God is Change: Octavia Butler on Post-Apocalyptic Life
Two decades before the election of Trump, Sci-Fi writer Octavia Butler wrote about a presidential candidate with a zealot religious following who promises to "make America great again." The book Parable of the Sower takes place in the 2020s, the decade referred to as "The Pox" short for the apocalypse. The book, part of her Earthseed series, is a haunting depiction of a post-climate disaster society. Water is more expensive than gasoline. Public institutions shut down, most people are illiterate, and many die.
Octavia Butler was the first sci-fi writer to win a MacArthur "Genius Grant" in 1995. I used to think sci-fi was irrelevant with shallow characters until I discovered Afrofuturism. This niche of sci-fi is about reimagining a liberated, just world where people of color are the heroes, like in Black Panther.
Octavia Butler photograph by Patti Perret
I love film historian and author Tananarive Due's definition, "Afrofuturism is the audacity to imagine a thriving future for Black people, or any future." Butler scholar Walidah Imarisha writes in the book Octavia's Brood, "Whenever we try to envision a world without war, without violence, without prisons, without capitalism, we are engaging in speculative fiction."
With fiction, we time travel. We get to experience other points of view. We open up our imagination. Under the weight of uncertainty in the COVID crisis, I'm turning to Octavia Butler, the mother of Afrofuturism, to give me hope & guide me in taking action.
Even in depressing worlds, Butler's books leave the reader with hope for the resiliency of humans and the desire to build community. As we struggle with COVID, Octavia Butler's teachings help us hope, develop our resilience, and reimagine a new world.
Critical Lessons From Octavia Butler
We Need Radical Hope to Shape Our Purpose and Direction.
Under the direst circumstances, Octavia Butler's characters never give up hope. She wrote in Essence magazine, "The one thing that I and my main characters never do when contemplating the future is give up hope. In fact, the very act of trying to look ahead to discern possibilities and offer warnings is in itself an act of hope."
It's this contagious hope that her protagonists spread to unite people in a common purpose. Hope allows us to take courageous action even in the face of considerable uncertainty and fear. During this COVID crisis, we need radical hope to unify us.
In Butler's Xenogenesis series, an alien race observes, "Humans were most dangerous, most unpredictable when they were afraid." We need to keep hope alive to keep us away from our deepest fears and worst selves.
There are many concrete examples at every level, from federal assistance to neighbors taking care of neighbors. My grandma is getting free meals delivered to her in Los Angeles, paid for by the City while also supporting small businesses. San Francisco libraries are providing free childcare to healthcare and low-income workers. Thousands of masks have been collected by individuals and donated to hospitals. The cast of Hamilton surprised a 9-year old with a Zoom call serenade. My tech friends are asking me where they should donate funds to. All these moments are giving me hope.
I have hope for how we respond as humans in this crisis as an opportunity to learn how to collaborate globally and put the good of society above individual freedom and profit. What if we take this time to reimagine a society where we take care of the most vulnerable?
Change is the Only Universal Constant. Instead of Resisting, We Need to Adapt.
In the Earthseed series, society is falling apart, and people are clinging to an old-world illusion of safety and security. The protagonist, Lauren, embraces change, allowing her to prepare and adapt to it. From the law of thermodynamics to Buddhism's tenet of impermanence, she decides that the only universal truth is change. Her guiding belief system starts with:
All that you touch
You Change
All that you Change
Changes you
The only lasting truth
Is Change
God Is Change.
-Parable of the Sower
In the book, Lauren tries to warn her community to prepare but is met with resistance. When her community is attacked, she is one of the few survivors because she was prepared. Her mantra, "God is Change," keeps her going in the face of almost insurmountable barriers. Rather than resist what is happening, she adapts, she learns, she survives. She has hope but is also pragmatic.
We need to take her lessons into our approach to COVID. Many people keep commenting on "waiting for things to go back to normal." The sooner we stop resisting that we are in a new world order, the sooner we can adapt and be creators of the new world. This is our chance to radically reimagine a world where collaboration, rather than competition, is our best chance of survival.
Author Arundhati Roy captures this perfectly:
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next... We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred...our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
We are adapting quickly. Schools have shifted rapidly to online education as teachers and grandparents learn how to use Zoom video calls. My farmer's market is doing box pickup. Whole industries have adapted their supply chains to produce ventilators and face masks.
We Need Radical Imagination and Creativity.
