The aesthetics of... genocide??
May. 14th, 2019 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
entanglingbriarsOlaf Stapledon has a weird aesthetic. It's one I mostly like, but it's weird. Specifically, Stapledon thinks that we should find beauty in tragedy and suffering. Our own mortality, the eventual death of our species, even the eventual quiescence of the universe are all, he believes, beautiful in some way that a truly enlightened being would comprehend. A lot of the tension in Stapledon's writing comes from his own inability to realize this ideal himself.
However, it goes further than this. Stapledonian societies are frequently willing to accept their own annihilation rather than sully themselves in lower activities like war, and they accept their end with exultation. That's frankly par for the course in a Stapledon book. But there are three instances where this does not happen, three instances in Stapledonian literature where a utopian community actively commits genocide: the Homo superiors of Odd John genocide a small tribal society in order to colonize an island, the Second Men in Last and First Men create a virus to destroy the Martians and (they believe) themselves as well, and the Fifth Men exterminate the Venerians prior to their colonization of Venus. The narrative portrays these as tragic but necessary, certainly acceptable, and--here's where my title comes in--arguably as beautiful, since they allow for the continuation of something nobler than that which is destroyed.
Anyway, it's really disturbing and highlights aspects of Stapledon's thought that I really don't like.
However, it goes further than this. Stapledonian societies are frequently willing to accept their own annihilation rather than sully themselves in lower activities like war, and they accept their end with exultation. That's frankly par for the course in a Stapledon book. But there are three instances where this does not happen, three instances in Stapledonian literature where a utopian community actively commits genocide: the Homo superiors of Odd John genocide a small tribal society in order to colonize an island, the Second Men in Last and First Men create a virus to destroy the Martians and (they believe) themselves as well, and the Fifth Men exterminate the Venerians prior to their colonization of Venus. The narrative portrays these as tragic but necessary, certainly acceptable, and--here's where my title comes in--arguably as beautiful, since they allow for the continuation of something nobler than that which is destroyed.
Anyway, it's really disturbing and highlights aspects of Stapledon's thought that I really don't like.
