Can a Humanist Write Fantasy in Good Conscience?



The Goddess Durga

The Highest-Mother-Who-Has-No-Name
with her star nurseries

      















When I first started this self-publishing effort, I happened to make the acquaintance of an indie author who was a convinced atheist.  This writer abjured fantasy in all forms because of the underlying premise of magic, which assumes a spiritual foundation not grounded in science.  This writer would read science fiction, but  only if it omitted all non-material assumptions.  Since then, I've encountered other atheists who seem to feel the same way.  The most convinced atheist is a fullblown materialist and simply can't allow for anything unexplainable by science.

        Those of you who may have followed this blog since its early days will remember that I'm a humanist. Humanists are by definition supposed to be atheists, but I reject that appellation because my view is more that of the agnostic -- I reject the notion that it's possible to know anything about god or gods, but I leave the possibility open that something beyond the explanatory ability of science might exist.  

       So how does one define belief?  I define it as conviction without proof.  A convinced religionist "believes" that he/she knows the truth, but the fact is that there is no way to prove if that person is right.  A convinced atheist "believes" there is nothing spiritual anywhere, but he/she has no proof, either.  That's why I reject dogmatism (of either the religious or the atheistic variety) and view it as the source of countable wars and evil acts committed against the best principles of right behavior (what I call the Right Way) that are embedded (along with the capacity for evil) in the human consciousness.

       I see humanity as having the capacity to fix things on their own without the intervention of gods, and that is what I mean by humanist. However, while many humanists are atheists, I call myself a spiritual humanist.  I simply state that you cannot know the truth about what might be beyond the ken of science.  Therefore, I have no problem with belief in itself.  My problem is  with those who believe so strongly in their rectitude that they want to force their belief on the whole world,  either through conversion (under corecion if necessary) or by  eliminating those damned recalcitrant sinners, individually or through warfare.

       Consequently, I can enjoy fantasy -- stories with spiritual or magic elements in them -- and I can write such stories.  (And I want to add parenthetically that I realize not all atheists reject fantasy; some simply accept the role of the imagination in human endeavors, suspend disbelief, and enjoy themselves.)  All of my books include some spiritual elements.  I can write in The Termite Queen about a future history of Earth that has rejected religion and lives by the humanist Mythmaker principles, but in the same book I can write about a termite planet that has Seers who are in touch with a Mother Goddess who lives among the stars.  And I can conclude that book with references to Christianity, which I think not everybody who has read the book has recognized.  Kwi'ga'ga'tei the Seer takes the sins of the universe on herself (TheWound That Will Not Heal) and atones for them.  The myths of all religions can be adapted for many purposes.

       Similarly, in the series The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head, I retell (among other epics) the Song of Roland.  When I was rereading it in preparation for adapting it, I was struck by how in medieval times both the Christians and the Saracens called each other infidel and how we're still fighting that useless war today -- a war over disparate "truths" neither of which can ever be proven.  So I made the Marcher Shshi and the People of the Cave to be at war with each other over the "truth" of whether the Highest Mother lives in the sky or in the ground.  In the beginning Di'fa'kro'mi the Remembrancer is rather shocked, because he has never encountered any form of worship other than of the Sky Mother, but as time passes, he comes to realize that it doesn't matter which way you perceive the Goddess -- what matters is the way you behave toward your fellow "humans" and how you honor the principle for which the Goddess stands -- in a termite context, the rare and beautiful procreative principle.  I think all this is quite pertinent to our own sad times. 

