What Tom makes me thinking on here is the concept of the hermeneutic circle for interpreting text. By delving into lots of science fiction and/or fantasy literature you as a reader may get a greater understanding of that particular genres cultural origin, its literary historical context and you can get into the psychology of the text and of the author.

An example would be to read The Wheel of Time over and over again to examine and analyse the historical and religious inspirations of the world, its cultures (ex, the Aiel or Seanchan) or in what way Robert Jordan's own personal experiences (f. ex. Vietnam) has influenced the characters morals, ethics, thinking and actions and /or the overarching morals of the world that make people act or think in the way they do. Another thing you can do is to try to disect the concept of good and evil and in what way it manifests itself in the Wheel of Time. Just an example.

This way of approaching texts can be applied to probably all texts and the texts within a particular established and defined genre (if those exist)

This is all fine and can act to strengthen your intellectual understanding of a text or genre. The problem arises when you seldom diverge from a given text or genre. And just like Tom said there is nothing wrong with enjoying novels or movies within a particular genre or of a certain kind (ex. romance or action).

By broadening your horizons to genres you never usually visit you also broaden your intellectual understanding. By broadening into all sorts of genres, if only by a little, and into non-fiction (for ex. sociology, chemistry, history, mathematics, social science, religion etc) you gain a greater understanding of what the world is and why it works the way it does. And the same can be applied to literature if you get into several different genres.

To do the above example with the Wheel of Time you need to get into some philosophy, history, psychology, sociology etc, to be able to do that kind of analysis. Literature, for instance, cannot be explained solely through sci-fi, since it consists of so many other parts.

If you read works from different genres and non-fiction then you can see more of what the world of literature looks like, for example, its historical and ethical contexts and you can see why the genre of (ex. sci-fi) looks and works the way it does.

Of course there are books, movies, music and genres of these that we all enjoy maybe a little more than we do the others but like Tom said:



I couldn't agree more!

I hope this makes any sense.