SF-TH Inc Self and Other in SF: Alien Encounters Author(s): Carl D. Malmgren Reviewed work(s): Source: Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Mar., 1993), pp. 15-33 Published by: SF-TH Inc Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4240211 . Accessed: 19/08/2012 21:04 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. SF-TH Inc is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Science Fiction Studies. http://www.jstor.org SELF AND OTHER IN SF: ALIEN ENCOUNTERS 15 Carl D. Malmgren Self and Other in SF: Alien Encounters 1. Alien Encounter SF Whenscience fiction uses its limitlessrange of symboland metaphor novelistical- ly, with the subjectat the center,it can show us who we are, andwhere we are, andwhat choices face us, withunsurpassed clarity, and with a greatand troubling beauty.-Ursula K. LeGuin,The Language of the Night Renderingthe alien,making the readerexperience it, is the crucialcontribution of SF. -Gregory Benford,"Effing the Ineffable" Some critics have argued that SF, given its discursivegrounding in the epistemologyof science and its a prioriassumption of an impersonal,value- neutraluniverse, is genericallyinimical to the depictionand explorationof "character."Scott Sanders, for example, suggests that "in the twentieth centuryscience fiction is centrallyabout the disappearanceof character,in the same sense in whichthe eighteenth-and nineteenth-centurynovel is about the emergenceof character"(132; italics in original).In this line of argu- ment,the veryidea of characteris predicatedon a liberalhumanism that the scientificworldview has obviated.This criticalposition ignores, overlooks, or is ignorantof alien-encounterSF, that whichhas as its narrativedominant the confrontationbetween terranrepresentative and alien actant.This kind of encounternecessarily keeps "thesubject at the center,"exploring not only who we are (in the classic,liberal sense) but also whatwe mightbecome in a futurecertain to be differentfrom the present. Alien-encounterSF involvesthe introductionof sentientalien beings into the actantialsystem of the fictionaluniverse; one or more of the actantsare nonhumanor subhumanor superhuman.Like SF in general, this type of fiction may feature a number of differentnovums, but in it the actantial system predominates.LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness,for example,deals with ambisexualaliens, two contrastivenation-states, and an ice-ageworld. The novel's dominant,however, is the encounterbetween terranself and alienother, and the novelis typologicallyalien-encounter SF. The encounter with the alien inevitablybroaches the questionof the Self and the Other.In general,the readerrecuperates this type of fictionby comparinghuman and alien entities,trying to understandwhat it means to be human. Since the alien actantcan take a wide varietyof forms,alien-encounter SF includesa wide spectrumof fictions.The alien othermight take the form of a technologicallytransformed version of the self, as in FrederikPohl's Man Plus or Joseph McElroy's Plus. It might appear in the form of a 16 SCIENCE-FICTIONSTUDIES, VOLUME 20 (1993) mutant,as in A.E. van Vogt'sSlan, or in the form of a monstrousalter ego, as in Wells's The InvisibleMan or Stevenson'sDr Jekylland Mr Hyde. Humanscan themselvescreate or inventan alien being, eitherbenevolent, as in George Alec Effmger's The Wolvesof Memory;malevolent, as in Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream";or ethically neutral,as in MaryShelley's Frankenstein. The most commonform of the alien is, of course, the extraterrestrial,but even that kind of encounter admitsof variation.The alien might appearon Earthby accident,in need of assistance,as in the movie E.T. The alien might come here by design, either to save humanityfrom itself, as in Arthur C. Clarke'sChildhood's End, or to subjugateor annihilatethe humanrace, as in Wells'sThe War of the Worlds.The alien might appear here and attach itself to the human body, either as a parasite(Robert Heinlein'sThe PuppetMasters) or as a symbiont(Hal Clement'sNeedle), in so doing convertinga humanself into an alien other.Although some critics(e.g., Rose, Wolfe)would assign these fictions to separate categories,I would argue that they share a common dominantnovum, an alien actant,which determines their typological identity and circumscribestheir thematicfield. These fictionsexplore the natureof selfhood from the vantagepoint of alterity. In their critiqueof alien-encounterSF, criticshave pursued two different lines of argument.One line claimsthat whateverform the alien