Science Fiction as Modern Myth-Making

PART ONE: Science Fiction is not Myth

Some of us like to think that science fiction is not only very popular, but also somehow important. We don't like to think it could be held in contempt by intellectuals and scholars, and tossed in the same bin as supermarket tabloids and soap operas. We've come a long way - the genre has gained a great deal of respect in recent decades. We might even call it a modern mythology, reflecting the scientific world view. This would make it very important indeed, for understanding the psyche of modern, scientific society.

But are the "insiders" - the fans of SF - the only ones who see it as an expression of modern myth? What about the pros - the academics who study myth for a living, and have spent whole careers figuring it out? Do they believe science fiction has the same kind of importance in our society that the ancient myths had in ancient times?

Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty is a "pro," having studied the history of religions and Indian mythology for years. In 1989, she presented a paper at one of the Eaton conferences, which were begun for the investigation of science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction. O'Flaherty's presentation dealt with the "Survival of Myth," and in her view, science fiction only qualifies as a kind of low-level "kitsch" mythology. It is, apparently, the best we can do considering the state of our society, but it doesn't play in the same league as the grand and profound mythologies of ancient Greece or India.

Before we "fans" start bristling with indignation, we'd better look at her arguments on behalf of this disheartening claim. After all, we can't decide if something is a myth if we don't know what a myth IS.

O'Flaherty describes myth in this way:

a) It is shared by people who regard it as TRUE; it is an anonymous story possessed by a group rather than an individual;

b) It was composed in the past, about past events; it has a long tradition;

c) The story has meaning for the community in the present because it is remembered in a significant way.

By this definition, science fiction can hardly qualify. Scientific principles may be true, but science fiction stories are not considered "true." They are generally about the future rather than the past. There are examples of "alternate histories" or stories about travel into the past, but they are usually based on current ideas, and time travel involves technologies that have yet to be developed in our own future. In general, science fiction is forward-looking, and does not hearken back to a time-honored, anonymous tradition.

Science fiction, however, may be the possession of a group, called "fans," and maybe this qualifies it as myth by O'Flaherty's definition. There is some kind of community involved, as any convention-goer would agree. But even here, O'Flaherty would place SF on a very low level. For example, part of the "community" aspect of myth involves the organization of life. There is a commitment to myths that is absent in SF - there is no group that holds us responsible to live a certain way because of our myths.

O'Flaherty does recognize some similarities between "myth" (as she defines it) and science fiction. The most striking similarity is the way that the main characters are often "others." The strangers, children, animals and gods of mythology become the computers, mutants, cyborgs and aliens of science fiction. They are defined as "not us," and allow us to learn new things about ourselves when contrasted to them.

Myths and science fiction even share similar motifs. The incarnate god becomes Superman/Clark Kent. The "double" or "shadow" becomes the clone. Instead of embarking on the shaman's spiritual, disembodied voyage, we set out on a "Star Trek." The war of the gods against demons becomes a "Star War." There are instances of transformation, or metamorphosis, such as when crippled Billy Batson says "SHAZAM!" and is changed into Captain Marvel.

Myths once had a function in society: to provide the symbols which prepared young people for the "shock" of initiation into community values and lifestyle. But the modern world, says O'Flaherty, has lost its community and common values. So we are left with a "lonely mythology of atheism and solipsism [i.e., the problem of not being able to get outside our own heads]" and have no more community myths. Instead, we find our myths in the "kitsch" of science fiction. The closest we come to mythical communities are the "cults" surrounding Star Trek or The Lord of the Rings, or what O'Flaherty calls "computer covens," the networks which discuss things like the nature of human intelligence and the possibility of life on other planets. But there is no Commitment to these communities and their myths; there is no group which holds its members responsible to live in a certain way.

Science fiction myths just aren't asking the same religious questions, and aren't using the same language to ask them, says O'Flaherty. Even worse (she doesn't use that word, but it seems to be implied), the mythology of SF is "inevitably colored by science, the new ingredient in this new genre, and it may be argued that scientific strictures cannot support the heavy load of religious values."

"If one has merely the forms of religious narrative, but not the doctrinal content, is the myth still a myth?"

