Science fiction

I've been reading Orson Scott Card's "Ender" series these days and it occurred to me how powerful science fiction and fantasy can be as a medium to pass on philosophical and intellectual ideas to those not used to reading standard cut and dry academic style textbooks.

In the creation of science fiction, one essentially has to create another world - but in doing so one generally embeds your assumptions about how you think the world operates as well as how you think the world should operate as you create idealists that you agree with and disagree with as well as weaving together relationships in the way that you interpret them to exist and think that they formulate themselves within standard human (and in the case of with aliens) and non-human interaction.

In the case of Orson Scott Card, he seems particularly interested in the philosophical question of how humans act when faced with something so strange and otherly that it is beyond immediate comprehension. Are humans compassionate enough that they would be willing to take the time to understand what is going on or would they be so repulsed by this strange behaviour that they think that either the behaviour must be eradicated... or the actors that carry out these "despicable" customs? Card has his own conclusions, and I'll let you figure them out by reading the book yourself. I don't really feel like outlining and critically analyzing his point of view... maybe I'll do that some other time. Right now I'd much rather speculate on what I think about this subject.

In my experience, people do not react very well to things that they see as strange or out of the ordinary. Anyone that has feelings, thoughts, emotions, or ideals that does not conform to your standard of "normal" leads one to believe that they are "abnormal." Maybe this is true. Maybe it isn't. It really does depend on whether the definition of "normal" depends on a majority opinion or whether there is a more objective standard... or whether there is a standard at all.

Of course to hold that there is no such thing as normal defies the human desire to order things into categories so that they can make sense of what goes on in their worlds. If it is natural for a person to judge then categorize another person based on how they act, what they look like, how they interact with them, does it make sense to conclude that there must therefore be an objective normal? Not necessarily. But this is aside from the original thought flow.

So what do you do then when you encounter something that you define as "abnormal"? (all arguments of whether there is an objective standard of normality or not. For all intents and purposes, abnormality exists because people perceive it to exist. Arguing THAT point is the subject of another essay entirely.) Some people are more compassionate and are willing to try and understand what is going on. But what if the act or observed is so hideous and repulsive that by all human moral comprehension, it is an act that does not make any sense whatsoever?

To be honest, it is a question that I don't think I'd be able to face with much positive outcome in reality. If I were to see it, based on my past reaction to such things, I'd be repulsed and it would take me forever to accept the doers of the act... and I would most likely never really accept the act as anything that I could accept.

Interestingly enough, thinking about this idea of how people would react to "otherness" in the context of a science fiction linked with the topic of much discussion this past weekend. I was at the Korean Christian Fellowship (KCF) May Conference and a lot of the talk there was about whether we act like Pharisees that are so obsessed with outward appearance of righteousness that we never stop to love those that do not conform to that image. As a part of that, the speaker asked us whether we created communities where people would feel safe sharing their deep hurts and thoughts.

I got to thinking about that. Do we do this in our christian fellowships? Do we do this in our churches? Do we do this in our small groups even? I'm sure that many people have experienced groups where they really could share the deepest darkest most vile thoughts that they had in order to receive prayers of healing and emotional support as they struggled through these things. But overall? Due to our lack of ability to identify with and our natural desire to vilify particular acts, would we really allow people to feel safe sharing these things in our groups? What if one of our Christian brothers found himself struggling with homosexual temptations and lusts? Would they feel safe sharing this within our small groups that we've created at KCF or at church or in our discpleship groups at Campus for Christ? What if someone found themselves struggling with the temptation to engage in masochistic acts? Would we still see this person the same way or would we be so repulsed by what seems like such a weird and abnormal act that we wouldn't actually help this person? What if someone shared that they felt themselves sexually attracted to children and that they really wanted your help? Would we give it to that person, or would we see to it that they were locked up, vilified, and isolated so that they likely hood of them acting out on their temptations actually increases?

I have no real answers to these questions. But it did occur to me that despite the fact that these people are perhaps struggling with temptations that YOU yourself are not struggling with does not mean they are suddenly monsters, that they for some reason are not human because they have these feelings. Do we even stop to try and think of what we would do should this situation arise and how we as individuals, as a Christian fellowship, as a church would respond to this? Are we willing to act like Christ and still hang out with these people with the mindset that they need Jesus just as much as anyone else and that they need the emotional support and love of people around them to show them Christ's love?

Interesting that a science fiction written by someone that holds religious beliefs that I find questionable contemplating ideas in ways that I completely disagree with should lead me to ask some difficult questions to myself about whether I would truly love those that I find completely different from me. The things that one learns when you keep an open mind.