       My WIP The Man Who Found Birds among the Stars is much more a work of literary science fiction than it is a fantasy and it explores the nature of the humanist future of Earth more fully than I had space to do in The Termite Queen.  But even in MWFB there are elements of fantasy.  We see how religion has evolved into remnant communities that are sanctioned by EarthGov as long as they keep their worship private and don't proselytize.  In some cases Enclaves are chartered by EarthGov, in which communities of religionist believers can operate openly, again as long as they remain within the Enclave boundaries and keep the rules established in their charters. 
       However, I also investigate what might exist in the unexplored reaches of space.  Could there be something unexplainable out there, something that might not want us entering its domain?  Or is the entity only a figment of a disturbed mind?  This is mostly developed much later in the book, but I do have one reader of my unfinished opus who really likes the book but who, as an atheist, has complained that he would perfer I stuck to the scientific, no matter how fanciful my science is, and omit anything spiritual.  Well, I can't do that.  The concept of the spiritual is deeply embedded in the psychology of the intelligent being, and much of the wonder that exists in our lives comes from things we can't explain. 

       I constructed my future history around a group of 20 ethical precepts called the Mythmaker Precepts.  You can read my earlier posts on the topic here under the label Mythmakers in the sidebar, but it's best to start with the first one, Who Are the Mythmakers and Why Do They Matter? and then proceed through the series. The instinctive impulse toward belief  is embodied in the myths that humans devised to explain the world in a time less versed in scientific methodology.  I see fantasy as modern myth (I've stated elsewhere that most significant fiction has an element of fantasy within it [see Defining Fantasy according to TermiteWriter]).  Those myths become metaphors for important moral and ethical considerations; they clothe the deepest insights of modern man in wonder and give those insights a psychological and emotional foundation.  They can teach us and move us and appeal to our deepest selves.

Virgin Mary, Folk Art, Peru
19th century
http://www.arttoartpalettejournal.com/2011/04/exhibit-is-a-us-first/

      

Mythmakers: Some Responses to a Comment

       I've had some interesting comments by Neil Aplin on the earlier Mythmaker posts (see the comments here) and I need to respond, so here goes!  It was about time I wrote a new Mythmaker post!  This is rather hastily composed, but I'm going to post it today anyway (without a serious proofread).

       Mr. Aplin writes: "Just because man’s internal sense of right and wrong doesn't preclude the supernatural, it doesn't necessarily mean that the supernatural must therefore exist." 
       My response: Neither I nor the Mythmakers say that man's ability to discern what is right proves the existence of god or the spiritual, only that there can be no proof that god or the spiritual doesn't exist. That is Precepts No. 1 ("No one can know deity; neither can it be proven that it does not exist")
and 3 ("Since the purpose of deity for humans, or even whether it had a purpose for humans, is unknowable, it is incumbent upon humans to look within themselves and find the way to right action"). 
       I refuse to be a full-blown atheist, because I think a lot of them to be just as closed-minded and bigoted as the most hot-headed religionists. I find Richard Dawkins to be like that.  I don't even particularly like the term "agnostic."  These terms suggest fixed beliefs with no room for growth or development or change or novelty -- the very opposite of scientific! It seems to me that there will always be something beyond what science can teach us -- beyond the Big Bang, beyond what came before what came before that -- but we will never know its nature.  Therefore, it could come in any form.  That's why  we can write fantasy.  A true atheist couldn't write fantasy because it would go against his belief in the supernatural.  It would be a travesty to have spirit beings or gods working miracles in a book.  A true atheist should have a big book-burning and get rid of every allusion to anything spiritual that has ever been written.  Throw Tolkien on there, because his elves cannot be scienfically proved to exist!
 
