbridled
material
expansionare ceaselessly engaged.
As an
imaginarypolitical domain,
Empire
is related
to
utopia. Utopia
is
an
idealized
image
of the
city-state-indeed,
the
nation-state-where internecine
conflicts
do
not
arise,
since
the
ideal
congruence
of
right
and
law is an
ontological given. Utopias
resolve inherentdifferences
through
he
irresistible
logic
of their
order. They
are
spatiallycircumscribed,
and so
they easily
contain
their
people, reinforcingtheir
self-identity.
Their
hegemony may
extend
past
their
city walls,
but
they
are
essentially
insular.
They
do not
expand,
and
so
their
stabilitydepends
on their
strict
adherence o natural aws of balance.
They
are scientific and rationalbecause their laws reflect a logic of stability nherent
in
naturalreason.
The model of
Empire
is
grounded
n
the
history
of
real
empires.
Utopia
is
crafted rom
an
abstract
onjunction
f
community
andnatural
harmony;Empire
is
energizedby a
more concrete
relationship:
he
conjunction
f
might
and
right.
Even in its most idealized
form,
Empire
is
a
complex
machine
that
distributes-and
thereby produces-force.
In
utopias,
force
is
occasionally
rationalized
as
a
way
of
protecting
the balance between
people
and
state,
and
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238 SCIENCE
ICTION TUDIES,
VOLUME 0
(2003)
insuringthe
inviolability
of the enclave. In
Empire,
it is the
vitalizing
condition
of
possibility.
All the social and creative
endeavorsof
imperialpeoples
are
shot
throughwith the institutionalviolence that makes them materiallypossible.
Imperial
violence
is so
powerful
that
it must
expand;
contained,
its
society
would implode like a black hole.
Sf's
debt
to
utopia
is
great;
but it owes more to
Empire.
For sf's
techno-
science-which is the basis of its
icons,
energies,
and
imaginary
historical
conflicts-has little to do
with
utopia's institutionalized
balancing
acts and
containment
trategies.
Technoscientific
projects
expand,
mesh with
others,
and
gain
power
from
grand-scale
conflicts that
inspire
new
resolutions,
which
then
evolve into new mechanisms.
The
expansion
of
technoscience is both internal
(thelogic of its technicalapplicabilityandimprovement)andexternal(thelogic
of its universal
application).
An
engine
aspires
o
maximumrelevance.
Violently
overcomingobstacles
placed
in its
way by
nature
which
is
nothing
ess that
the
world-as-given
before imperial
echnologies
go
to work on
it),
technoscience
charges
all
its
claims
to
right
and
law
with
the irresistible
expansion
of its
violence.
The
force
is
justified,
however,
in
the name of
peace
and order.
Before
armiesand
proconsuls, echnoscientific
Empire avors
the
adventurer,
the
Odysseanhandyman
ar
from
home,
whose
desire
for
movementandconflict
inspires
his skill
with tools. With each
fight and each
sociotechnical
problem
solved, the imperialhandymangainsincreasedpersonalsovereigntyandpower.
As
Empireproducesperpetual
conflict
on
local levels that invite
its intervention
(a process
Hardt
and
Negri
call omnicrisis
189]), imperial
fiction
produces
adventures in an
immanent,
lateral cosmos. Sf is most
comfortablewith
such
imperial
adventure-worlds.
Even
the classical genres to which sf is often
traced
(the
pastoral,
the
romance, the utopian
cityscape)
originate
in
the
imperial
imagination
(specifically
from
Alexandria,
Byzantium,
and
Rome),
as do
their shadow-
genres,
the
slave's
narrative,
he
journeythrough
hell,
and
the
dark
city.
Utopias
demandplacement,position, definition; they are, as Louis Marinnamesthem,
games with
spaces, real
maps of imaginary
erritories.
Empiresare, by contrast,
unbounded
in
space,
and
restless
in
time.
Empire
is
a
model
of
constant,
managed
transition: ts
worlds are
perpetuallyat some
point on the
timeline of
imperial
evolution, from
initial expansion,
through
incorporation,and then
corruption,
to
decline and fall.
There
is
much more we
could
say
about
this rich political myth.
But even
this
is
enoughto see how
much this
imaginary
echnoscientificEmpire
offers sf.
