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.