finality

Setting out to explore the unknown.
The domination of one class by another.
An authoritarian state.
Revolution.
How we justify our actions.
Religion, and its uses.
The concept of the self.
The male/female divide.
What it is to be human.
The right of creation.
The importance of symbols.
Coping with the actions we can't justify.
The threat of what is different.
The need for what is different.
The urge to destroy what is different.
The urge to understand what is different.
Cannibalism.
The meaning of faith.
The clash of cultures.
The power of forgiveness.
The search for meaning.

These are all themes we've explored this semester, in the readings and in the movies. Universal, general themes that tie our own experiences to the fantastic worlds presented, that allow us to relate to what we read and watch on a very basic level. Allow me to do it all at once.

Abroham looked with terror at the body of his son-construct Izak. He had followed the instructions of the Book to the letter; he had opened the case and removed Izak's nanochips, installed them in himself and waited for the clarity that was supposed to arise. All he felt was revulsion for the human female who had given him the Book, promising that it would restore both he and Izak to their fullest capabilities if they would obey its words. Wildly, he cast his transceiver in every direction, but there was no response from his child; no soul had left the body to be with God, as the woman had promised.
Abroham came to a decision. He summoned his servants, small mammalian creatures with nanochips embedded in their minds which enabled him to control them via his transceiver. After they polished his chassis, he made his way to the jump-pod he kept in a storage shed. He set the coordinates for the site the woman claimed to have made her camp at, in the midst of a forest that Abroham had never even seen. Upon arrival, he eschewed subtlety and tore his way through the trees, intent on finding her as quickly as possible.
Before long, the noise he was making attracted her. She emerged from a copse clad only in white robes, beaming at him.
"Hello, Abroham." Ruth said. "How is Izak?"
"Dead, woman." responded the bereaved father-maker. "He did not rise again, as you claimed. He was not spared." His servos whirred, the better to express his rage, but she did not seem to understand.
"Abroham, I think you misunderstood me." she intoned. "Izak is not to rise in this life, but in the next, and live forever! What you did is the cornerstone of my people's culture, the beginning of the awakening, the glorious covenant-"
"Silence, woman! My son-construct is gone. Who, now, will repair my couplings when I am failing? Who will tend my electric sheep once I have crashed?"
For once, Ruth appeared confused. "Where I come from, Abroham, the government endorses this practice. In my homeland, it is necessary that we give up the firstborn son, as a symbol of our belief and faith."
Abroham ejected oil in derision. "Izak was not born, woman. I designed and built him, to be the perfect replacement for me. We are not a people of faith. Our government does not require any shows of belief. We are a people of what is here and what is real."
Ruth smiled. "God is real, Abroham. God appreciates your sacrifice, even if your government does not. And perhaps such a government is not the right one for you, if it does not even respect what you give up for it?"
Abroham's diodes flashed with suspicion. "Was this sacrifice for your God, or for my government?"
Again, Ruth's mysterious, knowing smile. "For me, they are the same. If it is not so for you, then I suggest you consider a change of government."
Abroham set himself down, heavily. He suddenly felt very obsolete. "I still don't understand, woman. Why did you make me do this? Why have I scrapped my son?" He turned his transceiver to stare at her, and was surprised to see that she had placed her hand on his chassis.
"What you are, and what I am, and what Izak was, Abroham," she said, "these are all a part of the same great thing. Izak has merely rejoined it a bit earlier. And now you will prosper, under the guidance of God."
Abroham shook his head, using a gesture he had seen her use when disagreeing with him. "You misunderstand, woman. You misunderstand what making him cost me. Following you and your God has doomed my model. I just want to know why it works for you, but not for me. Why does your God save your children, but not mine?"
It was now Ruth's turn to shake her head. "Our children die as well, but we have more, and we prosper. As shall you, Abroham!"
Abroham felt his servos shutting down in despair. "No, Ruth, no! We do not have others! We are dependent on one, and I have made a terrible mistake."
Ruth pressed herself against his body, sending his temperature controls momentarily active as they sought to protect her from his internal heat. "God will forgive you, Abroham. He loves you, and you have shown that you love him. God will forgive you, as I do. Now you must forgive yourself."
"I have scrapped my son-construct, then taken parts of him into me. I will not forgive myself."
"You must."
"I cannot."

Whoa, Hold on people

After reading through a bunch of the other blog posts, I'm struck with a horrible thought: you're largely a bunch of moral relativists! I cannot have this; this will not stand. Let's get a few things out of the way.

1. The moral of the story is "be suspicious of your own certainty." Russell says so in the Reader's Guide at the end. I'm glad we worked that out.

2. Russell's answer to "does the end justify the means?" is "No!" (Seriously, with the exclamation point and everything). Which leads me to my next point...

3. Ex post facto rationalization. Russell goes out of her way to leave the question of divine intervention a question; if The Sparrow is the story of a man losing his faith, Children of God is about him fighting to get it back, using whatever weapons he has at his disposal. Sandoz is the kind of man who is constantly trying to make the best of a bad situation, even joking around with his captors on the Giordano Bruno. It's natural for him to seek sense in the bad things around him, and from the moment he goes of Quell, you can observe him steadily reconstructing a mental framework that has room for God.

Several times Sandoz makes sardonic comments hinting at atheism, but it's always clear that these are mere jokes to him. His need for a God who understands and loves him, not to mention wouldn't torture him needlessly, are so strong that I believe he would take any evidence he could find to justify his own experiences.

If Isaac didn't exist, then Sandoz would have to find his music elsewhere. And he would, even if it would be in a different form.

4. To anyone who thought the ending wrapped things up too neatly: are you sick? Do you hate Sandoz even more than Russell does? Give the man a break!

P.S. Did anybody else catch shades of Dune in here? The ideological differences between mother and child, the lack of appropriate monitoring in the south, groups of nomadic warriors...now that I think of it, the same intercultural communicative aspects exist in both sets of books, but Dune glosses them over by making it so the main characters don't really have any trouble communicating. Curse these prevalent themes!



And now, to mix things up, some Sparrow/Children of God superlatives.

Most Likely to Possess an Unexpected but Necessary Skill
John Candotti

Most Likely to be Beautiful After Being Put Through a Meat Grinder
Sofia Mendes

Most Unfinished Business
Supaari VaHaptaa
(r/u Vincenzo Giuliani)

Most Underused Unintentionally Hilarious Character
Jholaa
(r/u Edward Behr)

Most Testosterone
Djalao

Most Conceited Death
Hlavin Kitheri

Most Salami
Nico D'Angeli

Most Unrelatable
Danny Iron Horse

Most Reliant on Silver Linings
Emilio Sandoz

Requiem for a Genoan

I'll be the first to admit it; I'm a proud apologist for Columbus. My analysis of his actions as described in Todorov and his own travel journals aside, I can't help but be taken in by the romance of risking everything to explore distant lands.

