Dream Worlds Here and There
Book Review of "2312" by Kim Stanley Robinson
Short, Jesse
http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/4030
Date Written: 2013-11-01
Publisher: Against the Current
Year Published: 2013
Resource Type: Article
Short reviews Robinson's "2312," which concerns the state of a world three hundred years from now in which a twisted version of the dream "another world is possible" has come to pass, where nothing stops the daily grind of class oppression and ecological devastation but the sheer ruin of the Earth itself.
Abstract:
-
Excerpt:
In effet, the world that Robinson constructs is based on the realities of our current global impasse: the old adage "the old is dying but the new cannot be born" writ across the entire solar system.
While those who are privileged enough to be born (or emigrate) in space settlements are free to pursue their creative impulses and labor under common projects, the masses on Earth remain subject to the same old class system that has been victimizing humanity for centuries.
Against the techno-utopian prognostications of thinkers like Ray Kurzweil who peddle century-old arguments about inevitable social progress brought on by technological development, Robinson paints a picture of an Earth riddled with class oppression even in the bright future of space settlements and terraformed planets:
"Wizened by sun, broiled a bit, sure -- but it was more than that. Someone had to run the harvesters in the rice and sugarcane fields, check the irrigation canals or robots, install things, fix things. Humans were still not only the cheapest robots around, but also, for many tasks, the only robots that could do the job. They were self-reproducing robots too. They showed up and worked, generation after generation; give them three thousand calories a day and a few amenities, a little time off, and a strong jolt of fear, and you could work them at almost anything. Give them some ameliorative drugs and you had a working class, reified and coglike."
Subject Headings
