Contemporary Justice Review Vol. 9, No. 1, March 2006, pp.

4765

Contemplating and Contesting Violence in Dystopia: Violence in Octavia Butlers XENOGENESIS Trilogy
Christina Braid

This paper considers the modern understanding of violenceits complexities, realities, and subtletiesin the context of Octavia Butlers science fiction trilogy, XENOGENESIS. The first part presents a general discussion of violence and dystopia in a modern context, with a brief overview of the trilogys plot. The second section briefly defines the ethical dissimilarities between the storys Humans and aliens, studying the explicit and implicit manifestations and regulations of violence in and between each community, while paying particular attention to the subtly coercive violence managed by the dominating, yet ostensibly benevolent, alien Oankali race. In Butlers problematizing of easy utopian strategies for eliminating violence, the dystopian trilogy poses a relevant challenge to justice today, raising important questions: Why do we still turn to violence as an answer to conflict? Why do we confuse calculated pretenses of justice in which violence hides itselfthat is, forms of authority that underlie self-serving motives of the state, which are sometimes mimicked by its citizenswith the incalculability of justice? The third and final section reflects on the importance of the challenges of XENOGENESIS in light of justice today.
ChristinaBraid 0 1 braidcd@sprint.ca 00000March 2006 Contemporary 10.1080/10282580600564891 GCJR_A_156472.sgm 1028-2580 Original Taylor 2006 9 and & Article Francis (print)/1477-2248 Francis Justice LtdReview(online)

Keywords: Violence; Utopia: Xenogenesis; Octavia Butler; Justice; Utopian Literature

The twentieth century will be remembered as a century marked by violence. It burdens us with its legacy of mass destruction, of violence inflicted on a scale never seen and never possible before in human history. But this legacythe result of new technology in the service of ideologies of hateis not the only one we carry, nor that we must face up to. (Mandela, 2002)

Violence and Dystmopia in a Modern Context In his foreword to the World Health Organizations World Report on Violence and Health (WHO, 2002), Nelson Mandela powerfully urges the world to perceive the
Christina Braid is an independent scholar. Correspondence to: Suite 903, 40 Scollard Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5R 3S1. E-mail: braidcd@sprint.ca ISSN 10282580 (print)/ISSN 14772248 (online) 2006 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/10282580600564891

48

C. Braid

horrific impact violence has had and continues to have on humanity. He inspires leaders and citizens to see beyond the altruistic reasons for violence as a means to solve conflicts spawned by hatred and division. He reminds us to take notice of this centurys tally of destruction, bloodshed, devastation, and injusticeviolent events that have saturated the official and unofficial histories of many countries worldwide. Mandelas prophecy, by conveying the menacing reality of violencethat which prevents human solidaritycalls out for a response from justice, the advocate for civil human rights. This demand for justice, that force which responds when violence is done to people, must work continually to unmask violence and all of its subtleties. In asking the question What is violence? studies like the WHO report provide some insight: violence is the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation (Krug, Dahlberg, Mercy, Zwi, & Lozano, 2002, p. 5). Confirming humanitys advanced understanding of violence, this definition encompasses broadly a problem that continues to manifest itself today in new and horrible ways. However, moving from recognition to the task of addressing violence can seem too difficult, utopian, overbearing, daunting, and impossible. Despite the rapid rise of many independent movements/organizations to establish peace or justice studies, and our growing exposure to the values taught by ethics, religion, and philosophy, we might ask why violence is still perceived as the favored solution to human conflict. Why is it so difficult for the state to ensure justice between one person and another? Perhaps the rise of violence, as well as the widespread interest it has created for those intrigued by its overbearing presence in the world, might be explained as follows:
Violence is a topic that preoccupies many social commentators today, writing from diverse disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, history, criminology, psychology, and political science. Indeed, concern with this topic has increased rather than decreased since the supposed end of the Cold War, partly because of the numerous interethnic and interregional conflicts that have emerged around the world in the last decade of the twentieth century. (Stewart & Strathern, 2002, p. 9)1

Whether aware or unaware, moved or unmoved by yesterdays and todays resounding voices of justice worried about the growing wounds tearing apart human solidarity, political actors are yet drawn into the vortex of violence which silences, paralyzes, and strangles the emergence and/or the growing work of justice. Simultaneously, there is indifference to violence in those unwilling to make an effort to acknowledge or become disturbed by its terrible presence. There is also an inability or unwillingness to resist the example of history, the present potential of new technology in the service of ideologies of hate (Mandela, 2002). Conceivably, this reality demands that the question of violence and its roots be approached in a distinctly transdisciplinary manner, drawing on resources from a variety of fields historical, philosophical, political, psychoanalytic, ethnographic, literary, postcolonial, deconstructive perspectives (deVries & Weber, 1997, p. 3). A discussion of violence in literature has been an important one this century because of the way it reconstructs and explains, through metaphor, the way our understanding

Contemporary Justice Review 49

of justice can be compromisedfor justice is a concept that continually risks getting lost amid utopian determinations of what a state should look like, ideally be, or strive to become. The Platonic tradition which democracy has inherited intertwines justice with the cooperative workings of individual and state, contemplating the nature of just existence as necessarily arising from a vision of a perfect state and perfect citizens. The ensuing movements in utopian literature, either influenced by or reacting against the hidden dangers of such idealizations, have initiated a useful medium of writing: utopia as method can thus reflect upon certain political, social, ethical, and philosophical realities that enable the reader to gain insight into the problematic justice that governs how violence is regulated by the state in visions of just worlds. Dystopia Pessimistic of such utopianism and its ideals, writers of dystopian literature have somberly illustrated an underlying problem haunting utopian worlds. Whether depicting a good place or eutopia, that literary depiction of a perfect world that offers a tempting blueprint for the readers world to follow, or a bad place or dystopia, that repressive, upside-down world that seems perfect from the perspective of its citizens, the author inevitably raises an important and unsettling question: Whose justice will determine or influence the identity, security, and the overall happiness of the many? The uneasy response, sometimes portrayed in a satirical, dark, or despairing way, is prophetically addressed by authors writing against the grain of the hopeful Platonic dream.2 While their fictitious worlds elucidate the looming nightmare of repressive violence that pervadesa violence that somehow cannot escape the human conditiondystopias have also imagined such possibilities, such worlds that leave readers to ponder the often immobilizing complexities governing the relationship between justice, state, and individual. Utopian writing, particularly in the dystopian mode, is appropriate and essential and might support deVries and Webers (1997) recommended dialogical examination between disciplines on the topic of violence. The dystopias of the 20th century teach important lessons about the role of state as regulator of violence. Exacting questions dystopia has taught us to ask about the complex relationship between citizen and state include the following: In what ways does the state, or the individual that mimics it, implicitly or explicitly impose violence to achieve a desired utopian end? How is power present in self-serving attitudes that form tyrannical leaderships or prevent the emergence of true community? How do the vulnerabilities of the bodythe desire for pleasure, freedom, material wealth, security, amusementdisplace the functionability of a persons will or conscience to do what is right? How might individual consciousness be manipulated by a collective conscience formed by those in power to serve the will of power?3 What compromises of ethics/ morality by either citizen or state enables the achievement of utopian visions that displace justice? If a societys procedural justice seeks to protect people from violence, how does one make naked less obvious and hidden forms of violence in all of its multileveled and complex constructions? If violence is sometimes invisible, hidden by some illusion or ideology, how does one create the means to fight it or initiate others to

