Ordo Xenos

Today I wanted to explain why I was so mad at a book I recently read, but in order to properly explain my reaction I would have had to include a big info dump on aliens in sci-fi. Rather than put that in the middle of the other post, I figured I could cheat and get two posts out of it by talking about aliens separately. That way I stretch my material and feel like I'm accomplishing something.

            

 Science Fiction deals with aliens so often that they've become something of a signifier for the genre as a whole (like robots and ray-guns). As soon as you see aliens, you know you've got some sci-fi on your hands. It's no surprise, then, that the depiction of alien species in fiction has taken on certain iconic forms that we can make generalizations about. I've decided, from my own experience, that there are four major categories of aliens in sci-fi, and I'm just going to talk about my observations as briefly as I can. These categories are by no means exhaustive, nor are they meant to be exclusive. Some depictions can be included in a number of these groups, or none. They're just some generalizations I've made to help me think about plot elements, characters, and other aspects of this genre that I read so much.

           

 My list of categories is: 1) The Unknowable Intelligence; 2) The Anthropogenic Lesson; 3) The Implacable Foe; 4) The Thought Experiment. If you think I missed something, let me know. I'd be interested to hear your take on it.

1) The Unknowable Intelligence is a species that has progressed so far beyond us that we can never truly understand their motives, thoughts, or abilities. Think of the planet from Solaris, Q from Star Trek, or the monolith makers from 2001. These kinds of aliens are usually used either to explore the limits of human abilities and intelligence, or to make some kind of point about communication or incommensurability. Sometimes they're godlike and remote; other times they're meddlesome and contradictory. Either way, there's always something fundamental about them that humans find it impossible to come to terms with or to comprehend. I think my favourite from this category, though it's not an "intelligence" per se, really more of a force of nature, is the Shrike from Dan Simmons' Hyperion series. It's a terrifying being that attacks people, seemingly at random, impaling them on a gigantic tree of thorns while guided by some unknown logic or plan. It may not even really be an alien, but I'm going to include it here anyways since it's such a compelling character.

2) The Anthropogenic Lesson is a kind of alien that is more or less obviously meant to represent a specific, real-life, human group, race, religion, or organization. Aliens like this are usually used to instantly clue-in readers to the author's agenda. By representing a group that readers are already familiar with, the author can play on any number of inbuilt assumptions that the reader may already hold. Really simplistic versions of this kind of alien can be seen week after week on Star Trek, but many authors are far more skilled at making them meaningful and complex. Just look at the Oankali from Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy; they deftly reflect the kind of cultural assumptions that European slave owners had about African people, and treat humans with the same sort of paternalistic disdain (well, most of them do). By using an alien species to represent a specific group of real people, sci-fi authors are able to endow controversial and emotionally charged ideas with enough distance to explore them without resorting to polemic. When done right (like the Oankali) the results can be spectacular.

3) The Implacable Foe is the alien from any number of war or action based books and movies. Think Wells' Martians or Niven'sKzinti. Some of these aliens do nothing more than drive the plot along, while others are intentionally simplistic in order to help focus the story on the "good guys" and the ways in which they deal with conflict. Romero's zombies are a good example of this second type of alien (despite not being aliens) since they are inherently uncharacterizable, allowing Romero to spend most of his efforts providing us with excellent character explorations of his human protagonists. Other times, these aliens are far more terrifying and insidious. My favourite of all is the Xenomorph from the Alien franchise, though I'll probably discuss what I think about its meaning and cultural significance another time. Essentially, Implacable Foes can be either really silly or really useful, and which of these they are is dependent on the author.

4) The Thought Experiment is the kind of alien that harks back to the Golden Age of sci-fi, when the literature as a whole was defined as a literature of ideas. These are the "what if" aliens that let authors exercise their imaginations in creating new, yet believable, species based on a different set of initial conditions. Some of the very best alien species fit into this category, as do some of the strangest. Larry Niven seems to really like this kind of alien, constantly asking himself what a species would be like if they had a different biochemistry, or if herd-living herbivores developed intelligence, or maybe if they could control other sentient beings through telepathy (The last one is great. Niven's Thrint can control other beings with their minds, resulting in a society of aliens who can do nothing for themselves, and never really evolved to be very smart at all. Imagine what a race would be like if they never did a single practical thing for themselves.). Orson Scott Card's Piggies fit into this category, as do Ursula Le Guin's Gethenians, even though they're sort of humanish (maybe). One of my favourite in this category is Mary Doria Russell's Runa and Jana'ata from The Sparrow. Here she describes an intelligent herbivore and an intelligent carnivore that feeds on them, and does it way, way better than Wells did with his Morlocks and Eloi. Thought experiment aliens can be incredibly, and really highlight some of the very best aspects of the literature as a whole.

