READ THIS

[fpb]

http://jonathanmoeller.livejournal.com/556661.html?view=1217653#t1217653
It is the most fantastically telling and hilarious deconstruction of a fictional universe (the Star Trek one) I have ever read, and it is followed by a suggestion from superversive that is even better. Absolutely brilliant, and it will light the light of a thousand plot bunnies in any fan's mind.

Comments

[kennybhoy.livejournal.com]

fpb writes:

"...but the mistaken idea of humanity is at the centre of my issues with ST"

Indeed. Utopian science fiction drives me to distraction.

"From time to time the belief spreads among men that it is possible to construct an ideal society. Then the call is sounded for all to gather and build it -- the city of God on earth. Despite its attractions, this is a delirious ideal stamped with the madness of logic.

The truth is that society is always unfinished, always in motion, and its key problems can never be solved by social engineering. Yet, man must conquer, again and again, the freedom to see this truth. In the intervals he succumbs to the dream of a mankind frozen and final in its planetary pride. The dream -- utopia -- leads to the denial of God and self-divinization -- the heresy.

I wrote this book to show the reader the truth about utopia and heresy, and the link between them. I cannot hope to rid the world of the utopian temptation; this would be itself utopian. But the book may help some of my more lucid contemporaries to undo their commitment to the grotesquerie of the perfect society of imperfect men."

Preface to "Utopia The Perennial Heresy" by Thomas Molnar (1967)

Grotesquerie indeed...