50

C. Braid

recognize that violence? Dystopia asks many more questions, warning us about the kinds of violence disguised as justice; such phenomena, dystopia advises, prevent solutions and/or opposition to the exponential rise of widespread, seen or unseen, crimes against humanity because of the hidden way such violence operates upon the individual through both the individual and the state.4 Well-known, discussed, and disseminated novels like George Orwells 1984 (Orwell, 1949) and Aldous Huxleys (1932) Brave New World magnify through the perspective of fiction the required ethical perception that will demand justice when violence arises. Orwell, for instance, sought to uncover the hidden violence in a states policing of individuals. In 1984, Big Brother represents a coercive method of citizen management that denies any form of resistance to state law, even to the point of thought control and crude torture. Huxley, on the other hand, directs the bulk of his critique to the mentality of the pacified and ignorant herd, those citizens who fail to question the realities of their somatic existence. Huxleys Brave New World meditates upon the blind participation of citizens in a system that they fail to comprehend, an occurrence that arises when people are only concerned about maintaining their status, their immediate needs (material, sexual, entertainment), and their sense of personal happiness. Martin Oppenheimer describes this phenomenon, where people are sometimes incapable of distinguishing fake from real needs given the degree of cultural manipulation in the society; he also alludes to the dangerous cultural modes of relaxation that arrest individual development (2000, p. 65). Oppenheimers reference to repressive desublimation, or the manner in which society provides freedoms that maintain the overall repressive system rather than generating a challenge to it (2000, p. 65), describes the important work of the literary dystopia: to supplant the happy utopian dream because it is built upon the temptation of both individual and state to substitute the true needs of the community with a particular ideology or absolute law. A development of this dystopian form over the past two decades, the critical dystopia, continues to contemplate solutions to the dystopian dilemma; inevitably, violence is not defeated because justice is somehow displaced.5 Using the post-apocalyptic setting as backdrop, critical dystopias of the 1980s1990s often project dark human futures. In such tales, humanity is commonly depicted as being in a state of crisis: humans have destroyed much of the planet, depleted its resources, and/or endangered the human species because of irresponsible, vice-filled, and violent attitudes. Xenogenesis In 1987, Octavia Butler published Dawn, a post-apocalyptic tale highlighting the conflicts of a seemingly benevolent alien species that has saved Humanity from selfannihilation. The first of a trilogy of critical dystopian novels, including Adulthood Rites (1988) and Imago (1989), this series has come to be known as Liliths Brood or XENOGENESIS. This set of critical dystopias provides an overview of Humanity in a state of post-war crisis, made worse by an alien takeover of Earth. In her story, Butler demonstrates how the emergence of an inter-dependent community depends on resolution to conflict that moves beyond a politics embedded in citizen/state ideologies

Contemporary Justice Review 51

and cultural manipulation. The trilogy criticizes invisible motives by the state to regulate citizen access to knowledge and technology; it also comments on the citizens endurance of violence, focusing on the ways in which state justice impels citizens into a condition of violent resistance or pacified acceptance. XENOGENESIS, through its identification of various atypical forms of violence, advocates interaction that allows justice to emerge as something which responds to others in the most responsible and giving ways. Butlers writing situates itself in an important tradition of late 20th-century utopian writing: her fiction is filled with political and social commentary, and it deals specifically with themes underlining the nature of violence and conflict.6 Grounded in the tradition of dystopia, her novels oblige the reader to develop a conscience through its rich meditations on the variations of violence. Jim Miller proposes:
Butlers critical dystopias force us to work through the dystopian before we can begin the effort to imagine a better world. In Butlers XENOGENESIS trilogy, we are thrust into a post-apocalyptic world from the start and forced to make our way through it. (1998, p. 339)

Questioning the relevance of utopian dreams, Butlers novels explore the forms of state justice which seek to overcome violence: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago specifically engage the reader in the critical work of identifying various traps of violence within the ambiguous spaces of each story. XENOGENESIS portrays episodes engaged in the production and/or regulation of violence, all within the popular science fiction metaphor of the alienHuman encounter. The trilogy plays out the conflicts of three major communities: the non-hierarchical, nurturing family and/or communal life of the hybrid Oankali/Human race; the free-spirited, independent, and dominantly violent Human resisters, who choose to reject alien relations and lifestyle; and Akjai, those Oankali who initially want nothing to do with Humanity.7 All under the umbrella of the Oankali way of governing that is based on consensus, these societies outline the complexity of relationships, revealing the realities of power, inconsistency, passion, and aggression that sometimes define individual and communal ties. The mood of the tale is controlled by the alien-ness of the Oankali oppressors, who differ physically from the Humans. The Humans repulsion by the alien tentaclesa Medusa-like uglinessmakes the Humans reluctant to accept this radically other culture (Miller, 1998, p. 340). In the first chapters of Dawn, the alien other, known as the Oankali, finds humanity in a vulnerable state of devastation and nuclear war. When Lilith, the protagonist, awakes from her slumber, she is told that Humanity has been sealed in alien stasis pods and experimented upon while in orbit around Earth on the Oankali ship. During her stasis, Lilith benefits from Oankali technology: she is cured of cancer, and her body is genetically enhanced to withstand disease. When she is deemed ready to meet the Oankali, 250 years after her initial capture, she is freed from solitary confinement by Jdahya, an alien male who makes her endure his presence until she grows accustomed to his repulsively inhuman form. For a time, the reader is caught between Liliths moralizations about humanitys unlucky alien meeting and her dark memories of Earth before her capture:

52

C. Braid
Humanity in its attempt to destroy itself had made the world unlivable. She had been certain she would die even though she had survived the bombing without a scratch. She had considered her survival a misfortunea promise of a more lingering death. And now? (Butler, 1987/2000, p. 15)