       Mr. Aplin quotes me as saying "Myth and gods are .... a truth, which the individual recognizes by some instinct built into the genes."  But the full text of what I said is this: "Myth and gods are not science; they are faith-based. But by that very nature, they can't be proved to exist; they can be neither denied or proved true or real. They can only symbolize a truth, which the individual recognizes by some instinct built into the genes." "Symbolize" a truth is different from saying they "are" a truth.  When symbols are used, as in poetry or literature -- or myth -- it gives us a deeper insight into what is reflected or embodied.  By "built into the genes," I'm talking about the need of the evolved human brain to explain the world in which it finds itself.  I remember reading somewhere that there may be a genetic component to this need.  Non-human creatures don't seem to be able to explain the world through symbols or to have a need to do so (well, bower birds do have a certain artistic capability!) 
       Gradually these primitive symbolic explanations (such as Zeus hurling thunderbolts) become replaced with scientifically provable facts.  But again, there is always that point beyond which we cannot go.  Therefore, we can write fantasy or construct mythic systems -- we can satisfy our need for symbols by embodying the unknown in our personal creations, and by gaining deeper insight through those creations.  I consider all religious writing to be mythic in nature, including the Bible (or perhaps especially the Bible).  I'm not against religious myth; I'm only against dogmatic religious institutions that proclaim they have the one and only Truth and want to force the entire world to believe as they do.
       So -- maybe infinitely huge entities exist, inhabiting a plane of existence or a dimension we can't even conceive of (see my short piece "A Little Laboratory Work"), playing soccer with comets and using the entire universe as a laboratory.  Maybe malevolent beings lurk out in deep space -- beings who don't want us out there (that's in my Man Who Found Birds among the Stars).   
       And maybe there really is a big Termite Queen (see at left) who fills up the sky with the mighty creative force of her belly, lays the stars from her ovipositor, and occasionally meddles in her creation.  I can have this Goddess talk to the Seers among those who worship her, even though Earthers have become humanists and don't believe in her or any other god.  Or maybe humanity believes more than they realize.  Decide for yourself after you finish v.2 of TQ!

This is enough for now.  I've only touched on Mr. Aplin's remarks.  I'll get back to more of them at another time.

Review and Analysis: The Children of God, by Mary Doria Russell

       Earlier I wrote an analysis of The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell, and now I've finished reading the sequel.  In Goodreads, I gave it 4 stars, while I gave the first volume 5.  While I found the book rewarding and a must-read for anyone who wants to complete the story of Emilio Sandoz, there are certain reasons why I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the first volume.
       In the beginning I thought I might actually like the sequel even better because we learn so much more about the fascinating alien species that Russell created. However, certain technical details about the book make it a more difficult read.  The Sparrow jumped backward and forward in time, but there were only two basic time sequences and it was done in a very controlled and orderly way.  In Children of God several different time periods are involved and in some cases chapters are even broken between two times because the sections are too short for a whole chapter.  It's difficult to ascertain where particular happenings fit in relation to previous chapters.  A table of contents would help, making it easier to see the shape of the timeline at a glance.
       Because of the large geographic sweep of events, a map of the Rakhat lands in question (perhaps showing some of the migrations) would also help the reader to get a visual picture of events.
       As a writer myself, I get the sense that in The Sparrow Russell was writing from what I call inspiration.  I would bet anything that she had the whole story conceived in her head and all she had to do was transcribe it.  In Children of God, I sense more improvisation, more tentativeness.  It's as if she were thinking, "I've got to finish Emilio's story, but what should happen?   Well, this might work and this, but I'm not sure -- I'll have to try out some things ... "  She may have had the ending in mind (the essential business with the music and the DNA) and certain other events along the way, but a lot of the filling feels improvised.  She keeps introducing new characters with only a brief role in the plot.  And the end feels rushed to me, as if she were saying to herself, "This is getting too long -- let's hurry and get it over with."  And while the fight between the two champions was skillfully described, there is a sense of futility about it rather than a truly epic struggle, and the war that follows seems like a blip, important only for its outcome.  Of course, she is not really trying to write epic fantasy here, but rather philosophical and psychological speculation, so emphasizing the battles to a greater degree would likely be superfluous.
       In the author interview at the end of the book, Russell talks about how Chapter 21 was the hardest to write.  In it she summarizes 20 years of Rakhat history.   She says, "I rewrote that chapter a dozen times ... I tried a straight historical narrative and that didn't work.  I tried a lot of stuff, but ultimately the least bad solution to this narrative problem was to convey the information in a conversation between the two canniest political minds in the story. ...  It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was the best I was able to come up with ... "
       Well, I can certainly empathize with that!  What she's doing is breaking the rule of showing and not telling, but frankly I don't really subscribe to that rule!  Sometimes showing would require a whole novel in itself.  For the sake of brevity, you have to tell certain things.  In my Termite Queen I used a chunk of 8 printed pages to summarize 900 years of Earth's future history. Certainly there was no way I could put that whole history in narrative form, and it would feel highly artificial to have two characters sit down and discuss it in that much detail.  So I simply chose to put it in a knotty chunk, which readers can skim or even skip if they want to (although I don't recommend doing that!).  It was the "least bad solution"!
      Now, I must touch on the theology and philosophy, because I think Russell achieved her purpose. In the author interview, she speaks about needing to solve Emilo's dilemma: "Either God is vicious -- deliberately causing evil or at least allowing it to happen -- or Emilio is a deluded ape who's taken a lot of old folktales far too seriously. That may not be good theology, but at the beginning of Children of God Emilio believes those are his only choices: bitterness or atheism, hatred or absurdity."
       Russell always works from the premise that  there is a God who has a purpose for us.  The almost inarticulate Isaac enunciates to Sandoz the ultimate conclusion here: "It's God's music.  You came here so I could find it," thus revealing to Emilio the purpose for his suffering: that the fact humans and aliens are all children of God could indeed be "proven" through a scientific construct.  Even though I don't work on that premise, there is a similarity between that statement and my Mythmaker Precept No. 19: Take joy in sharing your genetic heritage with all the bio-organisms of this planet, and of the universe.  My statement is less lyrical, but the idea of the music of the spheres being encapsulated in the DNA of all biological organisms is strikingly similar.  So even though my premises are humanist and I don't try to maintain that these things were "God's purpose" (something I feel we can't prove), nevertheless I can see a strong connection here between what Mary Doria Russell is trying to say and what I'm trying to say in all of my own writings.  In my world, Emilio would have a third choice -- to view both good and evil as coming from the inner nature of humanity and of those who share in the qualities that make us human -- those who have evolved the power to reject evil and find the Right Way within themselves.
 