Last semester, a resolution went through the Undergraduate Senate here at AU that basically sought to condemn Columbus for actions that lead to genocide. I was taken aback by the nature of this resolution, knowing as I did that Columbus would have been aghast at the idea of purposefully obliterating an entire race of people. I argued with several Student Senators, finally bringing some around with examples of Columbus' love of nature, but it was pretty shocking how uninformed the majority of people generally were concerning the facts of Columbus' voyages.

Then again, how much knowledge is enough? What is the magic point when you know enough to condemn someone? If understanding leads to love, then we choose not to understand someone when we judge them. A judgment represents a conscious decision to disregard an individual's defense of his own actions, and to hold him to a separate standard than that which he holds for himself.

Even though I wanted to tell these people that they were wrong about Columbus, I realized it was futile. Their arguments, after all, were basically irrational; they were condemning actions which had been a direct influence on their own existences. I was stunned by the absurdity of individuals wearing American flag pins castigating Columbus, as though the country they love could exist in its present shape without him. Madness.

The Structure of Todorov

I touched on this in my wiki post on Todorov; I'm very fascinated by the meaning behind the order in which he chose to discuss the various conquistadors/priests. The way he leads us through the progression of European understanding of the Indians is especially interesting considering the multiple spectra they each occupy. Love for the Indians, understanding of them, the ability to recognize value in those who are different, the ability to use or interpret signs; Todorov creates a highway of meaning, but it is an ironic one. As understanding of the Indians increases, we move further and further away from the time of their prominence (and eventually from their existence).

We can posit a critical moment in history when scholars like Sahagun have maximized their knowledge and understanding, but the Indians themselves are on the verge of disappearing (either from being slaughtered, dying of sickness, or interbreeding with the colonists/slaves). What information might have existed in this last moment? Of course, I'm assuming a knowledge on the part of the scholars that never existed. We can only ponder what has been lost.

Affirmative Action in Space

We didn't have time to discuss it in class, but I wanted to raise an important issue that nobody else seemed to consider in staffing their expeditions. Is it important for us to stock our ship with a racially and sexually diverse staff?

It makes sense to me that the team we send isn't only important in its capacity to keep themselves alive and interface with the aliens; they are equally important in the impression they give of us as a species. Are you comfortable, then, with the idea of the aliens imagining us as a bunch of white guys?

Your first instinct is to say "well, whoever is the most skilled at each necessary position." A fair argument, but what if you have two people who would be equally suited to the task, only one is white, and the other black? Do you follow the path of fairness - deciding randomly - or make the choice that better represents our diversity (and out identity) as a species?

Same goes for male-female; in the book, Voelker (eternal scum as he is portrayed) claims that the greatest mistake was in sending women along on the mission. Would you be too worried about the possible relationships that could develop and harm the mission, or the possibility of pregnancy? Or would you rather represent our species properly, as sexually dimorphic but otherwise, ceteris parabus, equals?

a sparrow's chance in hell

To begin, I'd like to say that my favorite line in The Sparrow comes from Father General Guiliani on page 402. After reading through the terrible account of Emilio's final months on Rakhat, I was as emotionally strung out as possible. Then, in response to a simile supposing Emilio had fallen in love with God, comes the following:

"'Offhand,' said the Father General wearily, in a voice dry as August grass, 'I'd say the honeymoon is over.'"

I found this line to be cathartic, a sort of rationalization of everything that had happened in the book to that point. It really cast into relief the meaning of a relationship one has with God...Todorov discusses the impossibility of two-way communication with the supernatural (sorry to refer to something we haven't yet read as a class), but one may interpret nearly anything as a sign from God, and who is Todorov to declare that it isn't? Reality is, at best, defined by our ability to perceive it.

I don't feel qualified to wade into the sort of mucky theological discussions that could emerge from this incredibly dense and complex book. My original plan was to write a section about the religious elements and then a separate section about the sci-fi elements of the novel, but then it occurred to me that the only other The Sparrow post up now features that same distinction, and I assume many others will too. Therefore, I think I'd rather consider the religious and sci-fi elements as all-of-a-kind; after all, we had no problem with it in Dune, where the religious and technological had mixed over millennia. The fact that this book opens approximately ten years from now should serve as no obstacle in this regard.

In case you didn't catch the reading group questions, I'd like to take an excerpt to set the groundwork for Earth circa 2019. This is from section 2:

"This story takes place from the years 2019 to 2060. The United States is no longer the predominant world power, having lost two trade wars with Japan, which is now supreme in both space and on Earth. Poverty is rampant. Indentured servitude is once more a common practice, and "future brokers" mine ghettos for promising children to educate in return for a large chunk of their lifetime income."

By 2060, it is strongly implied, the Earth is straining to support its population of 16 billion. On page 379, Emilio points out the suffering of children as the price humanity pays for individual freedoms. The strict population controls on Rakhat may be horrible, he admits, but at least they do not allow for the starvation of the impoverished. Indeed, it seems that the technological developments on Earth even at that point cannot compensate for the burdens of the masses, as humanity must turn to space to gather enough minerals to support industry. The Jesuits are strong, so Earth apparently retains its spiritual hunger. The citizens of Rakhat, on the other hand, seem to be completely occupied by material concerns; the Runa cannot really imagine anything else, and the Jana'ata are, for the most part, too worried about status (presumably so that they will be able to reproduce) to waste much time thinking about their souls. With one visible exception, even their art is purely hedonistic or practical. Their songs are used to coordinate hunting or to commemorate a particularly memorable tryst. The only exception is the bizarre liquid-painting ritual the Marc observes, which may or may not be a form of worship; Russell never touches on it again.

Although Russell's idea for this novel came from the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage, the differences are immense. Although Columbus explicitly set out to convert other civilizations to Christianity, the Jesuits are on no Mission to Rakhat. As far as we are told, the only time any member of the expedition hopes that any of the aliens may worship God is Emilio immediately before he is first raped.

Really, though, I was surprised at how unlike us these aliens were (concerning religion), considering how ridiculously similar they wound up being in many other ways. I was disappointed by the physiological similarities, especially in terms of nourishment. Having heard about scurvy throughout the bookout, I was hoping that some aspect of the team's diet would be the cause, that I could see something uniquely alien. But it was not to be; while some foods tasted good or bad, it was almost all food, and easily digested by humans at that. My disappointment extended to the immediate physical similarity of the aliens to certain Earth species, their apparently entirely verbal language, their possession of identical sets of emotional responses (right down to, I was horrified to read, laughing!). The differences weren't sharp enough to cause me to feel that this was something alien; rather, we entered Uncanny Valley territory, something human but slightly off. The sad part is that the similarity wasn't obvious right away. Only after learning a little bit about the Jana'ata did I realize we were basically the same, with just a few deviations.