Unsure of her unpredictable future, Lilith chooses to cooperate with the aliens: she agrees to be the Judas goat, the Human responsible for betraying Humanity to the alien superpower.8 With the hope that she might escape after she has learned about her captors and gathered enough Humans to help her fight them, Lilith agrees to awaken, teach, and lead groups of Human survivors to repopulate the Earth, even while she is oblivious of her relationship with the aliens as future mother to a race of crossbreed constructs. In different ways, Lilith is assured by her captors/saviors of the legitimacy behind this necessary rebirth/preservation of Earth and its inhabitants. Gradually, she learns partial truths underlying alien motivation to intervene into Human affairs. Without its conscious consent, Humanity has engaged in a life/gene trade with the Oankali, whereby Humans are subjected to the placid command of their alien masters. They are told that the Oankali sought to orbit Earth not only to save Humanity from its inevitable ruin but also to preserve its genetic goldmine. Jdahya admits that the ooloineuter gendered aliens with the exclusive ability to procreate and manipulate genesvigorously obsess over and desire the valuable human cancer gene, an irresistible treasure that provides the Oankali with countless healing and restorative possibilities (Butler, 1989/2000, p. 551). For many years before Humans awaken to the reality of their exploitation by aliens, the gene pool of Human life is pillaged and made accessible to Oankali curiosity, exploration, inspection, and altercation. Shedding light on Human weakness and vulnerability, the Oankali perfect their approach to bending the Humans to their alien procedures. In Adulthood Rites, Butler continues her tale, focusing on the Human resister movement and Liliths son, Akin, who learns more about his Human and alien roots. From childhood, Akin prefers his Human resister friends, who raised him for a year. The novel concentrates on Akins coming of age and his efforts to convince the Akjai to help him create a Human colony on Mars. In Adulthood Rites (Butler, 2000/1988), Akins identification of Oankali injustice inspires his efforts to befriend the resister Humans, save them from their oppression, and give them a second chance for independent life. The final novel of the trilogy, Imago, reveals many of the secrets of Oankali/ooloi motivation that are hidden in the first two novels. Jodahs, the first-person narrator, is Liliths Human-born, ooloi-construct son/daughter. The story focuses on its indoctrination into the Oankali way of life, contrasting Akins very Human upbringing. Because Jodahs is a genderless ooloi, it comes to understand the biological underpinnings of the Oankali condition. The final tale emphasizes its efforts to live in exile, and help his ooloi sibling, Aoar. Both Jodahs and Aoar are genetic accidents, experimental mishaps that can change their shape at will and disfigure other Oankali, a power which threatens Oankali existence. Since Jodahs and Aoar are banned from the Oankali ship, they must find mates among a fertile group of diseased Humans.

Contemporary Justice Review 53

The Manifestation of Violence in Communities Ethics In XENOGENESIS, the ethical contrast between the Oankali and the Humans is characterized by their opposing lifestyles: each has their own understanding of what is good for the community. The Oankali are complex beings: they are pacifists and healers, yet they lust after new life and have an insatiable curiosity that makes them probe the genetic properties of all life they encounter. The soft-spoken and gentle disposition of the aliens, however, contrasts the antagonistic Humans of the story, whose defensive nature can be attributed to their feelings of captivity and oppression. The Oankali oppose violence, take pride in how they embrace difference, and endeavor to erase disease and destruction. In their efforts to help Humanity reach its potential, the Oankali swear that they wont kill (Butler, 1989/2000, p. 732), a promise they assert as core to their genetic being:
Oankali did not suggest violence. Humans said violence was against Oankali beliefs. Actually, it was against their flesh and bone, against every cell of them. Humans had evolved from hierarchical life, dominating, often killing other life. Oankali had evolved from acquisitive life, collecting and combining with other life. (Butler, 1989/2000, p. 564)

The Oankali have the capacity to kill but use their tranquilizing tentacles for selfdefense only, often dismissing responsibility for causing death: [I]f they die, it will only be because they work very hard to make us kill them (Butler, 1989/2000, p. 565). Jim Miller adds: [Butler] presents the Oankali in a positive light with regard to their non-hierarchical society and their respect for healing, diversity, and guilt-free pleasure (1998, p. 342). The Humans, in contrast, are depicted as brutally savage. The futility of violence, a central theme in the trilogy, abundantly pervades scenes among antagonistic Humans, whose actions exemplify interpersonal, collective, and social forms of violence.9 Butlers Humans are capable of crimes against each other, often resorting to murder, rape, racism, hatred, and cruel abuse, all by-products of conflict that arises between individuals.10 While not all Humans are violent, part of the ambiguity in XENOGENESIS rests in the implementation of Oankali justice, a force which seems to impose violence on the Humans via an ethical demand to regulate their unacceptable violent tendencies. The Oankali attribute the hostile Human mentality to an ancient and irreversible genetic flaw that governs Human actions: while the Humans are the most advanced species the Oankali have discovered, they are burdened with a Human Contradiction, a genetically dangerous blend of intelligence at the service of hierarchical behavior (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 467). Because the Humans are seen as being in a perpetual state of denial, the Oankali incarcerate Humans who violate alien rules of pacifism. Primarily, the exile to the Oankali ship is used as a preventative measure to limit individual engagement in further acts of aggression. Seeing no need to provide any true rehabilitative solutions to Human violence, the Oankali merely erase Human memory and allocate violent Human bodies to the ship for testing and further Oankali study. This waste not, want not philosophy is a derivative of the Oankali duty to save

