Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Am I the alien outsider?
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Even Mr. Spock, Lt. Cmdr. Data, Jake Scully and John Crichton would be hard pressed to understand what's going on today in our world.
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There is a long history in science fiction and fantasy of using an alien or other outsider to comment on society.
Sometimes, as in the case of “Star Trek” and its various spinoffs, it is an alien or android living among humans trying to figure us out.
Other times the trope is reversed, as is the case in “Avatar” and “Farscape,” where a sole human is stuck living among aliens and is forced to see the foibles of humanity through the eyes of the aliens he or she is living with.
In my long-in-progress sci-fi novel, I use both versions of this trope: first the alien trying to figure out and fit in to human society while stuck on Earth in the late 1980s, and later in the story, his human companion trying to adjust to his society after they are whisked far across the galaxy.
While it’s still not quite finished, I always felt it was far easier to write from the human’s point of view rather than the other way around. After all, I’m a human ( just ignore that green blood, ok? ) and I grew up on this planet so humanity’s norms seem…. well … normal to me.
It doesn’t generally occur to me to question why we humans do things the way we do, until I see someone or some group act so outside those norms, that it starts me questioning things I’ve always taken for granted.
And lately this has been the case.
Now I feel more akin to my alien character who got dropped off on a strange, new world and can’t always make sense of the things he sees or figure out what all these crazy people who sort of look like him are thinking or doing.
Over the past few years I’ve watched friends and even family members turn into people I barely recognize. It’s almost as if they were being replaced by pod-people.
I feel just as alone, frightened and doubting of my own sanity as Dr. Miles Bennell at the end of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” I feel like I’m standing alone on that highway screaming to everyone that that aliens are coming and no one believes me and think I’m nuts.
And I have to admit, I am beginning to wonder if I am going crazy. How is it I can see what everyone else seems to be oblivious to?
Sometimes I think maybe it’s me who is being oblivious.
And that’s possible. I’ve missed so many subtle hints from Mrs. Bluescream that she’s taken to leaving catalogues around the house shortly before her birthday, the holidays or our anniversary with the items she wants circled in red.
So now I’m wondering if I somehow missed a message everyone else got, which, if I had understood it, would have me feeling and acting the same way they do?
After all, my friends and I all grew up together in the same place and under the same circumstances. We all lived in a fairly affluent town, came from the same middle-class, suburban background, were raised by parents who seemed like they could have been interchangeable, share the same educational level and for the most part are all white-collar professionals. So why wouldn’t we all interpret a message the same way?
Growing up we were the “nerds” who all the other kids picked on for liking sci-fi/fantasy, playing Dungeons and Dragons and being into computers and video games. (Who’s laughing now you jocks and popular kids? Sure I’ll fix your computer….for a price!) If you’ve ever watched any ’80s teen movie or even seen “Stranger Things” you know who were were. We were those geeky kids who everyone made fun of.
Probably chief among our common interests back then was a love for “Star Trek.” It showed a world where people like us could be different and those differences were celebrated and not ridiculed or discriminated against.
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| Am I the only one who still believes in this symbol which represents the Vulcan philosophy of IDIC? |
They seem either unwilling or incapable of putting themselves in someone else’s shoes and understanding that “there but for the grace of G-d go I.” They can’t seem to understand that the circumstances of someone else’s life may not be like their own or that the rules we take for granted as descendants of white Europeans aren’t always the same for other ethnic groups or people of color.
It’s enough to make me want to grab them by the collar and shake some sense into them.
Yet at the same time, I know that these friends would have my back in a heartbeat if I ever needed them or got into any serious trouble.
Even my own parents who raised me to be open-minded and see things from other people’s point of view, seem to have become exceptionally narrow minded.
Now I’m no “lefty-snowflake.” I have a long and proud history of being a fence-sitter, whose preferred drink is Grape Nehi (It’s purple). I think both conservatives and liberals have valid concerns and that what is best for our country is a mixture of both their ideas in moderation and not some hardline, unbending adherence to a single political doctrine.
Everyone now seems so entrenched in their view and convinced that only they are right, that they can’t see what would be blatantly obvious to that alien outsider suddenly plunked down in the middle of us. That outsider would be astounded by the hypocrisy as they listened to people forgive or overlook unethical, immoral and in some cases criminal behavior by their own side’s leaders while condemning the other side’s leaders if they’d done the same thing.
But what I find most disturbing is that people not only seem to be willfully bind to our own history, but hell-bent on repeating it.
It’s clear to anyone with even a cursory understanding of world history that we are repeating the mistakes of the past.
Democracies across the world are electing populist strongmen who promote simplistic solutions to all our problems then proceed to undermine the very intuitions they claim to love in order to make their country’s great again.
It’s happening almost exactly as it did back in the 1930’s when Fascism swept through Europe in the wake of World War I and Great Depression, yet no one can see it. Supporters of these populists don’t seem to understand that by supporting policies that attempt to ostracize one group of people, that everyone ends up loosing because when the political winds change direction – and they always do – then they will be ones being ostracized and stripped of their rights.
More troubling are the ones who are noticing this swing toward totalitarianism and scapegoating of minorities but seem to be doing everything in their power to shoot themselves in the foot. They are prompting tactics and using slogans that purposely seem designed to frighten or push away any moderate who might be sympathetic to their cause.
Short rallying cries with no context such as “Defund the Police” and mob actions to pull down statues just play into their opponent’s hands that the left is just a bunch of anarchists.
Look, I get it.
I understand the anger out there and know exactly what protesters are saying when they chant things like “defund the police.” But when I have to have a 20-minute conversation with my mother to just try and convince her that that does not mean getting rid all police but using the money we currently give them for other things, then the slogan is self-defeating.
How do I know this?
Because that’s exactly what I thought when I first heard that slogan myself. My exact thoughts were “They can’t be serious! Without police, there would be anarchy!” Fortunately, I reacted like our alien friend might have, and sought clarification instead of just dismissing the protesters out-of-hand.
And that’s my point. If your slogan immediately turns people off, they aren’t going to listen to the nuances or details of your argument. Stop trying to come up with some catchy soundbite and put some real thought behind your words. Because those words DO matter!
{Sigh}
I keep trying to tell myself that I’m not the only one who sees this going on. Yet the more I look around and hear only silence from moderate voices, the more I feel like I’m alone.
Above the fray.
Watching the world teeter on the brink of total disaster and I’m powerless to stop it.
It makes me wish I really was that alien outsider who could climb aboard his spaceship and leave the planet. That way I wouldn’t have to see the people and places I love destroy themselves just to relearn the same harsh lessons of the past.
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