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ReReadable Books

March 2005

"Standing Against The Group Mind: Part I"

Last month we discussed the Group Mind as part of Sexual Mythology. Readers of this column don’t need to be reminded of the overwhelming power of a Group Mind to impose conformity. After all, juvenile "peer pressure" is one experience we’ve all shared.

Human cultures coalesce around sets of standards, and then in every generation, the new crop of teens strives with all their might to change those standards. Occasionally, they succeed when they outnumber the adults as the Baby Boomers did.

Today in the USA we have a Boomer Echo generation that far outnumbers the Boomers themselves. Children born in the 1990’s are flooding our schools to bursting, and are entering their powerful adolescent years. As they come to command dollars spent, our market-catering economy will serve their needs at the expense of all others. Already we see this in their taste for video games, the ipod and more.

Like all previous generations of teens – the group always viewed as the primary market for sf/f – this generation will form Group Minds that impose uniformity, and dictate the requirements for "acceptance." And they will create new Myths for American Culture to emulate.

As always, those who gravitate toward science fiction and fantasy – the "Literature of Ideas" – will be the small subset who prefer to think for themselves, not march to the drum of the Group Mind.

The USA was founded by rugged individualists. Individual Liberties are enshrined in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights. So it is not surprising that, though H. G. Wells was British, sf/f first caught hold in America.

Our country is governed by the will of the majority – i.e. by the largest Group Mind. So life here can be all about Individual Rights vs. Group Rights. But in this past election, we have seen that once again we are a country divided almost exactly in two.

That means there are two massive Group Minds vying for the right to make life comfortable for those who espouse their own values, and tough for anyone else. Each side sees itself as "Good" and struggles to gain converts. Today’s teens may be equally divided, but it will be their job to resolve this conflict as they come of voting age starting about 3 years from now when those born in 1990 turn 18.

So in searching for the Myth of the Future – as we began to do in the January ’05 column – we should examine the trends in sf/f, the outsider’s literature of thirty years ago which has now gone "mainstream."

Our market economy affects publishing companies. The adults who run those companies must turn a profit. So while they may want to sell their own myths to children, to teach them "the right way" to live, ultimately they will watch for something that sells big and offer more of that.

So lets listen carefully to what is being published and appearing on television, for the first hints of the myths by which this huge demographic will choose to live.

Looking at the TV shows pitched at teens, we see the energetic following shows like Buffy, Angel and Charmed have achieved. Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda has also done very well.

Andromeda, is an adult oriented show about facing impossible odds and never giving up hope, but the enemy is only an alien and powerful technology.

Trailing the pack is Star Trek Enterprise. Why? Enterprise is aimed at today’s teens, but Star Trek embodied the Myth by which the teens of the 1970’s and 1980’s lived. Their children, the teens of 2003- 2013 are looking for something different.

Enterprise, as all the Treks, shows us a universe in which there is nothing really "Evil" – just not yet friendly. I have to admit, that’s the universe I live in, the myth I live by. That’s one reason I loved the Earthsea novels by Ursula K. LeGuin. They aren’t about Good vs. Evil.

Now we have Earthsea as a TV miniseries on the Sci Fi channel. To be fair, the Sci Fi channel is under a different ownership structure than it started with. The originators did have a grasp of this literature, even if they never did get the distinction between Horror and Science Fiction. But the new ownership is investing large amounts expecting to make money like Harry Potter.

So with the Earthsea production, we see these subtle, Teen-Group-Mind Market Forces operating through the TV production mechanism.

Producers and Directors study the success of Buffy and Angel, which have a major component of Horror at the core – and Charmed which, though not Horror at all, is still the story of Good vs. Evil, and Harry Potter, which is also Good vs. Evil, and more popular than all the others taken together – and they conclude the "Myth" that will drive the teens of today and tomorrow is the idea that "Life" is little more than the heroic, sublime, or forlorn struggle of Good against Evil – very much as on our political scene.

The new teens will consider Good vs. Evil as original and uniquely their own, though students of the classics know otherwise.

And then producers scour the existing literature for properties to make into TV miniseries – and they try to make a Harry Potter out of anything they can get their hands on.

They found Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea novels and couldn’t resist. Fantasy, Wizardry, the whole world at stake, and passionate, destined love too.

Before the broadcast, I browsed the bulletin board on the Sci Fi channel’s site and found a lively discussion by some morose people afraid that the worst would happen, and the TV version would not resemble the novels they had grown up on and still loved.

http://mboard.scifi.com/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=Earthsea  – this link will no doubt be gone soon!

So it was with trepidation that I viewed Legend of Earthsea. I could follow the story because I had read the books. My husband, who had not read the books, pointed out the disjointed splicing of scenes together that make little or no sense.

For the student magician and those interested in the Group Mind that will dominate this planet soon, the DVD of this production is worth owning, provided you also have the books.

Pay attention to how clearly the production draws the battle line between the over-confident teen Wizard avariciously pursuing the acquisition of power by learning the True Names of things – and the "Nameless Ones" who are imprisoned by the faith of the priestesses so there can be peace in the world.

And the ending is magically valid. To face down the Evil threat, the Wizard must free the imprisoned Evil and take it into himself, giving it a Name. (Star Trek’s main theme of making friends of your enemies to resolve conflict.)

However, the director, Rob Lieberman, has written in Sci Fi Magazine: "I saw it as having a great duality of spirituality versus paganism and wizardry, male and female duality. The final moments of the film culminate in the union of all that and represent two different belief systems in this world, and that's what Ursula intended to make a statement about. The only thing that saves this Earthsea universe is the union of those two beliefs."

This statement brought LeGuin out to do battle. Her statement is on her website, www.ursulakleguin.com, where she says, ". . . there is no statement in the books, nor did I ever intend to make a statement, about "the union of two belief systems." There's nothing at all about the "duality of spirituality and paganism," whatever that means, either."

Earlier in the article, Robert Halmi is quoted as saying that Earthsea "has people who believe and people who do not believe."

LeGuin counters: ". . . This has absolutely nothing to do with "people who believe and people who do not believe."" And goes on to explain, in the webzine SLATE ( http://slate.msn.com/id/2111107/  ) "A Whitewashed Earthsea -- How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books" how casting racially incorrect actors in the parts destroyed the essential meaning of the work.

As I see it, the Earthsea novels are crafted from the Myth our teen culture lived in thirty and more years ago. They’re still as popular today because well crafted Myth is timeless and these are timeless classics that awaken consciousness. The TV production is an attempt to twist that timeless classic into The New Myth today’s teens are searching for, simplistic Good Vs. Evil. Read the Sci Fi bulletin board to see if they succeeded.

Send books for review in this column to: Jacqueline Lichtenberg, email jl@simegen.com for instructions.