--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote: > > This theme -- one species with its own view > of what ethics entails meeting another with an > entirely different, not only incompatible but > *inconceivable* view -- has been dealt with > often in classic science fiction. > > Might I recommend, as a starting point, a story > by Terry Carr in World's Best Science Fiction > 1969 called "The Dance of the Changer and the > Three." Brilliant.
As it turns out, this classic story is online, and you can read it here (it's on two HTML pages, so when you get to the bottom of the first you need to click on the second): http://lexal.net/scifi/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/carr/carr1.html This should give you a taste of the magnitude of the challenge we've been talking about, a great writer trying to imagine what is essentially unimaginable, a truly alien culture, with truly alien values. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Story the year it came out. It is still talked about in science fiction circles as one of the best examples of such an attempt ever done. The fascinating thing for me when I first read it back in 1969 is that the story of the Changer and the Three is almost Zen in its essence; it's a koan, which the human trying to relate the story to other humans knows he will never and *can* never figure out. Growing up on Class-A imaginings of the possible interactions between humans and extraterrestrials like this is what often leaves me with little patience when I hear New Age twifs talking about the "space brothers" and our "friends" from the Pleiaides. They have no fuckin' clue.