54

C. Braid

and protect the treasure of life. To save the Humans from themselves and to secure the Oankali community, the Oankali consensus only allows non-violent Humans to inhabit the Earth. Those Humans who refuse to cooperate with the Oankali and improve their inferior way of life are allowed to choose an independent, sterile, and alien-technology-deprived existence in resister cities.11 Despair, Rage, Pride Observations in XENOGENESIS of humanity extinguishing itself in boredom, hopelessness, [and] bitterness (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 498) suggest the roots of Human violence, which the Oankali cannot quite comprehend. The role suffering plays in breeding violence within a community and for the self seems to confuse the Oankali, who are the obvious instigators of much psychological suffering felt by the Humans. The Oankali interpret the Human reactions and sense of betrayal, angst, blame, hatred, and revenge as metaphors for the Human Contradiction.12 The resulting despair and/or rage caused by feelings of deprivation (cultural, educational, and technological) make it difficult for Humans to find peace.13 Even Akins offer of Mars cannot displace the violent tendencies of the Humans, who feel patronized by Oankali condescension and are too proud to accept any help from them. In Adulthood Rites, the chaotic Humans justify the need for weapons to protect themselves and to support their resort to violence in the name of fighting against their bondage. Unwilling to see meaning in their own lives, the Humans lose their appreciation of life and begin to view other Humans as objects on which to displace their anger. Creation of convenient scapegoats, such as Lilith or Akin, gives Humans a chance indirectly, though ineffectively, to attack the absent alien oppressor.14 Butler constantly explores the futility of a politics of blame, demonstrating how the stance of the victim is often caught up in reversing any violence done to the self in a sort of eye for an eye justice. Denial From the Human perspective, the Oankali are responsible for many injustices that the Oankali refuse to feel guilty for. Viewing their process and consensus for the Human future as just and necessary, the Oankali seem to participate in a coercive politics which XENOGENESIS complicates with their seemingly democratic stance that reminds the Humans that they always have a choice. The Human resisters, for example, are allowed to choose freedom from Oankali reign; however, this choice is a regulated one that involves terrible costs from the Human perspective: slow death from longevity in a meaningless existence compensates for the imposed sterility humans must endure. The Oankali initiative of preventing resisters from creating unnecessary, inferior, and diseased life without first being genetically perfected is seen as a merciful alternative: the Oankali perceive this ultimatum, disguised as a choice, as far superior to the fast death that the unpoliced Mars colony Akin offers the Humans.15 Confounded, yet patient with the Human inability to grasp Oankali logic, the Oankali once again blame the Human Contradiction for failing to acknowledge the brilliance of Oankali genetic

Contemporary Justice Review 55

understanding. Because the Oankali constantly underestimate the Humans and sometimes need to compensate for poor decisions made by consensus, they are always willing to learn from their mistakes but deem insignificant the consequences of their actions. No one Oankali seems to be held accountable for any faux pas, an interesting side-effect of their government without responsibility. The democratic nature of the Oankali seems wrought with difficulty throughout the text, even while the violence caused by certain alien actions is safely hidden by the placid and nonchalant Oankali disposition.16 The reader feels the violence of apathy among the Oankali, especially those who are unwilling even to respond. In Adulthood Rites (Butler, 1988/2000), Akin forces the Oankali on the Akjai ship to see the suffering felt by the Humans, but many are confused or indifferent to his message, leaving only a handful of Oankali willing to help him in his cause. The Oankali irresponsibility, which fails to respond to the Humans, represents an injustice described as a reduction of the other by the same (self) (Levinas, 1969, p. 43)in other words, a lack of self-awareness or consciousness of the other which cancels the event of responsivity: Here I am for othersan enormous response (Levinas, 1994, p. 185). Such a lack of response creates an injustice which fails to acknowledge the importance of the other in a community.17 Rights? Despite the heroic Oankali ability to regulate Human violence with their alien methods, the Oankali invasion denies Human civil rights by scientifically calculating their abilities, limiting their identity, and regulating their freedoms. In Dawn, the Oankali even justify the need to isolate Humans in colorless rooms on the Oankali ship. The unquenchable Oankali curiosity supports a cultural interpretation of Human imprisonment and experimentation, not as a removal of their Human dignitysuch a concept is slowly developed among the Oankali though never fully understoodbut as a necessary process of quantification of the limits of Humanitys beautiful yet terrible biological essence (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 315). When Jdahya says, We know more of what youre capable of than you do (Butler.1987/2000, p. 32), he implies an absolute understanding of Humanity that is scientifically sound. Such a reductionist mentality, while it based on the encyclopedic genetic knowledge aliens have gathered about the Human self, is at odds with the actual truth of Human identity and being. Jdahya prefers the authoritative Oankali stereotype, a biased interpretation of the Human genetic make-up, rather than the assumedly inferior Human understanding of its own emotional, cultural, and philosophical character. Ironically, the Oankali conscience will not stop the Humans from destroying themselves, a failure of their ethical conscience that can afford to see Humans as expendable; instead, it focuses on the ethics underlying reasons why Humanity should not be in control of itself: The Oankali know to the bone that its wrong to help the Human species regenerate unchanged because it will destroy itself again (Butler, 1989/ 2000, p. 532). Such intellectual chauvinism moralizes a mythology about Humanity violently and underestimates the Human capacity, a mistaken assumption that leads to

56

C. Braid

Oankali mismanagement of the Human culture through imposing a sort of tyrannical reign over it. For instance, during isolation in a colorless room, the Humans are drugged, operated upon, interrogated, starved to death, shamed by their nakedness, and treated like animals (Butler, 1987/2000, pp. 118124). These scientific measures of isolation are justified as necessary experiments that keep Humans from killing one another; they allow the aliens to learn how to regulate Humans when provoked; they help the aliens discover Human strengths/weaknesses in order to best manipulate the Human Contradiction. In alluding to the possibility of true collaborative community in the alien lifestyle of sharing and acceptance of difference, XENOGENESIS also complicates such a materialization when justice governing a community is replaced by ideologies surrounding distorted salvationist utopian visions. The happy version of life that the Oankali offer the Humans maintains a contradictory character, especially because the Humans are subtly manipulated in order to achieve the hidden alien agenda. While the Oankali effort to stop the Human war seems to save the Humans from extinction by giving them life, the Oankali do not sense the depth of suffering caused by this loss of Human individuality and lifestyle. The aliens sharing, communal nature, which provides a sort of communitarian lifestyle of equality, sympathizes only half-heartedly with the Humans need for individuality and freedom, a basic ingredient of Human life that the aliens yet again dismiss as a side-effect of the Human Contradiction. The dystopian reality of XENOGENESIS challenges such deprivation of independent Human life: even while the Oankali claim to provide for every physical, genetic, and material human need, they unsuccessfully deal with their emotional, spiritual, and psychological needs, violently depriving the Humans of any free choice in this extremely limited cultural exchange. In failing to understand the Humans as much as the Humans fail to understand them, the Oankali become unable to foresee the justice of bridging the gap between life and hope, abundance and internal poverty, choice and freedom; they also fail to see how violence is not simply essential to the quality of Humans. Authority, Benevolence, and Seduction Even though the Oankali heroically denounce violence and police it by exiling hostile Humans to the alien ship, they are guilty of a softer form of violence. The imbalance of violent episodes among the harsh Humans prompts the suggestion that the Oankali appear to be in a position of power over the humans even while relations of domination are of no interest to them (Wolmark, 1997, p. 34). However, such a comment downplays the metaphorical significance of the Oankali as figures resembling a type of invisible, more sophisticated kind of violence of tyranny rooted in authority. As Hannah Arendt suggests, if violence fulfills the same function as authoritynamely, makes people obeythen violence is authority (1959, p. 471). Violence, according to Arendts definition, is exerted by the Oankali in the form of the authoritative control that they have over the Humans. Because the aliens sense of authority stems from their superior technological prowess, they believe they can afford to understand Humanity