The
genre's
favorite
counterfactualoperations
and
mechanisms are all made
rationalby imperialontology. Time-machines,faster-than-lightravel, galactic
history, parallel
universes, the
restless
reconstruction f
relationshipsbetween
the center
and the
peripheryendlessly replayed n
the
relationshipbetween Old
Earth
and the
offworlds, aliens and
cyborgs, space
opera, utopia and
dystopia-these
motifs, like
many
others in sf, rely on a
cosmos
governedby the
laws and
right
of
technoscience, and
yet are open to almost
infinite
variation.Sf
is an
endlessly
productive engine of
local
crises
in
a highly tolerant
universe
from
which it is
impossible to depart.
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SCIENCE
FICTION AND EMPIRE
239
Hardtand Negri's model
of
Empire
has a
distinctly
science-fictional
feel to
it. Polybius, Machiavelli, and Spinoza
may hover in the background,but the
Empireof the
contenporary
resemblesthe familiarworld of cyberpunkandtech
noir.
Empire appears
in
the form of
a very high-tech
machine:
it is virtual,
built to
control the marginal event,
and
organized
to dominate and when necessary
intervene
in
the
breakdowns
of
the system (in
line with
the
most
advanced
technologies
of robotic
production).
(39)
The imperialorder is formed
not
only
on the basis of its
powers
of
accumulation
and
global extension,
but also on the basis
of
its
capacity
to
develop
itself
more
deeply, to be reborn,
and
to
extend
itself
throughout
he
biopolitical
atticework
of world society. (41)
The empire's institutional
tructure
s
like a softwareprogram hatcarries
a virus
along
with
it,
so
that
it is
continuallymodulating
and
corrupting
he institutional
forms around it.
(197-98)
This
is
the
imperial Sprawl,
ruled not
through
decrees
and
armies (well,
mostly not through armies)
but
through
communication/control
networks that
distributevirtual
power.
This
power
is
internalized
by imperial
citizens as
surely
as if
they
had
chips
embedded
in their
brains.
In
Empire, subjectivity
is
multicentered,produced hrough
nstitutions hatare
terninally
unstable,always
breaking
down. As the
integrity
of
social institutions
such
as
schools, families,
courts,
and
prisons) fragments,
and
the once-clear
subject-positions
associated
with them weaken, the call
for
imperial comprehensiveness s strengthened,
inauguratinga comprehensive
deology, a finely distributedpragmaticmyth of
networked, globally interlocking
power.
This is
the twenty-minutes-into-the-
future of
Philip
K.
Dick,
J.G.
Ballard,
William
Gibson,
Pat
Cadigan, and
MamoruOshii, where computerizedcommunicationsoperate 24/7, generating
a
mindscape
of
consumingsubjects
nto which
capitalist deology
feeds directly.
It perpetually breaks down
and reconstructs human consciousness, as in a
Cadigannovel,
into
provisional
target-identities
o
which the
nostalgic,
utopian
dream
of
wholeness can
be sold and resold
perpetually
n
variant,
sometimes
mutually contradictory orms,
and which
can be
hired
to
convey its
fictions of
sovereignty
ever
deeper
into
the
self
that once
imagined
t was itself sovereign.
In this
empire,
there are infinite
possibilities
of
projection,
but
only
one
reality.
The
most
natural
thing
in the world
is that
the world
appears
to
be
politically
united,
that
the
market is
global,
and
that
power
is
organized throughout
ts
universality. Imperial politics
articulates
being
in
its
global
extension-a
great
sea that only the winds and the current move. The neutralization of the
transcendental
magination
is thus
the first
sense
in which the
political
in the
imperial
domain is
ontological.
(354)
Since
contemporary mperialpower
does
not emanatefrom
one
center,
but
rather from
the
cyberspatial
ganglia
of
postmodern metropoli,
resistance
manifests
itself in the
daily
refusal
on the
part
of the
multitude to
follow
commands.
For Hardt and
Negri,
revolution is
neither
possible
nor
desirable,
since
no
class
can act as the
self-conscious
agent
of
history.
Freedom
rests,
as
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240
SCIENCE FICTION
STUDIES, VOLUME 30
(2003)
in
Gibson's
world,
in
findingone's own
uses for
things.
