Is there a purpose to human existence? A meaning to human life? Most philosophers today won't go near such grandiose and nebulous questions, not least because such questions seem to presuppose that there's a transcendent force--God, e.g.--directing our lives. But it's natural and unavoidable to wonder if, as a species, there's some end-state we are either barreling towards or ought to be striving to realize. In science-fiction (and fiction generally), such end-state societies--the 'good' ones, anyway--are utopias ('utopia', which was coined by Thomas More in his 1516 book of the same title, means 'no-place'). Utopias are almost always 'janus-faced', good and bad--ideals to be strived for,
Somebody once said that the worst person you'll ever know is yourself. All the horrible things you've ever heard about Hitler, Jack the Ripper, Pol Pot and so on are, truth notwithstanding, just that: hearsay, surfaces, mere information. The sources of the evil deeds of those men--rage, lust, envy, hatred, fear--are known immediately and intimately only in the privacy of our own minds. (The good news is the obverse fact: the best person you'll ever know is yourself--more on that next time.) Part of the function of art (and of science-fiction) is to carry torches into the psychological caverns in us all, and make us face (vicariously, anyway) the demons therein. When artistic torches are
