Sci-Fi’s Lessons in Neutrality
By Suspending Reality, We Can Better See What Is Possible
Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher. Courtesy of Netflix.
TECHNICALLY THIS IS FANTASY A SUB GENRE OF SCI FI
By Matías Graffigna | September 23, 2024
Can we, and should we, ever really be neutral? In a new series, Zócalo explores the idea of neutrality—in politics, sports, gender, journalism, international law, and more. In this essay, philosopher Matías Graffigna explains how science fiction and fantasy can help us contemplate a wider range of possibilities.
“I just wanted to be honest. I don’t want to get mixed up in this conflict. I want to remain neutral,” Geralt of Rivia tells his good friend Yarpen, a dwarf. “It’s impossible!” yells Yarpen in response. “It’s impossible to remain neutral, don’t you understand that? No, you don’t understand anything.”
Geralt, the monster-hunting protagonist in The Witcher fantasy series by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, believes that it’s better to abstain from conflict than to participate in events without fully understanding their consequences. But Yarpen has chosen to take a side and fight against the rebel Scoia’tael forces, sees good and evil, just cause and oppression. Thus, he finds Geralt’s refusal to fight injustice unacceptable, indifferent, and cowardly: “Get out of my sight with your arrogant neutrality,” he tells Geralt.
Their heated exchange helps us to think of neutrality as an attitude one can adopt. This attitude consists of an initial approach to any given conflict, in which you abstain from choosing any one side. Whether this choice arises from careful consideration or indifference is something distinct from neutrality itself.
When it comes to interesting and responsible ways of being neutral, fiction, particularly the sci-fi and fantasy kind, can help us contemplate a wider, more exciting range of possibilities than reality.
The reason for this is quite simple: not everything that is possible is actual. But if we think we know what is possible based only on what is actual, we are closing ourselves off to an honest examination.
Being neutral is a conscious attempt at canceling prejudices, at not judging before we know enough to do so. It is an honest attempt at submerging ourselves in the fictional world and its whole range of sensations.
When we pick up a sci-fi or fantasy novel with this “let’s see” attitude, we are practicing the rather technical concept of “neutrality modification.” The term was coined by philosopher Edmund Husserl, who claimed that the exercise could open a realm of investigation into the very nature of our consciousness, experience, and perception. Say we’re observing an orange on a counter. Our experience amounts to a visual perception of an existing object. In perception, we commit to the existence of the perceived object. But if we operate a neutrality modification upon that act of perception, Husserl would say, we have as a result “a neutral orange”: an orange that neither exists nor ceases to exist. An orange that is indifferent to the question of existence.
By reading so-called fantastical literature with the attitude of neutrality modification, we allow ourselves to embark on an exploration of the possibility realm: If we are on Mars, we resist the thought that tells us, “That’s impossible!” If we are in Narnia, we ignore the idea, “There’s no such thing as magic!” By temporarily suspending our beliefs about what is real and accepting the world the author offers, we see how possible we find it. We see how possible it feels to us.
Judging what is possible is a hard exercise, one that might engage physicists and logicians. But we can all consider and analyze what could be when it comes to thinking about human nature, right and wrong, forms of political organization, or relating to one another. We can, in other words, speculate. Speculation might be the summit of the human being’s ability to reason abstractly. But it is also an activity that profits from what philosophers like to call intuition, “direct contact” with the thing we are thinking about. In the same way that a memory can give us back the feeling we once had, albeit not so intensely, the human faculty of fantasy allows us to have a certain experience of that which is not (yet?) actual.
The fantasy and science fiction genres, also known as “speculative fiction,” are authored by professional speculators who spend their lives asking “What if…?” Their kind of fiction builds a possible world full of intuitions. These stories trigger in us the feeling of something we have never really felt. They allow us to better grasp what we mean when we say some things might truly be different from how they actually are. They help us reconsider why we think that certain other things should be deemed impossible.
The worlds of fantasy and science fiction are filled with the exploration of possibilities. They invite us to experience the extent of such possibilities not just rationally but affectively, intuitively, presently.
If you feel like traveling into the realm of the possible, do so with a neutral attitude. Forget that the world in which you live exists and is just how it is. Being neutral is a conscious attempt at canceling prejudices, at not judging before we know enough to do so. It is an honest attempt at submerging ourselves in the fictional world and its whole range of sensations. Neutralize your prior beliefs and let the author and their ideas penetrate you. Dive into their worlds and their stories. Live through the characters and pay attention to how these inhabitants of other (perhaps) possible worlds, think, feel, and act.
It does not matter if the possible will one day become actual. It does not matter if you think you know better. Be neutral. Be open to what is offered and allow yourself to live in a different, possible world. Be neutral, and you might be changed in ways you would not have thought possible.
