More science fiction discussion
Re-read ‘odd John” by Olaf Stapledon last night. Moderately well written, really, for it’s genre- but it has one of the classic faults of science fiction of it’s time.
That fault- and one that is prevalent in a LOT of SF, is that there is some belief that man will become “civilized”- in other words, man will eventually put away his weapons of war and cease to fight.
This of course is abject bullshit. It’s not quite reason for me to toss the book repeatedly against a wall, but it’s bullshit. Man will always fight. Nothing will ever stop that.
This came through in Star Trek: The Next Generation. When the series started off, the Federation was this wonderful benevolent socialist organization that turned everything it touched to gold. A few years in, however, “man will be man” came through. The Federation was a corrupt, meddlesome organization more interested in politics than anything else. It’s like the writers realized “this crap will never work”. Perhaps they were watching the UN…
Men will fight, certainly, but there’s at least a dim prospect that we might become civilized enough to unlearn mass slaughters and wars. I don’t say we’re anywhere near that at this time, but I’m not ready to say such an evolution will never happen.
Sure. But as long as there is greed, or covetousness, or any other of the sins that cause us to bend our will against our brother, man will fight. It would be good to stop commiting war- it would never be good to UNLEARN it. IMHO.
To me, the most sensible takes on violence and humanity’s spread through the galaxy come from Larry Niven. Early on, he did a story about how the first humans to make contact were in an “unarmed” science vessel and came across an alien species with whom they could not communicate — let alone discern its intentions.
Very quickly, those peace-loving science types came face-to-face with some unpleasant realities. Like… what if these guys follow us home? What if they’ve already figured out where we come from? What if their intentions are hostile and we can’t tell until it’s too late?
Don’t remember the name of the story, but I’d bet it’s in the early Known Space collections from the ’70s.
M
I think the issue Fran, is where we choose sides. If we act as if it is possible or impossible.
If you believe it is possible then you will behave in a manner consistant with that, choosing on the side of public policy with that as achievable.
If you don’t believe that, then you will build into your public policy decisions a safety net, and dismiss public policy that doesn’t take that into account.
It is, in my opinion, a pervasive (and all encompassing) divide in the way people approach matters. It is what allows socialists to believe that socialism will work because people will behave in an ideal way, and not be driven by selfish motives. It also pervades the other extreme, where all people will act responsibly without any threat of force or repercussions for failing to do so, where all men are leaders and champions and there are no followers or cowards.
The idea that mankind will learn to solve differences through government meddling and diplomatic posturing is prevalent in most new science fiction. I used to love to read it; I discovered early that a lot of really GOOD writing was written in the Fantasy/SciFi genres. Unfortunately, I have to take back that evaluation and replace it with a sad acceptance that even speculative fiction is susceptible these days to the meddling by sanctimonious do-gooders masquerading as writers. Sigh…
One ray of hope is in the number of wars that have been fought between capitolist democracies. It’s come close sometimes, but the number is zero.
I see conflict in inherint to the the human species. But like all good predators we have ways to control the manner in which the conflict is carried out.
Also, Mr. Mark Alger, I can’t recall the title of that story either. But, if I recall correctly, the punchline to it was that the so very peaceful humans used their communications laser, a laser intended to communicate at interstellar distances, to slize the alien ship to bits.
It doesn’t bother me that men will always fight.
I only hope that it’s the good men who win.