Reflection on the Martian Chronicles and Interactions

“Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock.”

“A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.”

Professor Jackson brought up the question of what would be a better course of action when interacting with extraterrestrial life forms: coexisting as states with rules and regulations or interacting on an individual basis? I believe both forms of interaction have merits and disadvantages. Concerning state to state interaction, for one, I feel that coexistence and the creation of boundaries rather than integration or openness is a scenario that is prone to conflict. When a wall is placed between two communities, one always wonders what is going on the other side of the fence and whether or not whatever is going on is potentially dangerous. There is also often the axiom “the grass is always greener on the other side” and sometimes jealously can arise too. Physical separation or the impeding of interaction also helps polarize differences and stigmas. Separation is also a statement that another group is not worthy enough or too “alien” to associate with, which in turn leads to hostilities. It is through interaction that understanding can be reached and stigmas dismantled. In many ways I also see the separation of the aliens and humans in "Speaker for the Dead" and "Xenocide" as reminiscent of segregation, which I believe has become commonly accepted as flawed and unethical. State negotiations however could provide benefits however. These benefits might include the state sanctioned preservation of alien rights, culture and special territories such as holy sites. It could also lead to rules concerning commerce and trade that might prevent a less economically developed species from being taken advantage of. States can also help spearhead unity efforts and maintain peace through military strength. However, some governments, or individuals within governments do not desire peace. For example, in Star Trek VI (this is a spoiler) individuals of Starfleet and the Klingon Empire conspire together in order to maintain a Cold War between the two factions.

“I know that my unity with all people cannot be destroyed by national boundaries and government orders.” - Tolstoy

Individual interactions can also provide benefits as well as risks. Interactions between individuals can create friendships and partnerships that can overcome gross generalizations and stigmas. It can also enable individuals who wish to learn and discover one another’s culture to do so. These interactions can also pave the way for mutually beneficial economic relationships. On the other hand, some individuals might commit crimes against one another. Within all races and species there are deviant beings and if one interaction turns foul, then it could set back relations between groups drastically.

“We're all in this together. “

“United we stand; divided we fall.”

I would argue that moderation would be ideal in inter-sentient interaction. To go to either extreme of only state or only individual interaction would be folly. I would also argue against too many formal divisions or any segregationist measures. Instead, the states should be proactive in promoting individual and cultural interactions. Whether it is through organizing a ping pong tournament or sending a ballet troupe to another world, states can help bridge cultural gaps and foster unity. Economic integration can also be conducive to preventing conflict and increasing interdependence. Besides this, through openness, universalization (an advanced form of globalization) can occur and perhaps lead to beings from different species being judged as an individual and not by their ascribed identities.

Reflection: The Martian Chronicles

I wanted to start off this post with a quote. I shamelessly admit that I was browsing the Wikipedia page for The Martian Chronicles when I stumbled upon a brief sentence written by Carl Sagan.

"Mars has become a kind of mythic arena onto which we have projected our Earthly hopes and fears."

I love this sentence, not just because it captures so well the feelings I get from The Martian Chronicles, but because it captures what I'll call the pioneer spirit. In class we spoke a lot about how Mars mimics the western United States and the concept of manifest destiny. I completely agree with this - Morgan's post talks about this concept a little bit more in-depth. But I think it's worth taking a step back. Sagan says that Mars became a place where we can project our hope and fears. And in many ways, the Old West was like that too. But there's more - in England, when the first men and women were leaving for the New World, they too projected their hopes and fears upon the new land. In fact, there's always been that kind of projection onto a new land, the sense and wonder and fear of the land more under control of the natural world than it is the human world. It's the lack of control of a new land that makes that feel that fear, but the unknown that draws us to it. Much of it may simply be our ability to project onto the land our more basal desires. That kind of projection takes a huge role in Bradbury's work - it's not just evident in plot, but in the actual character of the Martians.