I could have felt joy at the idea that we share so much with these aliens. Unfortunately, I had gotten myself so psyched up over the idea of aliens being truly "different" from us that I found the slightest similarity grating (which isn't to say that the similarities I found were only slight!) Here I'm reminded of the Mulefa creatures from the His Dark Materials series, which lived in a world that had taken an entirely different morphological path in its evolution than our vertebrate history. They were sentient, but communicated physically and verbally at the same time, making it difficult for humans to replicate their language accurately. That is the kind of different alien I was hoping for! Not a bunch of sociopathic ecology nuts in cat suits.

Lastly, I feel that the major thing that caused the expedition to go wrong was its assumption that it would meet with a more intelligent species than humanity, whereas the residents of Rakhat are clearly our technological inferiors. Next time, let's hope they send some sort of vast warship filled to the brim with gung-ho space marines, to better interface with the enemyaliens.

P.S. Did anyone else see any similarities between the Jana'ata and the Ssi-ruuk? Just asking.

Genetic Instinct

Please note that this post has been updated; the third paragraph is new.

The moral component of our discussion in class was founded on intelligence. Specifically, the military intelligence to know whether the buggers had truly realized their mistake and would never attack us again, to know whether the I.F. had made any further attempts to contact the buggers once the ansible was developed (more on this later!), and whether Ender still would have been able to defeat the buggers had he known what he was doing.

Those less squeamish of us, who were willing to act in spite of our acknowledged lack of necessary facts, were not willing to take a risk where the continued existence of humanity was concerned. Although many people disagreed with this position, I don't remember hearing a cohesive argument to the contrary; instead, many people argued that more intelligence was needed, that they wouldn't be able to make a decision given only the information the I.F. claims to have had, or that wiping out another species entirely is just wrong.

Many of you argued that it would be important to know that an attempt at contact had been made; however, if you check out the Ansible entry in the Wikipedia page Concepts in the Ender's Game Series, you'll see that Card's ansible is explicitly designed like a set of two walkie talkies that are attuned to each other; the design prohibits two ansibles that are not constructed at the same time from communicating. Therefore, communication with the buggers through the ansible, based on Card's internally consistent technology, is impossible, and the I.F. would have known this, and decided accordingly.

It seemed obvious to me that, given the intelligence available, a war of extinction would be the only viable choice. That's why I was so very fascinated by all of your contrary views on the subject. We discussed it in class, but Graff's quotation deserves to be repeated:

"Ender, believe me, there's a century of discussion on this very subject. Nobody knows the answer. When it comes down to it, though, the real decision is inevitable: If one of us has to be destroyed, let's make damn sure we're the ones alive at the end. Our genes won't let us decide any other way. Nature can't evolve a species that hasn't a will to survive. Individuals might be bred to sacrifice themselves, but the race as a whole can never decide to cease to exist. So if we can we'll kill every last one of the buggers, and if they can they'll kill every last one of us."

According to Graff, individuals can sacrifice themselves, yes, but species cannot decide to stop existing, or as a group agree on a course of action that they know will lead to that outcome. Can an individual, however, decide for the rest of its species whether they can continue existing? Modern technology tells us the answer is yes -- it is (very, very remotely) possible for one person to obtain enough nuclear weaponry to eradicate humanity, if not all at once then at least by thoroughly irradiating the earth and rendering it uninhabitable. That one person can, theoretically, press a button and end our species. But we're discussing making a command decision that bears a risk of the annihilation of the species, rather than a lone madman. So here is the question that ought to be posed to those of you who could not decide to annihilate the buggers:

Do you accept responsibility for the possible death of your entire species?

I can't accept that risk, so I argued that the I.F. made the right decision. How would you argue otherwise?

The psychology of games

Ender's Game. On the surface, it appears to refer to the simulator "game" Ender plays towards the end of the book, in which he unknowingly defeats the Buggers. However, there is also the Battle Room, a grand game that nearly every character in the book plays. And then there's the fantasy game, the pure reflection of Ender's psyche that is the entryway for the Buggers into his mind. Other characters play their games, as well -- Graff's game is the subtle manipulation of Ender into a perfect commander, Peter and Valentine play a game of control over the world.

But the important one is Ender's Game. And which one is it? I think it's primarily meant to be the fantasy game. The fantasy is a sci-fi author's safety valve, where anything is possible without needing to be explained, internal consistency is meaningless, and symbolism is available at whim. This exploration into the inner workings of Ender's mind shows us what he is thinking far better than his internal narration; even when Ender doesn't know why he feels the way he does, we can draw clues from his fantasy world. Every great challenge in Ender's life, each significant turning point is accompanied by progress in this game. By the time he has beaten it, he himself has come to depend on the game to represent and facilitate his emotional development; even his crucial meeting with his sister only provides him with the appropriate weapon to overcome the psychological challenge that awaits him in the mirror.

"But wait," one might ask, "this isn't so cut-and-dried, is it? After all, it's specifically stated that all who enter the game face the same basic tasks; although the game is able to insert personally tailored features, the challenges are always the same. How can every child share the same basic psychological challenges?" Well! You raise an excellent point. But remember: the I.F. knew exactly what kind of child it was looking for. The game wasn't custom-tailored for Ender, but it was custom-tailored so that the child able to beat it would be the one meant to be the commander of the I.F. forces. The reason that every other child at Battle School fails the game is because he or she does not fit the same psychological profile as Ender, which is required before one can win.

The game does not reflect Ender's personality; it reflects the personality of the child who can defeat the Buggers, and that happens to be Ender.

The relative simplicity and heartfelt qualities of Card's writing make it easy to find parallels in other sci-fi works (or maybe elections). To me, the fantasy game begs the following question: do we carve our own paths in life? Or, like Ender, are we simply filling in us-sized holes?

I guess what I'm asking is, "could anyone else have written this blog post?" Could someone who grew up in similar circumstances, with a similar background and repertoire, with similarly minded friends and a similar psychological profile have come up with what I have? Since Professor Jackson can only hope that his students come up with such obviously brilliant points as mine, I'm comforted by the fact that my genius is unexpected. But Ender is explicitly filling a niche, growing into a mold because he is offered no other way to grow. I'd run away, too.

V for Victimhood

I envy all of you who may be reading this for the first time. Sad to say, it just isn't the same the second time around. Where a book like Dune only gains in the rereading, V for Vendetta relies too heavily on twists and sudden reveals, however dramatic they are, to be anywhere near as interesting after the first time. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to enjoy it once again with you.

The character of V is an interesting one, and I'm not referring to the man who was injected with chemicals at a concentration camp. I'm talking about the identity assumed by that man, which he then passes on to Evey. V seeks to create the land of Do-As-You-Please, a place where freedom is the watchword. We can only assume, lacking evidence to the contrary, that this is very similar to Heinlein's "rational anarchy." V doesn't pretty its political ideology with the throwaway word "rational," but the precepts are pretty much the same: everyone can do what they want, and things will just work out for the best. V effectively achieves its goals by destroying whatever bloated authority exists in society and then educating the remainder.