Contemporary Justice Review 57

through their deep-seated genetic knowledge, aligning biology to motivation. This recurring dystopian theme of Butlers trilogy outlines questions of social power vested in the compelling Oankali ideology; thus, the Human acceptance of the choices given to the aliens, who are misleadingly benevolent, becomes appallingly suspect. From the perspective of authority, the Oankali may be viewed as metaphorical models of friendly fascism, described in the book The State in Modern Society by Martin Oppenheimer (2000). Oppenheimer defines friendly fascism as the idea that modern, industrialized democratic nations are on the road to the establishment of repressive, authoritarian societies, with some of the trappings of fascism/Stalinism, or both (2000, p. 61). He refers to two main types of state repression: ideology (cultural) and violence (police), alluding to Marcuses One-Dimensional Man for a more intricate definition of totalitarianism as not only a terroristic political coordination of society but also a non-terroristic economic-technical co-ordination which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests (as cited in Oppenheimer, 2000, p. 65). Thus, the nature of political authority is such that the masses are repressed on both levels: they are policed and they are educated into the cultural ideology that has power over them. According to this understanding of the relationship between state and citizen, one can perceive the way cultural currency allows the Oankali in XENOGENESIS easily to coordinate Human participation in the alien choices provided. The Oankali projected state demonstrates the absence of justice when the authority of some rationalized ideal replaces the inquiring work of justice that prevents violence. In the case of the Oankali attempt to coerce a united human/alien destiny, any opposition by the Humans is met by a repeated justification of alien codes of survival. Using dystopian pessimism in the Huxleyan formatHuxley presents a happy state whose citizens are unable to question or change their realityButler implicitly shows how the strong procedural justice of the Oankali in regulating violence and protecting Human life hides the true nature of their intentions: it actually prevents the ongoing violence of the humans, subjects the humans to their powerful alien will through seduced cooperation, and reveals the dominant quality of the conflicting, absolutist will that the Oankali impose on other species. In light of the Oankali position of benevolent non-violence which contradicts their repressive presence on Earth, one might argue that their cultural construction of identity or place as one that defines itself in opposition to violence turns out itself to be intrinsically violent (deVries and Weber, 1997, p. 4). While Butler creates ambiguity in her critical dystopia that massages the readers ethical view of the Oankali invasion of Earth as potentially beneficial, she effectively obscures the injustice of the Oankali by juxtaposing their gentle, yet absolute, rule against the crude Human resister movement that ineffectively revolts against it. Masters of genetic manipulation who spend most of their existence in search of new species (Butler, 1989/2000, p. 531), the Oankali believe their tradition warrants the unstoppable nature of their alien trade. Without difficulty, the aliens further justify their valiant intervention into what looks like mass-human-suicide (humanicide) because an act that ensures both species will remain alive. The reciprocal nature of this relationship allows the Oankali to

58

C. Braid

assume an unspoken benevolent role as saviors of Humanity. Satisfied with merely reminding the Humans of the pragmatic second chance they have been given to live on Earth and not just die on it (Butler, 1987/2000, p. 153), the Oankali forcefully pursue their efforts to resurrect this valuable, dying Human race. The alien campaign to seek out new life (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 362) also includes the plan to consume Earth fully and turn it into a wasteland, a hidden secret that is kept from the panic-driven Humans because they cannot handle such truth without resorting to violence. The Oankali agree that this plan is morally sound because it merely postpones for several centuries Human extinction and the Earths earlier Human-made destiny as an unlivable nuclear wasteland. Finally, they will make the Humans part of the Oankali species, made to grow and divide as Oankali always have and call itself Oankali (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 443). Having saved the Humans and afforded them free cultural assimilation into the Oankali race, the non-negotiable trade of the Oankali makes powerless any Human attempt to complain or deny the Oankali right to intervene, save, rebuild Earth, and use willing Humans for its breeding needs. The natural Oankali reaction of ignoring the burdens of criticism or suggestion (Butler, 1989/2000, p. 738) translates Liliths reprimand of Oankali ethics as insignificant for many years: If you knew anything at all about the human imagination, youd know you were doing exactly the wrong thing (Butler, 1987/2000, p. 26). Because the Oankali perceive their forced presence as right, and their consensus for the trade as valid, they associate their upheaval of Earth with a strong sense of obligation to regulate the freedoms and constrain the violent actions of the flawed Humans which threaten alien achievements to save life. Since the Oankali do not take seriously the Human imaginative viewpoint, they label Humans as ignorant, at once dismantling their capacity to choose an independent lifestyle for themselves and removing their right to disapprove of alien decisions. This authoritative mentality, a sort of cultural chauvinism, moves the Oankali to interpret their methods and decisions about Humans in a way that suits their over-simplified sense of what is for the common good, a conception denounced by the Rawlsian ideal of a just state, which should refrain, so far as possible, from trying to impose on its members a single conception of the ends and meaning of life (Nagel, 2003, p. 72). The Oankali rule, in its unjustified efforts to affix an alien way of being to Human life, impresses violence upon the Humans in the forms of cultural, genetic, and sexual repression. To symbolize the new beginning for both species, the Oankali trade demands the eradication of all previous traces of contaminated Human history and culture. In this ethnic cleansing, Humans must learn to appreciate the value and meaning of the trade: Trade means change. Bodies change. Ways of living must change (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 260). However, the alien process of changing Humanity is challenged in various sections of the novel, in which the Oankali reveal their lustful and decadent character. In one instance, the Oankali self-indulgence in new-found Human life is clarified by Tino, Liliths second Human mate, who is told that after collecting, stockpiling, documenting, and storing into alien memory all precious Human genetic knowledge, the individual blueprints borrowed from the Humans during stasis can be used to clone an unlimited number of culturally inept Humanseven if the original Human does not