I think what Bradbury wants to say is very much the antithesis to what Schmitt sees as the relationship between peoples of different lands. Bradbury, in his very fuzzy manner, tells us that no, boundaries are not hard entities which are not meant to be crossed. They instead serve only as reminders that the land you step on is not yours, that others have treaded on the same patch of ground. Bradbury doesn't answer whether or not the land will ever actually belong to those who come from far away searching for a new life. Certainly there may be laws and provisions which hand the land over to the new people, but how important are those laws when faced with the individual interactions people have there? Bradbury's work is so very different than Schmitt even more because there isn't any sense of a higher ruler, one to distinguish friend from enemy, at least in a situation like this. It is up to the individual, and even then it's not clear what the relationship between the invader and the invaded is. At the end of his work, Bradbury shows us that the few Earthlings left on Mars have BECOME the Martians, in an ironic turn. Whether or not this is a boon to Mars, or a sad day, is yet again not up to the Martians.

Reflection: The Martian Chronicles

I mentioned in my last post that it struck me as rather odd that pretty much everyone on Mars who wasn't Martian was American. Quite obviously so. Knowing, of course, that it's a Bradbury book, and knowing some of Bradbury's inclinations when idealizing midwestern America (and colored by the fact that I'm rereading Something Wicked This Way Comes), I wasn't surprised that it was an explicitly American Bradbury book, but it made me uncomfortable that a book that was so clearly about colonization of another planet didn't have this whole, united Earth feel. In Ender's Game we get Armenians, the Dutch, French, Algerians, etc., but I realized about halfway through the class on Thursday that what Bradbury's really trying to get at in The Martian Chronicles is the most American of values: the American Dream.

That's right, I capitalized it. Because that's how we idealize it in our culture, isn't it? And when Spender's going on his rant that we didn't put a hot dog stand at Karnak because it wasn't economically feasible, it struck me that we will, however, basically eradicate a mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota so that people can look at faces of presidents etched in stone. Most of the people who leave Earth in this book to get to Mars are looking for a New Start, a New Way of Life, Freedom, the Opportunity to Succeed...What does that sound like? I'm sure we'll get more into this while reading Manifest Destiny, but I also noticed that we kept accidentally inserting the word "smallpox" into our conversation about the Martians, even though they hypothetically died of chicken pox. Thank you, American history.

Telepathy, phantoms and the limitless differences of alien life

I’d like to address Yaniv’s substantive on the Martian Chronicles and add some additional commentary of my own. For one, because we have not experienced any other sentient beings, humanity’s conception of what other aliens could resemble is somewhat two dimensional. Our conception of aliens consists mainly of humanoids who fail to deviate far from human physiology. Antagonistic aliens are also often portrayed as insect-like and aesthetically unappealing. However, humans fail to realize that what is aesthetic is relative and subjective. An alien with red eyes and fangs is just as likely to be benevolent as an oversexed feminine humanoid. This form of thinking also applies to the natural processes of aliens. What may be unthinkable on Earth may be the norm on other planets. For example, on an alien planet water might be acidic to life forms that have evolved to survive in other liquids. I’d like to bring this logic to the Martian’s phantoms and telepathy. In one of the vignettes the Martians were able to take shapes to impersonate humans in order to kill one of the expeditions. Shapeshifting may simply be an evolved form of a chameleon’s ability to change colors. Who are we to say what millions of years of evolution could do? How the Martians could access these memories is another question. I would hypothesize that it was based in the Martians innate telepathic abilities. Telepathy is not a farfetched concept. The human body is controlled by electrical impulses from the brain and generates its’ own energy aura. Studies have shown that intense emotions, concentration or even meditation can greatly affect and augment the human body’s electrical composition. Just as different species have different organs to see various spectrums of light, why cannot an alien have an organ that enables it to manipulate different forms of energy? In addition to this, if energy can be used to control a body, could it not also be used to manipulate the mind? On a side note, if you wish to read about energy control of the body, you can google research on the creation of cybernetic animals with chips that release manipulating electrical impulses. Concerning the phantoms, if the body has an energy aura and the Martians have the ability to control forms of energy, is it not possible that even after the physical body has been destroyed that the Martians could exist in another form? Star Trek also uses the explanation of energy as the rationale behind telepathy. In the series telepathy is based on psionic fields, which are a different “spectrum of energy” that only certain species can control. On the subject of the lack of a Martian government, there is a reference in one vignette to the fact that some of the Martians weapons were left over from long ago wars. Perhaps the Martians had evolved socially to the point where a state was not necessary. On the subject of why the Martians attacked, the first attack was based on the fear of infidelity… thereby making it a crime of passion and perhaps not based in rationality. The second attack was based on misunderstanding. Concerning the third, I am not certain but I believe the Martians’ ability of precognition may have made them realize that death, from the plague, was coming and that they should fight back.

