Extremes

I’ve been thinking a lot this past week about extremes in human nature. It’s a theme that you see regularly here and there, in all genres of fiction. In particular, I see it a lot in science fiction.

On the one hand, we can create fine art in all forms. Mozart’s 40th, Beethoven’s 5th, and Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon.” “The Godfather” movies, “Bridge On The River Kwai”, and “Field Of Dreams.” Picasso, Rembrandt, Renoir. Shakespeare, Twain, Dickens.

On the other hand, we can destroy more horribly and thoroughly than any plague of locust. Gallipoli. Gettysburg. Dresden.

On the one hand, we can build great cities and buildings. New York, Paris, Shanghai. St. Peter’s Basilica, the Great Pyramid of Giza, Burj Khalifa.

On the other hand, we can abuse and misuse our talents and create monsters. Chernobyl. Love Canal. Climate change.

On the one hand, we can perform incredible acts of bravery and kindness. Mother Theresa. Mahatma Gandhi. Nelson Mandela.

On the other hand, we can inflict horrible acts of cruelty and hatred. Adolf Hitler. Idi Amin. Pol Pot.

On the one hand, we can do incredible things to better the lives of everyone. Medicine. Education. Communications.

On the other hand, we can treat our fellow humans as if they were nothing. Slavery. Bigotry and repression. The Holocaust.

On the one hand, we can create and discover and invent unbelievable things. Gutenberg. Edison. Apollo 11.

On the other hand, we can turn our backs on reality and let our darkest fears take us. Jonestown. The Manson family. Suicide bombers.

You get the picture.

Without darkness, how can we know what light is? Without sorrow, how can we savor joy? Without hatred, how would we learn to value love?

How can we as a culture, as a society, as a species be so amazing, awesome, and incredibly fantastic, while at the same time being so hateful, despicable, and disgusting?

More importantly, how can we as individuals maintain balance and reconcile this duality, both within ourselves and in the world as a whole? When the news and the comments section of just about any internet article make you think there are no redeeming values to humanity, how can you remember that each of us can love and be loved? When the horrors of the world threaten to blind you, how can you remember to look at all of the beauty in the world?

In science fiction, these extremes and this dichotomy is often shown in how an alien species might judge mankind. For example, in “The Fifth Element,” Leeloo is almost overwhelmed by human’s propensity for war and destruction and must find love to see if it’s enough to balance out the horror. At the end of Heinlein’s “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel,” Kip and the Mother Thing must defend humanity in a galactic court judging whether or not humans are too dangerous to be allowed to live. In the “Star Trek” adaptation of Fredric Brown’s “Arena”, Kirk and the Gorn fight to the death to see which species will survive, but Kirk’s refusal to kill the Gorn when he can shows that humans have “potential.” The character of Q is a recurring force in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, judging mankind and weighing the opposing aspects of good and evil in our actions and nature.

With all of that in mind, what’s been on my mind has been whether or not this range of extremes is a good thing or a bad thing if and/or when we ever encounter another, superior alien race, or even a full-blown galactic civilization. (I’m not getting into the whole Fermi Paradox thing right now.)

Will we be judged as too extreme, too unpredictable, and therefore too dangerous or immature as a species?

Or will these extremes and fundamental dichotomies be judged to be a great strength, giving us flexibility, strength, and adaptability? “With great power…” and all of that.

I wish that I had an answer. I just know that now, I seem to be surfing the highs some days and being beaten by the lows on others.

“Balance” is not the same as “average.” I don’t know if the world’s getting more extreme, or if it’s just my perception of it.

Finally, while my knee-jerk reaction on the “down” days is to wish for less amplitude with higher lows and lower highs, I hesitate to voice that wish too loudly since it would also mean a world with less exhilarating and spectacular peaks.

I don’t know which scares me more, thinking that I’ll never find an answer, or fearing that I will find it but will then not be able to hang onto it or share it with others.