Matías Graffignais a writer and philosopher who researches Husserlian phenomenology and science fiction.
By Matías Graffigna | September 23, 2024
Can we, and should we, ever really be neutral? In a new series, Zócalo explores the idea of neutrality—in politics, sports, gender, journalism, international law, and more. In this essay, philosopher Matías Graffigna explains how science fiction and fantasy can help us contemplate a wider range of possibilities.
“I just wanted to be honest. I don’t want to get mixed up in this conflict. I want to remain neutral,” Geralt of Rivia tells his good friend Yarpen, a dwarf. “It’s impossible!” yells Yarpen in response. “It’s impossible to remain neutral, don’t you understand that? No, you don’t understand anything.”
Geralt, the monster-hunting protagonist in The Witcher fantasy series by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, believes that it’s better to abstain from conflict than to participate in events without fully understanding their consequences. But Yarpen has chosen to take a side and fight against the rebel Scoia’tael forces, sees good and evil, just cause and oppression. Thus, he finds Geralt’s refusal to fight injustice unacceptable, indifferent, and cowardly: “Get out of my sight with your arrogant neutrality,” he tells Geralt.
Their heated exchange helps us to think of neutrality as an attitude one can adopt. This attitude consists of an initial approach to any given conflict, in which you abstain from choosing any one side. Whether this choice arises from careful consideration or indifference is something distinct from neutrality itself.
When it comes to interesting and responsible ways of being neutral, fiction, particularly the sci-fi and fantasy kind, can help us contemplate a wider, more exciting range of possibilities than reality.
The reason for this is quite simple: not everything that is possible is actual. But if we think we know what is possible based only on what is actual, we are closing ourselves off to an honest examination.
Being neutral is a conscious attempt at canceling prejudices, at not judging before we know enough to do so. It is an honest attempt at submerging ourselves in the fictional world and its whole range of sensations.
When we pick up a sci-fi or fantasy novel with this “let’s see” attitude, we are practicing the rather technical concept of “neutrality modification.” The term was coined by philosopher Edmund Husserl, who claimed that the exercise could open a realm of investigation into the very nature of our consciousness, experience, and perception. Say we’re observing an orange on a counter. Our experience amounts to a visual perception of an existing object. In perception, we commit to the existence of the perceived object. But if we operate a neutrality modification upon that act of perception, Husserl would say, we have as a result “a neutral orange”: an orange that neither exists nor ceases to exist. An orange that is indifferent to the question of existence.
By reading so-called fantastical literature with the attitude of neutrality modification, we allow ourselves to embark on an exploration of the possibility realm: If we are on Mars, we resist the thought that tells us, “That’s impossible!” If we are in Narnia, we ignore the idea, “There’s no such thing as magic!” By temporarily suspending our beliefs about what is real and accepting the world the author offers, we see how possible we find it. We see how possible it feels to us.
Judging what is possible is a hard exercise, one that might engage physicists and logicians. But we can all consider and analyze what could be when it comes to thinking about human nature, right and wrong, forms of political organization, or relating to one another. We can, in other words, speculate. Speculation might be the summit of the human being’s ability to reason abstractly. But it is also an activity that profits from what philosophers like to call intuition, “direct contact” with the thing we are thinking about. In the same way that a memory can give us back the feeling we once had, albeit not so intensely, the human faculty of fantasy allows us to have a certain experience of that which is not (yet?) actual.
The fantasy and science fiction genres, also known as “speculative fiction,” are authored by professional speculators who spend their lives asking “What if…?” Their kind of fiction builds a possible world full of intuitions. These stories trigger in us the feeling of something we have never really felt. They allow us to better grasp what we mean when we say some things might truly be different from how they actually are. They help us reconsider why we think that certain other things should be deemed impossible.
The worlds of fantasy and science fiction are filled with the exploration of possibilities. They invite us to experience the extent of such possibilities not just rationally but affectively, intuitively, presently.
If you feel like traveling into the realm of the possible, do so with a neutral attitude. Forget that the world in which you live exists and is just how it is. Being neutral is a conscious attempt at canceling prejudices, at not judging before we know enough to do so. It is an honest attempt at submerging ourselves in the fictional world and its whole range of sensations. Neutralize your prior beliefs and let the author and their ideas penetrate you. Dive into their worlds and their stories. Live through the characters and pay attention to how these inhabitants of other (perhaps) possible worlds, think, feel, and act.
It does not matter if the possible will one day become actual. It does not matter if you think you know better. Be neutral. Be open to what is offered and allow yourself to live in a different, possible world. Be neutral, and you might be changed in ways you would not have thought possible.
Matías Graffignais a writer and philosopher who researches Husserlian phenomenology and science fiction.
PRIMARY EDITOR: Jackie Mansky | SECONDARY EDITOR: Sarah Rothbard
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