Substantive: The Martian Chronicles

The Martian Chronicles stands in my mind as one of the most fascinating studies of alien existence and colonization. It is replete with that nostalgic charm for which Bradbury is so famed, but while certain aspects of this book could be considered Dandelion Wine-light, there is so much more to it than a young boy’s fantasy turned science fiction novel. The very first time we meet the Martians, they are, with a few embellishments, essentially very close to human. Ylla is trapped in an unhappy marriage, they talk of socializing with the neighbors, going to the city, etc. Her husband’s reaction to her dreams of the arriving Earthmen is to react jealously and kill them.

In contrast to something like Speaker, where we explicitly get the notion of This species is not human and cannot be treated as such beaten over our heads, the nature of the Martians and Earthling colonialism is significantly less cut-and-dry. For instance, in the story where the Second Expedition arrives on Mars, the Martians assume they are mentally ill or telepathic hallucinations, and eventually wind up shooting them in apparent self-defense. Also in the Third Expedition, when the Americans are essentially lured into what they see as their childhood homes, only to be murdered and buried. While these are both acts of self-defense (and at least in the first case an argument can be made for a cultural idiom in which telepathic hallucination is an aberration but part of society), the human beings in both cases are not explicit threats, only potential ones. While we can discuss the impending imperialism of this arrival as a terrifying reality, the fact of the matter is that the Martians, at least in the earlier parts of the book, exhibit a frightening method of “shoot first, ask questions later” and in fact lure the Earthlings to their deaths. This involves deliberation, which is, at least in the United States, a requisite for first-degree murder.

And yet, we find later that the Martians have essentially been wiped out, turned into ghosts, by Earthborn illnesses, much in the way of War of the Worlds—and yet instead of the odd sense of relief and triumph that inhabits the final chapters of Wells, we get the sense of this incredible, majestic civilization suddenly wiped out, implying that Earthling and American imperialism—and does it strike anyone else as peculiar that all these settlers seem to be American?—ruins everything beautiful. It reminded, poignantly, of Watchmen (particularly the graphic novel, but the film adaptation is mostly faithful to this), when Dr. Manhattan, standing on the surface of Mars, refuses Laurie’s insistence on the merits of human life. Please forgive that this is from the movie, as I have currently lent out my copy of the book:

"In my opinion, the existence of life is a highly overrated phenomenon. Just look around you. Mars gets along perfectly well without so much as a microorganism. Here, it's a constantly changing topographical map flowing and shifting around the pole in ripples ten thousand years wide. So tell me: how would all of this be greatly improved by an oil pipeline?"

The Mars in which the Martians once lived is now exquisitely desolate and empty. And then in come these settlers, pioneers, to turn everything into Earth 2.0. And then, in the end, everybody goes back to Earth due to the impending nuclear war, and now Mars, which once had a thriving civilization, is almost completely empty.

