Otherness (41 page)

Does this sound like some bizarre science-fiction scenario?

Or is it, rather, a pretty good model for what's been going on throughout most of human history? Examples abound. Take the dogmatic exclusion rule of most religions, which call competing idea systems "heresy."

One of the Iranian ayatollahs once said of America—"We don't fear your bombs, we fear your pagan ideas." Why would he say such a thing? Dawkins's theory seems to offer as good an explanation as any.

Now comes the truly sci-fi part of this scenario. (After all, you bought this book for entertainment, no?) So let's play with these notions for a little while as I paint a rather unconventional picture of our familiar world.

Let me suggest that until recently five major memes have battled over the future of this planet. These combating Zeitgeists had little to do with those superficial, pompous slogan mills people have gotten all lathered about during this century—communism, capitalism, Christianity, Islam. They are deeper, older themes that continue to set the tone for entire civilizations even today.

Feudalism
is one of the oldest. It may appear to be rare nowadays, but some philosophers and historians have called it the "most natural" of human societies, simply because it cropped up in so many places throughout the millennia—everywhere, in fact, that metallurgy and agriculture combined to let close-knit elites establish and enforce an inherited aristocracy.

(If one tallies a list of history's few, short-lived flowerings of freedom and enterprise, it is clear that aristocracy toppled and crushed far more of these frail renaissances than socialism ever did.)

Has modern life made feudalism obsolete? Maybe. But if so, why do so many in the West go all teary-eyed over inbred European royal families, including one that we Americans kicked out with just cause, long ago?

Or take the raging popularity of fantasy novels with feudal settings. Can it be possible that the descendants of rebels—
true
heroes who fought to free us all from a beastly, oppressive way of life that doomed nearly everyone to ignorance and peasantry—that those descendants prefer to fantasize "heroic" adventures featuring despotic kings, egocentric princes, and curmudgeonly wizards? Apparently it is so.

Clearly the pull of the feudal meme is still strong in us, tugging at our sympathies even today.

Machismo
is another powerful worldview—the leading meme—in many parts of today's world. Wherever women are stifled and vengeance is touted as a primary virtue, wherever skill and craftsmanship are downgraded in favor of "strutting" and male-bonded loyalty groups, it's a good bet machismo sets the agenda.

And don't underrate it! Throughout human history macho was an effective way of running small clans. Countless stirring, heroic epics come down to us from such tribes. (Or take the way many today swoon over how Klingons are depicted, in
Star Trek
!) Indeed the inevitable ferment of this male-centered zeitgeist was tolerable when human numbers were small, and hunter-warriors were central to clan life.

Different versions of machismo today dominate whole regions, even continents, conveyed across generations by myths children absorb at an early age. For example, in one Middle Eastern culture, nearly every fairy tale focuses on one theme—that of revenge. In another land
mothers
are known to sit their little sons on their knees and say—"Someday you will deflower virgins and ravish other men's wives, but if this happens to your wife or sister, cut her throat."

This may sound bizarre to some of you, but it would be a mistake to dismiss it as an aberration. As worldviews go, machismo has a long tradition—a lot longer than ours. The biggest argument against this meme is not that any alternative is intrinsically better . . . only that, if it prevails, the Earth will surely die.

Then there's
paranoia
, another venerable family of memes. For example, one can understand the Russian tradition of xenophobia, given their history of suffering terrible invasions, on average twice a century. Still, that worldview of dour suspicion and bludgeoning distrust made for a brittle, capricious superpower, worsened by a deluding, superficial dogma, communism. If paranoia had won, or even lasted much longer, the world would probably have become a cinder sooner or later. We'll see, in the course of the next decade, if this meme really is fading. Watch how the other culture families devour its remains, as some parts of the empire hurry to join the West, some tumble into the macho orbit, and still others become Eastern with stunning rapidity.

That fourth worldview, which I call "The East," is one zeitgeist that is demonstrably both traditional and sane—after its fashion. During most of recorded history it was dominant on this planet. Its theme: homogeneity, uniformity, respect for elders, and discipline. People should subsume their sense of self in favor of family, group, nation. One can see how such a meme would make governing large populations easier. Capital is not wasted on male strutting, or excessively on arms. Stoical labor and compound interest have a chance to work wonders.

If the East wins, you will probably have some preservation of the environment, no pandas but some trees. Both violence and the egregious excesses of hyperindividualism will certainly abate. Humans might even slowly, eventually, get out into space.

But when or if we ever meet aliens, we would not understand them. Because by then the very notion of diversity, let alone the idea of finding it attractive, will have been extinguished.

I wouldn't find it much fun living in a human civilization dominated by sameness. But then, if I'd been brought up differently, I might not think "fun" such a key desideratum, after all. (In many languages there is no word for the concept.) In any event, the Eastern worldview is the only one with a proved track record, having operated civilizations for millennia in a manner that, while despotic, was calm and orderly, in its way.

"Calm" is the last word you would use to describe the fifth meme, one that has always been a lesser theme, carried by an eccentric minority in each culture . . . until ours. What is the fifth meme? You've heard me call it the Dogma of Otherness, although that only scratches the surface. It is a strange, rebellious worldview unlike any of its predecessors. One that actually encourages an appetite for newness, hunger for diversity, eagerness for change.

Tolerance plays a major role in the legends spread by this new culture, plus a tradition of humorous self-criticism. (Look at the underlying message contained in most situation comedies. It is always the most intolerant or pompous character who gets comeuppance before the final curtain. And never before have leaders of nations, commanders of armies, had to accept the fact that they routinely will be objects of critique, even ridicule.)