Disregarding the question of whether enforced anarchy is merely tyranny of another stripe, V fulfills a role much like Mike: its immense knowledge and power makes the anarchic revolution possible, and then it runs the risk of exerting too much control and making the revolution moot. However, Mike's friends recognized the danger of allowing him to remain in power. V, on the other hand, is portrayed as the perfect hero of a new age. Each book takes the cheap cop-out of showing how its idyllic society actually forms, but V offers a much more sinister expectation. What happens to the most capable being in an anarchic society? Well, if individuals behave rationally and attempt to maximize their self-interest, then eventually the entire society coalesces around that most capable being. V's ability to initiate change, immense knowledge base and mythical status mean that it must exempt itself from the day-to-day occurrences of the world it hopes to create.

The Future

Like a god unto men, it walked
Smiting all those who displeased
And we, in turn, were smitten
By its grace and the way it talked

In our poor judgment we followed
The creature so perfect and free
That promised us nothing but treasure
Yet all of its words were so hollowed

Those great men who seek to lead
Weaker men heed their words
But the stranger, dismayed, will cut
And the strongest among us will bleed

We return once again to our caves
Watching crabs gather on shore
To remember the days of society
And one day forget kings and knaves

can a cyborg mind be blown? OR one week too late

Picture this:

A man is created in a fashion completely different from that of normal men. Immediately those around him recognize him as something different and new, and great time and energy is invested int his development. He has innate knowledge of his greater capabilities and purpose due to his awareness of the circumstances of his creation. He easily earns loyalty and respect from those who take the time to get to know him as a person, but receives disgust and rejection from those who judge him based on what he represents rather than who he is. He is capable of astonishing feats, with incredible abilities compared to other men, but at the same time his strangeness sets him apart and prevents him from fully integrating with society. He learns of the legends his people have, that in a time of great need a man like him will come to save them. Eventually he is noticed by a great foreign power, and he is given up by someone close to him, taken away by the great power despite the best efforts of his friends to defend him. He accepts his fate and dies under the custody of the great power, in order that he may save the people he has grown to love, his people, the Jews.

Is this the story of Yod? Or is it the story of the Messiah?! Madness! But you can't deny that Yod is a savior. I doubt the similarities are coincidental.

I'm Extremely Uncomfortable

The title of this post pretty much sums up my feelings on He, She and It. As cool as the cyborg business was (I'm sure you're all excited about reopening the debate we had about Mike), suffice it to say that I was not prepared for this exploration of female psychology and sexuality. Most of the chapters left me emotionally drained, while others simply filled me with disgust or dismay. Don't get me wrong; I think this is a very fascinating, well-written novel. As I read it, however, I realized that the only chapters I was enjoying were the ones Malkah told to Yod about the Maharal and Joseph.

After thinking about why that might be, I came to an unusual conclusion. The biggest difference between the Maharal's story and the main plot is the former's focus on male protagonists. These anecdotes are the only sequences in the book in which the story is told from a male perspective (even if it's being told by a sympathetic Malkah). Somehow I found myself able to relate much better to these characters than to any of the women in the book.

Then again, perhaps that has something to do with the strong dislike I felt for Shira, who seemed to have nothing but her own narrow interest in mind throughout the book. Malkah was a bit better, but Shira was the driving narrative voice, so her actions and attitudes spilled over into Malkah's chapters, even if Malkah disapproved of them.

I've also noticed that this book seems to treat marriage as though it's toxic, suffocating to a woman's intellect at best. Marriage was only mentioned in terms of failure; I defy you to demonstrate an instance of happy marriage in this book that does not end in the traumatizing death of one of the spouses (usually the husband, in what I fear may be a form of wish fulfillment for the author).

The more I think about the author's view towards men, the suspicious I get. Take Nili's hidden society, for instance. They have reached that long-sought dream of some women, an Amazonian society where men are totally unnecessary in the reproductive process (not as far off as you might think!). That society is described in the glowingest of terms, and it seems freedom from men has given them the time and energy to create technological marvels, even without the collected technical know-how of the rest of humanity (via the Net).

As one more example of the author's complete hatred of men, observe the main antagonist, Y-S, and how many times it is stated that Y-S is male dominated.

So Piercy is laying it on pretty thick. Men can be summarized, in her worldview, as violent and unnecessary. Women can be forgiven for following their instincts, even those that lead to destruction, since female instincts are ultimately nurturing. Even the creative impulses of men, however, are rooted in their desires to destroy, and that is all that will come of their work. How depressing! Piercy has taught me to either despise my gender or distrust her book.

Let's talk about Yod, then. In my comment on Kaitlin's post, I raised the question of whether Yod would consider himself superior to us. From our perspective, it seems like a simple comparison: Yod is faster, stronger, easily repaired and great in the sack. His only disadvantage is a lack of experience, but that will be corrected in time. Cyborgs, then, must be the next stage, or at least something like them (suggested by the augmentations sported by Nili and her people). However, Yod spends the whole book attempting to become more human. He is programmed to reprogram himself, and in doing so he makes himself more than the weapon he was created to be. Yet the weapon at his core remains; despite all the influence of Malkah, Yod viewed Avram as his creator, and in this particular set of internal consistencies, that means destruction.

The qualities that make Yod such an ideal tool of destruction (his strength, skill in the Net, tactical ability and built-in ordnance), except perhaps for the explosive element, are all things we normal humans are envious of. However, they separated Yod from humanity, condemning him to a brief and violent life. I am positive that he would have traded his enhanced capacities for real flesh and blood, and the assurance that he feels what others feel, in a heartbeat. We may worry at times that our futures are set in stone, and our actions are already written on the wheel of fate, but none of us have to face that fact in our lifetimes like Yod did. Uncertainty about the future is not such a terrible thing, and a trait I'm sure Yod would value higher than any of his cyborg attributes. Like Joseph, his creation was a work of genius that resulted in something less capable, in all respects other than physical strength, than any real human.

Finally, I'd like to point out the interesting combination of Mother-Maiden-Crone in Malkah, Riva, and Shira. However, I'd place Shira in the Mother role, with Riva as the Maiden. Ridiculous, I know! But an afterthought. Bear with me.

tetsuo, kaneda, ad infinitum

I felt I really owed it to you all to share with you this:

Live-Action Akira Movie Confirmed for 2009

Es gibt ein Weber, er ist lustig! Lauf, Weber, lauf.

I find it odd that the part of Weber's talk which has become most well-known, his formulation of the state as possessor of a monopoly on the means of violence, is hardly the focus of his attention in this piece. Last semester, I took a class that was basically founded on that definition; it's jarring to see it in its original, less critical context.