Mythmakers - A Diversion into the Political

       In my first Mythmaker analysis, I discussed the Precepts related to the nature of god and the need for human beings to take responsibility for their own actions without relying on another entity to tell them what to do.  I had intended to treat the nature and role of religion next, but this incident at the RNC, about attendees throwing nuts at a black camerawoman and saying, "This is how we feed the animals" (http://t.co/vlSKXZmj -- Huffington Post) has diverted me into a discussion of another principal of the Mythmaker philosophy which is implied in the Precepts, if not directly stated.

 

       That principal is, "All the intelligent lifeforms of Earth share the same DNA; therefore they are ALL THE SAME SPECIES."

 

       In this our own time, we pay scientific lip service to this fact, but as a species we don't recognize it emotionally.  We still reject our own kind when they look different from us.  It's strange, because we don't consider a Pekinese to be inferior to a grayhound (they are all dogs, genetically, and could interbreed), and yet we condemn ethnic varieties of human beings (who differ far less in appearance than breeds of dogs) merely on the basis of their skin color, hair texture, or eye shape.

       Precept No. 17 says: There are creatures on this planet [amended later to in the universe] who speak, form symbols, and share emotions; these may be called human.  So did those attendees believe that the camerawoman couldn't speak?  Or write, recognize a logo, or understand a metaphor (forming symbols)?  Did they believe she did not have the ability to feel another's pain?  Or perhaps that she had no ability to feel pain herself (like fish  supposedly can't do, something I've never believed, personally)?  Do they actually believe her body contains some kind of alien DNA that removes her from the roll of humanity?

 

       All the intelligent lifeforms of Earth can interbreed; therefore they are ALL THE SAME SPECIES and should be treated with equal respect.

 

       But we seem to be a long way from achieving that kind of respect.  Here's an example from my own experience.  I worked  in the library of a university in a provincial, fundamentalist/conservative region of the country.  I had an assistant who had worked there for years and is the best example I've ever met of the type who threw those nuts.  When she had a new granddaughter, the first thing she and her family taught the baby to say was "jungle bunny."  She told the story like it was the most hilarious thing in the world to see that baby point at a black person and say "jungle bunny."  My jaw dropped to the top of my shoes.  I couldn't believe it. 
       And this woman touted herself as being such a "good Christian."  I never trust anybody who goes around talking about what a "good Christian" somebody is.