Contemporary Justice Review 59

survive (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 289). Even with this technology, the Oankali still refuse to leave the Earth when asked and deny the desired independent, pre-alien, pre-war Human lifestyle. Nikanj, Liliths ooloi mate, explains: But we prefer you to any copy. We need cultural as well as genetic diversity for a good trade (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 289). Because the Oankali are able to survive with replicas, this preference to exploit Humanity at the cost of keeping them in a repressed state reveals a ravenous desire for self-fulfillment which undermines the perceived ethical purity of the alien trade. Obsessed with their newfound biological possessions, the aliens treat the Humans like an animal species that is greedily adopted to satisfy alien pleasure. This reality confirms Paul Tildens warning to Lilith: [T]hey didnt save you out of kindness (Butler, 1987/ 2000, p. 92). Under the faade of benevolence, the truth of the Oankali trade hides the ooloi impetus to accomplish at all costs a much wanted crossbreeding experiment for Human/ alien constructs with unique genetic and healing powers: [T]heyre like children now, talking and talking about possibilities (Butler, 1987/2000, p. 41). Humans choosing to have offspring are required by the ooloi to participate fully in the trade, a condition that gradually strips them of their free will. Made dependent on the ooloi to bear children (the ooloi are a neuter Oankali with skilled healing and birth control capacities) the Humans, with the exception of Lilithwho met her ooloi mate, Nikanj, when it was too young to do anything to [her] senses without [her] being aware of it (Butler, 1987/ 2000, p. 209)are drugged with a euphoric ooloi substance and then coerced into sexual intimacy with the Oankali (Butler, 1987/2000, p.182). The alien sensory arm, the yashi, is an elephant-like organ of genetic manipulation that controls fertility and belongs only to ooloi (Butler, 1989/2000, p. 544). Ooloi have two arms that clutch Human males and females by the neck prior to engaging in ooloi sex. Butlers symbolic analogy announces the true relations of imbalanced power between Human and alien. By drugging Humans and conditioning them into sexual submission, the Oankali pacify any violent Human resistance while secretly strengthening the Human desire to re-engage in this sexual, extra-terrestrial experience. Humans are drawn by the intimacy ooloi provide, an indescribable utopian ecstasy made possible through multi-sensory illusions. Promising complete submission to the ooloi, weak-minded Humans are unable to deny their bodily desires and become co-opted by the hypnotic clasp of the ooloi scent. The Human enjoyment of this aspect of the trade obscures the violence done to the Human. It is only when Humans articulate their objections to this process that the reader begins to question the easeful way characters like Lilith thrust themselves into sexual submission. Feeling raped by the unwanted/wanted alien force, the Humans bodies, like those of Joe Shing, Gabe Rinaldi, or Joao da Silva, are encouraged to enjoy this sexual pleasure, even while they maintain a strong sense of perversion toward intimacy with an ooloi. When Joseph Shing is first seduced by Nikanj, Liliths ooloi mate, Josephs mind-power is assessed and deemed a danger to his body: You are very strong-willed. You can hurt yourself as badly as you think necessary to achieve a goal or hold to a conviction (Butler, 1987/2000, p.190). In ooloi sex the Human will must try to cooperate with the Oankali will in order to avoid hurting itself by refusing to

60

C. Braid

surrender completely. Yet, as Imago demonstrates, the sense of sexual fulfillment provided by the Oankali compromises Human freedoms, especially the ability to be physically intimate with other Human beings: after ooloi sex, the Humans can only touch each others dead hair after being genetically altered to abhor anyone but the ooloi. Co-opted as loyal objects of alien sexual satisfaction, a sort of consensual relationship of gentle abuse, the Humans are only allowed to procreate if they bear alien-Human constructs. During this process of sexual indoctrination, alien toleration of Humans psychological suffering contradicts their heroic attempt to alleviate the Humans bodily suffering. The exchange of self, which is controlled by this currency of bodily enhancement, also reduces Human violence. The ooloi are even able to turn Human conscience on and off at will since their scent can transform Human hostility into passive acceptance: His sudden freedom seemed to confuse him it consented to do this, though it saw no reason to (Butler, 1989/2000, p. 718719). Butlers aliens, through their artificial democratic options, are able to seduce the Humans into a desirable state of submission that will help to achieve the alien biological dream. Octavia Butlers trilogy contemplates the modern problem of violence as rooted in the easy ethical compromises made by individuals or a state in power to attain a desirable utopian end despite its cost. Breaking down the readers ideological assumptions, Butler demonstrates the ways in which particular groups, like the Oankali, can negotiate justice to suit their ends. Even while the aliens claim to enable the Human process of self-improvement and utopian well-being, the Humans will never regain a sense of freedom from their accepted/rejected oppressors. Xenogenesis and Justice Today
What we complacently identify as a lack of political will is often, in reality, a lack of social will: we are all part of the problem as a whole, not just our leaders are ineffective in providing solutions to the challenges we face. (Homer-Dixon, 2003)

Consideration of the prototype of utopia, that ideal state where happy citizens go blithely about their existence, reveals that both citizen and state are often far from perfect. With this reality in mind, whether cast against the backdrop of either the eutopian good place or the dystopian bad place, the utopian narrative itself can be appreciated most fully by a reader who can keep alert to the hidden loopholes and cracks that prevent the possibility of true justice for the individual in the state, the end to which utopia attempts to aspire. In dystopia, the protagonists experience can make evident the imperfections of the utopian society in which he/she lives. As the picture grows bleaker and the truth of societal, political, ethical, juridical becomes hidden, there is a need to fill the gap between the individual and the state. The dystopian reality of the XENOGENSIS series challenges the modern readers ease regarding the violent issues our world faces. In her trilogy, Butler contemplates in the imperfect qualities of her aliens and Humans the way a utopian dream of a better life and/or community can often be threatened by those qualities which fail the test of true intimacy: deceitfulness, boastfulness, arrogance, resentment,

Contemporary Justice Review 61

impatience, despair, pettiness, discouragement, the lust for power over others, the desire to fulfill material needs, or the obsession with progress (cultural and/or scientific). The crisis of values in both the aliens and the Humans throws into flux and chaos definitions of life, democracy, freedom, justice, peace, and equality. By the end of the novel, the reluctance of both Humans and Oankali to admit to their failings presents an emptiness in being which Butler effortlessly attempts to confront in her fiction. Both the alien and Human situations merit the sympathy of the reader, who comes to see Butlers metaphorical critique of those unhealthy attitudesones that are selfseeking, selfish, self-absorbed, self-centered, and self-indulgentwhich are always harmful to others and aid in setting up relations of power within varying ideologies of revenge, hatred, egoism, cultural chauvinism, and so on. XENOGENESIS makes present the realities of suffering that signify injustice, exposing the brands of obvious and subtle, hard and soft violence that exist in the world and leave open wounds of rejection, persecution, domination, isolation, and anger which blockade the emergence of true community. Most disturbing are the veiled shortcomings that taint the vision of self-perfection and communal betterment in any utopian society. It is in these ambiguous spaces that the reality of violence in utopia may emerge: the state in dystopia usually lacks the ability to sustain as just its ideology, sometimes overlooking the citizen or the depth of its inherent value; similarly, the citizens of dystopia are time and again deprived or deprive themselves of something key to human existence, like truth, freedom, agency, fairness, or peace. As Noam Chomsky (2003) eloquently states, it is useful to remember that no matter where we turn, there is rarely any shortage of elevated ideals to accompany the resort to violence (p. 46). Such a truth underlines the formulaic genius of the literary dystopia, which works to inform contemplators and seekers of peace and justice in todays world about the way violence is often justified and/or ignored. While implicitly forcing its reader to contemplate what constitutes violence and to regard the need for justice to protect the individual from the paralysis of violence, XENOGENESIS reminds us how justice must be rooted, not in the violence of self-serving ends but in selfless ends that ensure individuality within a free and peaceful community. Thus, possibilities for justice lie in the pockets of hope presented in Butlers trilogy. Such is the case in episodes when others are put first before the self: in Liliths unconditional love and willingness to sacrifice for her children, in Akins sacrifice for the resisters and his selfless concern for Tates well-being (Adulthood Rites), in Jodahs desire to save his sibling, Aoar (Imago), or even in Nikanjs willingness to give something back to Lilith (Dawn). Each of these instances presents the ideal of a justice based in compassion and the uniqueness of individuals. Such a philosophy surpasses the scientifically pragmatic Oankali logic, which calculates ways to give to others by means of seduction, manipulation, and illusion. XENOGENESIS also struggles with the question at the heart of justice, alluding to the need for justice to create space in community for personal growth, wholeness, honesty, and true intimacy. Octavia Butlers critical dystopias resonate alongside the modern voices calling out for justice against violence, because it responds to the imperative to