           

 Anyways, those are my categories, and they're totally based on my own individual experience of reading science fiction. Let me know if you have ideas, new categories, or even just want to talk about some of your favourites.

And don't forget, the true journey is a return.

To Own or Not To Own

The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin

        Every so often I read a novel that affects me so deeply, both emotionally and intellectually, that I think about it for months or even years after finishing it. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin is the most recent novel that has burned itself indelibly into my mind. This could very well be the best novel I have ever read, and I implore you all to go out and buy it immediately.  It really is that good.

            

           The Dispossessed is something of a bildungsroman about a physicist named Shevek who lives on a world of self-exiled anarchists called Anarres. In years past, followers of the anarchist prophet  Odo managed to escape the beautiful yet materialistic world of Urras, founding a new and revolutionary society on Urras' moon. Shevek, a man who is equal parts idealistic, brilliant, and naive,  has developed a new theory of space-time that will allow humans to build faster-than-light starships, but his world has neither the resources nor the desire to do anything about it. Driven by his conviction that such a discovery should be shared, Shevek decides to travel to Urras, a world that has become a byword for greed and oppression on Anarres, but a world that offers his only hope of sharing his theory with people who can use it.

            

           A novel as complex as The Dispossessed explores dozens of themes, ideas, and emotions. Rather than treat them all superficially, I want to focus on two of the book's prominent topics: the idea of possessions, and the concept of walls and isolation.  Le Guin skillfully weaves these two themes into all aspects of her story, though it is with Shevek himself that their portrayal is most poignantly felt.

            

          Every person on Anarres is, technically, an exile.  While their own histories recount their glorious revolution and flight from the hedonistic world of Urras, it becomes clear later in the book that the Odonians were essentially given ships and passage to Anarres by the Urrasti ruling class in order to put an end to their constant rabble-rousing and disruption.  Though most take pleasure in their new, incredibly free, world, the Anarresti have been forced to build a society completely lacking in the kind of historical and cultural roots that people can hold on to as part of their collective identities.  The mutual anarchism they profess only works when all society's members interact and cooperate as a group, but the total freedom from laws and prescriptive (or proscriptive) rules means that each and every man and woman on Anarres is subject, ultimately, to their own conscience.  The loneliness and personal responsibility characteristic of exiled individuals is here expressed by an entire civilization that must work together to survive, but on an entire voluntary basis.  Despite its collective nature, Anarresti society is one built on subtle walls that separate individuals, ideas, and places from one another.

           

          Nowhere are these walls more apparent than around the single spaceport that links Urras and Anarres.  Le Guin begins the book by describing this wall in what could be my favourite opening to any sci-fi novel.  I'm going to quote it at length since I cannot possibly paraphrase it in a way that does and justice to Le Guin's prose:

"There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, an idea of boundary. But the idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had been nothing in the world more important than that wall.

Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended on which side you were on.

Looked at from one side, the wall enclosed a barren sixty-acre field called the Port of Anarres...Looked at from the other side, the wall enclosed Anarres: the whole planet inside it, a great prison camp, cut off from other worlds and other men, in quarantine."

             

          Shevek constantly encounters these subtle, yet very real, walls as he pursues his studies in theoretical physics.  Unfortunately, he finds the most impenetrable wall at the one place that he desperately needs total freedom: the university in Abennay, Anarres' biggest city.  Rather than nurture his obvious brilliance, the university bureaucracy, led by the inferior physicist Sabul, slowly and subtly ostracizes Shevek, eventually leading to his alienation from the world he loves, and to his flight to Urras.  Le Guin skilfully reveals the barriers that we build between one another while keeping her characters blind to them.  All Shevek understands is that he has become an exile within his exiled society, alienated from the castaways.  So, he decides to cross the low stone wall at the spaceport and leave the home where he no longer belongs.

            

           The incident at the university also brings into focus the theme of possessions, and our servitude to them, that forms one of the major bases of Urrasti/Anarresti difference.  Not only do the Anarresti not own things, but a disdain for ownership is one of their most important core beliefs.  Their economy is completely moneyless, people are assigned homes and jobs for short periods of time, names are recycled after a person's death, and even the language they speak has no word denoting ownership (rather than say "my hand" or "my mother" an Anarresti would say "the hand" or "the mother").  The notion that owning goods eventually leads to the goods owning you is considered proverbial and uncontroversial to the Anarresti.  While this may appear to be an overdone cliché to modern readers, its basic truth cannot be justifiably denied.  The pursuit and protection of our possessions severely limits our freedom of action in a multitude of ways, some mundane, some significant.  This limiting of personal freedom is abhorrent to the Anarresti, and they go out of their way to avoid it at all costs.

