Why Olaf Stapledon matters

[entanglingbriars]

You 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.

Comments

[swamp_adder]

FWIW, I followed you because I saw you were posting about Olaf Stapledon. I love his work mainly for his worldbuilding and exploration of science fictional concepts, and have often found his philosophical ideas maddeningly contradictory, yet strangely fascinating despite and maybe because of that: whatever else you may say about him, he certainly didn't shy away from asking the big questions! Your thesis sounds interesting; I wish you all the best in this endeavor.

[entanglingbriars]

Thanks! It's always a pleasure to meet someone else who likes Stapledon.

[child_of_the_air]

I think I first heard of Stapledon from a history of science fiction that I read in high school, though I admit that you were the first person to actually get me to read him. Certainly, though, I thought it was well known that he had a big influence on Golden Age science fiction?

I'm still unsure how much utility I find in Stapledon's spiritual vision, though...it seems rather more focused on sentience and teleology than I'm comfortable with.

[random_thought_depository]

Tangent, but an idea I had for putting together some things about The First and Last Men:

- There are strong hints that the First World State would have turned out better if better decisions were made in the centuries leading up to its formation.
- There's mention at the end of the book of the Last Men developing the ability to influence people in the past.
- The First and Last Men is now honorary alternate history (i.e. history has moved on and invalidated some of its "future" events).

Concept: our history is the result of the Last Men trying to fix what they see as some of the wrong turns in the centuries leading up to the founding of the First World State. For instance, they nudged our physicists toward a Baby's First version of nuclear power that was much easier and safer than the Stapledon version, which meant 1) our civilization won't collapse when it runs out of coal like the First World State did, 2) European cultural and genetic diversity was preserved by MAD (important cause of Stapledon's complementarian racial essentialist assumptions), 3) having to institutionally manage our safer version of nuclear power is an inoculation against destroying ourselves like the Patagonians did when we discover the more dangerous Stapledon version.

Also maybe somewhat diagnostic that we'd probably never create a tradition like the Sacred Lynching.

Admittedly I don't know what to do with Mars and Venus being different in this concept.

Kind of off-topic, but I thought you might find the idea interesting.