       I continued to work at that university for five years -- I should have left after two.  I just didn't fit with the mindset of the community.

 

       The emotional acceptance of all intelligent Earthers as one species is something that only the slow movement of generational change can achieve.  Unfortunately, this attitude won't prevail until we have endured a Dark Age (see my page on "Future History").  The principal of the equality of all citizens of Earth will be written into the Earth Unification Charter, which will be ratified on 20 July 2690.  By that time, after nearly annihilating themselves, human beings have finally attained that emotional acceptance -- the ability to look automatically beneath the surface of others. 

       But even in those more progressed times, humans will still sometimes have trouble relating to their fellows who look different from themselves or perhaps have a different cultural background.  I made a note for one of my WIPs.  A Professor visiting from the planet Krisí’i’aid (a member of Prf. A'a'ma's Bird people) says this in the course of presenting a lecture: "As a species, you humans seem to be incapable of the forbearance necessary to tolerate diversity.  Each variety sees itself as the Chosen and seeks to oppress all other varieties.  You were able to achieve peace, unity, and security only by sacrificing diversity."  The Professor goes on to discuss the situation on Krisí’i’aid, where three different intelligent species who can't interbreed and who are culturally quite different exist in harmony.  Even there, however, it took several thousand years for them to develop the capacity to differ in a civil and non-aggressive way.

 

       So maybe there is hope for Earth yet -- it's just way far in the future.

 

Beginning My Mythmaker Analysis (Long Delayed)

       Back on March 31, 2012, I wrote the first post in this series, entitled "Who Are the Mythmakers and Why Do They Matter?"  In it I discussed the role the Mythmakers played in setting up the moral foundation for the resurgence of civilization in the 27th century.  The Mythmakers were an anonymous group of writers and artists whose works were preserved in the Underground Archives (the system of knowledge preservation undertaken by groups of far-sighted individuals during the Second Dark Age -- see the separate page My Future History for background; it's an excerpt fron my novel "The Termite Queen"). I printed the Twenty Precepts in that post and it would be helpful if you re-read it, or read it for the first time, before you continue here.

 

       I'm don't pretend to be a trained philosopher, social scientist, or historian, and I'm sure professionals in those fields could tear the following presentation to pieces.  I do, however, have my opinions and beliefs, which the Mythmaker ethic reflects, and I feel I have something to contribute to modern thought.  Therefore I'm going to throw my ideas out there and hope they might be reflected upon and even discussed.  It would be great if we didn't have to endure a Dark Age and wait six centuries for these tenets to be accepted and put into practice!

       Since religion plays such an important (and distorted) role in the 21st century, I'm going to start my discussion there.  The Mythmaker ethic is humanist and the resultant 27th-30th century society is based in humanism.  In this post, I'm going to discuss Precepts 1-5, which relate to the idea of gods.   Precepts 10-11 discuss the role and nature of religion and should be considered in tandem with 1-5, but this post was getting too long, so I'll treat those in my next essay into the subject. 

 

1.    No one can know deity; neither can it be proven that it does not exist.

       Right away we establish that the Mythmakers are not atheists.  They simply do not know what god is, or even whether there is a god or gods.  After all, they are called Mythmakers for a reason.  Myth always incorporates ideas of the supernatural.  The supernatural answers a need evolved in the genetic structure of humanity -- the urge to explain the unexplainable, an urge that  is often answered by science as humans advance intellectually.  Ultimately, however, there is always something that science cannot unexplain.  One of the traditional attributes of god is that he/she/it is unknowable.  If you can never know what this entity is, you cetainly can't demonstrate anything about it using scientific methods.  You can neither prove nor disprove the existence of god or define its nature.