In
contrast
with
sabotage,
heresistance
trategy
f national
modernism,
esistance nder
Empire
consists fwithdrawingonsent,
f
desertion212).Even hegreatestebelsare
refuseniks,
hoosing
o
withdraw,eaving
behind
hem,
ike the fused AIs
in
Neuromnancer1984),
a world n
which
things
re
hings 270).Although
his
strategy ardlypromises
muchas
a
way
of
landing
lows
against
he
empire,
t
is a dominantmotif
in
the countercultural
Lost n
Space or
alternatively,
Lost
n
the Urban
Labyrinth )ubgenre.
Ironically,
ost n
Space
tv series,
1965-68;
ilm
1998]
tself is as
hysterically
onservative
s Robinson
Crusoe.)
Where the
overtly imperial
mode
accepts
the hierarchical
network of
administration-Starfleet
ommanders
till
representing
he Federation-even
mainstream opularworks such as Farscape(1999-2003)and Star Trek:
Voyager
1995-2001) ry
to
establish de-centralized eb
of
relationships
n the
unchartederritories,
ow
ust
a wormhole
way
rom he
past and
he
politics
of
empire).
This
homology
between
Empire
and sf extendsto
formal evels. The
cinematic erial
form,
for
example,
s
particularly
ell-suited or
imperial
f.
It
permits n enormous
ariety
of elements o be
juxtaposed
ith
only
minimal
motivation.
n
each
episode,yet
another ultural
metaphor
f
spatial
r
temporal
disruption
s
managed.
This has been
true
from
he
earliest
versions,
such
as
FlashGordon,o morerecentones-e.g., StarTrekandFarscape.Theserial
permits
alien and ocal elements o be
acknowledged,
ithout
hreatening
he
order of
things.
The
physically
nfinite
expanse
of
space
in
such
forms is
generally
controlled
by
forms of recursionand
recapitulation-plot
evices
revealing
hat
far-flung
differences re
related o the terrestrial
metropole's
perennial roblems.
At its
most ntellectual
xtremes,
f
can even
magine
hat
basic
aws
of nature re
artificial,
ools or
themanifestationnd
ommunication
of
power-as,
for
instance,
Stanislaw em's
notion
n A
New
Cosmogony
f
GreatCosmic
Civilizations hat
changeunderlying
osmic
laws
in
order
to
communicate itheachother andprevent uman eings romeverthreatening
their
hegemony).
Hardt nd
Negri'sEmpire
s a
creature f its
time.
Its
model s
the mageof
globalcapitalismhatcrystallized
mmediately fter
he firstGulf
War.Their
vision is
essentially he liberal
world-picture,
lightlyMarxified, f a post-
Fordistnternational
ervice conomy ttendinghe
ransformationf
production
by computers
nd
robots. The authors
have
surprisinglyittle to
say about
technologies
other than
communication/control
ets. For them,
technology
signifiescontrol,
he
imperialmachine
34). Their
conceptionf historical
imperialism,oo,ignores he echnological omentumhatdemolishedhedams
and
breakwaters
f
the
nation-states,
nd
createdthe
constantlymutating
channels f
global
lows. From
he
perspective
f
sf, Empire elongs
o a special
subgenre-let's
call
it the sf of
global
management-withffinities
ot only to
cyberpunk,
utto Isaac
Asimov'sFOUNDATION
novels
1951-53),JamesBlish's
CITIES N
FLIGHT
series(1955-1962),andStarTrek.
Sf s
imperial
magination
s
more
comprehensivehan his.
Since he basic
conditions f sf are
made
possible
by
the
hypothesisf the
immanentntology
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SCIENCE FICTION AND EMPIRE
241
of
technoscience,
the
genre
sets out to
imaginethe effects of
any technologythat
might
affect the
way
we live
now.
This includes not only the near-future
applications of
already operative communication/control echnologies, but
technosciencethat
might radically transform he
most basic aspects of physical
reality, such asnanotech,faster-than-light pace
travel, geneticengineering,etc.