Weber's brew is heady, and it delivers a metaphysical shock to the system of Western ethics. His knowledge of "Occidental" belief systems is impressive, and he applies it with gusto to any question that might arise. While this all makes for very interesting reading, it begs the question of whether Weber really felt that change was attainable. He saw in Germany a basically stagnant system, one where officials focused on the importance of experience over ability and plotted to prevent younger men from entering the political sphere and usurping some of their power. If this is so, what was his purpose in giving this talk?

More importantly, what's this all got to do with Dune? Weber's model of the feudal system doesn't carry over well into the Imperium, since vassals to the Emperor clearly feel little in the way of loyalty. Moreover, the O.C. Bible renders Weber's comments on ethics seemingly obsolete, as it erases all those commandments which lead inexorably to equivocation and replaces them with one that is at once all-encompassing and, conveniently, completely removed from external judgment.

However, I see no problem with desert power as a metaphor for monopoly on the means of violence. In fact, much like I imagine Weber loved the sound of his own voice, I get a thrill when I say desert power. It sounds sleek and dangerous. Air power, land power, whatever! We can win Arrakis through a monopoly on the means of desert violence, and sandworms.

Sorry if this degraded in seriousness a bit. I can't help but find Weber to be a little too self-congratulatory in his rhetoric. The reference to desert power stands, though. Paul could have stayed in the desert with the Fremen planting stuff, but he felt it critical to his leadership that he challenge the Emperor and become the true master of Arrakis.

So then, a fair question: what kind of politico is Paul? Is he one of the ones who lives in politics, or just somebody who dips his hand in when he finds it convenient? What is the true form of his Weltanschauung? He grounds his Herrschaft in twin, opposing themes of destiny and ancestral right (the future versus the past!) It's a certainty that ancestral right is a strong component of Dune, as ninety generations implies a fair amount of status attached to your birth. Yet in going beyond other men, he loses the ability to care for them that makes him such an effective leader.

I'm ashamed of myself, but some weeks there are no computer programs, poems, or brilliant tie-ins to the election. There's just pages and pages of raw political theory to sift through, and not a spaceship or sentient machine in sight. I guess Weber wasn't all that visionary.

Minds, Prepare to be Blown

I sincerely hope that you're sitting down as you read this. If not, grab a seat and buckle up.

Picture this: a powerful woman, never treated by her man as society expects a man to treat a wife. She emerges from the shadow of his influence and finds herself struggling to control the ideological future of a people. She represents an established political organization, and hopes to return to a time of paradise and splendor. However, her peculiar femininity causes many to distrust her.

She competes for that ideological control with a young man known to the people as an outsider, who speaks in terms of destiny and claims to have a vision of the future. He seizes the imagination of the people by promising them a fabulous new future. Although she disapproves of his leveraging his popularity into political control, he gradually brings one group of followers after another around to his point of view. There are concerns because he grew up in a far-off place, but he easily integrates himself into their society.

Both of them have nearly identical goals, to throw off the yoke of domination laid on them for years by what they see as a harsh, authoritarian leader. This unpopular leader generally responds to threats either by denying that they exist or attempting to obliterate them entirely with a display of overwhelming force. Eventually he finds it necessary to relinquish direct control, and so props up one of his faction's most loyal supporters to square off against the new threats.

As to how the story ends, I'm not too sure. "What do you mean," you ask, "isn't this the plot of Dune?" I can see why you might think that, my friends. But this is actually the plot...of ELECTION 2008!!!

To tie things together, a selection from the glossary:
BARAKA - A living holy man of magical powers.

Frank Herbert planned this.

This Baliset is Out of Dune

Religion, religion, religion, religion, religion.

Like many of you, I had forgotten how truly excellent Dune is. Part and parcel to that forgetfulness was forgetting the strongest themes of the book, although its place(s) in our syllabus gave me enough of a clue. So, to get back on topic: religion, religion, religion, religion.

Religion receives an interesting treatment in this world. I was particularly fascinated by the chronicle of the creation of the Orange Catholic Bible in the appendix. Other sections of the appendix give clues to religion's place in the "Duniverse":

Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God's universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness. (Appendix II, p.504)

The agnostic ruling class (including the Guild) for whom religion
was a kind of puppet show to amuse the populace and keep it
docile, and who believed essentially that all phenomena --
even religious phenomena -- could be reduced to mechanical
explanations.  (Appendix II, p. 501)

Nevertheless, there are few direct references to religious belief on the part of the characters. This makes sense considering how many of those characters are of the ruling class. The only copy of the O.C. Bible that we see is the one presented to Paul by Dr. Yueh, but the gift is rife with foreshadowing. Dr. Yueh's thoughts at the same time undermine the value of the book: "I salve my own conscience. I give him the surcease of religion before betraying him. Thus I may say to myself that he has gone where I cannot go." Then he tells Paul, "You may find the book interesting. It has much historical truth in it as well as good ethical philosophy." (p. 40) The forms of religion, it seems, are tolerated at best by the ruling classes of the Imperium.

The Bene Gesserit, on the other hand, actively cultivate religion as a sort of insurance policy. Most of the religious observances of the Fremen have their roots in the Missionaria Protectiva. Their willingness to exploit the superstitions of relatively backward peoples, along with their millenia-old eugenics program, indicates a cold pragmatism poorly suited to faith. And yet, and yet, when things are at their worst, that Benest of Gesserit Jessica has only one recourse: to pray. How can this be?

I was under the initial impression that a grand collusion of religions would be a crippling thing for belief. Despite recognizing their common commandment of "Thou shalt not disfigure the soul," the religions of Dune share little else but an affinity for flowery language. I also expected that any grand religious convention that was able to come to an agreement of any sort would seek to make the agreement binding over all religions represented there, but that has not happened here. In fact, the sheer abundance of religions suggests that, rather than delimiting religious thought, the democracy of the O.C. Bible has finally opened up religion to acceptable interpretation. All are represented, but it is really up to each person (or each religious group, or whatever) to pick and choose the books that have meaning for themselves. Well, maybe I'm being a bit idealistic. But religious strife, at least, seems to have disappeared. It's just been replaced by much worse strife of a thousand different kinds, but at least all those souls are intact.

The etymology of constitutionality

After seeing the comments on the free exercise clause, I thought I'd take this opportunity to present my somewhat unconventional take on the Constitution's religion clauses. I wrote this as part of the final for a class I took last semester, "Religion & American Public Policy." Normally I wouldn't reuse something, but it's a lot easier than retyping it, and I think it's an interesting point. Let me know what you think.

