written by Babs Weber
It can be really difficult to pinpoint the exact moment that great cultural or social change starts. This is one of many reasons why looking at past 'sparks' of change can help us understand why they created great change. This is by no means an exhaustive list of 'sparks,' but here are three stories (and authors) who have been catalysts for social change. These three are stories about major ethical dilemmas and the authors who helped us look at the full picture of those issues. Keep an eye out for our next blog, where we will be adding more stories involved in social change, plus one time all the stories and hype in the world didn't quite live up to the amazing change we thought would take place.
Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin
When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, he is believed to have said,
Although this quote is probably apocryphal, in a way Beecher Stowe was that lady. A white abolitionist who opposed the institution of slavery, Beecher Stowe spent many years in Ohio in the 1830s and 1840s meeting with other abolitionists and formerly enslaved people, collecting stories, recollections and political narratives. She was very aware of the ramifications of federal level policy decisions, such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: a piece of legislation allowing for the capture of "runaway slaves" even in States where slavery itself was illegal. This act was passed to try and accommodate and mollify Southern states threatening succession from the Union of States, and ensured there was no place safe for Black Americans, whether they were previously enslaved or born free.
Beecher Stowe's book was an instant bestseller. For readers in Northern states, it put human faces onto those who were imprisoned in slavery. The emotional impact of Beecher Stowe's characters and writing sparked empathy and a cultural reckoning against slavery amongst otherwise complacent Americans of her class, which in part contributed to the willingness of the Northern states to push against expansion of rights to own slaves and in turn the secession of the Southern States and the civil war in 1861. Over 300,000 copies were sold in the United States alone, and triple that in Great Britain.
Today several parts of the book are criticized for popularizing stereotypes about Black people. Owing in part to a movie which portrayed the title character as sacrificing himself for his master rather than sacrificing himself for other slaves, 'Uncle Tom' is used at times to disparage Black people who act against the best interests of other Black people. Stereotypes about Black children, and about Black women happy to be in service, also litter the pages of this book. Other abolitionists were also important in spreading doubt that the conditions of slavery were just. Slave narratives by writers like Frederick Douglass, Solomon Northup and Harriet Jacobs depicted the horrors of slavery firsthand. Frederick Douglass was a famed and eloquent speaker, travelling the United States and Great Britain to tell his story. So why does Uncle Tom's Cabin get credit as an agent for social change?
First, because this work is fiction, Beecher Stowe was able to weave together from many different sources of inspiration into a narrative which fit the mould of popular fiction of the day. While people already sympathetic to the abolitionist cause would be more likely to read slave memoirs or attend lectures, Beecher Stowe brought emotionally charged fiction and characters who her audience felt were relatable and empathetic to them in their leisure reading. Beecher Stowe was familiar with the tropes and motifs which would keep her readers hanging on the edge of their seats, and was able to weave in stories and characters based on real enough people to both sound genuine and also inform a complacent public about the harm done in places they chose not to look, if given the chance.
The second reason this book was so popular upon its release was its publication style. Originally published in a weekly abolitionist periodical, The Nationalist Era, Uncle Tom's Cabin caught the attention of readers with so much positive feedback that publishers were quick to offer a book publication. With some buzz already generated among the readers of The National Era, Beecher Stowe's book had some momentum before publication. The earlier publication in serial (weekly) format was very common at the time, and allowed for a testing ground to see how popular a story would become. This gave the publishers confidence to invest in a large print run knowing they had a potential bestseller on their hands.
Dickens: Social issues and changes in Great Britain
It's no accident most of Charles Dicken's works contain some level of commentary on class division and poverty present in Victorian England. His father, after all, was imprisoned due to debt, and Dickens himself worked as a child labourer in a factory. Even in his more lighthearted, early works like The Pickwick Papers describe bleak industrial landscapes and prisons.
