The Necessity of Change
Change is not merely inevitable. It is a necessity.
I have wrestled with this idea ever since reading the Xenogenesis Trilogy by Octavia Butler. In it, humanity has left earth a wasteland and themselves on the brink of extinction. Enter the extraterrestrials known as the Oankali who survive by merging their genetic material with that of other species. In their experience species like humanity, that have intelligence combined with a hierarchal nature, are doomed to destroy themselves. By merging with the Oankali, by becoming something new, humanity can survive by becoming communal and escaping the bounds of their hierarchal tendencies.
Change is often posited as something to be accepted because of its inexorable nature. Or change is viewed as a means to overcome a flaw or injustice. Butler addresses this aspect of change, but also grapples with change as vital in and of itself. It is humanity’s inability to change, beyond even correcting our flaws, that dooms us. Salvation lies with the Oankali’s capacity for change. Now, humanity is at a precipice made by our innovations and hierarchal nature and we need change more than ever.
In 2019, members of the Anthropocene Working Group voted to designate the Anthropocene a new epoch in the geologic history of the earth. They argue that by the middle of the twentieth century, human activity such as earth-warming greenhouse gases from industrialization and farming had fundamentally altered life on earth. To editorialize, human civilization determines what this age means for earth. As an ominous sign of what this could mean, the epoch will be marked in the geologic record by “the first atomic-bomb blasts [which] littered the globe with radioactive debris that became embedded in sediments and glacial ice…”
Simon L. Lewis and Mark A. Maslin propose an earlier start date for the Anthropocene: 1610. A time when European colonists sailed the world, including to the Americas. Plants and animals such as corn, potatoes, wheat, horses, and earthworms were being spread globally, fundamentally altering environments. At the same time, many historians argue that it was the wealth gained through colonization, centered around things like the Atlantic slave trade, that enabled industrialization in Europe. Humanities impact on the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gasses began with Europeans voyages in the Atlantic. 1610 is specifically proposed because a decline in atmospheric CO2 is visible in Antarctic ice cores. It is believed that the plague, enslavement, war, and famine brought by Europeans reduced the population of the Americas from around 60 million to a mere 9 million. Less land was cleared for farming which meant plants took up more CO2, keeping it out of the atmosphere.
The current age is built on endless growth fueled by death and exploitation. A course correction is only possible if we acknowledge the need for change in and of itself and for the benefit of humankind. Instead, we continue to follow the same impulse of hierarchal domination that perpetuates an unjust system because the system has never been fundamentally altered. Covid-19 has made this reality more obvious than ever before. Black people, Hispanics, and Native Americans all disproportionately die from Covid-19 in the United States. The poor, disproportionately made up of these groups, are more likely to be employed in jobs such as cashiers or food processing where they cannot work from home and so risk exposure. They are more likely to experience worse housing and medical care. Yet, despite this neglect, these jobs are essential. Once more, people die so that others further up the hierarchy may live.
This system is not only unjust; it is untenable. While Europeans recognized the harm colonization and extractive exploitation caused others, they did not understand that industrialization would be responsible for unprecedented climate change. If it is not slowed, sea-level rise will impact and potentially displace 600 million people by the year 2100. Extreme weather events such as intense heat waves and flooding will become more common. Our water, our world, and our health are threatened. Our innovations have led to unintended consequences and deepening crises and the need for further innovations. Change is necessary to ensure our survival.
People are often inclined against change, particularly if the current systems benefit us in the moment. Many celebrated Biden’s victory as a return to normalcy. I breathed a sigh of relief, democracy wouldn’t be dismantled, countless people’s lives would be improved. However, I didn’t celebrate. Our normalcy, the normalcy of people like Biden, is too often opposed to the change that we need. It does not acknowledge that the United States’ stability, the supposed stability of the world, is built on people’s lives not being stable. It does not acknowledge that our normalcy, a world built on endless growth, is a false stability that is inevitably leading towards its own demise. Stability opposed to change means an inexorable creep towards death.
My favorite SFF is dedicated to change. It reveals the inherent injustice and instability of our world through dystopic recreation. It often finds the cracks, the logical contradictions, the fissures that lead to a world’s collapse. Or, like the Xenogenesis trilogy, it dares to dream about something better. I strive to write for change in my own work. I would encourage everyone to explore transformative change in what they are passionate about.
The message of the Anthropogenic age is not that humanity is godlike. It is that like everything else in the world, we are bound to the world. Every change, every innovation, launches myriad seen and unseen outcomes. Embracing this reality rather than fighting it could lead to scarcely imagined possibilities. Unfortunately, we are not on this path. Our systems cling to hierarchy that is untenable in the long run. We must embrace the necessity of change and imagine and work towards a future accordingly. We must be our own Oankali.