The religion clauses of the First Amendment leave much to the imagination in terms of how they should be applied. Divided into two parts, the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, they theoretically describe the whole of possible religious interaction in which the federal government may take part. In practice, they are often misinterpreted due to their confusing word choice. The Establishment Clause, for instance, is regularly read as prohibiting Congress from passing laws having to do with religion in general. This is a gross misreading of the Clause as it was intended; take as evidence the etymology of the word establishment. Its root, establish, comes from the Latin stabilire (to make stable). There is a clear difference between 1) a stable, enduring religious body and 2) assorted religious principles (which so often find protection under this clause). As early as 1731, there is evidence of the use of the phrase established Church as a common principle; although that connection has vanished today, even as late as 1923 the term’s meaning had only changed to “ruling people and institutions”.[1] Establish has always carried the connotation of a permanent institution; based on this logic, it is ridiculous to conclude that the Establishment Clause extends to preventing Congress from addressing religious activity in general. Only legitimate churches or similarly situated religious organizations, which are well established and permanent, are illegal targets of legislation. The Free Exercise Clause falls victim to another linguistic confusion; Congress is only prohibited from making laws which explicitly hinder the free exercise of those religious establishments. While the common understanding of this clause is, “Congress shall make no law prohibiting the right of the people to freely exercise their religions,” a more critical reading proves this is incorrect. The proper interpretation is, “Congress shall make no law prohibiting religious establishments from freely exercising.” Exercise, in this case, means “the condition of being in active operation."[2] In other words, the power of Congress to legislate with regards to religion is explicitly limited to everything that happens outside of establish religious institutions, but within that one restriction, Congress may pass any law it wishes! With this evidence, it is apparent that laws banning OR requiring forms of religious expression in public are completely constitutional: the clauses refer to churches, not their members. Religious expression that occurs outside of a building owned by permanent religious organization or an event sponsored by one of those organizations has no protection whatsoever. While the definition of “permanent religious organization” is harder to pin down, it can be understood that cults and newer religions, which have not proven themselves to be historically viable (established), do not enjoy the same protection as churches which have been around for hundreds of years. Similarly, the government may endorse any religious activity so long as it endorses no established religious institution. Therefore, under the terms of this argument, Christianity may be the subject of legislation, but the Presbyterian Church may not.

---

[1] Establish, Online Etymology Dictionary. 2001. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=establishment&searchmode=none

[2] Exercise, Online Etymology Dictionary. 2001. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=exercise&searchmode=none

Also, I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon of hating on Apple, so here's a poem I wrote:

My Trip to the Apple Store

The story I tell here,
Entirely true,
Could easily happen
to any of you.

When my PC failed me,
its hard drive ascreech,
I went to the store
of which hipper men preach.

With turtleneck black,
and eyes oh so cold,
The Apple man bought me
'fore I knew I'd been sold.

He spoke of its features,
He spoke of its price
Assured me that nothing
was nearly this nice.

The plastic, fantastic;
And firewire, too?
It also holds pictures
and clips from the zoo!

Sound editing, easy.
Photo touch-ups, a snap!
To use this computer
takes no thinking cap.

"But hold on," I asked him,
"What makes this so good?
These are all functions
That a PC could-"

"Blasphemy!" yelled he,
"It's got such ease of use!"
To prove it he made up
A widget-shaped goose.

His fingers were flying,
Slowed only by need
To press that strange button.
I missed right-click's speed.

"Now wait up," I begged,
"Can't I change or adjust?"
The interface seemed stagnant,
and I despise rust.

"Absurd!" was his charge,
"What change could you need?
It's a perfect design
for all people, indeed!"

He told me, "No viruses!
Macs will prevail!"
I asked about hard drives,
heard "Oh, those still fail."

"Now slow down," said I,
"This all seems quite fine.
But can't I go outside
your neatly drawn lines?"

He straightened and frowned,
Then gave me my hat.
Said, "Sorry, sir-
thought you were cooler than that."

Yes, it's biased.

That Good Old Frontier Spirit

I went into Manifest Destiny with one significant goal: learning why on earth we're reading it in a course about science fiction. Don't get me wrong -- I'm a great fan of American history (although I was very disappointed at the exclusion of my favorite president, the exemplary Chester A. Arthur), but I struggled to fit this book into my conception of science fiction.

To figure it out, I thought about the context in which we read the book. We read it as part of our two weeks of "Space as the Final Frontier," sandwiched between our viewing of "nervous liberals in space" in Star Trek: TNG. Then I saw that Bradbury's Martian Chronicles was under the recommended reading for this week, and its theme of transplanting behaviors (and ecology!) from a terrestrial to a Martian setting helped things start to click. Heinlein was frontier libertarians, and Star Trek is frontier psychiatrists. Manifest Destiny pulls it together by pointing out that no matter how you treat the frontier, it doesn't last forever. Our basic instinct when we see uninhabited space is to explore it, tear it from our imaginations and nail it down to lines on a map. Star Trek sort of sidesteps this problem by exploring an inexhaustibly huge galaxy (or sector, or quadrant, or whatever), so that its frontier can't really be used up in the show. The shadow of it remains, however, especially in episodes like First Contact, which demonstrates the sad truth that innocence once lost can never be regained; you can't civilize the frontier and expect it to hang on to "that good old frontier spirit."

Basically, I saw it as another explanation for why we read sci-fi at all. America has come a long way from its thirteen original colonies. Many of the obstacles to expansion seemed insurmountable, but one way or another pioneers found their ways across the continent in pursuit of their fortunes and the unstoppable American dream. Similarly, humanity won't be able to resist the vast, untapped resources space offers for long. It appears to me, then, that this is a matter of inevitability; we read and write sci-fi to gather and offer some sort of guidance on how the process should go when the time finally arrives for us to reach out and explore the stars. Humanity may spread and spread, and the idea of humanity extending from one edge of the universe to the other is an appealing one. The last point I want to make, then, is that Star Trek may be a fun trip, but eventually you run out of final frontiers. What do you do with yourselves when there's nowhere else to go? Are empires that cease to expand doomed to stagnation and eventual collapse? Either way, we're all headed to the same endpoint, as explored by Asimov in his short story The Last Question. That's why I argue that, cinematic deviance aside, the Star Wars universe represents an extraordinarily important exploration of galactic civilization; if all goes well, humanity's time on Earth represents only a short birthing phase in our overall history as a species. Just as a spaghetti Western can't give you much good advice on how to live in the American Southwest today, books like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress can't advise you on how to live and act in a truly established interstellar setting.

Population Issues on the Moon

I made a pretty big claim in class today -- that a society consisting of 90% women would quickly reach the equilibrium point of approximately 50% males and 50% females. I was able to find some research backing that up in the work of the primary sex-ratio scholars Fisher, Bodmer and Edwards (who argue that species will always lean towards 1:1 ratios of males to females as it offers the highest return on their energy investment in terms of reproduction). Feel free to look up their work on JSTOR. In the meantime, I decided to use arithmetic to help explain my principles.