The
only
restriction sf
writers have historically set
for themselves is that the
powers
in
conflictmust
test technology
as a
basis for
sovereignty. Sometimes he
drama is
explicit,
as
in
overt imperial science fictions. In works as various as
H.G. Wells'sThe
Warof
the
Worlds 1898), The
Day
the
EarthStoodStill
(1950), Earth vs.
the Flying Saucers (1956),
Frank
Herbert's
Dune (1965), Joe
Haldeman's The
Forever War (1974), Star Wars(1977), Orson Scott Card's
Ender's Game (1985), Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix(1985), Dan Simmons's
Hyperion 1990),
Ursula
K. Le
Guin'sHAINISHovels and ain Banks's
CULTURE
novels, antagonistic
technological regimes compete
for dominance. Whatever
their differences
may be,
however
great
the
gulfs
between them, they operate
in
the same
social-ontologicalcontinuum,
he
mostsalientqualityof which is the
ability of sentient beings
to
constructtechnological
cultures to manipulateand
extend their
power
over the worlds
in
play.
In
the
human-against-nature
arieties of sf descended from
Verne, heroic
protagonistsuse their know-how to
cope
with
problemsposed by hostile natural
phenomena.They maybe ultimatelysuccessful, as in mostcatastrophe ilms, or
they may
fall to the
superiorpower
of
the
physicaluniverse,
as in works like
Arkaday
and Boris
Strugatsky's
Far Rainbow
(1963)
and
Sakyo
Komatsu's
Japan
Sinks
(1973).
Whatever he
outcomes,
each
contest
is
a local test
case for
the
resilience
and
maturity
of
human
echnoscienceas a
species enterprise.
Even
in
stories
that take
resolutely anti-technological
stances,
and where the
technoscientific
empire
takes an
Ozymandian all,
such as
George
R.
Stewart's
Earth Abides
(1949),
the terms of
struggle
are determined
by
technoscience.
Technological culture's
incapacity against
the universe
is
the
point
of such
parables.
To
say
that sf is
a
genre
of
empire
does not mean that sf artistsseek
to
serve
the
empire.
Most serious
writers
of
sf
are
skeptical
of entrenched
power,
sometimes because
of
its
tyranny,
sometimes
because
it
hobbles
technological
innovation. This is one reason
why
some Marxist critics consider the
genre
to
be
inherently
critical, despite
the fact that careful social
analysis rarely plays
a
central role
in
sf narratives. Fredric
Jameson, by contrast,
has
argued
that sf
thematizes
(and
indeed
imitates)
the
way global
capitalismprevents
dialectical
historical awareness from
coming
to
revolutionary
consciousness. Jameson
traces the origin of sf in the West from Verne, whose works beganto appear
precisely at
the
point of transition rom
metropolitan
modernism o
imperialism
(149).
Jameson's terms are
different from the
ones under
discussion
here,
but
it
may
be
a
short
step
from his view to the one I am
proposing.
Pace Hardtand
Negri,
the
technoscientific
Empire
that makes sf
possible
has
much
in
common
with Jameson's
negative totality.
In
the
past
fifty years,
sf
has coine
to
occupy
an
importantplace
in
highly
technologized
cultures.
In more and more
areas,
modernization
wipes away pre-
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242
SCIENCE
FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 30
(2003)
modem,
and
indeed
pre-postmodern,
hierarchical and
transcendentalworld-
views that obstruct
market rationality
and
technological
rationalization.
Hypercapitalismabors oreplacehemwith he multiculturaloexistence f
irresolvable,rreduceable,
nd ntractableifferences
hatmustnever
develop
intoseriouschallenges
o
imperial overeignty.
The
utopian
dealof universal
right and law is replaced
by
the
imperialpractice
of
corruption-i.e.,
the
constant iolation f
universality
n the
interest
f
power.
Empire requires
hatall relationsbe accidental.
Imperialpower
is
foundedon the
rupture
of
every
determinate
ontology. Corruption
s
simply
the
sign
of the
absence of any ontology.
In
the
ontological vacuum, corruption
becomes
necessary, objective.
Imperial sovereignty
thrives on
the
proliferating
contradictions corruption gives rise to; it is stabilized by instabilities, by its
impurities
and
admixtures;
t
is calmed
by
the
panic
and anxieties it
continually
engenders. Corruption
names the
perpetual process
of
alteration and
metamorphosis,
the anti-foundational
oundation,
the
deontological
mode of
being. (Hardt
and
Negri
202)
Empiremanages
ts
populations y bombarding
hemwith
a
multitude
f
subject ositions,
multitude
f
hailings.
Eachone
pretends
o offer he
prospect
of
unity, consummation,
he fulfillment
of
wishes, yet
each is
comfortably
corrupt.Theyreproduce
he
mperial rocess
f
establishing
overeigntyfor
he
market,for law andorder)by creatingandmanaging rises in individual
subjects.
