It ’s the third anniversary ofOctavia Butler‘s death , and blogger ZeroAtTheBone islinking to some writing about her , as well as her own essays . My favorite is Butler ’s essay about a macrocosm of pure empathy .
Writing for NPR about the UN Conference on Racism , Butler talks about her own thought experiments in create a human race where people tolerate each other instead of trying to visit power structure from above . She tried to produce a fictional civilisation where everyone could actually feel each other ’s pain telepathically , but decided that it would make people less compassionate , not more :
The point was to create , in fable at least , a tolerant , peaceful culture — a human race in which people were inclined either to accept one another ’s dispute or at least to behave as though they accepted them since any act of resentment they commit would be punished immediately , personally , inevitably . finally , though , I chose not to write about such an empathic fellowship . I drop a line alternatively about a single empathic woman who suffered from the delusion that she apportion other people ’s pleasure and pain . She was not a particularly peaceful womanhood , but she did have to consider the consequences of her behavior more than other undeluded people had to . After all , delusional pain in the neck bruise just as much as painfulness from literal harm . So what if it ’s all in your headland ?
In my novel , unavoidable empathy worked fine as an affliction , but democratic , atrocious sport like boxing and football convinced me that the menace of deal nuisance would n’t inevitably make hoi polloi behave better toward one another . And it might cause bother . For instance , it might stop mass from move into the health care profession . Nursing would become very unpopular . And who would desire to be a dentist in such a company .
So much for fiction .
I love the fact that Butler did the thought experiment , and then disapprove it , because the initial utopian urge result in an even risky dystopia . Few writers are that dependable and fearless with their thought experiments , I think .
The whole essay is deserving reading , and so is the other stuff ZeroAtTheBone linked to . Jo Walton alsowrote a great overview of Butler ’s Pattern seriesat Tor.com a while back , which I meant to associate to at the time .
And , of line , if you have n’t read Butler ’s work , particularly the Pattern and Xenogenesis series , you should run out and get them right now .
BooksOctavia Butler
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