Scene from the 1951 film “The Thing From Another World.”

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There seems to be an ongoing war debate on social media about whether or not science fiction is inherently liberal/progressive or conservative.

I should say that “woke” is the more common word used for “liberal” or “progressive” although the two terms are not exactly synonyms. Since, in certain circles, “woke” is used as a pejorative, I’ll be using “progressive” in the body of this wee article.

It is (mostly) conceded that across the history of science fiction (and the length of that history is also under dispute) that SciFi has tended to be progressive relative to the era in which it was created.

I bolded that statement because depending on when the piece of science fiction was created, the definition of “progressive” might not fit what it is considered to be in 2023.

Side Note: I took the image above from the movie The Thing from Another World (1951). The military people tend to be conservative and the scientists liberals. The Air Force people end up destroying the monster while one scientist almost gets them killed trying to communicate with the superior, intelligent (and extremely violent) alien.

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