Mark
Bould heorizes
hatmodern
antastic
iction
s
inspired y
the
need to
manage
his relentless orced divisionand mutation
f
subjectivity
through strategy
f
paranoid
elf-construction.
But hispsychicandaesthetic
quivalent
f
deserting
he
Empire as
imited
force in sf. In its
purist
orms,
sf
ultimately laces
its
trust
n
the
problem-
generating
nd
problem-solvingapacities
f
technology
nd
theontologyof
science. The more technoscientific
egemony
s
consolidated,
he more
contradictionst
seeks
out
and strives to
mediate
in
fiction. The most
characteristicmperialantastic ormsmaythenbeworld-blends,nwhich he
technoscientific
ntology
of
sf
is mixed with
other kinds. This is a well-
establishedlement f the
Japanese
f-animediom. n
many
of the
major
works
of the
genre-Neon
Genesis:
Evangelion (1996-97),
Serial
Experiments:Lain
(1998), Ghost n the Shell (1995), GalaxyExpress
1996)-non-realistic domains
of
power
or
styles
of
representation
nfiltrate
ealism, reating ybridworlds.
It is
also characteristic
f
much
French
f
(whose nfluence n
Japanese f is
considerable),
or which
scientistic
plausibility
s
secondary omparedwith
carnivalesque blending and philosophical metaphor.
Many-perhaps
most-importantworksof sf violate hestrict ulesof scientific lausibility nd
introduce
eteronomicealitiesnto heir
tories.Arguably,his
signifies hat he
power
to
manageculturaldifferences s
at least as
importanto sf as the
cultivation
f
technoscience's
mythology.
If
my hypothesiss
correct hat
he
cognitive ttractionf sf is
closely inked
to
the
imaginaryworld-modelof
Empire, many interestingprojects
may follow.
It
may help us to locate
sf's place
in the
formation f
a
larger deological
mythology
f modernizationnd
capitalist lobalization.t may
help
us to
see
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SCIENCEICTIONND
EMPIRE 243
how sf mediatesbetween
the culturesof nation-states nd the imaginary
coexistence
f
infinitevariety
n unboundedrder.Itmayhelpus to see how
specificnational ultures ndergo lobalization;ndhow technologympinges
on artistic ulturenot only as
a
set of tools, but
as a modeof awareness.And
perhapsmost mportant,
t
may,by showing
us the extent o whichwe imagine
the world
in
imperial erms, begin
to
challenge
us also to
see
the
world
differently.
NOTES
1. The
one significant exception
to this
pattern
s
the
Mitteleuropa
of
Karel
Capek
and Stanislaw
Lem.
A
case
might
be made for
the
Austro-Hungarian
Empire,
the
most
northern
city
of
which
was Lem's Krakow.
2. For overviews of British sf, see Stableford,Griffiths,and Greenland.For French
sf, see Lofficier, the more
eccentric
Gouanvic, Bozzetto,
and the
special
issue of
SFS
on
sf in
France (16.3 [November 1989]).
A
serious
book-length
study
of French sf as a
whole has yet to appear
n
English.
3. For German sf, see Fischer, Fisher, and Nagl.
4.
RegardingJapanese sf,
Matthew is
uninformative; ee Napier on anime,
and
the
SFS
special issue
on
Japanese
sf
(29.3
[November
2002]).
5. On
Soviet sf,
see
Heller, Griffiths,
and
Nudelman.
6. For
a discussion of prototype-effects pplied
to
sf, see Stockwell
6-7.
7.
Critiques
of
Empire
include: Kevin
Michael,
The
Non-Dialectical Marxism of
Hardt and Negri, 7heory/PracticeNewsletter (April 2002) ;
Tom Lewis, The
Empire Strikes Out,
International Socialist Review
24
(July-August 2002) ; TimothyBrenna,
The
Empire's
New
Clothes,
Critical
Inquiry
29
(Winter 2003). 337-67;
Louis
Proyect,
Hardt-Negri's Empire':
A
Marxist
Critique
;
GopalBalakrishnan, Hardtand Negri's Empire, NewLeftReview
S
(Sept.
-
Oct. 2000)
;
and Jon
Beasley-Murray,
Lenin in
America