Ficção científica e progresso tecnológico: uma análise de distopias climáticas do século XX

Abstract

Science fiction has been one of the most popular genres in literature since its emergence in the 19th century. The genre sought to look at the future, imagining new technological advances, that then seemed unlimited, which brought it closer to the literature of utopia and dystopia. After the end of World War II and the explosion of the atomic bomb, optimism in a world guided by science diminishes considerably and dystopias considered the very end of civilization through the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic subgenres. The nuclear cataclysm remained popular in fictional works throughout the century, but in 1970s, a new threat proved to be just as dangerous for human civilization: the environmental crises. The prognosis of a collapse created a dystopian imagery as powerful as that of a nuclear war. It was also a threat to the capitalist mode of production since external limits to economic growth are established. If the atomic bomb showed the destructive potential of war technology, environmental crises call into question the same technological artifacts that allowed the optimism in the 19th century. This dissertation asks how works of dystopian fiction characterize environmental crises over the last century. Therefore, climatic dystopias are the object of study, defined as: fictional works located in the near or distant future that describe a worse society, according to the author, than that of the moment and place in which it was written and that deal with ecological or environmental issues such as the focus, or one of the focuses, of the dysfunctionality of their world. Its objective is to investigate the different critical perceptions regarding technology in climatic dystopias. To do so, it proposes to examine the history of the belief in anthropogenic climate change, to compare the dystopian character of science fiction works throughout the 20th century and to identify in these specific criticisms the technology, taking into account its historical and artistic context. In the results, it is observed that: the opposition between civilization and nature is a recurring theme in the works studied, when reflecting on alternative modes of existence outside modern industrial society; The works proved to be useful for the study of the history of environmental crises, by revealing characteristics of key moments of awareness regarding these; And, finally, there is no linearity in their criticism of technological progress, but they all manifest positions contrary to the capitalist way of life.