A Lesson from the Queue

I am not the first to remark upon the indefensible defeatism & doom-mongering rampant in American culture, indeed rampant apparently throughout Western Civilization. It's cause is easily diagnosed: the inadequacy of nihilism & scientism to cope with the vagaries of life, what might be described as the stubborn refusal of the human condition—reality—to conform to certain self-satisfied ideologies. Popular speculative fiction used to be ruled by science fiction, epitomized by Star Trek's inveterate optimism; today, the speculative fiction roost is ruled over by horror fiction, epitomized by The Walking Dead's sadomasochistic pessimism. As has been remarked (Hyperlink), "The future ain't what it used to be!" Poppycock, I say! Not even original poppycock, at that, this collective malaise. I offer the example of Alfred Bester, writing in the 1950s about the twenty-fifth century (2400s A.D.), in the seminal The Stars My Destination:

This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living, & hard dying… but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune & theft, pillage & rapine, culture & vice… but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks… but nobody loved it.

So, let's get over ourselves. Let's stop indulging the frankly infantile fantasy that none of our forebears had it as tough as we do, that "time" is about to be called on Western society, that the collapse of civilization is one bad day away, one black swan event from being inevitable. Go see Bridge of Spies to recall the atomic sword of Damocles under which we all lived 'til the end of the Cold War. Explore the last years of episodes of "The Explorers' Club" to relive the apocalypse of 1914-1918, which, by the way, Western civilization survived, if only narrowly. We've been through much, much worse. All things considered, we're still on Easy Street. Let me say it again: let's get over ourselves. Let's shake off this ridiculous malaise & get back to the business of leaving to our posterity an even better world than was left to us. Go boldly.