             

          The societal urge to do away with material possessions, however, leaves the Anarresti completely blind to a whole other class of goods that I'd like to call "metaphorical possessions."  Metaphorical possessions are not moveable goods or real estate, but our "ownership" of them places substantial limits to our freedom in the same sort of ways as physical goods.  The kind of things I classify under this category are abilities or circumstances that others could covet or feel jealous of, and which we would feel proud or protective of.  Examples include inherent abilities, social status, job positions, friends, families, and spouses, or anything else we consider to be "ours." While the Anarresti have successfully done away with materialism, their society suffers from this cultural blind spot.  They cannot, and do not, perceive the inherent coercive nature of their metaphorical possessions.  This is why Shevek suffers so much at the hands of Sabul at the university.  He fails to grasp the fact that Sabul is jealous of his intellect and protective of his own job.  This is not surprising given Shevek's very Odonian notion of ownership; he believes quite strongly that "you have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give," and it is his devotion to this revolutionary ideal that prevents him from seeing through the wall of ideology and into his neighbours' hearts.

             

          Interestingly enough, Shevek's major conflict is centred around a possession that, depending on the society in which it exists, can be considered both material or metaphorical: his new theory of Simultaneity and Sequency that will make possible faster-than-light travel.  On Anarres Shevek makes major life choices based on the desire to share this theory with humanity as a whole.  Owning it all to himself  makes Shevek noticeably uncomfortable, but he constantly encounters walls that prevent him from sharing this gift with his people.  When he goes to Urras he comes to realize that even his intellectual production will be treated as a proprietary good by whomever he reveals it to, and will benefit only one nation or political group, forcing him to again reappraise his goals and motives.  At every step of the way his actions are both limited and determined by his possession of this theory, a situation that poignantly reveals the barriers and obstacles presented by any incomplete and ideologically-based conception of ownership.  In the end, Shevek does manage to free himself from his own self-made chains by giving his theory to humanity in general, allowing him to return home as a perfectly free Anarresti.  As the Anarresti are fond of saying, "a true journey is return."

            
          I don't think this little bit of discussion can do justice to Le Guin's supremely nuanced and compelling depiction of an "ambiguous utopia."  In fact, I've completely left out all the aspects that make it so emotionally satisfying as well.  It's so good that it has finally surpassed Dune as my favourite sci-fi novel.  For any of you who have heard me talk about sci-fi, you'll know that's a big deal.  Anyways, I hope I have inspired at least some of you to go read it.  It will be well worth your time, I promise.  And anyone who has read it, please let me know your thoughts.  Don't let some symbolic wall stand in your way.

Old Posts Give me Motivation

I want to get going on this thing again, but I feel like nothing I write is worth posting. In order to motivate me to get off my ass and start thinking again, I've decided to repost something from a few years ago. Hopefully seeing it here will shame me into adding something new. So, here goes:  

Soccer and North American Misunderstandings Wednesday, October 6, 2010. The World Cup ended almost three months ago. The final witnessed arguably the best team in the world putting on a master class in possession football that frustrated their opponents to the point of violence. The game’s only goal was a technically perfect strike by one of the most intelligent and tactically-minded players on the pitch. With the lottery of penalty kicks only moments away, Andres Iniesta floated behind the Dutch defenders and suddenly found himself with yards of open space. Cesc Fabregas pulled away with the ball and found Iniesta with a quick pass that left four defenders scrambling to catch the tiny Spaniard, who showed tremendous mental strength. Rather than allow himself to be awed by the occasion or intimidated by the attentions of half the Dutch team, Iniesta calmly controlled the ball and put away the most important goal of his life. You can watch it here.

At least, that is how I remember the World Cup’s final match. For a number of North Americans the final did nothing but reaffirm the reasons they dislike soccer in the first place. I was shocked to discover that many of my friends’ experiences of the match were vastly different from my own. Apparently, they saw a long and uneventful game that was plagued by diving, cheating, and play-acting. Iniesta, rather than being feted as a genius, was derided as the worst of a bad lot, and despised as a cheat, a con-man, a fraudster. Listening to our differing accounts, one would be forgiven for assuming that my friends and I had watched two different games. In a way, they would be right. My friends and I did see wildly different World Cup finals, and I’d like to try and examine why. Actually, that may not be entirely true. I probably will not examine this phenomenon in any sort of critical manner. My reluctance to do so is based on the very simple explanation I have to offer. I think we saw different matches because we are steeped in vastly dissimilar sporting cultures that owe allegiance to entirely irreconcilable sets of values. The banality of that explanation leaves little to examine. Instead, I think I would like to emphasize some of the various aspects of the World Cup that engendered particularly jarring instances of culture shock, both for me and for my friends who watch North American sports. What I want to do is go through some of these topics and give you my evaluation of our disparate value systems. Hopefully this will enlighten my friends as to why we cannot see eye-to-eye on these issues, and maybe help them to understand the game that the majority of the world feels so passionate about.