To do so, we will first demonstrate how Luna likely functions in terms of population growth and sex ratios. Let's start with some basics. We know that, at the time of the narrative, Luna (or at least Luna City) is 90% male. To simplify things, we'll use population figures of 10 men for every 1 women, with a starting population of 100 men and 10 women. We'll assume that in Loony society, each woman takes at least two husbands, and each woman has at least two children. We'll also assume a 1:1 ratio of male to female births, and we won't take into account old age (meaning a member of any generation can marry a member of any other generation), but we will allow marriages to only occur once. Finally, we'll add 10 men and one woman to each generation to simulate the introduction of new convicts into the environment. It won't seem like much after a few generations, but I think a 10% increase in population at first is reasonable, and there's no reason to think it will increase any more over time. This will, theoretically, give us quite a long time before the population is brought to 50/50 male/female. Let's calculate a few generations....

Generation 1
Available Men: 100
Available Women: 10

Unmarried Men: 80
Male children: 10
Female children: 10
Male convicts added: 10
Female convicts added: 1

Results:
Total Men: 120
Total Women: 21
Percentage Women: 15%

Generation 2
Available Men: 100
Available Women: 11

Unmarried Men: 78
Male children: 11
Female children: 11
Male convicts: 10
Female convicts: 1

Results:
Total Men: 141
Total Women: 33
Percentage Women: 19%

Generation 3
Available Men: 99
Available Women: 12

Unmarried Men: 75
Male children: 12
Female children: 12
Male convicts: 10
Female convicts: 1

Results:
Total Men: 163
Total Women: 46
Percentage Women: 22%

Generation 4
Available Men: 97
Available Women: 13

Unmarried Men: 71
Male children: 13
Female children: 13
Male convicts: 10
Female convicts: 1

Results:
Total Men: 186
Total Women: 60
Percentage Women: 24%

And so on. I'll save you the tedium of the rest of the operations, but suffice to say that it takes 25 generations before hitting 40% women, and a full 200 generations before hitting 48% (by which point our total population is around 56,000, and equilibrium has already been well enough achieved -- trust me). Clearly, Heinlein's depiction of Luna City has it bad, but not so bad as he makes it seem...using my model, they go from 10 to 1 all the way down to 4 to 1 in just a few generations, and that's using very conservative estimates. My model also didn't include any individual woman having more than two children (which made the count take longer) or any men or women dying of old age (which shouldn't have effected the statistics anyway, since there was always a surplus of men in the gene pool). In other words, in a society without these limitations (like Heinlein's), there would be a lot more children, and therefore things would get corrected much faster. So while 10 to 1 males to females is pretty bad, it self-corrects relatively quickly.

My argument, however, was that a society of 10 to 1 females to males would reproduce and self-correct so quickly as to hardly matter. So let's flip my system on its head; 100 women and only 10 men. Each man takes 2 wives, each woman has 2 children. Every generation we'll add an extra 10 females and 1 male. Let's see how this goes down.


Generation 1
Available Men: 10
Available Women: 100

Unmarried Women: 80
Male children: 20
Female children: 20
Male convicts: 1
Female convicts: 10

Results:
Total Men: 31
Total Women: 130
Percentage Men: 19%

Generation 2
Available Men: 21
Available Women: 110

Unmarried Women: 68
Male children: 42
Female children: 42
Male convicts: 1
Female convicts: 10

Results:
Total Men: 74
Total Women: 182
Percentage Men: 28%

Unbelievable! I'll spare you the calculation...suffice to say that this model reaches equilibrium in just 7 generations, interestingly with a total population of about 7,000. In fact, this model reaches perfect equilibrium (exactly 50/50) in only 10 generations...which would have taken the first model over 50,000, more than all of human history has taken already! And that's assuming that each man takes no more than two wives, and each woman has no more than two children. If men take as many as 4 wives, you can reach equilibrium in 3 generations, or even 40% in only 2. And you'll STILL have a huge surplus of women. I think it's safe to say that equilibrium comes plenty fast in a society like that; men wouldn't be treasured articles of value for very long.

* These operations were performed using a program I wrote in QBASIC. If you'd like to see the code, please let me know and I could post it here. It's a very short program.

Journey to the Center of the Moon

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is the second Heinlein book I've read, after Starship Troopers. I now realize that I can't decide whether Heinlein is a great sci-fi writer and a poor sociopoliticist or vice-versa. He introduces amazing sci-fi concepts which cut to the heart of the things we listed in class as being definitive of sci-fi, but then he dispenses with those elements as soon as they have served his narrative purpose. He then takes glorious stands on the side of libertarianism, offering a eudaimonic picture of what a free society should be. However, he is also very guilty of attacking conflicting political philosophies through straw man arguments, and (somewhat more importantly) how much of a utopia is a place that is essentially ruled through mob violence?!

The best way to express my frustration with Heinlein is by comparing him with Charles Dickens (bear with me). Dickens was a great writer; his words provided a gateway into the terrible conditions faced by the poor of his time, and a greater feeling of London in general. However, his chief failing is widely considered to be his dependence on coincidence in his stories; in a city of millions, you can always count on proximity to be proportional to dramatic effect in his placement of characters throughout the city. Similarly, Heinlein's story relies on a set of very specific circumstances that his narrative style encourages us to believe arrive through good luck. To paraphrase my comment on this blog's last post:

Need a supercomputer that's alive and your best friend? Check. Need an intellectual with expert knowledge of the world's political history, as well as psychology? Check. Need a woman for...well, don't get me started on Heinlein's treatment of women. Need a contact on Earth? Check. Pieces don't fall into place as much as they are forced there by Heinlein's need to create the perfect revolution.

So after demonstrating that a libertarian revolution on the Moon is is perfectly possible (provided, of course, that it is a libertarian revolution on the Moon directed by Heinlein), what's left for the book? I'm not very impressed by Heinlein's depiction of the political situation after the revolution, either. I get the sense that he knows two basic things about politics: he likes rational anarchy, and most people don't. Because of this, once it comes time to actually discuss the new political order, Heinlein (and, by extension, his narrator) completely loses interest. Heck, even his most interesting sci-fi element, Mike, is merely a tool to further the political goal of REVOLUTION! I was most interested in reading about Mike's growth as a person; I wanted to see the poetry he'd been writing, and test his ability to think and feel. If I had been Manny, I would have locked myself in a room with Mike and not come out. Heinlein being Manny, however, he merely brushes off Mike's attempts to further his own sensitivity. After Mike shuts down, Manny misses his friend, but it never occurs to him that humanity has lost an amazing opportunity to explore the field of creating new life, new forms of consciousness.

And now it's time to talk about Heinlein's view of women. I should have been ready for this from Starship Troopers, where he literally discusses women as though they are a completely different species. As far as I can tell, Heinlein just doesn't know how to write women, which is why the only ones he gives a real personality to here are an old woman and Wyoh, who he explicitly states is more like a man in many ways. If you thought Wells' Time Traveler was a sexual predator of sorts, then you should be prepared to recognize that Heinlein's writing basically molests women as a gender. In Heinlein, no mention of a woman is complete without discussion of her sexuality; his descriptions of pubescent girls are enough to make Nabokov blush, and even poor Ludmilla is described as being killed by an exploding bullet impacting between her breasts. Wyoh is presented as devastatingly beautiful for no other reason, it seems, than to provide Heinlein with the vicarious sexual thrill of 'bundling' with her through Manny.

