Too much noise, too little privacy: Martians, Go Home, by Fredric Brown

 Amid the clatter, amid the sturm und drang of American political melodrama, or perhaps culturally appropriated Kabuki theater, we have another important show:  that of social media, and specifically, a platform uniquely harmful to children, cognition, and likely funneling data to the Chinese government.  I write, of course, of blogspot, I mean, TikTok.  I have raised some questions about the efficacy of any potential government action on TikTik, but this morning, let us turn to an old classic science fiction novel by one of my favorite oddballs, Fredric Brown.  In 1955, he published a strange, surreal, and vaguely solipsistic book called Martians, Go Home.  It was a perversely nightmarish book about a Martian invasion resulting in cartoonish annoyance, the elimination of any privacy at the personal or national level, and if you think that's better than some Earth-shattering kaboom movie, well, maybe, but it's still bad.  Hilariously bad, but bad nevertheless.  Let us consider.

A science fiction writer named Luke Devereaux goes out to a friend's cabin near Indio, CA, to get over a case of writer's block when he hears a knock at the door.  He finds a Martian.  The Martian is an annoying little shit.  He is insubstantial, so Luke cannot harm the Martian, and the Martian cannot physically interact with him, but the Martian can be a goddamned pest.  Luke heads back to civilization to find that Martians are everywhere.  What are they doing?  They are watching, pestering, harassing, and generally being like the Jon Lovitz character from SNL, "annoying man," but far worse because you can't do anything to stop them.  They're in your bedroom, watching you, and heckling you.  They are on military bases, ensuring that there are no secrets.

What are the consequences?  Brown's genius is tracing out the consequences.  The book, while hilarious, is no mere comedy.  Your private life is not private.  It cannot be private, because Martians.  Brown goes on digressions about birth rates, adultery, and such.

Governments cannot keep secrets, which means that wars cannot be fought.  You cannot have a battle when each side knows the other's plan.  Fascinating!

Yet at the personal level, the toll is tremendous.  Everyone is surrounded by such a din that the stress becomes unbearable for many, and Brown writes about the mental health profession, which leads us back to Luke, who at one point gets so furious at a Martian that he... stops seeing them.  Everyone else continues to see them, except Luke.  Is Luke insane?  Or is Luke sane, and everyone else crazy?  Or is the whole thing in Luke's head?

Luke checks into an insane asylum for one plotline, as he plays head games with himself, believing that if he figures out how to convince himself that he made everything up, everyone else will stop seeing the Martians too, because the whole story is a solipsistic nightmare.  As this happens, the Secretary General of the U.N. makes a ploy to try to get the Martians to leave, a wacky inventor thinks he has the solution, there's a witch doctor, and as everything happens at once, the Martians just disappear.  With no explanation from Brown about why.

There is a post-script from Brown indicating that his editors objected to this ending.  I love it.  Brown's snarky-- and you decide if he's being serious-- response is that the whole book takes place in Luke's head.  He's crazy, so fuck off.  I find it most satisfying to read this post-script as a middle finger to half-witted editors rather than a serious answer, leaving ambiguity, but decide for yourself.  I just think that solipsism is annoying as shit.

But let's consider the bigger ideas of the book.  The non-solipsistic ideas.  Brown was playing with the consequences of a world without privacy, and a world in which people are surrounded by such a constant din that any potential for peace or rest is a luxury beyond imagination.  It is a horror show in the guise of a cartoon, but a horror show nonetheless.  And yet people voluntarily subject themselves to the din, and put the most intimate details of their personal lives on platforms like TikTok.  It was with deep reservations that I revealed what Case Western Reserve University has been doing over the last year, based on the political philosophy that sunlight is the best disinfectant, yet what people put on TikTok and similar platforms involves the most intimate aspects of their lives.  The kinds of things that the characters in Brown's novel hate the Martians for seeing and revealing.

The function and dysfunction of social media are semi-regular observations in my classes because they are unavoidable in any contemporary social science class.  I note that social media usage is strongly correlated with depression, anxiety and several other poor health outcomes.  My students all know this, of course.  Most know it because it does not take all that much self-reflectiveness for them to see the effects within themselves, and many have read the research.

So stop, I tell them.  Whether it is TikTok, Facebook, or whathaveyou.  Stop.  They know they should, and that it would be healthier, but they don't.  And they acknowledge as much, along with the perversity.  It is necessary, they say.  Or at least, they rationalize.

It isn't, of course.

Let us read Brown's novel as though the Martians are real.  I find that more satisfying.  Suppose they are real, and the wacky inventor towards the end is the one who makes them go away with his screwball invention.  Why not?  When Luke checks into the insane asylum, the doctor has ethical qualms about trying to "cure" him because Luke is happier than everyone else on Earth.  He can neither see nor hear the Martians.  Sure, it is frustrating for him that everyone else is constantly pestered, but if you have to live the life of one of the characters in the book, you'd rather be Luke, right?  It's easier that way.  So says the doctor, who envies Luke.

For whatever else that can be said of TikTok, or any other platform, you can be Luke.  It is as simple as not signing up for an account, or deactivating your account.  When I say this to my students, many of them look at me as though I am pointing to Martians in the room that they cannot see, but I'm the one who has the life free of Martian din.

Let's go with an all-time classic.  Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto, "Corcovado (Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars)" from Getz/Gilberto.  No, this album is not overplayed.  It really is that great.