A science fiction fan might raise an eyebrow at that quotation, thinking, "Of course science fiction is colored by science! Isn't that the point?" What O'Flaherty probably means is that myth has been predominantly about mystery, and helping humanity get in touch with the transcendent. If science comes along and explains everything, where is the mystery? That most important element of myth has vanished.

So, the situation looks pretty bleak for "Science Fiction as Modern Myth-Making." At best, it seems that SF is merely "the best we can do" in our atheistic, valueless, non-communal, explained society. We've lost our grand, mysterious, mythical figures like Krishna, Christ, or Apollo, and are left with nothing but caricatures and kitsch. Superman and Han Solo just can't substitute for the "real thing."

PART TWO: Or Is It?

We've been investigating the opinions of a professional mythologist, Dr. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, to try to discover whether science fiction qualifies as modern myth. At the end of Part One, the situation didn't look promising.

O'Flaherty claims that SF doesn't qualify for several reasons: 1) Myths are anonymous stories regarded as true; science fiction authors, on the other hand, are known, and while scientific principles are supposed to be "true," SF stories aren't. 2) Myths are about the past, with a long tradition behind them; science fiction stories are usually forward-looking. 3) Myths ask religious questions and deal with mystery, helping members of a community draw together with common values and lifestyle; science fiction, however, explains things, so stories inspired by science can't serve the same function in communal life. Nor is there any doctrinal content or commitment to science fiction, involving groups which hold their members responsible to live in a certain way. Science fiction, at best, is merely "kitchsh" mythology, without the dignity and profundity of true myth.

It would seem that "SF as mythology" has been pretty thoroughly buried by someone who should know. But perhaps the burial has been somewhat premature.

Is it true, for example, that myth and science fiction do not ask the same religious questions? Why use the word "religious" in the first place? If "myth" merely means "religion," many SF writers would agree that science fiction has no connection with myth. But if we are speaking of fundamental questions about the world, reality as a whole, human nature and humanity's place in the world, then the questions asked by mythology and science fiction are the same. If different terminology is used, that is to be expected, since every age and culture uses different language.

Of course, if we are speaking about gods, that is another matter. Many science fiction writers and fans are atheists, or at least agnostics, who are convinced that science has provided a better explanation than god for the world. But even people who study myths for a living don't analyze them in terms of people's belief in gods. They are more interested in the function of this belief in the lives of the believers. The particular gods themselves are almost irrelevant. In this respect, science fiction functions similarly to myth. SF stories may indeed serve the same function in people's lives as stories about gods do in believers' lives.

Science itself is the stumbling block, in O'Flaherty's opinion. "Scientific strictures," she says, may not "support the heavy load of religious values." On the other hand, science may be the key to why SF is really mythology. Scientific laws may be the "doctrinal content" of modern mythology, with stories springing into being to relate these doctrines to everyday life. For example, most mythologies promise heavy penalties if a host violates the honor of a guest, and provide stories about hosts who suffer dreadful fates for transgressing this law. In a similar way, science describes the speed of light as a barrier to the speed of space travel - and many stories make this law an important factor in their plots. The "law" in each case is different, but the fact of its existence and the existence of consequences for attempting to violate the law function in a remarkably similar way.

If scientific laws do "explain" everything (and that is questionable), we still are left with the necessity of living in this thoroughly explained, mechanistic world. That may provide the mystery in modern myth: how do we live and find meaning in a universe governed by physical laws, where even our bodies and minds are supposedly governed by these laws?

Most SF fans have read Frank Herbert's Dune, and many of the Dune books which followed. What was Paul Atreides' agonizing struggle, if not a search for freedom to choose a path that was not predetermined and which was also right? These are issues which have been faced by human beings for millennia. Perhaps, in our scientific age, the search for answers to these questions is more crucial than at any previous time. Much science fiction is an attempt to come at the age-old questions in the context of a very new, very different world. Far from being mere "kitsch," SF could be engaged in the most important enterprise in history.

The old myths rose out of old societies with their old values and understanding of the world - is science fiction a new myth grown out of our new understanding? If myths somehow express "universal truths," like Jungian archetypes, perhaps the archetypes "lost" with the old mythologies are popping up again in a newly relevant form.