mighttake, it is never really alien. The scientist Loren Eiseley complains:"In the modernliterature on space travelI have read aboutcabbage men and bird men; I have investigatedthe loves of lizardmen and the tree men, but in each case I have laboredunder no illusion.I havebeen readingabout man, Homo sapiens,that commonearthling" (cited in Pielke,30). Relatedto this is the chargethat SF tends to rely heavilyon stereotypesin its portrayalof "character."Even a sympatheticand discerning critic such as RobertScholes admitsthat "it is fair to say that the representationof uniqueindividuality is not so muchan end in itself in SF as it has been in some realisticnovels" (48). Scholesfails to point out that the novelshe has in mindare character- dominant;i.e., that bourgeoisnotions of the centralityof the individuated actant informthese novels' ontology.He also seems to have confusedSF featuringother dominants(gadgets, alternateworlds, alternatesocieties) with the totalityof the genre. When evaluatingSF, one must pay attention to the natureof the dominantnovum. While some SF (like other forms of fiction) resortsto stock charactersand stereotypesin elaboratingits roster of actants,good alien-encounterSF just cannotdo that.The alien actantand its humancounterpart occupy the story'scenter stage, and an explorationof their respectivequalities is the sine qua non of the fiction. Other readersof SF, more awareof the richnessof the alien-encounter tradition,have proposed ways of discriminatingbetween forms of alienityin SF. Authorand criticGregory Benford, for example,distinguishes between "anthropocentric"and "unknowable"aliens: the formerconsist of "exagger- ations of humantraits"; the latter, alien at the "mostbasic level,"partake of an "essentialstrangeness" ("Aliens and Knowability"53, 56). The basic SELF AND OTHER IN SF: ALIEN ENCOUNTERS 17 parameterhere is the degree of alienity, the extent to which the alien adheresto or departsfrom anthropocentric norms. This degree,it shouldbe clear,is a functionof the mentaloperation used to generatethe alien.Here we can make a basic distinctionregarding the natureof that operation,one tying alien-encounterSF to other forms of the genre. The author may proceed either by extrapolation,creating a fictional novum by logical projectionor extensionfrom existingactualities, or by speculation,making a quantumleap of the imaginationtoward an otherstate of affairs.'Thus we can speak of extrapolativeencounters involving anthropocentric aliens and speculativeencounters involving unknowable aliens. As Benfordnotes, the anthropocentricalien serves primarilyas a "mirror"for us, "a way to examineour problemsin a differentlight" ("Aliens and Knowability"54). The act of extrapolationinsists that there is a line of connectionbetween terran and alien actants,between Us and Them. The act of makingthat connectionforces us to explorewhat it means to be human. The case of the speculativeencounter is more problematic.It shouldbe clear that the otherness of the "unknowablealien" is itself a matter of degree; as Benford notes in anotheressay, "one cannot depict the totally alien"("Effing" 14). PatrickParrinder points out that "anymeaningful act of defamiliarizationcan only be relative,since it is not possiblefor man to imaginewhat is utterlyalien to him. To give meaningto somethingis also, inescapably,to 'humanize'it or to bringit withinthe boundsof our anthro- pomorphicworld view"(150). Indeed,the relationshipbetween figureand groundupon which perception is based abrogatesthe possibilityof absolute otherness;one needs a backgroundto distinguishthe salientfeatures of the foreground.Built into the concept of othernessis the idea of relationship, the questionother than what?In terms of the alien encounterthat whatis necessarilydefined in humanterms. And yet, as Benford points out, the speculativeencounter insists that aliensare finallyaliens, not just metaphors,and that "importantissues turn upon admittingalien ways of knowing"("Effing" 15). The speculativeleap which generates the alien actant encodes a degree of excess that cannot finallybe mastered or appropriated.The speculativewriter inscribesan actantwho transgressesbasic characterological norms, whose relation to our worldis less logical than analogicalor even anagogical;Benford cites as a paradigmhere the humanencounter with God ("Aliensand Knowability" 56). These alien actantsexplore the limitationsof being humanand suggest the possibilityof transcendingthose limits.They examinewhat we are not, in so doing intimatingwhat we could become. Any attempt to