Someone wrote a comment in a retweet under my last post about solarpunk. About how maybe Cyberpunk is more suited to motivate us to work for a better future, than Solarpunk is. Because Cyberpunk can show us, how bad it can get, it can be a warning.
My issue is, that for the most part it isn't.
Now, don't get me wrong. I adore Cyberpunk. I basically grew up in Japanese Cyberpunk especially (which I like a lot more than Western Cyberpunk - but the reasons are to complex to discuss here). But I think for a plethora of reasons it does not work as a "warning".
Part of the reason is, that the dystopia of Cyberpunk is not that far away from reality anymore these days. Even in effective Cyberpunk, that really goes into the Late Stage Capitalism... It shows a stark divide between rich and poor, state violence, rule of coorporations, end of ecosystems. Yes, it is more heightened than our reality, but it is all that we see in our reality right now and... we are kinda getting used to it. We are getting used to all the horrible things happening right now, because we feel powerless and our minds do not know how else to deal with it. So they will just chuck it of as "normal".
The other reason, why I think, Cyberpunk fails, is, that it is objectively cool. And a lot of people, who consume Cyberpunk media, do not engage with the dystopia, but just with the power fantasy of being a cool street sam with a lot of awesome augmentations. They want Cyberpunk to be real, not to prevent it. Because to them, it is mostly a really darn cool aesthetic.
And a last reason is, that in the end Cyberpunk does not offer solutions. Half the point of the genre is a sort of hopelessness. In most Cyberpunk there is no big happy ending. The happy end is, that the characters get to survive. Maybe, just maybe, the characters manage to bring down one coorporation or at least one corrupt CEO. But the most the characters get, is, to survive and maybe kiss a love interest. The point of Cyberpunk is the hopelessness.
But you cannot build a better world from hopelessness.
Which is, why I see Solarpunk as so promising - and am at the same time afraid of it turning too much into an "aesthetics only" movement. Because Solarpunk at its core is about reclaiming optimism for the future. It is not (only) an art movement, but first and foremost a genre of both fiction and activism.
If you look into the Solarpunk Manifesto, you will find that, it is about optimism and rebellion against the current system. About the things, that we so desperately need right now.
It is supposed to offer those solutions, that Cyberpunk does not want to offer - or rather that Cyberpunk thinks are out of reach.
Because here is the thing about Solarpunk: Yes, it is Science Fiction, but a lot of the Science it presents is available today. If states were actually to invest in it, we could have clean energy by 2035. That is not unrealistic. Because the technology is here, we just need to use it.
Degrowth, which is another core tennent of Solarpunk, is also possible. And it does not need to mean "live bad", as so many publications try to make it out.
Building local communities, too, is possible. The reasons we lost local communities, is, that the current system we live under, does not want us to have those communities - because communities allow us to organize and retake our power.
Those tennents have been there in Solarpunk from the very beginning. And it is quite frankly frightening to see, how the movement gets kinda taken over by people, only being there for green aesthetics.
This is not meant to be escapism. At least not just that. It is supposed to be a root of activism.
ellievsbear
discoholicmusic
jbbartram-illu
dailybridgerton
tangentwithtanner
titsay
dededos
romaincrisis