Another of O'Flaherty's major complaints is that there is no real community surrounding SF myths, and no group to hold its members responsible to organize their lives in a certain way because of the myths. This, too, is debatable. There may be community, but in a different form from traditional, mythical communities. This is, after all, an unprecedented age, so the old archetypal situations are bound to take unprecedented forms.

For example, many diverse groups attend science fiction conventions: gamers, members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Star Trek fans, costumers, people who watch classic movies in the video room, and fans who want to meet their favorite author or view their favorite artists' work. Many groups are self-contained, having little to do with each other. Some gamers and video watchers never come out of their rooms all weekend. Many Star Trek fans hang out with other Trek fans, dress like Trek characters, attend Trek panels and go to Trek parties.

What brings all these groups together? Why does it seem somehow appropriate that these different groups "belong" at the same convention? It is likely that there is some kind of underlying identity; there is a "community" happening at a subliminal level. And science fiction/fantasy is their unifying mythology.

And speaking of Star Trek…O'Flaherty grudgingly admits that the Star Trek phenomenon was "the most stunning example of the creation of a new mythology in our day." Its serial nature was a Western parallel to the chain of stories told night after night by village storytellers in traditional cultures. The serial format was a shared, contained world in which the most recent "event" happened to everyone at the same time; no one could "skip ahead." The basic subtext of a serial, O'Flaherty says, is, "we are all in this together." Star Trek, because of its format and subject matter, has formed a community around itself that has lasted for years, and into "The Next Generation." [And, since the original writing, into "Deep Space Nine" and "Star Trek: Voyager."]

Cassandra Amesley, in her journal article, "How To Watch Star Trek," describes how she interviewed Star Trek fans for six months to try to understand the community built up around the series. She noticed that when fans watch old episodes they interact both with the show and with each other. They dialogue with characters and events and throw out certain catch-phrases at appropriate moments (we all know them: "He's dead, Jim" and Spock's "Fascinating" are two of the most famous examples).

What Amesley realized was that these fans had two relationships with the series which were almost contradictory. They recognized that the shows were constructed TV shows but, at the same time, they lived them as though they were real. This meant that they could remark that "Spock wouldn't do something like that" if they believed he was acting out of character in an episode - even though they had gotten their understanding of his character from the Star Trek episodes in the first place.

On top of all this, there was an unspoken way Star Trek was to be watched. For example, while an episode was on, the viewers should not speak much to each other, but could throw remarks at the characters, or comment on the events. They could not directly predict coming events in an episode but could refer to them obliquely by references to images like "space doughnut." While they were watching, they could not discuss how the show was produced, because this would remove them from their "real" involvement with the episode.

Here is a community at work, with certain unspoken rules and expectations that apply to its members. These are not moral expectations, but the expectations make sense within the context of Star Trek fandom. Even in O'Flaherty's myth-oriented communities, the expectations of their members make sense only in the context of their particular myths.

Returning to science fiction in general, we notice that it even has its prophets and "priests." We are used to listening to a Guest of honor speech where a guest at a convention refers to John W. Campbell with the same kind of respect (and reverence?) given by a religious believer to his or her spiritual mentor. Many science fiction authors have predicted scientific advances (like the computer), long before they actually came into existence. Other authors, who have advanced degrees in science, act as "priests" to explain difficult things to us in ways we can understand. And in place of God's glory, or God's will as a high and lofty goal, we have substituted "progress," or "evolution" or even "the Cosmos."

Science fiction is the myth of - at the very least - the science fiction community. Alexi and Cory Panshin, in their book, The World Beyond the Hill, even claim that science fiction through the 1900's has shaped the world view of modern society, rather than the other way around.

That would make SF not merely a reflection of our present world view, but a cause of it - hand in hand with scientific discovery itself. This is a far cry from O'Flaherty's claim that science fiction is merely "kitsch." O'Flaherty seems to reflect a nostalgic wish for "the good old days" of the study of classical mythology, resembling a classical musician who says, "rock music is not music; it's just noise."

The scientific age which produced a revolution in thinking and perspective like nothing ever seen before requires an accompanying myth in a radical, revolutionary new form.

Science fiction is that myth.