Another thread pervading countless films and novels is suspicion of authority. A plethora of writers in Hollywood and elsewhere have worked this vein, each of them acting as if he or she were inventing rebellious individualism—an ironic twist, since each of them was
raised
on myths extolling eccentricity and solitary defiance! (From Mr.
Smith Goes to Washington
, to
Rebel Without a Cause
, to the latest exercise in self-flagellation directed by Oliver Stone.) You can earn a good living as an iconoclast in the West today, especially if you make your idol-smashing entertaining.

Few seem to have noticed how odd this message is, as propaganda. Name one other culture in history that ever spread hypertolerance myths like Steven Spielberg's movie
E.T
., in which a generation of children were taught—"If you ever encounter a weird stranger from an alien race, by all means, hide him from your own people's freely elected tribal elders!" To me this is a far more startling break with history than wonder drugs, or moon landings, or computers that talk, with good and bad consequences swarming forth with every passing day. No longer is the emphasis on looking to the past, or on conformity as a principal virtue. Youth-fixation replaces reverence for age, and all ancient idols and gods are replaced by a new figure on the altar, the Self.

What a strange, unprecedented meme! One that encourages an art form as compulsively questioning as science fiction, and that, in turn, is spread quite effectively by science fiction.

In olden times, in societies where the few ruled the many, aristocracies used to rally the masses by pointing to some outside threat and whipping up paranoia. One sees similar efforts taking place today, in efforts to combat Otherness—dangerous efforts to pander to racism and fear. Efforts that may succeed here and there, but that I hope and expect will be largely in vain. I expect it because the rich and powerful no longer control this new myth. It has outgrown the grasp of even the "enlightened" intellectuals who originally set it on its way.

For better or for worse, we all now appear to be along for the ride.

To those of my readers who have been shaking their heads for some time, saying—"Sheesh! What an optimist Brin is!"—I can only answer that I am well aware of the problems, the flaws, the dismal and depressing failures of a system that promises freedom, justice, and plenty for all, but has fallen so far short of that ideal. It has succeeded far better than any other culture since we left the caves, but by the new standards we have set for ourselves, it is a poor record indeed. One worthy of much criticism.

(Anyway, what if I'm simply doing my
own
iconoclastic bit? Optimism, in a world rife with copycat pessimists? Do a head count. I'll bet
I'm
the one who's being different!)

It would be an exaggeration to suggest that this meme I call Otherness "owns" territories like Europe or America . . . or even California. Where it is strongest it must still contend ceaselessly with macho, paranoiac, homogenizing, and other traditional forces that continue battling over the minds and actions of women and men—forces that may indeed be far more "natural" to us human animals, who are so innately egotistical and afraid. Add to this a plague of self-righteousness, in which both individuals and political factions seem more interested in the sweet mantras of their slogans than in finding pragmatic solutions to modern problems, and you have a formula for troubled times ahead.

It may be that the best time for Otherness has already passed. Clearly part of the basis for this renaissance has been
wealth
, especially the unprecedented comfort enjoyed by the vast majority of Westerners since World War II, in which very few of us can even conceive of starving—therefore, why
not
fight for the rights of sea mammals? (The Japanese still remember needing them for food. Is it any wonder we disagree?)

It is good to recall that nations and tribes never preach tolerance and love of diversity when they are afraid. Witness the civil strife now raging in so many formerly peaceful parts of the world. It may be that Otherness rests its foundations on a brief oasis of plenty in human history, and that this new meme will vanish from sight just as soon as the dunes sweep back in.

Make no mistake about it, Otherness (along with its two offspring, science and democracy) is still the upstart, the underdog.

What we
can
say in its favor is that Otherness has become powerful in the
official
morality of many nations. In most debates over issues concerning the public, both sides usually wrap themselves in terms such as "tolerance," "privacy," "choice," or "individual rights." And absolutely everybody, right or left, is suspicious of the government!

How bizarre, in the context of history, is the impatient, deeply Utopian notion, shared by millions, that our institutions can and must be improvable?

Or that vigorous criticism is one of the best ways to elicit change . . .

Or that "I might be wrong" is a statement any adult is made better by saying frequently, aloud or in private . . .

Or that it might be possible—and desirable—for children to learn from the mistakes of their parents, or even surpass them . . .

Or that a golden age is not to be nostalgically mourned in ancient tomes, but to be
earned
in a better, wiser tomorrow . . .?

Now the bonus question: Do I take all of this seriously?

Are a bunch of infectious "meme" worldviews really at war over human minds, with the prize being the future of human civilization and the planet?

Of course not. My job is to take you on entertaining rides on the backs of strange new metaphors. It's what you people pay me for, and you went along willingly on this one. (At least those of you still holding this book in your hands!) I hope you found this trip through strangeness to your satisfaction.

Still, I've thought of an amusing experiment you might play, using these five protagonists—the five memes—I've just described. Try to picture what might happen if
extraterrestrials
ever did come to Earth and landed in a macho culture, or a feudal one, or a paranoid society, or in the East.

You get four wildly different scenarios, don't you?

Now go one step further and imagine alien contact with people brought up in the final way I've described—under the Dogma of Otherness.

Forget Hollywood pathos about mean, nasty CIA types and trigger-happy rednecks. Those guilt-tripping movies have been partly responsible for seeing to it that (with luck) that sort of schmaltz won't happen. Rather, picture a flying saucer setting down in a parking lot in today's California. The National Guard encircles the vessel . . . to protect our alien visitors from novelty seekers, reporters, talk-show hosts, talent agents, and hordes desperately eager to have their consciousness raised!

The jury is still out whether otherness-fetishism is any saner than older ways. (Sometimes I wonder!) Nor is there any proof it will, or should, win in the end. Yet I know where I stand. My upbringing cannot help coming out in my writing, or in hoping that readers of my books will come away each time feeling just a bit more tolerant, more future oriented, more critical and eager for diversity and change.