Phil is (still) Phil, but is Phil human?

Any linguistic prescriptivist would tell you we've gotten lazy. We split infinitives, we end sentences with prepositions, but one thing we've gotten away with (with which we have gotten away) for far too long is our sloppy use of the word "humanity." We throw it around with little concern for the consequences. I can't even pretend that those consequences have been minor. As Carl Schmitt put it:

To confiscate the word humanity, to invoke and monopolize such a term probably has certain incalculable effects, sch as denying the enemy the quality of being human and declaring him to be an outlaw of humanity; and a war can thereby be driven to the most extreme inhumanity.

Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, p 54

I think we can all get to that. But what if there is an "other" to compare ourselves against. Were that the case, humanity would be an acceptable concept according to Carl Schmitt's framework. That by no means simplifies matters. Grass gives us the opportunity to consider the implications of "human" as an almost moral classification.

One could diagram humanity until the Singularity, but I doubt we would ever reach a satisfying conclusion. We have a hard enough time dealing with differences between homo-sapiens that for all our talk of the search for intelligent life, I don't think we are ready to have our already fragile models, philosophies, and theologies broken wide open. In the event of "contact," I think we will all find a little bit of Father Sandoval in ourselves.

While Grass got me asking questions, it didn't give me good enough answers. If God created "very small beings" similar to microorganisms, how can we know who is the virus and who is the antibody? Can we really say that the Hippae are evil based on a single word they trampled into the floor of a cave? Earth would be screwed if aliens landed in the middle of a GWAR concert. Yeah, they probably are evil, but it wouldn't have mattered if Grass had been left on its own. Without humans, the baby "good" foxen would have been able to escape to trees and survive and there would have been some balance in the ecosystem. Also, if the foxen hadn't killed ALL of that one predator, then the bad Hippae would have been kept in check to some extent. These last are just a few miscellaneous quibbles, though.

What is Grass?

When my Mom asked me what I was reading over Spring break I tried to describe Grass to her. The best I could come up with was something like, "It's Dune, but written by a woman." While I will stand by that comparison until something better comes along (I haven't come up with anything yet), I think Sheri Tepper deserves more credit. I read Grass, however, and feel that this novel would be the most appropriate to hold up next to Dune. You've got a displaced family, a strange planet, and most of all, and a mysterious link between the planet's unique ecology and some phenomenon affecting all of mankind.

I've been wondering about what makes this book feel more feminine (?) than others. It's not just the fleshed out relationships, as most authors can establish those connections. I think it has something to do with the way Tepper handles discord in those relationships. Speaker for the Dead had it's own disfunctionalities, but Tepper was willing to venture deeper into the minds of those in conflict. It would be nice to go over this in class some.

I also noticed that I had an easier time reading this book as a fantasy work than science fiction. All of the other books we've read this semester left me thinking about what would happen if Man met some variation of an intelligent being from another planet. Each, in a way, presented a case for mankind's reaction. The science fiction novels we've read and movies we've seen have all been thought-experiments. The aliens on Grass resemble the mythical beasts of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings more than, well, "aliens." Those other works have been concerned with mankind's relationship with aliens (or their leftovers) as told through the perspective of main characters. I would say that Grass is mostly concerned with Marjorie. She isn't just the main point of view, but the story itself. We do get a few indirect mumbles from Father Sandoval of how the Church will react to the lifeforms on Grass, but humanity's response to another living intelligent species does not enter into the story.

This book is filed under "almost familiar aliens" in the syllabus, but for me, the aliens are different enough that I found it easier to resolve them as fantasy elements. The enthrallment of the riders resembled the effects of the One Ring. The foxen brought to mind those giant sentient eagles. The "evil" Hippae, in my mind, were corrupted, rather than mutated. And finally, the "science" in Grass came too late to convince me. Whereas Card worked science into Speaker for the Dead from the very beginning, I couldn't help but think that if Sanctity really wanted to find a cure, they would have sent down scientists disguised as ambassadors. After all, it took one woman just a few days to get the solution, one woman who would have probably arrived at that relatively simple conclusion had she been told what Sanctity knew all along.

If science fiction works are thought experiments, then Grass is one with too many unique parameters to be useful as such. I think. Maybe? Does that make Dune fantasy? Feel free to poke holes in my logic. I'd like to know what you think. This argument is all very new, and I would be surprised if I didn't change my mind a few times during the class discussion.

All this aside, I really did like Grass. I think it would make a great miniseries.