62

C. Braid

deal first with the roots of violence to build a foundation for possibilities of self and communal healing. When the work of justice repairs the wound of violence and reduces the gap of division between people, only then will we transform the past centurys legacy from a crushing burden into a cautionary lesson (Mandela, 2002, p. ix). Acknowledgments I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Naomi Jacobs (University of Maine), Tina Karwalajtys, and Sabine Milz for their support, input, and helpful editorial comments as this paper evolved. A much earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2001 annual meeting of the Society for Utopian Studies, Buffalo, New York. Please see http://www.utoronto.ca/utopia. Thanks also to David Braid and to Lisa Trubitt and the editors of CJR. This forum on justice and utopia is an important one that will hopefully spawn much more needed dialogue. Notes
[1] Stewart and Strathern explore various types of ethnic conflict around the world, focusing on Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Rwanda-Urundi, and Northern Ireland. [2] Saint Thomas Mores Utopia (1516) challenges Platos Republic in the introductory poem by Mr. Windbag: NOPLACIA was once my name,/That is, a place where no one goes. Platos Republic now I claim/To match, or beat its own game (p. 27). [3] I consider this question at length in my paper Nietzsche, Justice and the Limits of Calculation (2001). Nietzsches (1967) On the Genealogy of Morals provides an interesting framework in which to understand how power functions in light of ones understanding of what is good and evil. [4] For a complete Biography of Utopian Fiction from 18361988, see Kessler (1990). For a more recent bibliography, consult Moylan (2000). [5] The existential crisis faced by the main protagonist demonstrates the balancing act between following the rules of the state and finding clandestine ways to resist its repressive ideology and absolute will. The great value of dystopia is in its description of how its citizens are formed: by their dependence on power as much as their opposition to power. [6] When speaking about Butlers fiction, Thomas Disch emphasizes her thematic interests: A first serious of Patternist novels ran to five volumes, and that was followed by the XENOGENESIS trilogy. Both sequences concern the interracial, or interspecies, breeding of humans to improve the speciesin the first case, to create mutants with psychic powers; in the second, to defuse human aggressiveness. She has a New Age enthusiasm for telepathy, out-of-body experience, and kindred knacks, but her eugenics programs are run by malign supernatural beings or by Strieber-style alien experimenters. Her black heroines must endure rape, incest, slavery in the Old South, all for the sake of improving the race. (Disch, 1998, pp. 198199) [7] Dorothy Allison praises Butler for creating books with female characters who heroically adjust to family life and through example, largeness of spirit, and resistance to domination make the lives of those children bettereven though [this] means sacrificing personal freedom (1990, p. 471). [8] Throughout Dawn, Lilith is an easy target for angry Humans unable to strike back directly at the Oankali. The Humans find her a convenient scapegoat: when Lilith tells Akin her story, she says:

Contemporary Justice Review 63

Her name was an epithet among English-speaking resisters. [T]hey blamed her for what the Oankali had done to them because she was the person the Oankali had chosen to work through. She had had to awaken groups of Humans from suspended animation and help them understand their new situation. Only she could speak Oankali then. Only she could open and close walls and use her Oankali-enhanced strength to protect herself and others. That was enough to make her a collaborator, a traitor in the minds of her own people. It had been safe to blame her, she said. The Oankali were powerful and dangerous, and she was not. (Butler, 1988/2000, 1988, p. 438) Lilith becomes the bureaucrat par excellence: she is a figure of power and knowledge who does the dirty work for the Oankali. [9] This list of categorized violence is taken from the WHO World Report on Violence and Health (Krug et al., 2002). This book defines interpersonal, collective, and social forms of violence in more detail. [10] Such examples create pessimism toward the Humans, especially among the Oankali and their children, like Shkaht, who are repulsed by Human violence: Humans had come to their own end. [T]hey were flawed and overspecialized. If they hadnt had their war, they would have found another way to kill themselves (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 378). [11] Akin, Liliths construct alien-human male son, sees a need for a better solution to the Human Contradiction, believing their displacement from Oankali rule on a separate Mars colony will somehow restore the Human sense of dignity, freedom, and reason to live: They were not killing each other over the Mars decision, but they were killing each other. There always seemed to be a reason for Humans to kill each other. He would give them a new worlda hard world that would demand cooperation and intelligence. Without either, it would surely kill them. Could even Mars distract them long enough for them to breed their way out of their Contradiction? (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 497) Akins concern for the Human right to peaceful, isolated existence shows his sensitivity to change. His obsessive desire to restore justice to the Humans separates him from his Oankali forefathers, who would never offer Mars to humanity. Akin gives Humans hope for independence: I am a part of you. Because I say you should have one more chance to breed yourselves out of your genetic contradiction (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 501). Though the Oankali definition of freedom differs from Akins, his Human personality affords him an alternative means to free the Humans and also deal with Human violence. Recognizing and sympathizing with the source of Human rage, Akin is able to offer a communal goal that demands cooperation and intelligence. [12] Such unforgiving attitudes deny Humans the power fundamentally to change their circumstances and peacefully gain justice for their oppression. XENOGENESIS makes absurd the Human rejection of alternatives to violence, such as Mars. The Mars colony possibility is also problematic because of the ethics of the territorial displacement; however, Mars as a shortterm solution to Human suffering is still not deliberated at length by the Humans. Only Tate is initially open to dialogue, while the other Phoenix resisters fail to acknowledge it as an alternativesome are preoccupied with retrieving Earth, others cannot forgive the Oankali, etc. In Adulthood Rites (Butler, 1988/2000) Mars is not the central focus for the Humans. Akins dream is not big enough to convince the Humans to stop at once the violent raids, killings, and arson in Human resister cities like Phoenix. In subtle ways, Butler certainly struggles with the modern problem of violence that halts solidarity among people. In XENOGENESIS, the Humans failure to trust one another and work together to endure their situation of strife initiates their lack of solidarity. [13] The theme of instability in the Humans who find no meaning in life is symbolized by the setting. Upon Akins return to the once utopian, post-war city of Phoenix, years after his first childhood visit, he is forced to compare Phoenix as he remembered it to Phoenix now. There

