Why do we keep thinking aliens want to dominate over us?

In the many alien-scenarios offered to us by Hollywood, humans are often having to contend with either being enslaved, dominated over, eaten by or violently examined by aliens that come to Earth.

?I often wonder about this narrative and where it came from.

In a paper written by Howard McCrudy in 1995, he discusses the ways in which imagination has influenced public policy. One of the case studies he provides brings to light how this influence of imagination can overtake several ongoing narratives. McCurdy examines the development of the space program in the United States by comparing the modest and pragmatic approach of the Eisenhower administration to that of Kennedy’s agenda that appeared to be heavily influenced by sci-fi space travel, one of them being the race to the moon.

?The imaginative narrative proposed by the Kennedy administration was so strong that it elicited a fascinating feedback loop between media (both print magazine and movies), military, and the public consciousness. It led the public to develop a perception of Eisenhower’s administration as backwards and not progressive enough. McCrudy writes: “in 1949, artist Chesley Bonestell collaborated with science writer Willy Ley to produce Conquest of Space, an astonishingly realistic portrait of a voyage around the moon. Two years later, Ley organized a symposium on space travel at the Hayden Planetarium in New York. Ley's unabashed purpose was "to make the public realize that the problem of space travel is to be regarded as a serious branch of science and technology" (Ley, 1951). The symposium incited editors at Collier's magazine (1952) to begin an eight-part series on space exploration, richly illustrated, which in turn inspired Walt Disney to produce three programs on space travel for his highly acclaimed "Disneyland" television program. In 1955, when the Disneyland theme park opened in Anaheim, California, it featured an imaginary Rocket to the Moon and Space Station X- 1. All of these efforts sought to create exciting images of future space exploration that people could perceive as real.”

The cascade of these events married sci-fi, space travel, war, and space colonization all in one package that I would suggest is still intimately fixed with one another. This marriage, I would also suspect, feeds into our persistent narration of violent alien invasion “Robert A. Heinlein and Navy Captain Caleb Laning (1947) warned readers in the August 30, 1947, issue of Colliers magazine, "space travel can and will be the source of supreme military power over this planet-and over the entire solar system"”(McCurdy., 1995). There are, of course, implications here to ongoing conversations around space colonization but this is another post. For now, it is important to bring to light the logical inconsistencies that must be discussed as part of this notion of supremacy over space in the name of peace and its connection to the persistent violent narrative of the alien.

If we are to tie space and the space of space to also consist of alien beings, then the statement mentioned above issued by Colliers magazine would also assume and suggest a battle of supremacy of all things in space, which includes aliens or what we consider to be aliens. To me, reading this statement is almost sending a message that humans will fight for power over the entire solar system; come what may; whatever “it” may be. These assumptions I believe, are the underpinnings of the violent alien narrative that we often see in Hollywood.

In an interesting article written by Lewis Dartnell in 2017, he discusses the logical fallacies tied to the violent alien narratives often offered to us. One of them being the following: “Alien races enslaving each other is a common trope of many science fiction universes. While enslavement of defeated enemies or other vulnerable populations has regrettably been a common feature of our history on Earth, it’s hard to see why a species with the capability of voyaging between the stars, and therefore having already demonstrated the mastery of a highly advanced level of machinery and of marshaling energy resources, would have any need for slaves. Constructing robots, or other forms of automation or mechanization, would be a far more effective solution for labor—people are feeble in comparison, harder to fix, and need to be fed.” (Dartnell., 2017).

What I find most intriguing about this notion of violent alien invasion are the many things that come to light when you begin to really unpack this narrative relative to our current challenges in terms of diversity, fear of the unknown, differences, and the dark side of imagination. McCurdy’s case studies brings to the fore the power of imagination and, when wielded by pre-determined agendas, can actually pose some sticky difficulties like dis-information despite the existence of evidence that speaks otherwise.

There are many conversations happening now that suggests we are in a crisis of imagination. I would offer an alternative narrative: we are not so much in a crisis of imagination, we are in a crises of a process of imagination that has evolved into a form of its own; a dominating form. If I were to speak of any crises here, it would be that we lack plural imaginations that co-exists with one another instead of against it.

The implications here on conversations around diversity and differences are interesting ones. What comes to mind is the work of Isabelle Stengers who suggests that we should come together on ground of uncommons rather than the commons. To find what is common among us but hold with integrity what is dissimilar to us within what is common. Perhaps then, we can pause on the narrative of violent alien attacks but begin to imagine stories where we envision what grace could look like as we negotiate terms and norms with beings that are different from us, including differences among humans themselves and human to animal differences.

Sources:

McCurdy, H. E. (1995). Fiction and imagination: How they affect public administration.?Public Administration Review, 499-506.

Dartnell , L. M. (2019, April 11). Why would aliens even bother with earth? Literary Hub. Retrieved June 24, 2022, from https://lithub.com/why-would-aliens-even-bother-with-earth/?

Stengers, Isabelle. 2005. ‘‘Introductory Notes on an Ecology of Practices.’’ Cultural Studies Review 11(1): 183–196. https:// dx.doi.org/10.5130/csr.v11i1.3459.