Diving/Cheating/Violence: The most common criticism I hear from my football and hockey watching friends is that soccer cannot be taken seriously as long as players fall around on the field pretending to be hurt. Diving, to them, is not only a serious moral offense, but also undermines the very integrity of the sport. I would like to defend the persistence of diving in soccer by highlighting the sheer silliness of the moral high ground taken by North American sporting culture. Whenever I’m confronted by the diving=cheating argument, I always stop to ask exactly what it is a professional athlete is being paid to do. The answer seems simple, right? They’re paid to play a sport that both we as fans, and they as players, love, so that we may be entertained. But this answer is slightly deficient. What athletes are really being paid to do is WIN. Organized sports are specifically designed to be a competition with clear winners and losers. This has significant consequences for the economics of sport. People want their team to win and hate being on the losing side. Teams that do well attract fans, bringing in more money with which the team can purchase or pay better talent, hopefully leading to further victories and the perpetuation of the cycle. Losing teams often see their finances dwindle as fans become apathetic or disillusioned. Winning, then, is arguably the goal of any sports team. These teams pay their players not to play a game, but to win a game. All other concerns are secondary, as could be expected from any company competing for its very survival. Diving is an activity meant specifically to achieve victory under difficult circumstances. In effect, a player that dives is doing nothing more than fulfilling the obligations of his contract. Yes, it’s against the rules, and it’s also probably morally questionable, but so are a number of other activities engaged in by professional athletes in North America that gain no similar notoriety.

Fouling another player is illegal in basketball, tripping is illegal in hockey, and holding a player’s helmet is illegal in football. All these activities are attempts to gain an advantage that are against the rules of the game. Each of them are equally morally questionable (as they’re all cheating), and each is punished if the offender is caught. Diving in soccer is no different from any of these rules violations, except in its unfamiliarity to North American audiences (note, I will not discuss the numerous times that basketball and hockey players dive, though it happens a lot more than fans of these sports would like to admit). Simulation, to give it its official name, is thus no more a strike against soccer than tripping is a strike against hockey. Furthermore, though I’ll get into this more another time, questioning the moral standing of divers is downright ridiculous. We don’t pay athletes to teach us moral lessons, we pay them to win. Apparently people are still confused about this point.

A second, and probably more fruitful way to defend diving is to equate it with fighting in hockey. This may sound silly at first, but both serve, or have served, the exact same purpose: protecting star players from injury. What many casual viewers of hockey don’t seem to realize is that fighting plays an integral role in the game. Most players understand that taking out the opposing team’s star player is a great way to increase your chance of winning. Additionally, it is often the case that any kind of penalty would be seen as worth the effort if a particularly good player could be injured or intimidated to the point of ineffectiveness. To combat this, hockey teams began to designate fighters to enforce a code of honour on opposing players. Take one too many liberties with a star player and you’d find yourself getting punched out by some goon. Until recently, this served to keep many of the rowdier players in check, and protect stars such as Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. Unfortunately, stricter rules against fighting have resulted in a greater number of injuries to star players, as the old codes no longer hold. But I digress. My point is that diving in soccer is also a means of protecting players from injury. Let me explain by using the World Cup final as a case study.

One team (Spain) uses its superior ball handling and passing skills to retain possession of the ball for extended periods of time. Alternately, a star player often uses his skills to run past or dodge around opponents, making them look inept or silly. The other team (The Netherlands) gets frustrated, tired, or both, resulting in a large number of violent, dangerous, or intentionally mistimed tackles (Witness Nigel de Jong’s kick on Xabi Alonso during the first half).  If such play, which is equally as illegal and morally abhorrent as diving, goes unpunished by the referee, then the finesse team has to take matters into their own hands. They do this by emphasizing the effects of any subsequent tackles in order to get the referee’s attention and force him to act in their defense. This is also why star players tend to dive more than others; they receive a disproportional amount of mistimed challenges, and are far more likely to be attacked out of frustration as they dribble around an opponent. Diving, in this case, acts exactly as fighting does in hockey. It helps protect players from violent play and potentially career-ending injuries. The moral argument should even come down on the side of diving in this instance. A simulated fall is far less morally abhorrent than a karate-style kick to a star player’s chest.

So, I argue that diving is a legitimate strategy aimed at protecting players from injury, and not just some silly affectation that seems to make sense to people everywhere but here. Hopefully this discussion has led you to question any notions you may have had about diving in soccer and its actual role in the game. Until next time, Forza Juventus per sempre!