Monday, May 5, 2008

What will be the unacceptable "-ism" in the future?

I've been reading Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" this week. It's one of the big scifi classics I've never read and I decided to finally take it down from my bookshelf and crack it open. I'm not going to post a critique here (that's better saved for my GoodReads account). As with any book written in a different cultural era, I can't help but notice the few sexist, racist, and heteronormative statements sprinkled throughout the book. This doesn't bother me tremendously, as I recognize it's just a reflection of the social attitudes of the time. And in many ways Stranger in a Strange Land was ahead of it's time in terms of questioning social mores and conventions about sex and sexuality. What this did get me thinking about, though, was a projection of our current cultural mores into the future.

When people 50-100 years in the future read books written in the present day, which of our cultural conventions and mores will seem antiquated and even repugnant to them? What will be the sexism or racism of the future?

I think the most obvious initial answer is issues of sexual orientation. While we've certainly made tremendous strides in this area even in the past 10 years, we still have a very long way to go. My guess is that the idea of gay marriage being controversial will seem as ridiculous as the notion of inter-racial marriage being controversial is to us. (Of course, there still exists a tremendous amount of racism in the present day. While it's not socially acceptable to display racist attitudes publicly in most circles, many people still hold these views privately.) So perhaps readers of the future will pick up a Pulitzer Prize winning book from the first decade of the 21st Century, and while reading it will note the lack of gay characters, especially ones who are married and/or have children.

Another possibility I've been mulling over lately is attitudes towards genetics and biology. Will our current distaste for cloning, eugenics, and extreme body modification seem outdated and antiquated to the readers at the turn of the 22nd century? That is, if anyone is still reading books . . .

Any other ideas my fair readers? What current social and cultural attitudes will be the racism and sexism of the next century?

No comments: