The Inseparability of Alien Depictions and Human Idealism

Arthur G. Ward

English 130: Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature

Dr. Jessica Groper  

English Department, Glendale Community College

November 2021

20-minute read

The Inseparability of Alien Depictions and Human Idealism

              When considering the alien archetype, it is essential to understand the correlation between human characterization and alien depictions. Concerning alien portrayals, much of the presented media (books, movies, games, and more) is highly embedded with human characteristics added with plotlines scattered with human-centric elements, all utilized as a means of understanding the deeper connection humanity has among itself. As mentioned in a 2018 VOX interview, Charley Henley, special effects supervisor who worked on Ridley Scott’s Alien franchise, indicates that many human elements are included within the conceptualization of aliens; Hanley is quoted as saying, “We put a lot of humans into the aliens” (Lee). While Henley’s comments may be geared towards physical characteristics designed for visual consumption, it is, without doubt, a trend within science fiction as a whole. A practical question is uncovered when considering this quality of science fiction; what is the reason behind the need to anthropomorphize alien depictions?

              A cursory analysis of alien society within the science fiction genre uncovers a deeply seated correlation between cultural elements constructed by selected authors and the cultural, technological, and historical elements of our social evolution throughout the twentieth century. Understanding this deliberate social commentary utilized as a mirroring effect between our humancentric ideation and alien portrayals underscores the humanization and personification process present throughout alien culture and society in science fiction literature. Given this unavoidable entanglement of humanistic and alien traditions, an argument can be made that the practical construction of a genuinely alien culture and associated social depiction is improbable based on the very nature of science fiction writing and its designated audience.

              Science fiction literature is littered with these anthropomorphized characteristics. Stories such as Damon Knight’s 1950 “To Serve Man,” Octavia Butler’s 1984 “Bloodchild,” and Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1971 “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow” are among countless examples of humanistic characterizations that play into the broader world of alien representation, underscoring the impracticability for formulating a genuinely alien portrayal.

              While it is true that some authors dive into the world of science fiction with little interest in formulating a genuinely unknowable depiction of the alien kind, others attempt to curate a world seemingly incomprehensible to the human mind. Damon Knight’s 1950 short story “To Serve Man” falls within the first category. Knight designs a species that, while somewhat alien in appearance, is heavily rooted within the humanistic archetype. 

              An interesting consideration is mentioned within the first few lines of the story, highlighting the very nature of alien depiction and potential discovery. While intended for the physical appearance of aliens themselves, the statement can easily be evolved into describing aliens’ cultural and social characteristics as a whole. “I don’t know what we expected interstellar visitors to look like—those who thought about it at all, that is. Angels, perhaps, or something too alien to be really awful” (Knight 1). Knight utilizes animalistic characteristics to present his constructed alien species, the Kanamit, specifically describing them as “something like pigs and something like people” (1). While it is important to note that Knight may have been going for shock value with his 1950s audience, something we in the twenty-first century have been thoroughly desensitized to, the injection of humanistic characteristics within his species is entirely unavoidable. However, this presents an interesting dilemma: what is the primary cause of this infusion of humanistic characterization within science fiction alien depictions?  

              A basic assumption can be made that the reason behind such humanistic characterization within Knight’s story, and science fiction in general, is based on the fundamental foundation of its audience. Gordon Lichfield highlights this foundational understanding regarding alien depiction and humanistic characterization in a 2015 article published in ETC: A Review of General Semantics. Lichfield writes, “…alien sci-fi is merely alien-flavored variations on familiar fictional themes, and the aliens serve as more exotic devices for exploring these themes. In most cases, they are human stand-ins, subsumed into and judged within the human moral framework” (375). The essential inclusion of alien depictions within the general science fiction framework is designed for and by humanity for human consumption. The exotic inclusion of these variations serves as an underlying storytelling premise designed to highlight humanity’s characteristics and predict a sense of moralistic wonderment rooted in a humanistic understanding. 

              It can now be understood that Knight’s inclusion of an alien species was designed for a storytelling narrative underscoring a humancentric idealism. His presentation is rooted in producing a story, regardless of the underlying message, designed for and irreconcilably associated with the human world around him as a plot device to present a story matching his time. However, other science fiction writers will take a differing approach, attempting to create a world more heavily steeped in wonder and masked with an unknowable veneer. 

               Octavia Butler’s 1984 short story “Bloodchild” takes on these specific characteristics, diving into a world far more alien than Knight’s construct. Butler creates a world where human beings are the aliens within the culture, the outsider, the other. Butler’s world seems to reverse the traditional relationship between aliens and humans, turning the stereotypically expected scenario of alien encounters upon its head.  

               It is prudent to understand the general origins and usage of the alien model when considering the roots of alienation. According to George E. Slusser and Eric S. Rabkin, writers of the introductory essay “The Anthropology of the Alien,” from their 1987 book Alien: The Anthropology of Science Fiction, “The alien, however, is something else: alius, other than. But other than what? Obviously, man” (6). Butler successfully takes this concept and flips its expectations to fill a different mold. 

              Butler successfully constructs a world where humans become a protected outside caste, considerably different from the alien civilization they are forced to inhabit. Butler produces a complex relationship between the native Tlic species inhabiting the world and the human exiles who find themselves upon their world. As Butler writes, “And your ancestors, fleeing from their homeworld, from their own kind who would have killed or enslaved them—they survived because of us. We saw them as people and gave them the Preserve when they still tried to kill us as worms” (29-30). The interwoven relationship between the Tlic and their fond human hosts for their parasitic offspring is a complex dynamic; however, one far from the alien in conceptualization and premise. However ingenious Butler’s depiction of this alien world may be, the underlying narrative is still a human struggle. In a world profoundly alien and seemingly unknowable in nature, the characteristics of the alien’s presence, mannerisms, composure, and ideology are fundamentally human.

              Slusser and Rabkin further highlight this dynamic and the general purpose of alien inclusion within the genre of science fiction storytelling. Within their essay, they write:

According to [Alexander] Pope…man who thinks beyond mankind is foolishly proud. Indeed, many aliens, in [science fiction] at least, seem created merely to prove Pope’s dictum. For they are monitory aliens, placed out there in order to draw us back to ourselves, to show us that ‘the proper study of Mankind is Man.’ But this is merely showing us a mirror. And many so-called alien-contact stories are no more than that: mirrors. (6)

This becomes the essential detail of science fiction’s inclusion of alien societies, that, regardless of their origins, their purpose is highlighting humanity’s moral and social nature, not that of some far-off unknowable species. Even Butler cannot overcome the sheer presence of humanism within her depictions of an alien society, for the basic premise, audience, and cultural and social norms surrounding her assertions are very much human.

              Knight and Butler explore the relationship between humanity and aliens to play with moral constructs, a pattern heavily influenced by the human-centric nature of science fiction writing. However, the human-centric biases are impossible to overcome, even in the strangest alien depictions.

             Ursula K. Le Guin takes a very different approach from that of Knight and Butler. Rather than creating an alien social society, she dives into the strange and perhaps utterly unique world of sentience among plants. In her 1971 story, “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow,” Le Guin paints a world deeply affected by the emotions of the human and Hanish crew that lands upon it. Le Guin details the extremes of hyper-empathy and its ability to become a potential detriment to the crew’s underlying mission of exploration.

              Establishing a character of great empathic importance within her constructed universe, Le Guin introduces her audience to Osden, the mission sensor, who can physically feel the empathic signals of the crew about him and, as it becomes evident by the story's conclusion, is able to project those same emotions back into the environment of the ship and fragile ecosystem all about them. As the story mentions, “It’s like hearing…no eyelids on your ears. No off switch on empathy. He hears our feelings whether he wants to or not” (Le Guin 4).

             Le Guin highlights the dynamic relationship between human emotionalism and the unknowable sentient planet she has produced. As a point of explanation regarding the sentience of the world about them, Le Guin details the interconnectedness of the world’s plant life, writing:

“You’re not seeing the forest for the trees, as they say on Earth,” Mannon put it, smiling elfinly; Hardly stared at him. “What about those root-nodes we’ve been puzzling about for twenty days—eh?”

“What about them?”

“They are, indubitably, connections. Connections among the trees. Right? Now let’s just suppose, most improbably, that you knew nothing of animal brain structure. And you were given one axon, or one detached glial cell, to examine. Would you be likely to discover what it was? Would you see that the cell was capable of sentience?

…

Why even the prairie grass-forms have those root-connectors, don’t they? I know that sentience or intelligence isn’t a thing; you can’t find it in, or analyze it out from, the cells of a brain. It’s a function of the connected cells. It is, in a sense, the connections: the connectedness.” (Le Guin 36-37) 

Le Guin’s depiction of an alien lifeform, a “sentience without a sense” (37), is undoubtedly a unique take on the development of an alien culture; however, the motive of the story, the underlying plot, the interconnectedness of the human interaction and this alien sentience is heavily rooted in human emotionalism. A human dynamic is found throughout the pages of Le Guin’s work, one with human emotions. The underlying conflict is among the crew and their process of dealing with the intricacies of Osden’s unique traits, not between the sentience outside, which is nothing but a mere mirror projection of the emotionalism found within the crew themselves.

              Lichfield underscores the potential archetypes found within alien depictions, explaining the interconnectedness between a humancentric understanding and alien representation. Lichfield quotes Gideon Lichfield, senior editor at Quartz and journalist for the science desk of The Economist, writing:

…Gideon demonstrates a second type of device used in alien narratives—that of the unknowable and mysterious creature. In some ways, this might seem like a counterpoint, in that it provides an alien that is not just a stand-in for humans. However, this type of alien is still imagined through a human lens in that we cannot know it because of our humanness. (377)

It is within this lens that Le Guin constructs her sentience; however, as outlined throughout this composition, it is impractical to believe that any author can pen a truly alien construct, as is the basic premise of science fiction writing and its audience. 

              Knight, Butler, and Le Guin are joined by countless other authors who dive into the world of alien construction, writing of far-off species, determined to intertwine the unknown possibilities with understanding human-centric issues and motives. According to author Gregory Benford, in his essay “Effing the Ineffable,” alienation has a spectrum (23). Benford writes, “What [science fiction] does intentionally, abandoning lesser uses to the mainstream, is to take us to the extremes of alienness. That, I think, is what makes it interesting” (23). One must agree with Benford’s position, for the true extent of science fiction is taking society's strange and utter alienness and constructing a bizarre placeholder for the emotions, social and historical struggles, moralistic crusades, and physical conditions of humanity. Undoubtedly, the underlying depiction of the alien is a foundational mirror, inseparable from the humanness that guides its creation process.

Work Cited

1. Benford, Gregory. “Effing the Ineffable.” Aliens: The Anthropology of Science Fiction, edited by Yvonne D. Mattson, Southern Illinois University, 1987, pp. 23–24. ZLibrary, 1lib.us/book/768471/c3085e

2. Butler, Octavia. “Bloodchild,” 1984. Professor Jessica Groper, English 130: Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature #2975, Glendale Community College, fall 2021, accessed on 25 September 2021. 

3. Knight, Damon. “To Serve Man,” 1950. Professor Jessica Groper, English 130: Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature #2975, Glendale Community College, fall 2021, accessed on 20 September 2021.

4. Le Guin, Ursula K. “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow,” 1971. Professor Jessica Groper, English 130: Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature #2975, Glendale Community College, fall 2021, accessed 11 October 2021.

5. Lee, D. “Why We Imagine Aliens the Way We Do.” Vox.Com, 15 May 2018,   www.vox.com/videos/2018/3/15/17126340/science-fiction-aliens-vfx-seti.

6. Lichfield, Gordon, Adams, Aubrie, et al.  “The Aliens Are Us: The Limitations That the Nature of Fiction Imposes on Science Fiction About Aliens.” Etc., vol. 72, no. 2, 2015, pp. 372–78. Gale Literature Resource Center, go-gale-com.libwin2k.glendale.edu/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&u=glen76009&id=GALE%7CA491283962&v=2.1&it=r.

7. Niven, Larry. “The Alien in Our Minds.” Aliens: The Anthropology of Science Fiction, edited by Yvonne D. Mattson, Southern Illinois University, 1987, pp. 16–22. ZLibrary, 1lib.us/book/768471/c3085e.

8. Slusser, George E., and Eric S. Rabkin. “Introduction: The Anthropology of the Alien.” Aliens: The Anthropology of Science Fiction, edited by Yvonne D. Mattson, Southern Illinois University Press, 1987, pp. 6–14. ZLibrary, 1lib.us/book/768471/c3085e.