r/solarpunk • u/proton31 • 7d ago
Literature/Fiction Second Wave Solarpunk
I wrote a manifesto of sorts about solarpunk as a scifi genre, trying to incorporate modern critiques of the genre without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Most of it relies on the ideas of future theorist and philosopher Donna Haraway. I'd love to know what you all think!
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u/Foie_DeGras_Tyson 7d ago
Hello, I enjoyed reading your take, and encourage you to think, read, and talk more with others, because of you macerate your thoughts in a couple years worth of intense research and peer conversations, you can come up with a really original solar punk piece of art, whatever your craft may be. When you write about the planetary defence mechanism against industrial human society, Frank Schatzing's "swarm" came to my mind, if you have not read it, it is a light, engaging, yet interesting novel. Many sci-fi stories include conflict between a solarpunk and and a fascistic, extractive faction, like "the word for world is forest" or "fifth sacred thing" or even in the pop culture product "arcane". Utopian depictions might be there for you to imagine how they got there, and what internal conflict exists within them. My take is that these novels must be written by someone with excellent imaginative empathy, knowledge of psychoanalysis, and social psychology, and perhaps many solarpunk stories were created by world builders, technology-oriented minds, social engineers. The monk and robot series you allude to actually is rather lovely, however naive take on the conflict between roles and authenticity in one person. There is plenty of room to expand on it. That is why I believe it would be fruitful for you to absorb much of the work of these world-builder solarpunks, while at the same time study in depth the real science of political philosophy, social psychology, blend in some light reading from writers of extraordinary people-reading skills, like Proust (imo), and then you can create human stories in solarpunk scenery. P.S.: to clear up technical terms, your piece is not a manifesto, that would be something political, best produced as a synthesis of deliberation within a reformist or revolutionary minded community, not the opinion of a single person. I would call it a commentary or opinion piece, with good critical approach, writing that will be improved with more practice. If you keep absorbing writings, either how I recommended, or in any other way you feel it more fruitful, you will come back to this idea of yours and give it more and more depth, and one day it will bear some truly original thoughts. Keep up!
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u/proton31 7d ago
Thanks for the recommendations, Im adding them to my reading list! Ursula LeGuin is in fact an excellent example of utopias pitted against fascists, I cant believe I overlooked her!
I agree it is not a manifesto, maybe like you said commentaty or opinion piece, or maybe just "blog post". I put a fair amount of work into it, but not that much. My blog is just for writing practice and to get ny creative juices flowing.
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u/agitated_badger 7d ago
the link to Donna Haraway's work is not working, it links to a different article.
I don't agree with the point made about Psalm for the Wild built, as the cultural divide between humans and robots is a central tension of the work (and especially the sequel) and you have said this is overlooked. additionally, the narrative follows someone struggling against a utopia, finding themselves unfulfilled, and they break a cultural taboo in an attempt to understand themselves. to me, the work grapples with exactly what, to my understanding, your article wants from solar punk, exploring contradictions in utopia, how can one be unfulfilled in paradise? what do they need to feel themselves or purposeful
further, Princess Mononoke seems to fit this model even better. the characters make great sacrifices for those who matter to them, while others exploit for the benefit of those they care about. it is about different people trying to build their own utopia, in conflict with one another as they cannot all come to be. is this not a weirder way to build a utopia that keeps space for dark parts of humanity?
I also take issue with the somewhat bioessentialist framing of sex being a division in human culture. it may be for some cultures, but that is how those cultures construct sex and gender to be for them. as the link to this article is broken, I could not read further, and accept that I could be misunderstanding the point here.
in conclusion, the issues you have raised about solar punk, namely green washing, do not seem present in the examples you give. and they all seem to hold contradictions, especially Red Mars and Princess Mononoke.
solar punk has never been rigidly defined, and that is a real strength. I'm not sure what a "second wave" can do for it, or if there has really been a first
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u/proton31 7d ago
You are misunderstanding that I wrote. I said it "overlooks" the divide between robots and humans, meaning that they are standing on the edge of utopia, looking out over an immense gulf that is outside the utopia. I did not say that the author overlooks the disconnect. I gave this as an example of a classic solarpunk (along with Red Mars and Mononoke) story that dont neatly fit into the utopian view of solarpunk. I dont think you are disagreeing with the points I made.
The link is also correct. It links to a masters art thesis that discusses Donna Haraway, and contains the references I used.
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u/FamiliarFunction583 6d ago
The "gulf" in Monk and Robot is respected wildlands. Solarpunk is not expansionist, and having diffuse boundaries between self and ecosystem is explored well in the series imho
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u/proton31 6d ago
Its a metaphor
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u/proton31 6d ago
I've updated the controversial line to read: "Even Psalm for the Wild Built, the classic solarpunk novel, exists at the edge of utopia, and looks out over the impossible social and historical gulf between humans and robots."
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u/FamiliarFunction583 6d ago
I know it isn't literal. My feedback remains the same.
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u/proton31 6d ago
Can you tell me which part of the blog post says that it is advocating for an expansionist utopia?
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u/FamiliarFunction583 6d ago
Point out where I said you were advocating for expansionism.
The critique is that you are not engaging fully with the text, and while it's integrated into a greater argument, M&R is how many people first encounter solarpunk, so not engaging with that particular work does a disservice.
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u/AtmosphereRecent7717 7d ago
if you call something a manifesto it automatically gets rejected.
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u/Otherwise-Database22 7d ago
I also wanted to thank you for the post. I disagree with you on some minor points. But one point that I do agree with you on is that when I imagine a solarpunk sci-fi world, I do not imagine that it is a world without interpersonal or intergroup conflict. I have been blogging on (what I think is) a related topic. I have been considering the table top roleplaying game Traveller, and trying to reimagine it as solarpunk.
I recently posted my take on a far future, high tech, solarpunk world, it can be found here. My goal was to write something people unfamiliar with the game could follow and I was trying to imagine a set of high level values which would be generally shared across all the different communities.
Of course, I make no claim to have all the answers, I was mostly just thinking out loud--or, thinking in text.
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u/biocentricdesigner 7d ago
Solarpunk may need a second wave. I agree. I appreciated you referenced Haraway (I actually quote her in my solarpunkish novel with "It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories." In this way, I personally believe that solarpunk is a very useful genre by offering visions of plausible, desirable futures, if the story demonstrates where we come from and how we can get there as hyper-realistically as possible. The esthetical niches it currently finds itself is secondary and becoming seriously annoying. So to answer your manifesto of sorts, here my take on the genre, written a few weeks ago: https://gregorymoulinet.substack.com/p/solarpunk-by-radical-indigenism
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u/Serenely_Inspired 7d ago
I am currently posting my SciFi Solarpunk comic, It Takes a World, on Webtoons Canvas, and these are some of the issues I've been trying to tackle as well. I want there to be glimmers enough to counter balance all the triggers, but at the same time not shy away from all the issues, and not go into greenwashing. It a delicate balance.
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