Grabbed it. Thanks for the link.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ 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.h\
tml
>
> 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.
>
