Speculative Fiction? No, That's Just Reality.
Robin Williams once said, “Reality, what a concept?”
And it’s true: How can this present moment be real? Climate disaster. Floods, fires, melting, drought. There used to be so many birds. Now there are so many wars and so much suffering. How are so many of us so poor when so many of us (and our corporations) are so rich? Most of us had homes. And food.
It’s hard to keep track of what’s happening everywhere. To not be overwhelmed—or numbed. What we thought of as “normal” is strange, disturbing, confusing. How can we manage the present: the absurd, unbelievable, the possible, the impossible?
There’s that famous myth about the Norse god Odin, where he’s told he can get the secret to divine wisdom by giving up one eye. “Ok,” he says and hands over an eye. “What’s the secret?” “Watch with both eyes,” he’s told. The metaphor here—we’ll overlook the ableist aspect of this ancient tale for now—is that we’re not equipped to really understand the world.
I’ve been thinking about how we use story to try to make sense of the world but we also use story to learn to live with what is impossible to understand or believe. These days, what we call speculative fiction seems as real and makes as much—or more—sense as what we call “reality” or “realist” fiction.
Reality is constructed. Made up. And here I’m not talking about “fake news” or propaganda, but instead that how we understand or interpret what’s going on depends on many factors. For a few hundred years in the west, we’ve decided what “realist” stories were and what “reality” was. But now, more than ever, we need to expand our view. I guess I’m saying in truth, there’s no difference between fiction and truth; in fiction, there’s no difference either.
And so I’ve been thinking about what is “speculative” about speculative fiction. Our best stories can do two things: Help us expand what we think is possible and help us express how strange the world—our world—is. It’s a place of sadness and confusion but also one of possibility and wonder.
Sometimes speculative fiction “makes things strange.” It opens up our brains and hearts through surprising or strange techniques. It’s a sneak attack on that “same old same old” feeling which makes us feel numb or overwhelmed. Getting our heads around something new energizes us, makes us reconsider what we thought we knew. It awakens us to new insights and feelings.
It reminds us that making new stories or telling old ones in a new way and trusting our imagination—our fundamental creativity as humans—helps us through, well, everything. Ursula K. Le Guin wrote that “the imagination is the single most useful tool mankind possesses. It beats the opposable thumb. I can imagine living without my thumbs, but not without my imagination.”
The other thing about stories that seem new, strange, or surprising is that they remind us that we need to ask questions of stories and storytellers (and here I include politicians and other leaders).
Are they representing the whole truth? Could they be mistaken? Do they have a bias? Are they afraid of what they can’t understand and so have to fill out their stories with their fear and bitterness?
I agree with Le Guin that imagination is humanity’s single greatest technology. We can imagine how things really are. The reality behind the reality. How things could be. All the ways they could be. (Or as Yogi Berra said, “When you get to a fork in the road, take it.”) And we can imagine not only other ways of being, but others’ other ways of being, too.
—Knock knock?
—Who’s there?
—Me on the inside, knocking to find out what’s outside.
Check out Gary Barwin's Scandal at the Alphorn Factory here:
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