Undergraduate winner: 2nd place, 2022, 35th Annual Carl Neureuther Student Book Collection Competitio

Goldberg, Jonah

English

Washington University St. Louis: Open Scholarship

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship Neureuther Book Collection Essay Competition Student Contests & Competitions 2022 What Strange World are we Visiting Next”? “Ours Jonah Goldberg Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/nbcec Recommended Citation Goldberg, Jonah, "What Strange World are we Visiting Next”? “Ours" (2022). Neureuther Book Collection Essay Competition. 75. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/nbcec/75 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Contests & Competitions at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Neureuther Book Collection Essay Competition by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact digital@wumail.wustl.edu. “What strange world are we visiting next?” “Ours.”Ted Chiang’s short story, “Liking What You See: A Documentary,” is indisputablyscience fiction, but it is also a true story at Washington University. On the surface, the story is aconvincing work of journalism about calliagnosia (“calli” for short), a new technology that shutsoff a person’s perception of attractiveness. As a neurologist in the story explains, “A calliagnosicperceives faces perfectly well; he or she can tell the difference between a pointed chin and areceding one, a straight nose and a crooked one, clear skin and blemished skin. He or she simplydoesn't experience any aesthetic reaction to those differences.” The story follows a privatecollege that is considering mandating calli for all students as a way of combating “lookism,”discrimination based on attractiveness. Chiang explores students’ interactions with thetechnology and with each other, the commentary of professors from several different disciplinesat the school, and how special interests like the cosmetics industry sway the final vote that marksthe story’s climax. While our understanding of the brain lags far behind engineering“programmable neurostats” like calli, the comparison to political debates around other forms ofdiscrimination is clear and intentional. Chiang constructs a different world as an accessible lensthrough which we can re-examine our own.Speculative fiction purports to be about distant galaxies and alternate dimensions.However, the science fiction and fantasy books that have resonated with me most are those thatare designed to mirror a current or timeless issue for those of us confined to this version of Earth.These books, especially those by Chiang, Mary Doria Russell, and Neal Shusterman, make upmy collection. I believe that the unique lenses these authors can foster meaningful engagementwith problems we encounter as individuals and as a society, making them valuable tools forpersonal and political change.A few pages later in Stories of Your Life and Others, Chiang’s short story collection thathouses “Liking What You See: A Documentary,” readers are treated to a completely differentworldview in “Hell is the Absence of God.” In the world inhabited by Neil Fisk, born physicallyhandicapped and more recently struggling with his wife’s unexpected death, the Abrahamic Godis real, and all of humanity knows it. Angelic visits are commonplace; Hell itself is visible duringearthquakes. What struck me as incredible about this story is how Neil’s relationship with God isno different than it is for many of us. Neil knows that his wife’s death was a divine act—theappearance of an angel caused the window next to her to shatter—while his disability was causednaturally—his mother did not have any supernatural encounters during her pregnancy. Neil stillhas a crisis of faith, and he embarks on a pilgrimage with other equally provocative characters tograpple with God’s plan for him. Mary Doria Russell tackles a similar question in her sci-fi debutnovel, The Sparrow. In this story, God does not feature as a character, but He is always on theminds of the eight main characters, members of a Jesuit expedition to make first contact with analien planet. When Emilio Sandoz, a devout priest and linguist, returns home as the broken, solesurvivor of the ill-fated mission, he is filled with shame and with hatred for the God that put hiscrew through such suffering. I later learned in an interview that the author also wrestled with herrelationship to religion before writing The Sparrow. Though Russell invented a fascinating,fleshed-out culture for two sentient alien species, she kept the focus of the story human. In doingso, she inspired me to reflect on my own faith and to accept my conflicting feelings anduncertainty, as she does not preach or point to a right answer.This open-endedness is the other crucial ingredient of my collection. Some of my bookslack clear heroes and villains. All of them, to make the cut, must take care to separate the actionsof the antagonists from the question at hand. For example, in “Liking What You See: ADocumentary,” a handful of cosmetics companies use another neural technology to make theirspeakers supernaturally compelling, and their manipulation defeats the calli initiative. Yet thesecompanies were not the only ones arguing against calli throughout the story. Other characters’condemnation of their actions does not change the vote, nor the strength of the opposing points.It is left for the reader to consider whether we should approach addressing discrimination bycalling less attention to the differences between people, as calli does; by calling it out explicitlyto start a frank discussion around the issues, or by mixing both approaches in different contexts.Importantly, the reader is encouraged to consider the issue. The great strength of thesebooks is that the worldbuilding involved in speculative fiction immerses the reader in a newsociety and characters. The reader becomes emotionally invested in a conflict without thepreconceptions and defensiveness accompanying real-world situations. Then the author cancement the analogy, without antagonizing proponents of either side of an issue, and leave thereader with questions and concerns to take back into our world.My collection began with Dry, by Neal Shusterman. The novel escalates the Californiadrought into an acute emergency, beginning at the moment the taps run dry. Dry was published inNovember 2019; I read it in March 2020. I am from Southern California, and I picked up thebook after returning with my family from a trip to Costco to stock up on food and water, notknowing where the initial lockdown order would lead. Within the first couple chapters, I watchedthe main characters rush to Costco for the same items—possibly the exact same location, basedon other landmarks in the book. I realized that Shusterman’s imaginative societies evolve froman eerily wise understanding of our own. The novel ultimately gave me more empathy for whatseemed like irrational behaviors and poor local government decisions around me from people Idid not know. Shusterman, who often switches between several narrators in one book, primed meto imagine what this emergency looked like for other families and for overworked crisis centerstaff.The right book can help us sit more comfortably with personal questions, as mycollection has done for the matters of doubting my decisions and of my relationship to religion.When it comes to larger issues, however, reading alone is insufficient. I hope to continue findingbooks that serve as a springboard for taking action. The Sparrow memorably reminded me of theharm that can be caused when a group with the best of intentions tries to make changes in aculture they do not fully understand. The novel encouraged me to look critically at volunteerprograms abroad, and, after graduating, I will spend the fall supporting an organization that Iknow works with partners on the ground and does not impose their own solutions to thechallenges of local people. Moreover, as I continue writing sci-fi and fantasy stories, I amlooking for ways to open my readers’ eyes to the problems I am already informed about, with thehope of opening these doors for someone else.BibliographyChiang, Ted. Exhalation. Pan Books Ltd, 2019.Chiang, Ted. Stories of Your Life and Others. S.L., Picador, 2002.Mary Doria Russell. The Sparrow. New York, Ballantine Books, 1996.Shusterman, Neal, and Jarrod Shusterman. Dry. S.L., Simon & Schuster Books, 2019.Stephenson, Neal. Seveneves. London The Borough Press, 2016.

What Strange World are we Visiting Next”? “Ours

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What Strange World are we Visiting Next”? “Ours

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Washington University St. Louis: Open Scholarship