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Thread: Big themes for the 21st century

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    Big themes for the 21st century

    What do you think will be the major themes writers will have to address in the coming decades? I'm trying to think ahead of my contemporaries here. How about extended lifespans? Maybe a novel around the psychological impact of living for 150 or even 200 years, thanks to advances in nanotech, stem cell research etc? Or how about the rise of China as a global superpower? As a European, I suspect the mass migration out of Africa into Europe will be a major event in the next 10 to 20 years. Native Europeans are not having enough children, whereas Africa's birth rate is the highest in the world. The birth rate of sub-Saharan Africans in particular is booming. Italy has been overwhelmed this year by boatloads of African migrants, mostly young men from Nigeria, the Congo etc. Racially and culturally the future of Europe is African and muslim. The French writer Houllebecq has already addressed this, imagining a future France under Sharia law. The European liberal establishment seem to believe the Africanization of Europe will be a good thing, so maybe a satire on their views would be quite striking and original? Is sci fi the future of fiction? Martin Amis recently said that in the future any great novelist or poet will have to be scientifically literate if he/ she is to be taken seriously. A 21st century Tolstoy or George Eliot will have to understand molecular biology and quantum mechanics!

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    Alea iacta est. mortalterror's Avatar
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    Registered User waltzinmathilda's Avatar
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    writing from Italy, I agree that the big subject matter of future European literature will be mass migration (it is not a new trend, though. It has been going on for quite a while). Italy, of course, will be (should be) at the forefront, and I think it is a positive thing. We need a revolution of sensitivity. I hope masterpieces like The Emigrants by George Lamming or The Lonely Londoners By Sam Selvon will be produced in Italy as well, dealing with the experience of immigrants in this country.

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    Registered User Emil Miller's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by WICKES View Post
    What do you think will be the major themes writers will have to address in the coming decades? I'm trying to think ahead of my contemporaries here. How about extended lifespans? Maybe a novel around the psychological impact of living for 150 or even 200 years, thanks to advances in nanotech, stem cell research etc? Or how about the rise of China as a global superpower? As a European, I suspect the mass migration out of Africa into Europe will be a major event in the next 10 to 20 years. Native Europeans are not having enough children, whereas Africa's birth rate is the highest in the world. The birth rate of sub-Saharan Africans in particular is booming. Italy has been overwhelmed this year by boatloads of African migrants, mostly young men from Nigeria, the Congo etc. Racially and culturally the future of Europe is African and muslim. The French writer Houllebecq has already addressed this, imagining a future France under Sharia law. The European liberal establishment seem to believe the Africanization of Europe will be a good thing, so maybe a satire on their views would be quite striking and original? Is sci fi the future of fiction? Martin Amis recently said that in the future any great novelist or poet will have to be scientifically literate if he/ she is to be taken seriously. A 21st century Tolstoy or George Eliot will have to understand molecular biology and quantum mechanics!

    Big themes indeed. I haven't read Houellebecq's book but, from what I gather, the Islamification of France comes about as a result of ineffective government policies. While this might conceivably happen, there is a large political party in France that will simply not allow it.
    It is a fate that also threatens the USA but since you have mentioned China's superpower status it's a certainty that it won't happen there because 90% of the population are Han Chinese and they don't pussyfoot around with fractious elements of their muslim population.
    "L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.

    "Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.

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    Registered User Clopin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by WICKES View Post
    Martin Amis recently said that in the future any great novelist or poet will have to be scientifically literate if he/ she is to be taken seriously. A 21st century Tolstoy or George Eliot will have to understand molecular biology and quantum mechanics!
    Uhm... why?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Clopin View Post
    Uhm... why?
    Because his fans love to hear that sort of bollocks.

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    Quote Originally Posted by waltzinmathilda View Post
    writing from Italy, I agree that the big subject matter of future European literature will be mass migration (it is not a new trend, though. It has been going on for quite a while). Italy, of course, will be (should be) at the forefront, and I think it is a positive thing. We need a revolution of sensitivity. I hope masterpieces like The Emigrants by George Lamming or The Lonely Londoners By Sam Selvon will be produced in Italy as well, dealing with the experience of immigrants in this country.
    I don't think it is a positive thing at all. I hate it. Why do you assume the Africanisation of Italy will be positive? We keep being told the migrants are fleeing war and persecution in Eritrea and Syria. But if that is the case, why are these boats full of young men from Nigeria and the Congo instead of women and children from Syria and Eritrea? The majority of these African migrants are just rootless young men in search of a better life. There is this assumption that mass migration is always, automatically, a good thing. People force themselves to believe that because it is the cool, metropolitan liberal view. If you want Italy to become an African state over the next 10 to 20 years then all I'll say in this- be careful what you wish for, because you won't be able to go back to the way things were. Africa's birth rate is the highest in the world. If you keep encouraging them, they'll keep coming. And there is a never-ending supply.

