“Elder’s Dual Vector Foil” and the “Spectre” of Karl Marx: The Imagination of Social Form in the 21st Century Chinese Science Fictions
CHEN Shujie
“Elder’s Dual Vector Foil” and the “Spectre” of Karl Marx: The Imagination of Social Form in the 21st Century Chinese Science Fictions
The imagination of the social form has been an important theme in the 21st century Chinese science fictions. The imagination of a social form on the model of “Elder’s dual vector foil” contains a logical asymmetry—high-level technology and a primary social form. From the perspective of historical materialism and dialectics, this imagination and other imaginations of the social form, such as intelligent algorithms, that internally dominate or distort the social form through technology, reveal its flaws and limitations. Compared to the imagination of specific technology, the imagination of social form emphasizes the entirety and connection of multiple social factors, and it is hard to thoroughly dispense the invisible dominance of existing human experience. Marxist theory and methodology are indispensable to the imagination of social form in science fiction. Reigniting the Marxist critical imagination of future social form and activating the aesthetic power of this imagination are the future directions of the development of science fiction.
science fiction / social form / The Three-Body Problem trilogy / Marxism
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