Rant: Elitism

There is a problem in science fiction: a current of righteous, exclusivist superiority. The sf community considers itself enlightened in a way that the rest of the world may never attain. It's true that most new technologies have been written about in sf for decades, so the questions they pose do not take any sf fan by surprise. E.g., the ethical implications of cloning were explored in myriad stories, long before cloning became a reality.

That should not cause sf fans to feel smugly superior. The sf community is not better than the rest of the world. It is neither at the forefront of technological breakthroughs nor a driving force for social change. It is a niche literary genre that is fast developing an insular, ivory-tower elitism--an elitism just as destructive and self-defeating as the elitism of the literary fiction that sf writers and fans so often sneer at. It may be too late. sf is no longer relevant, if indeed it ever was.