“Science fiction represents how people in the present feel about the future,” Robinson says. “That’s why ‘big ideas’ were prevalent in the 1930s, ’40s and partly in the ’50s. People felt the future would be better, one way or another. Now it doesn’t feel that way. Rich people take nine-tenths of everything and force the rest of us to fight over the remaining tenth, and if we object to that, we are told we are espousing class warfare and are crushed. They toy with us for their entertainment, and they live in ridiculous luxury while we starve and fight each other. This is what The Hunger Games embodies in a narrative, and so the response to it has been tremendous, as it should be.”As it should be.
If schools can help young adults process the reason why the narrative strikes a chord and translate that recognition into civic engagement, they'll be fulfilling one of their purposes. So, instead we see concerted efforts to grind down the teachers, steal from public education to persuade parents send their kids to charter schools, and breed a generation ready accept to their roles as playthings of the idle rich ...