       This is exactly what I believe and why I call myself a "spiritual humanist."  I don't reject the possibility of unknowable spiritual forces.  It would be impossible to write fantasy if I did.  There would be nothing to write about.

             
2.    Humans have within themselves the ability to see beyond themselves and hence to act rightly without supernatural stimulus.

3.    Since the purpose of deity for humans, or even whether it had a purpose for humans, is unknowable, it is incumbent upon humans to look within themselves and find the way to right action.       

4. Humans must take responsibility for their own behavior, not seeking to put blame on imposed rules (of deity or human) or on fate, chance, or the intervention or willfulness of deity.
 

       These three introduce the humanist element.  They belong together and reinforce one another. 

       No. 2 emphasizes that the ability to understand  right action is inherent in the human identity; evolution initiated a drive toward altruism, and we don't need a god to tell us what kind of behavior is moral.

       No. 3 emphasizes that since we cannot know (in the scientific sense) the purpose of deity, it becomes even more imperative for human beings to understand that they must look for and find that inherent morality that exists within themselves.

       No. 4 concerns the importance of taking responsibility for one's own actions, a central tenet of all Mythmaker literature.  You can't blame the rules laid down by an external entity for your bad behavior (saying, the gods demand a sacrifice, for example, so killing this woman is justified; or, the government has decreed that practitioners of Judaism are evil, therefore the killing of Jews is justified).  Likewise, you can't say, fate has decreed that we should kill this enemy; the Mythmaker philosophy recognizes free will.  While chance and coincidence do exist, you can't lay blame on those things; you can't say, I have no responsibility for this accident, because chance caused this child to run in front of my car when I was too drunk to stop in time.  And you can't blame or praise a deity for the fact that my house burned and my neighbor's didn't (that indeed is an instance of chance, where no intention can be assigned).  You also can't say, God isn't consistent; it saves one person from the bullets of a crazed assassin and not another.  Therefore, god must be evil or it must simply not care.  Neither can you say, god must love me more than it loves that person and have some special purpose in mind for my life.  You can't make any absolute statements about god; you can't even know if any god  exists, so how can you ascribe any intentions or motives or purposes to deity?  "God" may be simply an underlying Life Force, will-less and indifferent. 

       To summarize: The focal point of these first four Precepts is the phrase "without supernatural stimulus" in no. 2. Human beings have the innate ability to find the Right Way; they don't need an external supernatural being whose nature they cannot know telling them, do this and don't do that. They don't need to have imposed or forced on them a set of Commandments that are purported to come straight from a benevolent divine tyrant. They have to work out their own positive human ethic.

         So might one present the caveat that the 20 Precepts are a set of Commandments?  They are not that at all -- they are a set of ethical guidelines that can be thought about, debated, rejected, or altered. They are not rules laid down by a deity; the Mythmakers are not deities, as Kaitrin Oliva keeps pointing out so vehemently in "The Termite Queen." 

       To call oneself a humanist, one has to remain an incorrigible optimist, especially with the behavior seen in the world today (or for that matter, in any period of history -- it's just that the evils of our own time -- the Aurora theater massacre and the shooting at the Sikh temple are only two examples -- are so much more vivid to us than are the evils that have faded into the dry texts of history, like the Holocaust or the Cambodian atrocities or the Bibighar Massacre of British women and children in 1857 India.  One has to recognize that humanity has the ability to deny the very qualities that make it admirable.  To remain a humanist, you have to believe that human beings really can look within themselves and find the Right Path.  You have to believe that the essential altruism of humanity will prevail.

      Of course, the Mythmakers recognized humanity's shortcomings; they lived in a period when it was all too apparent.  They were realists; they understood that human beings are fallible -- suffering under the rampant ego, as well as from misunderstandings, lapses in judgment, inadequate education, mental and genetic aberrations.  They never expected the attainment of perfection, but they did insist that people keep trying.   Therefore, they demonstrated their compassion and realism by adding the following precept: 

5.   Humans will never succeed absolutely in achieving these goals; nevertheless striving for right action is its own purpose.