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    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    Positive for whom, Wickes? Are you suggesting that the "rootless young men in search of a better life" won't find a better life? Or is the welfare of such rootless young men irrelevant to whether migration is a "positive thing"?

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    Registered User waltzinmathilda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by WICKES View Post
    I don't think it is a positive thing at all. I hate it. Why do you assume the Africanisation of Italy will be positive? We keep being told the migrants are fleeing war and persecution in Eritrea and Syria. But if that is the case, why are these boats full of young men from Nigeria and the Congo instead of women and children from Syria and Eritrea? The majority of these African migrants are just rootless young men in search of a better life. There is this assumption that mass migration is always, automatically, a good thing. People force themselves to believe that because it is the cool, metropolitan liberal view. If you want Italy to become an African state over the next 10 to 20 years then all I'll say in this- be careful what you wish for, because you won't be able to go back to the way things were. Africa's birth rate is the highest in the world. If you keep encouraging them, they'll keep coming. And there is a never-ending supply.
    When I said "I think it is a positive thing" I was referring to the fact that Italy will probably be at the forefront of a literary output dealing with the issue of immigration. Emotionally exploring such an issue is crucial to our being able to work out (and come to terms with) what is happening right now in this country. Your talk of "africanisation" to me is a testimony to the degree to which dominant sterotypes are effective in brainwashing people: we are told that an invasion is going on, that we will eventually be overpowered. Read Enoch Powell's infamous "rivers of blood" speech (if you haven't alredy), given in 1968, when immigration to Great Britain, especially from the West Indies, was a central political issue: you'll find the same rhetoric employed by Matteo Salvini and the Lega party. Call me naive, but in my opinion the only way to address the problem (because I realise there is a problem, Italy is left alone to cope with the wave of immigrants, Ventimiglia is turning into a limbo... we are evidently at a loss, it's no use denying it) is to enhance tolerance and integration (not the definition of integration given by Powell, though). Make these people feel they are part of our society and they'll start to care; make them feel outcast and despised, they'll probably turn to criminality.

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    Registered User Emil Miller's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by waltzinmathilda View Post
    Call me naive, but in my opinion the only way to address the problem (because I realise there is a problem, Italy is left alone to cope with the wave of immigrants, Ventimiglia is turning into a limbo... we are evidently at a loss, it's no use denying it) is to enhance tolerance and integration (not the definition of integration given by Powell, though). Make these people feel they are part of our society and they'll start to care; make them feel outcast and despised, they'll probably turn to criminality.
    You are naive.
    "L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.

    "Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.

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    Registered User Clopin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ecurb View Post
    Positive for whom, Wickes? Are you suggesting that the "rootless young men in search of a better life" won't find a better life? Or is the welfare of such rootless young men irrelevant to whether migration is a "positive thing"?
    I believe he's referring to people who are native to Italy and live there.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Emil Miller View Post
    You are naive.
    Heh. You beat me to it, Emil.

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    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Clopin View Post
    I believe he's referring to people who are native to Italy and live there.
    Probably. But why should you or I or Wickes care more about the native Italians than the Africans? In fact, natural empathy suggests we should care more about the Africans, who need help more urgently, and whose plight urges more sympathy. (Maybe Wickes is Italian -- I don't know.)

    I'll grant it's a complicated issue, but I see no reason to always support the status quo. Wickes is doubtless correct that none of us can "go back to the way things were". However, why should that be the goal? Do Italians really long for the good old days of Mussolini? Need we bring back the gladiator pits? In addition, immigration has both costs and benefits, even if we measure only its impact on the native population.

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    Registered User Clopin's Avatar
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    You and I don't have to care about either of them because we don't live in Italy. Tax-paying Italians should be concerned with who immigrates to Italy, however, and they have that right. Italian nationals don't owe anything to anyone, and they can't be expected to run their country as a charity. That is not what most people want.
    Last edited by Clopin; 07-02-2015 at 01:24 AM.
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    Registered User waltzinmathilda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Emil Miller View Post
    You are naive.
    Maybe I am. I realise that what I have written might come across as over-simplistic (and in a way it is), but I stand by it.

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