The late Octavia Butler was an important sci-fi author and a favorite of mine. In re-reading her Parable of the Talents 15 years later, I came across this verse. It feels frighteningly relevant to the world we inhabit today. But she did leave out something I think is an essential part of today’s regressive right-wing narrative: Find someone to blame.
Butler:
Ignorance protects itself. Promotes suspicion.
Suspicion engenders fear.
Fear quails, irrational and blind.
Or fear looms, defiant and closed.
Blind, closed, suspicious, afraid.
Ignorance Protects itself. And protected, ignorance grows.
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 