Why is "The End of Science Fiction" Such a Tough Idea for People to Grasp?

Over the years I have again and again found John Barnes' theory about the life cycle of literary and other genres useful, but I have also noticed how a great many persons treat such theories in a very dismissive way--by which I mean not their considering them and rejecting them on their merits, but just giving the suggestion a brush-off.

There are many reasons for that. After all, what fan of something wants to hear that the thing they enjoy is in some kind of terminal decline? And certainly those whose living is in some way tied up with the health of a genre (like writers and editors) have no desire to hear such a claim either--indeed, the attitude of far too many of these a boosterism as intolerant as it is self-satisfied and vulgar. Indeed, those dubious about such talk can and do quite easily claim that it is a matter of someone simply not liking the "new stuff."

Yet there is also what it takes to even evaluate such an argument. One would have to think about what the term "genre" means, and how a genre develops--of genres as bodies of work united by shared themes and elements and techniques, by the familiarity of the creators and consumers of work in that genre with particular "classics" that serve as touchstones for them, by the tradition and discourse and community that all of this produces. They would have to be able to think about how a genre is not a constant thing over time, and how particular works and artists fit into that constancy and inconstancy. They would also have to be able to think about the difference between what is merely new, and what is original in a genre. And as all this implies, to get any use from the concepts discussed here they would have to know a good deal of the facts of the genre's history--the works that appeared over time, what was innovative at a certain point and what was not, how people reacted to it, and so forth.

In short, they would have to set aside the view of genre as a mere "commercial category," and simplistic, individualistic images of how artists work, and instead think theoretically, historically, systematically within a broad and deep knowledge of their genre.

The ability to think theoretically, historically, systematically, is not exactly something many people get from even an exceptionally advanced education--as the "elite" constantly demonstrates. Much of this is just too subtle for them, while only those who have been old, longtime, fans of exceptional alertness, and those who deliberately sought out such knowledge, are likely to amass the kind of knowledge of a genre that lets them weigh a genre's history according to such a standard. They are fewer still. The more open-minded may confess that such discussion is a bit above their heads--but the more common, conventional, attitude is to simply dismiss the argument as not worth the consideration they are incapable of offering it even if they could.