The Two Narratives of the Future: Futurism and Science Fiction

Imagination, a power that condemns humans to a linear flow of time, is an ability that transports individuals beyond the 'now' to all possible alternative times and realities. This ability has long been a defining feature of humans and even the concept of humanity. For instance, American anthropologist Augustín Fuentes, in his book 'The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional,' states that what sets humans apart from other beings is the ability to imagine something and then bring it to fruition.

The structured thought created by humans using their imagination, based on real facts and situations but not real, is called fiction. Looking at the future from where we stand today is a form of fiction. German philosopher Hans Vaihinger expressed this situation as "all thoughts and actions benefit from fiction". In Vaihinger's expression, the idea is emphasized that before taking action, an individual envisions the action within a future projection based on their own thoughts and value system, and then acts upon it. The focus of this article is to explore the similarities and differences between the two narratives of the future, futuristic fiction, and science fiction, by examining their relationships with each other.

Futurism

The question of how the future would unfold was one that prophets, seers, and astrologers answered until the 18th century. Writing about the future seemed like a taboo, grounded in the idea that knowing the future was impossible. With the onset of the Enlightenment era in Europe, progressivism became one of the popular concepts in philosophy. The notion that history was not mere repetition and that a cumulative process propelled societies into the future encouraged people to think about and create narratives about the future. However, it's possible to say that the real explosion occurred with the Industrial Revolution. The discovery of steam engines, the introduction of transportation means such as steamships, trains, and airplanes, and technological developments like telegraphy enabling communication across long distances brought about profound changes in the symbolic world of future imagination. The term 'futurism,' used today to describe any speculation about the future, emerged right in the midst of this monumental transformation in the early 20th century.


Futurism, an literary movement that originated in Italy under the leadership of poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, rapidly spread its influence across various fields such as politics, painting, sculpture, cinema, theater, poetry, and architecture. Futurists declared concepts like speed, violence, machinery, youth, industry, war, and noise as new aesthetic values, placing change at the center of their works. According to them, everything belonging to the past is an obstacle to change and must be demolished. Over time, the sharp rhetoric of futurists has given way to a softer and more moderate expression, but the goal of 'planning the future and producing alternative scenarios for it' has always been maintained. For this reason, futurist works are also referred to as future studies.

Futuristic Fiction and Science Fiction

It is possible to say that both futuristic fiction and science fiction attempt to shed light on present actions from a future perspective today. However, they diverge in some points while doing so. So, where do futuristic fiction and science fiction differ? Firstly, it is important to understand that the futuristic approach focuses on representing the future rather than semantic depth. Throughout its evolutionary process, futurism has always used literary and other artistic forms as a means of expressing the representation of future technology within the codes of everyday life. In this sense, the artistic value of the work is always secondary. What matters is the expression of inevitable changes and transformations. If necessary, revolutionizing the forms of expression is part of this process.

On the other hand, science fiction does not treat the imagination of the future as an absolute prediction. It can sometimes depict a future where technology has disappeared thousands of years later, and humans or non-human beings lead primitive lives, or it can narrate a civilization of Earthlings or aliens that existed thousands of years ago. It has a focus on artistic depth, aiming to stage representations that express the social, political, economic, and cultural dynamics of the era within the framework of future imagination.


In order to better understand the stage of the future, let's first divide the narrative into the stage, as in a theater play, and the actions taking place on that stage. Let the stage have a set that presents us with a technology and structure beyond the current time. Let's refer to every human action taking place on this stage, in other words, the script of the play, as drama. This future stage is crucial for futuristic fiction. The characters in the narrative are there solely to describe this stage. They lack character depths and behavior codes. Their only purpose of existence is to depict this future to the audience. In science fiction, however, the drama is crucial. The stage is merely a structure supporting the drama. Science fiction aims to convey the character of its protagonist to the audience. It must convey it so that when the character has to make a choice, the audience can understand the reasons underlying that choice. The choices and other behavior codes are shaped by the future stage, but fundamentally, what is being conveyed is not the future stage itself, but how the individual in that future stage will react to this change. As Gene Roddenberry said, 'Real science fiction is essentially the story of humans and ideas.

Another difference between futuristic fiction and science fiction is the models they use. Futuristic fiction employs a logical model, while science fiction uses a dramatic model. The concept of a model, in its most general sense, is the replication of reality. Models encourage thinking about facts from a specific perspective. The purpose of models is to show the answer to the question 'how does an object or system behave under specific conditions.' The logical model used by futurists is constructed to make logical deductions using today's technology and knowledge to predict what the future will look like. The dramatic model used in science fiction, on the other hand, imagines how people will behave in a changed future due to technology and other changes and aims to convincingly convey this to contemporary readers. This model also takes into account that the behavior codes of today's individuals are shaped by the present world.

Futuristic fiction attempts to explain the future with the theories it generates. Science fiction, on the other hand, provides us with information obtained from a structured experience. In real life, we learn about natural phenomena such as hot/cold, gravity, solid/liquid by experiencing them firsthand. In fiction, however, we undergo an experience that we cannot witness in our own lives, such as walking on a different planet with gravity different from Earth, or teleportation. Science fiction is more of an artistic presentation of the human experience in the future rather than offering theories about the future.


Another difference is in future predictions. The main purpose of futuristic fiction is to accurately predict the future. Therefore, it formulates theories. Science fiction, on the other hand, creates theories that will shape the future with imagination. In this sense, a futuristic scenario may appear like a poorly crafted science fiction, being weak from a literary perspective[6]. The success of futuristic fiction is measured by the effectiveness of solutions to probable problems that may occur in the future. However, in science fiction, it is not crucial for futuristic predictions to be accurate. Because science fiction is not seeking solutions. Its aim is to convey human attitudes in the face of potential problems, to outline the strategy and principles of facing specific situations.

For science fiction, it is sufficient to be artistically satisfying and internally consistent. In this sense, a good science fiction not accurately predicting the future does not diminish its value. In science fiction, the author constructs a consistent possible future world that supports the character's story. The future stage is symbolic structures used to decipher the meaning of human action. In futuristic fiction, a story is constructed to describe a consistent future world. In other words, in science fiction, the imagined world supports the story, while in futuristic fiction, the story supports the imagined world.

Finally, there is a distinction between futuristic fiction and science fiction in terms of their connection to the past. While science fiction feeds on the past without severing its ties, futuristic fiction sees erasing the traces of the past as the fundamental tool of progress. The futuristic perspective abandons even its own origins in the past, while science fiction has known how to nourish itself from the elements brought by futuristic fiction and continues to grow and enrich itself.

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