Why Olaf Stapledon matters
Feb. 23rd, 2019 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
entanglingbriarsYou probably haven't heard of Olaf Stapledon. If you have, it's probably because you know me. Given that, it's fair to ask why I'm writing my thesis on an obscure early-twentieth-century science fiction writer and philosopher (and "philosopher" is perhaps being generous) that virtually no one has read, whose writing style is clunky enough that it was high praise to describe his novel Sirius as his "most readable" work, and who never solved, or even claimed to have solved, any of the problems he wrestled with.
First, and this is the reason I most commonly give because it's the easiest to justify, Olaf Stapledon had an enormous influence on Western science fiction. True, he wasn't widely read, but his readers include some of the most important names in speculative fiction: Arthur C.Clarke, Stanislaw Lem, C.S. Lewis (Out of the Silent Planet was written partly to refute some of the ideas in Last and First Men), Vernor Vinge, Jorge Luis Borges, Victoria Woolf, and Algernon Blackwood. He more or less invented the ideas of a galaxy-wide society, Dyson spheres (Dyson believed they should be called "Stapledon spheres"), and uplifted animals.
Second, Stapledon's work resonates with me personally. He shares my simultaneous dissatisfaction with the demon-haunted world of the past and the sterile world of the present. He feels the urge to pray to Something and also the defiant cry that It is not worthy of prayer. He longs to believe in ultimate consolation but can never quite find it. He wants to recognize the totality of the universe as beautiful but is repulsed by the suffering it entails.
Third, I think Stapledon is relevant outside of science fiction and personal spirituality. This is probably the hardest case to make. Stapledon doesn't really have any profound insights on the questions and contradictions he raises, but he articulates them very well and I believe these questions are important. I don't believe in sola scientia; while science may be capable of solving most of the physical problems of climate change, dwindling resources, an expanding population, and extinction-level events, it cannot provide us with the will to solve these problems, or with a reason to desire to do so. The questions of will and desire are located in the souls of humans, and neither the old forms of religion nor secular humanism are up to the task. We need a new way to think about the world, and Stapledon shows us how that might come to pass.
First, and this is the reason I most commonly give because it's the easiest to justify, Olaf Stapledon had an enormous influence on Western science fiction. True, he wasn't widely read, but his readers include some of the most important names in speculative fiction: Arthur C.Clarke, Stanislaw Lem, C.S. Lewis (Out of the Silent Planet was written partly to refute some of the ideas in Last and First Men), Vernor Vinge, Jorge Luis Borges, Victoria Woolf, and Algernon Blackwood. He more or less invented the ideas of a galaxy-wide society, Dyson spheres (Dyson believed they should be called "Stapledon spheres"), and uplifted animals.
Second, Stapledon's work resonates with me personally. He shares my simultaneous dissatisfaction with the demon-haunted world of the past and the sterile world of the present. He feels the urge to pray to Something and also the defiant cry that It is not worthy of prayer. He longs to believe in ultimate consolation but can never quite find it. He wants to recognize the totality of the universe as beautiful but is repulsed by the suffering it entails.
Third, I think Stapledon is relevant outside of science fiction and personal spirituality. This is probably the hardest case to make. Stapledon doesn't really have any profound insights on the questions and contradictions he raises, but he articulates them very well and I believe these questions are important. I don't believe in sola scientia; while science may be capable of solving most of the physical problems of climate change, dwindling resources, an expanding population, and extinction-level events, it cannot provide us with the will to solve these problems, or with a reason to desire to do so. The questions of will and desire are located in the souls of humans, and neither the old forms of religion nor secular humanism are up to the task. We need a new way to think about the world, and Stapledon shows us how that might come to pass.
