The aesthetics of... genocide??

[entanglingbriars]

Olaf 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.

Comments

[feotakahari]

Say, have you read Orson Scott Card at all? He has the “good guys” committing genocide in both Treason and Ender’s Game. Treason is more like what you’re saying Stapleton is, whereas Ender’s Game is more of a reaction and even a counterargument to the ideas he played straight in Treason.

[entanglingbriars]

I've read Ender's Game, but not Treason. I ragequit reading Card after Xenocide was utter shit.

[feotakahari]

Probably just as well. The Ender books only got worse from there. Though there is one scene I think is worth it: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/let-me-tell-of-you-of-the-most-beautiful-story-i-know.1292211/

In Treason, the protagonist thinks the “illuders” are so inherently dangerous, they need to all be killed so that their abilities are lost forever. This is never questioned in and of itself, even though the narrative acknowledges that many of them aren’t evil. Rather, the conflict is whether the protagonist can withstand the emotional guilt of doing something so horrible.

I once saw an essay arguing that Card’s entire ethos is defined around his belief that gay people need to be forced not to love each other in order to prevent the collapse of civilization. He writes one story after another in which a character does something that burdens them with guilt, but reasons that it’s the only option. Treason is the purest example of how this plays out: https://alarajrogers.tumblr.com/post/175512270629/do-you-think-you-can-are-allowed-to-enjoy

Ender’s Game also has the idea that the aliens will inevitably kill humanity, and that they must be killed in order to stop them. And in the end, it turns out that they’d long since given up attacking, and the whole slaughter was pointless. It’s the closest Card really gets to the idea that the protagonist has unnecessarily done bad things, although of course he still finds a way that it’s not the protagonist’s fault.