Science Fiction and Contemporary Relevance

The last few weeks have been difficult for everyone; here, I have found myself wrestling with conflicting emotions and weighing my own level of participation on social media.

Panic, frustration, anger, resignation, fascination, dark amusement, and a begrudgingly forced optimism have become a daily part of my mental carousel. As a predictable result, I found it necessary to limit my interactions on Facebook, lest an observation or statement taken out of context or intent add to the din of opinion and speculation.

 In browsing many of my previous posts in the “Commentary” section of this blog, I have come to the realization that, while I may have had this in mind or have indirectly referenced it, some more wisdom from the world of Science Fiction has not been directly referenced.

Originally, Dan Carlin brought this up on the appropriately titled podcast “Day of the Dove” from 2017. To summarize, his discussion centered upon the events which took place on 14Jun2017 – the shooting at the Congressional Baseball Game practice. Carlin noted the tragic event as the “canary in the coal mine” in reference to the increasing animosity in both traditional and social media; a sign that the rhetoric might inspire the more politically susceptible into drastic action.

I found the comparison he implied to be fascinating, and this particular episode – originally aired on 1Nov1968 – has resonated in the back of my mind since then as I watched public attention focus and drift on one controversy after another.

Pulling up the transcript has reinforced my previous suggestion that fiction tends to provide even more insight into reality than we seem to realize:

SPOCK: Captain, I am constrained to point out that since minds are evidently being influenced, we cannot know at this moment whether our own memories are completely accurate and true.

This observation fits my own views on the media very well. I have written before about the speed of news cycle and how we seem to quickly forget events which seem huge at the time but are quickly glossed-over as “old news.” At some point, it seems that things go so fast that folks forget which side of the controversy they are supposed to be on, who the villain might be, or what they should fear. If the foundation of memory is shaky, then it would seem that the structure of comprehension would become more malleable.

SPOCK: May I say that I have not thoroughly enjoyed serving with humans? I find their illogic and foolish emotions a constant irritant.

I had to include this just because it made me laugh.

KIRK: Scotty. What’s happening to us? We’ve been trained to think in other terms than war. We’ve been trained to fight its causes, if necessary. Then why are we behaving like a group of savages? Look at me. Look at me. Two forces aboard this ship, each of them equally armed. Has a war been staged for us, complete with weapons and ideology and patriotic drum beating? Even, Spock, even race hatred?

Ah, the Shatner Rhetoric. In overlaying this on contemporary issues, it is a pretty neat idea. Perhaps there has been an ongoing effort to condition the consumers of information to think in polarizing terms: Democrat/Republican, liberal/conservative, us/other. In all honesty, this is part of human nature – to craft labels to better generalize friend from foe, threat from ally, pleasure from pain.

However, the pace (and profit, really) of news steamrolls voices of moderation or impartial skepticism into submission, or worse, into conformity. Objectively, the tools and arena creates equal opportunity in the political and social conflicts. Taking a step back, however, a larger picture becomes clear: the fight is arranged by the same society which created the venue – it becomes a spectacle for the sole purpose of being a spectacle.

Sure, the causes may be noble and sound, but the manner in which these controversies are played out and prosecuted tend to eclipse the root problem. We argue about the who and how rather than the what and, more importantly, what the best course of action for all involved parties might be to move forward.

KIRK: It subsists on the emotions of others.

SPOCK: This one appears to be strengthened by mental irradiations of hostility, violent intentions.

KIRK: It exists on the hate of others.

SPOCK: To put it simply. And it has acted as a catalyst, creating this situation in order to satisfy that need. It has brought together opposing forces, provided crude instruments in an effort to promote the most violent mode of conflict.

KIRK: And kept numbers and resources balanced, so that it can maintain a constant state of violence.

I could easily substitute the “it” in this for “the media” and it would be appropriate: a “catalyst,” created for the sole purpose of filling a need for conflict, both artificial in promotion and emphasis as well as inevitable in terms of human nature.

KIRK: There’s another way to survive. Mutual trust and help.

This is an interesting idea – the notion that survival is dependent not on the conflict itself, but what positive forms of cooperation it necessitates. Trust in each other, regardless of political or social identity, and assistance to reach an agreed-upon and mutually beneficial goal.

---

Coordinating nap time and the Muse can be challenging – especially when Ms. Fussypants has entered into the unpredictable realm of either sleeping for three hours in the middle of the day or spending a half an hour jumping in her crib and singing what she remembers of the alphabet.

Times like right now.

However, I love the fact that when the Muse does hit, I manage to capture odd notes to explore when the planets and toddler aligns.

“Solutions are never a single point of failure or resolution… it is separate levels of a larger issue.”

I wrote this while listening to Jocko Willink’s podcast “Overcome Insecurity. How to Be Aggressive When You are Not”:  

“When does it [ownership of a problem] stop?” (@17:46)

“Here’s the deal: the goal of extreme ownership isn’t just to take ownership. The goal of extreme ownership is to actually solve the problem. That’s what the goal is – the goal isn’t to look who to blame… the goal is to get the problem solved.” (@19:04)

Going back to my note, we tend to spend more time focusing on the controversy and what generates traffic to digital media outlets (the conflict) rather than our own role in preventing any sort of resolution for the issue.

Solutions are never a simple fix when it comes to the complexities and irrationality of “illogic and foolish emotions” of human behavior. Some would love to think that the figurehead of government – whether it is local or national – is the lynchpin for every political and societal ill of the day and that the removal or unquestioning support of said person would be the “fix” that is needed.

Instead, the bigger issue would be the process of how one person or party came to be so vital for the success of a larger group. What happened on so many levels that got things to such a point and how might it be fixed so that this path doesn’t become so familiar? What were the driving factors which made the path to the present seem like such a good idea at the time?

This leads me to another note:

“Compartmentalization of responsibility or overlap of responsibility.”

Successful processes and systems rely on this weird conglomeration of both overlap and compartmentalization in terms of responsibility. In the case of the former, shared loads would distribute the weight of a single failure; for the latter, more vital areas of failure would prevent one area from leading to catastrophic and cascading problems within a system.

While these two notes seem to diverge greatly from my original point of the relevance of Science Fiction to reality, consider the recurring theme on this blog: the role of the individual.

The person in the mirror has more power than they think they do in both guaranteeing the continuation of the paranoia, hate and frustration in both social and traditional media as well as their own direct responses and actions which result from what they consume. We can look to that reflection in a quest to assign blame or we can look at the potential for what our role might be in finding a better path.

In a recent post – “Continued Observations” – I hinted at something which I feel needs to be explicitly clarified: the controversy over the recent efforts for impeachment had roots in Russian influence efforts on social media. In reality, these foreign efforts were relatively miniscule in cost and implementation… yet, look at what resulted – think back about the hours of media coverage, the heated discussions, the emotions that came from such a minor investment.

Who is to blame – Russia? Trump? The media personalities?

…Or is it the unthinking consumer?

More importantly, was that the only time that such an influence campaign would be conducted?

I remain viciously optimistic that we can – and will ­­– be much better than this.