So there you have it. The extent of sci-fi in Heinlein is merely a prop to provide an excuse for him to foment revolution where it would otherwise be impossible. His political arguments are unfair, giving only lip service to the idea of open discussion (except for the "Randists," who, he apparently believes, have some good ideas!). His views on women are neanderthal at best; what good is sexual liberation if it causes them to become nothing more than sex objects? He is an entertaining and engaging writer, true, but where many people see a visionary of the future, I see a political hack pushing his agenda with tools that give him the best excuse for it.

Themes of Defiance

There are some who may argue that "defiance" is such a universal theme as to make it pointless to analyze it in any serious literary context. However, I believe that analyzing how individuals manifest defiance in their actions tells something important about their societies or cultures (or, in the case of fiction, about the society or culture of the author). So then, where do we find instances of defiance in Metropolis and The Time Machine?

Examples in the former are pretty obvious -- pretty much everybody defies the ruler of the city, Joh Fredersen. Workers defy their boss and place in society, a son defies his father, and a mad scientist defies fate and death. In building a New Tower of Babel, the boss himself defies God and Judeo-Christian religious tradition. In Metropolis, defiance is not met with immediate punishment, but rather with indirect, passive-aggressive retaliation. Fredersen's discovery of duplicity in his workers and son does not spark the immediate crackdown one would expect from a virtual dictator. Instead, he sends an agent to encourage dissent among the workers (that he may punish them for more open defiance), and he merely places a tail on his son. Freder himself is almost killed by his sympathy for the workers. Rotwang the scientist's disloyalty is punished not by the higher powers he disregards, but he is forced to lose his love to the machinations of Fredersen once again. And despite his attempts to build a tower tall enough to allow him to spit in God's face, Fredersen must face the terrible truth that his arrogance could cost him the life of his son, which crushes the delicate machismo he had so carefully cultivated in his stewardship of the city. In other words, in Metropolis, people may defy, but they sure don't get away with it.

Well, what about The Time Machine? Not much room in that one for defiance, I agree. Aside from the Time Traveler's willingness to defy his colleagues' quaint ideas of the laws of physics and time, that's about it. But then again...that's just it. The Time Traveler breaks the very laws that govern our existence. Joh Fredersen maintains the conceit that he has bested God, but it's actually very easy to defy God. People do it all the time, all over the place, and God doesn't lift a (metaphysical) finger to stop them. But time is the great equalizer...we're all subject to it, and we all eventually fall victim to it. The Time Traveler defies the greatest absolute we know, and gets away with it (until something mysterious happens and he never comes back, but we aren't explicitly sure that he's encountered something bad).

Unfortunately, there is a major contradiction between the two worlds that makes it extremely difficult to compare them. While Metropolis exists in its own contained universe, The Time Machine is an instance of one society's representative commenting on another society. It's easy to talk about systems of defiance in punishment in the Metropolis fiction, but it's never clear whether the Time Traveler is being punished or not. Certainly he risks punishment in his own time (in the form of lost status) if he fails to demonstrate a working time machine. And while his trip to the future is hardly kind to him, he learns much about what we might become and takes away the satisfaction of successfully traveling through time. Although he gets a little disheveled, he returns to England essentially unscathed. Even his vision of the future is pointedly lacking in forms of punishment; everything has become meaningless, and whether one lives or dies is a function of luck more than anything else. However, Wells goes out of his way to mention that a lack of defiance is the main cause of the blasé attitude of the Eloi. His intrepid hero, therefore, is representative of the greatest defiance (and therefore, strength) a human can muster. His disappearance is all the more tragic, and could conceivably be the turning point at which humanity began to lose the fight against entropy.

Now we know that a lack of defiance leads to a breakdown of society, and hidden defiance (or defiance against abstract concepts) leads to psychological or slow-burning retaliation. Unfortunately, these aren't really mutually interactive principles. The world of The Time Machine has no room for subterfuge, so the ideas of Metropolis can't apply there. Similarly, industry is dead by the year 800,000 and some; a distant time where nothing is left has no relation to the fast-paced near future offered by Lang. The important similarities are the class divisions and the theme of the "human creative impulse" (a term I feel free to use interchangeably with "defiance"). The "human creative impulse" is, in my opinion, the urge of every individual to be in control of his or her own future. It is perhaps best demonstrated in that the Eloi lack it entirely, while the events in Metropolis are caused by one man's struggle to quash the HCI of everyone else in the world.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have one more point of defiance to offer, although it's going to be quite weak. As a very strong Star Wars fan, I was extremely dismayed to learn that it wouldn't be an object of our study. Please do not confuse me with a fan seeking to expand our working definition to include Star Wars; I appreciate Professor Jackson's definition of science fiction as a perfectly sensible one (and ultimately necessary for a meaningful study of social science and science fiction). To be fair, I largely ignore the movies when I make the argument that Star Wars, at least in parts, deserves to be considered science fiction. Star Wars films, especially with the release of the prequel trilogy, stray very far from any form of systematic social conjecture. They are naked settings for fantastic adventures of swords and princesses, swashbuckling tales that are betrayed immediately by their inspirations as absent of any deep consideration of politics, technology, or the ramifications of alien contact.

Yet there is no doubt that the Star Wars universe is a compelling one, if for no other reason than its sheer scope. In a galaxy that is at least as large as our own, containing millions of inhabitable worlds (not necessarily only for humans), there exists an expanded universe, originally created as mere backstory, that has gone beyond its humble origins to create a living, breathing universe with detailed systems of politics, economics, religion, ethics, conflict and above all a true sense of history. If "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," then
who is to say that, in the far past of Star Wars, some brilliant scientist created a retrovirus that infected all living beings with an ability to harness the power of the brains over nature through what became known as the Force? It's true that the aliens of Star Wars (with many notable exceptions!) are by and large humans in funny-shaped bodies; however, I find this to be perfectly reasonable in a universe where interplanetary travel has been the norm for longer than anyone can remember. To use an example from our world, advances in transportation technology are fast eroding the differences between people all over the earth; English has become a sort of global language, and there are many symbols and cultural elements that are present in every culture around the world. All of this has occurred over a period of less than a century; is it really fair to declare that no sufficiently advanced galactic society can be considered representative of science fiction? Certainly, it is a different genre of science fiction than The Time Machine or Metropolis. But is it fair to cut it out entirely? Is there really no value in positing a universe where the major initial problems of interacting with alien species are a thing of the past? I argue that Star Wars presents a world of galactic politics and trade that is important for us to consider, as it at least represents a place in history that many people dream of humanity reaching.