His more famous works like Oliver Twist dealt more directly with plots entirely based on childhood poverty and social conditions of the poor, and lay out what he sees as "the Social Condition of England." Other books like Bleak House, Nicholas Nickleby, and Hard Times all illustrate an England with an industrial landscape, feature characters whose lives are marked by exploitation and the effects of poverty as adults, often with employment. Characters like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and Bounderby in Hard Times act as satire of attitudes like Malthus' ideas on 'excess population' (a phrase Scrooge uses near the beginning of his story when turning down donating to charity) and the idea that anyone who is not successful simply has not applied themselves correctly. His novels are full of satire and paint a very
So why do his works still transcend and live in our public consciousness? Dickens was not the only Victorian author who worked hard to show the gritty realities the lowest classes lived with. An entire genre of 'social problem novels' existed. Elizabeth Gaskell wrote North and South, which not only depicted a feminist perspective on industrial mill towns but also contained trade unionists who gave instructional lectures that Karl Marx could be proud of. So why is Dickens the one which had the largest lasting impact? One theory is that Dickens was very ambiguous about how to solve potential issues, and simply laid them out. It's up to the reader to look at the social and environmental issues revealed by his work, and for them to be the ones who spend time afterwards thinking, "what might we do to solve these existing issues?" By giving readers empathy for characters most impacted by challenges then leaving space to imagine and try their own solutions, perhaps Dickens' value as a changemaker comes from leaving tensions for the empowered reader to solve themselves.
Isaac Asimov: Science fiction as prophecy in "I, Robot"
It's not very often that fiction writers are invited to speak to scientists about their craft, unless they themselves are scientists. (Kathy Reichs of Bones fame received her Ph.D in physical anthropology more than 20 years before her first novel was a bestseller, and her conference presentations usually feature forensic anthropology rather than Temperance Brennan.) However in 1975, Isaac Asimov spoke to scientists not about science, but fiction. As a feature lecturer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Asimov spoke about the ways science fiction writers predict the future based on current scientific trends to create a basis for their writing.
Science fiction is the term for fiction written in a world where science has advanced (or destroyed) civilization. In some ways, science fiction is about the technology and what tech allows us to do in the future; on the other hand, it's not about the tech at all but about humanity and how we react and interact with the world around us. Science fiction gives us a way to wrestle with ethics of our actions through the veil of fiction. What might happen if climate change continues? How might people survive? What would happen to geopolitical borders, racism and socioeconomic status in a world where resources are scarce? Imagining these scenarios gives a setting for science fiction writers to tell stories.
Because of this fictionalized distance in looking at the future, science fiction is inherently political. It imagines, for good and evil, what the author sees as the natural progression of humanity given certain policy and environmental actions, based on how society has acted due to past innovations, policy and environmental pressures. Asimov believed that humans inherently fear or resist change and the feeling of unknown. Science has been a source of change for society for hundreds of years, and so science and technology can lead to changes for people to fear. Science fiction allows for readers and writers alike to think about change with a bit of distance between themselves and the change, in order to think: what if?
For example: what if robots existed? What if they had artificial intelligence? What are the implications of artificial intelligence being at the level of humans? Could they then invent even smarter AI? How might we ensure robots do not violently overthrow humans? In thinking through the implications of this issue, Asimov introduced three laws of robotics to protect humans above all. First published in a short story, 'runaround,' in 1942 these laws were a common motif for Asimov. He used them in his novel I, Robot and in several short stories featuring Cal, a robot with a strong desire to write. Asimov looked towards what the potential conflict inherent within AI and the best interests of human civilization would be, and used that as the basis for these works. Would robots stick to laws such as these? How might human society look differently once many jobs are performed by robots? How might distribution of wealth affect various people in a world where labour demand is low?
These questions (and those raised by imagining the natural consequences of scientific advancement) were essential enough to earn Asimov a key role in the largest scientific conference in the world, more than 30 years after he first published the 3 laws of robotics. And in the nearly 40 years since that speech to the AAAS, we continue to grapple with these questions. In the first half of 2021, over 140 papers were published citing Asimov's 3 laws. Metaethics of robotics, and how humans can build responsible AI, is an incredibly important field to consider as we move towards ever increasing AI capabilities. Thank goodness the foresight of Asimov and others has given us nearly 80 years to think through how we enter these brave new worlds ahead.