Sci-Fi’s Lessons in Neutrality

By Suspending Reality, We Can Better See What Is Possible

Can we, and should we, ever really be neutral? In a new series, Zócalo explores the idea of neutrality—in politics, sports, gender, journalism, international law, and more. In this essay, philosopher Matías Graffigna explains how science fiction and fantasy can help us contemplate a wider range of possibilities.

“I just wanted to be honest. I don’t want to get mixed up in this conflict. I want to remain neutral,” Geralt of Rivia tells his good friend Yarpen, a dwarf. “It’s impossible!” yells Yarpen in response. …

by Matías Graffigna | September 23, 2024

Ray Bradbury’s Mirror to Our World

Democracy. Technology. The Media. The Science-Fiction Writer—Who Would’ve Turned 100 This Week—Has Never Been So Relevant

by Joe Mathews | August 28, 2020

Happy 100th birthday, Ray Bradbury. But did you have to be so right about our world?

There were no candles and no cake on the YouTube or Twitter livestreams during a …

Killing Your Audience Members Really Keeps Them Engaged

From Australian Sci-Fi to Music, Making Readers and Listeners Part of the Narrative Is an Underutilized Tool

By Rob Boffard | June 22, 2017

One of the most common pieces of advice given to new writers is “Kill your darlings.” The Australian writers Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman have turned this advice on its …

Apple and the Demise of Cyberpunk

Without Cords and Jacks to Unplug, How Will Our Fictional Heroes Rebel Now?

By Joseph Brogan | September 12, 2016

Rightly or wrongly, we tend to speak of science fiction authors as prophets: We’re delighted to find that Philip K. Dick inveighed against the internet of things half a century …

Who Should Be Our Alien Liaison?

If Extraterrestrials Make Contact, Science Fiction Has Some Advice for Selecting Humanity’s Spokesperson

By Joelle Renstrom | September 9, 2016

On May 25, 2015, a radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, Russia, picked up a signal coming from star HD164595 in the Hercules constellation. We don’t know much about this star located …

Novelist Neal Stephenson

Wanna Be a Writer? Write 10,000 Pages, Then Throw Them Away

November 30, 2014

Neal Stephenson is the author of the three-volume historical epic “The Baroque Cycle” and the novels Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Zodiac. Before discussing the relationship between science …

When the U.S.A. Was Neutral

For 150 Years, America Didn’t Take Sides—But the Nation Still Fought Plenty of Wars

Why Taiwan Would Be Better Off Neutral

A Citizen of Switzerland and Sweden Argues That a Stance of Non-Aggression Can Protect Small, Vulnerable Democracies

Why Sweden Stopped Pretending to Be Switzerland

My Two Home Countries Were Famously Neutral. But They Were Never the Same

For Political Journalists, Neutrality Isn’t the Goal

It’s Objectivity, and Being on the Side of the Truth in an Intellectually Dishonest Era

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