I was just speaking with my friend John (who writes New World Border) about this whole sci-fi/conspiracy thing I started in on. We came up with a pretty awesome idea, I think.

First of all, I tend to think that the role of sci-fi in the culture has been to extrapolate present circumstances to their ultimate conclusions. In a sense, it functions just like prophecy did in days of yore (and still does, sometimes). It shows people what could happen, good or bad. But it does so using a clever rhetorical device. It makes statements about today by disguising them as statements about either the future or another world altogether.

By using this sleight of hand, sci-fi helps to act as social commentary while minimizing the cognitive dissonance such things generally entail. Cognitive dissonance is basically what happens to you when your accepted beliefs are challenged. You can either build new beliefs (which involves changing, and therefore a lot of effort), or you can just dismiss anything that challenges your beliefs. Most people consistently choose the latter route, and actively avoid having their beliefs challenged (believe me, I know - I deal with this constantly with visitors to my site).

So if you have a message you want to tell people, you have to figure out how to get around their cognitive dissonance defense mechanisms. The way sci-fi seems to do it is by creating a story-system which is wholly alien, or at least recognizably different from reality. This almost acts as bait for the cognitive dissonance filters in the mind. The cultural immune system goes off, recognizing an intruder. It therefore sticks itself onto the story-system, and busies itself dismantling that. Simultaneously, the real underlying message is free to waltz around largely unimpeded, because the sci-fi elements of the story have provided an exotic enough vessel to contain the cognitive dissonance.

Just like any altered state of consciousness though, there are those who actively seek cognitive dissonance. It contains sort of an addictive quality wherein you are consistently and frequently modifying your belief-system. It becomes sort of a toy for you to play with. I think sci-fi really helps teach you to do this, because it gives you sort of a “soft-landing” into this realm, through the techniques described above. It teaches you how to find and use trojan horses for cognitive remodeling.