Butler's work is filled with characters creatively problem-solving in the face of life and death circumstances. They are resilient innovators, shaping their lived reality rather than succumbing to their dire circumstances.
Right now, we are changing the course of history; we are changing the underlying atoms of our society. People are creating solutions daily. We are expanding our social welfare programs. Work and education are adapting to being online. Even my cooking with limited supplies is forcing creativity.
Some fantastic examples include:
Vietnam quickly slowed the spread of COVID with this creative viral Vietnamese handwashing song and dance video.
House Representative Katie Porter used her creativity to find an existing law that allows the CDC to pay for COVID testing and treatment.
The Public Health Alliance of Southern California quickly launched an interactive COVID-19 HPI Resource Map that allows funders, government agencies, and service providers to identify vulnerable populations quickly.
A ventilator company teamed up with General Motors to quickly scale its operations.
Alcohol distilleries are making hand sanitizer.
You can also up your creativity with these free or low-cost online art and craft workshops.
People are also getting creative! I've had a few friends get laid off and start businesses while they are on unemployment.
Embrace Partnership and Diversity.
Octavia Butler's characters ensure their survival by building community across difference. The Oankali, an alien race, try to teach humans by telling them:
Human beings fear difference...Oankali crave difference. Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status. Oankali seek difference and collect it. They need it to keep themselves from stagnation and overspecialization...When you feel a conflict, try to go the Oankali way. Embrace difference.
-Dawn, The Xenogenesis Trilogy Book 1
Many humans resist the Oankali, and war factions break out. As an agreed solution, the humans set up a new society on Mars which is physically challenging. Mars requires cooperation, which is what the humans need for their survival. COVID-19 is our Mars moment. COVID requires global collaboration, which is what we need for our survival as a species on this earth.
Racism and xenophobia in the COVID response only add fuel to the fire. Historically the US has blamed foreigners for many diseases. Social cohesion and trust play a factor in positive public health outcomes. Racism breaks down community bonds and divides us when we most need unity. Everyone's health outcomes are tied together, and we must protect our most vulnerable. Natural selection doesn't happen at the individual level but the species level. Our best chance of survival is collectively.
We Need to Cultivate Decentralized Leadership.
Butler's books are filled with visionary, courageous leaders, but they are decentralized. No one person holds the power and leaders cultivate the leadership of others. They can cross-problem solve and are resilient because of their ability to spread leadership. Social justice activists often cite Butler's work as inspiration. We see in movements like Black Lives Matter, no central figure of authority, but a collective response happening simultaneously.
Living in a country where we can't trust our Commander in Chief, we need to look to other leaders for guidance. Governors, mayors, local public health departments, healthcare workers, hospital administrators, CEOs, grocery store workers, the neighbor on your street coordinating volunteer errand runs, are the leaders we need. We are seeing countless leaders taking action without waiting for permission.
We Need to Find Moments of Pleasure.
No matter how much Butler's characters are suffering, they can find moments of pleasure. In the Earthseed series when Lauren is enslaved, she finds pleasure in writing her journal entries on scraps of hidden paper. It's how I imagine Anne Frank felt writing her diary.
adrienne maree brown argues that Octavia Butler believed pleasure was an essential strategy for long-term survival. brown took this thesis and turned it into her book Pleasure Activism. In the book, she advocates for centering pleasure in our work, because it's what makes us feel alive and gives us power.
We need to find moments of pleasure, for our sanity and for regenerating our strength. I see this with slowing down, zoom parties, gardening, creative art projects, going on walks with the family. No matter your circumstance, take a moment each day to cultivate pleasure in your day.
What I Want to Leave You With…
It's a confusing, challenging time. My intention is for us to feel hope, creativity, aliveness, imagination, and possibilities. This is a time for reimagining our broken world into something that supports everyone, not just those with money and power.
I'm feeling more hopeful than those around me as I grow a baby and have increased levels of oxytocin flooding my brain. Pregnancy is giving me renewed hope for humanity as I time-travel to the future and imagine the world my child will inhabit in 2100 when they are 80-years old.
A student asked Octavia Butler during a talk, "SO DO YOU REALLY believe that in the future we're going to have the kind of trouble you write about in your books? ...You mean we're just doomed?" and Butler responded, "... there's no single answer that will solve all of our future problems. There's no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers–at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be."
At this moment, let's each choose to be a leader and part of the solution.
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A big thanks to Raphael Sisa, Ryan Peters, and Amanda Grelock for their generous feedback on this post.