The Martian Chronicles: Cyborgs, Colonies, and Miscommunication

The Martian Chronicles raises a number of questions, not just about contact with extraterrestrials, but sentience, colonization, communication and human nature itself. The cyborgs in the chronicles are able to mimic a human personality almost flawlessly. However, some of them are also self aware that they are machines, such as the wife and children of the crewman, thereby making them independent of their programming. Does this level of consciousness make an entity sentient? Would a cyborg technically be an individual like you or I? If so, would cyborgs have the same rights as a living being? Would it be ethical to force thinking rational beings to do work? If we did, due to their artificial intelligence and mechanical strength, cyborgs would be very difficult to control or fight. It is even difficult to beat an AI opponent In Mario Tennis... imagine what a machine bread for war could do. Although cyborgs could be programmed into submissiveness, this cannot be achieved without compromising their creativity and effectiveness. Eventually enslavement might lead to a violent uprising such as in Battlestar Galactica or Mass Effect. This is especially because we would most likely use machines for nefarious purposes such as war and sexual pleasure; as we do today, though on a limited scale. Based on the fickle and often self destructive nature of humans, we may also be considered more of a liability than an ally.
One of the more loaded vignettes that intrigued me was “Way in the Middle of the Air.” It seems consistent with history that the African Americans would jouney to Mars as most oppressed minorities seem to be the vanguard of colonies. Even with the foundation of American we can see a number of religious and ethnic minorities fleeing to the new world.This tend proceeded even to the turn of the 20th Century, when there was an endless stream of boats carrying oppressed peoples to America. I also enjoyed and commend Bradbury’s commentary on racial discrimination in the South even before the issue became prevalent in American media. One story that I was doubtful about though was the one in which humans return from Mars to Earth in order to aid during a catastrophic atomic war. I feel that most people would not risk their families and personal security to go boldly into an unknown situation. It also seems illogical, though noble, to return to a place where you just fled from to confront the issue you were fleeing. I do believe that some people would return though to aid their fellow humans, but not humanity as a whole. To make a modern day comparison, Jewish people return to Israel, despite its’ dangers, in order to reclaim their heritage and strengthen the Israeli community. I do agree with Bradbury, though, that an object such as a metallic tube might be misconstrued as a weapon to either humans or aliens and lead to violence. In an alien culture a gun shaped object might actually have no meaning or perhaps even a positive one, such as a medicine dispenser. However, an object as innocent as a baseball may be reminiscent of a grenade to another species. This makes inter-species communication extremely delicate and complex.

Substantive: The Martian Chronicles

Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles isn’t like anything we’ve read so far in the semester. It is as much poetry as it is science fiction. Whether or not you can actually qualify it in the same genre as something like “Star Trek” would be an intellectual endeavor. The first word that comes to my mind upon finishing The Martian Chronicles is lyrical. The book reads like a funeral dirge for humanity; at no point do you feel hope for our species, there is no sense of direction or conquest. The Martian Chronicles offers no positive feelings about what humanity has done. It is a sad book about humanity, and although short, speaks volumes about the kind of world we’ve made for ourselves.

Within the context of the “end of humanity” which Bradbury lies out is the encounters with the Martians. The Martians are incredibly ethereal, with bronze skin and golden eyes. Their lifestyle is only really revealed in the first chapters of the book, described to be a life more along the lines of a world of Greek-like passiveness, with individuals who cherish philosophy and the arts. The Martians also have the gift of telepathy and projection, far removed from what humans on Mars actually understand (although characters throughout the book stumble upon this almost aspect of the Martians). The use of telepathy by the Martians is probably the most horrifying aspect of the book. In no way does humanity stand a chance against the Martians, as minds are always being manipulated. It forces the characters, and the reader, to ask just what’s real around them. Telepathy even seems to be the downfall of the Martians themselves - with scores seeming to go insane with the notion that they’re “from Earth”, leading them to produce elaborate psychotic projections. While the Martians are physically deceptively human, their minds and culture are incredibly alien.

This being my first read-through of The Martian Chronicles, I wasn’t exactly expecting Bradbury’s very philosophical approach to humanity and aliens. In many ways, I suspect that Bradbury never intended to write a book about humanity’s contact with Martians. The book doesn’t even resemble our previous books; there seemingly hardly any contact between humans and Martians, and the humans never act in direct ways to attempt to conquer the Martians. Yet, in a most definite sense, humanity does conquer Mars, sending rocket after rocket to the red planet. The first rockets sent were the most poignant examples of just how incompatible our two species were. The narrative only hints at the fate of the first rocket, and shows us in explicit details the death of the second expedition, and in even greater detail the fate of the third. In each case, the death of the humans was due to the effects of the telepathy. The second case was definitely more clear-cut than the third, where in the third we could only guess if the Martians actually had any foul intentions. But by the fourth expedition, Mars was no longer the planet of the Martians, humanity had begun colonization, and the Martians retreated completely.

So, what does Bradbury’s story tell us about humanity and the other? Is Bradbury’s “other” so beyond our comprehension that the ruins of their civilization just mean nothing to us? It’s had to comprehend a humanity quite like Bradbury’s, with a complete lack of fear and disregard for aliens. Bradbury’s humanity didn’t even give much of an attempt to understand Martian society (as predicted by Spender). Perhaps Bradbury’s point shines through in the final story of his book. As one of the last families of humanity makes its new home on Mars, they stare down into the pool, recognizing that they now are the Martians. And Earth’s civilization, too, has died because of its actions. Perhaps Martians and humans are more similar than we might imagine.