Not That Way
April 11, 2007
6:00 AM CST
I’ve been mulling over Superfluous for the past day or two, and something occurred to me.
In the list of (starter) books for young people, The Mrs. did not mention a single work of science fiction. And I think I know why.
I’ve never been a fan of science fiction, and whenever I’m asked why, I generally use a throwaway remark like ”I have enough problems in dealing with reality, without adding unreality to the mix.”
Now before I’m buried under an avalanche of angry comments from my legions of Readers Who Are Also Sci-Fi Fans, let me explain a little.
The great Bill Whittle once explained to me that he was having enormous problems writing a sci-fi short story. When I asked why (Bill does not suffer writer’s block), he said this: “The problem is that with science fiction, the unspoken rule is that you get to suspend one, and only one law of physics. I can’t do that. I have to write something believable, without that suspension of disbelief, and which obeys all the laws of physics.”
And that, in a nutshell, is my fundamental problem with science fiction: you start with an unreal premise, and go on from there.
The more I think about it, the more I’m beginning to feel that this is the basis for all wrong-headed thinking in the world. To quote Monty Python: ”Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is not a basis for a system of government.” We all had a good giggle at that; and yet, ”From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is no less ridiculous as a basis for a system of government, because it starts off with an unreal premise: that Man is a selfless human being, will continue to suppress his innate selfishness for the sake of the greater good, and will not take advantage of the hard work of others to make his own life easier.
One more: ”God will provide”, or, in the vernacular, ”Insh’Allah.” That’s right: there’s no need to worry, because my imaginary friend will always help me out.
Here’s another one, just as ridiculous: ”As long as we all act rationally and respect the rights of others, we don’t need any kind of government.” That philosophy asks that we expect that Man will never give in to his baser impulses of mendacity, cupidity and irrationality.
Frankly, as a foundation principle of government, I prefer the Ten Commandments, which basically forbids all those human foibles which cause society’s fabric to tear and fall to pieces—even though the final punishment for transgression will be administered by yet another imaginary friend.
So I don’t think that kids should be exposed to science fiction, at least, not as a first exposure to literature. I know, sci-fi helps expand the imagination, but only through the premise that an unreal situation is the sine qua non. The unfortunate consequence of that premise is that it leads to two-dimensional thinking—and what any society needs to succeed is three-dimensional thinking.
One of the great works of fantasy is Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide, which takes the unreal solution to its ultimate conclusion by making all conflict resolution the result of outrageous odds coming in. Great premise for escapist reading; not a great philosophy by which to run one’s life or a society.
Compare that premise to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, which involves a young boy trying to claim his inheritance, but blocked at every turn by greedy and evil men. Young David Balfour goes through an unimaginable series of hardships and frights: he is betrayed, and lied to, and threatened with death. He is never plucked from a situation of peril by a spaceship piloted by aliens, à la Brian of Nazareth. His only means of escape are his own pluck and tenacity, the occasional kindness of others, and ordinary luck. And at the end, he gets his inheritance not through a fairy godmother’s wand, but through his own actions.
At the end of it all, of course, lies this hard, uncomfortable and yet inescapable fact: we become what we are through our own actions, not by relying on unreal premises or solutions.
We know this, of course—at least, the more intelligent of us do—by saying things like ”Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he’ll eat all his life.”
We all understand the wisdom of this statement. Yet we fritter away money and resources on stopgap measures like food drops, instead of providing electricity and potable water systems, because we are focused on stopping that one child from dying, rather than providing for the survival of countless future generations.
And we insist on trying to find solutions to intractable problems only after binding ourselves with ridiculous constraints like onerous taxation or inappropriate religious restrictions, both of which are examples of two-dimensional thinking.
It’s no good. We can’t bend the realities of life, or ignore them. We have to work within those confines to find our solutions to life’s problems.
Because, in the end, it’s only those solutions which last. All others fail.