64

C. Braid
was trash on the street. Dead weeds, food waste, scrap wood, cloth, paper. Some of the houses were obviously vacant. A couple of them had been partially torn down. Others seemed ready to fall down (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 482). Without the Oankali, caretaker-style conscience that supports environmentally-friendly waste disposal and overall respect for life, the many resisters of Phoenixinitially the most beautiful resister cityfail to distract themselves long enough to fight the Human Contraction that guides Human destruction of the environment. As a sub-adult near metamorphoses, the stage of alien life prior to Oankali-construct adulthood, Akin finds himself among Humans who have degenerated into a violent state. Neci will not see past his alien qualities: she attempts to kill Akin in his sleep, even though he wants to help free Humanity from its bondage of sterile existence. In Adulthood Rites (Butler, 1988/2000), Akin represents the hope of conscience in the next generation of Human-alien constructs: unlike the Human resisters who see no need to interact with the Oankali, Akin learns to understand the complexities of both races and teaches the traditionalist Oankali Akjai about his own experiences of suffering that makes him identify with the suffering of the Humans. Akins presence in the text guides a sort of idealistic hoping for justice. He is a prophetic figure while also representing the problematic way that ones status affords a voice for justice. While his mother, Lilith, is firmly assured that she will never understand the Oankaliher communicative abilities are too primitive (in her Human Contradiction) for her to grasp Oankali waysAkin, on the other hand, is invited to participate in Oankali consensus because he is half Oankali. Through the Oankali/Human divide, Butler successfully demonstrates realities of class struggle and the violence imposed on individuals because of their lack of status. Butlers thematic emphasis on silence, both Human and Oankali, further criticizes the injustice of denial that creates the perspective that only some voices are worth hearing. While Akins plight is a heroic attempt to highlight freedom for the Humans, his efforts rest upon his ability to access the Oankali, whose consensus is always and wholly inaccessible to the Humans. Even when Akin, a minority of one, is allowed to stay with the resisters and learn about their suffering, he is strategically chosen by consensus to give Humans the Mars alternative, an ingenious way to alleviate burdens of guilt. One cannot help but align the alien disposition as Butlers critique of the empty quality of accountability today, a phenomenon which constantly displaces responsibility, as in governments or large corporations where the question of who will be held accountable gets lost in a ladder of hierarchy. Throughout her trilogy, Butler seems to question the relationship between deliberation, action, and consequence in the effort to mediate between those ideologies of the Oankali which also evade accountability to justice. In light of this understanding of justice as response to others, Adulthood Rites certainly affords its protagonist more success in penetrating and paralyzing the state: Akin, for instance, takes an entire Oankali ship to demand justice, a response to Human suffering. Though many do not take Akin seriously because he is a child, he especially clarifies his own experiences of abduction, captivity, and conversion among the resisters to try to teach the Oankali a lesson about otherness: You should at least know [the Humans] before you deny them the assurance the Oankali always claim for themselves (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 468). This hopeful endeavor criticizes Oankali avoidance, which claims to know Humans while it fails to understand them. Akins inability to understand their [Oankali] reactions as characterized as a turning away, a warding off, a denial, a revulsion (Butler, 1988/2000, p. 469) resonates as further criticisms of violence rooted in a negligence to fully comprehend the feelings of another.

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

References
Allison, D. (1990). The future of female: Octavia Butlers mother lode. In H. L. Gates, Jr. (Ed.), Reading black, reading feminist: A critical anthology. New York: Meridian.

Contemporary Justice Review 65

Arendt, H. (1959). What is authority? In P. Baehr (Ed.), The portable Hannah Arendt. New York: Penguin Group. Butler, O. E. (2000). Dawn. Liliths brood. New York: Aspect. (Original work published 1987) Butler, O. E. (2000). Adulthood rites. Liliths brood. New York: Aspect. (Original work published 1988) Butler, O. E. (2000). Imago. Liliths brood. New York: Aspect. (Original work published 1989) Chomsky, N. (2003). Hegemony or survival: Americas quest for global dominance. New York: Metropolitan Books. deVries, H., & Weber, S. (1997). Introduction. In H. deVries & S. Weber (Eds.), Violence, identity, and self-determination. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Disch, T. (1998). The dreams our stuff is made of: How science fiction conquered the world. New York: Simon & Schuster. Homer-Dixon, T. (2003). The ingenuity gap. Toronto: Vintage Canada. Huxley, A. (1932). Brave new world. London: Flamingo. Kessler, C. F. (1990). Bibliography of utopian fiction by United States women 18361988. Utopian Studies, 1, 158. Krug, E. G., Dahlberg, L., Mercy, J. A., Zwi, A. B., & Lozano, R. (Eds.). (2002). World report on violence and health. Geneva: World Health Organization. Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and infinity: An essay on exteriority (A. Lingis, Trans.). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press. Levinas, E. (1994). Otherwise than being or beyond essence (A. Lingis, Trans.). Dordrecht, The Netherlands:. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Mandela, N. (2002). Foreword. In E. G. Krug, L. Dahlberg, J. A. Mercy, A. B. Zwi, & R. Lozano (Eds.), World report on violence and health. Geneva: World Health Organization. Miller, J. (1998). Post-apocalyptic hoping: Octavia Butlers dystopian/utopian vision. Science Fiction Studies, 25, 336338. Moylan, T. (2000). Scraps of the untainted sky. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Nagel, T. (2003). Rawls and liberalism. In S. Freeman (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Rawls. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, F. (1967). On the genealogy of morals (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). New York: Vintage. (Original work published 1887) Oppenheimer, M. (2000). The state and modern society. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books. Orwell, G. (1949). Nineteen eighty-four. New York: Penguin. Stewart, P., & Strathern, A. (2002). Violence: Theory and ethnography. London: Continuum. Wolmark, J. (1997). Aliens and others: Science fiction, feminism, and postmodernism. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.