Martian Manners

I noticed that Starke had a book under his arm. "What are you reading?" I asked.

He held it up: A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. "Just doing a little research."

"Research about classic speculative fiction?"

"Something like that. But I might just drop the project - this Burroughs fellow has it all wrong, and I haven't sorted-out all the details yet."

"How could it be wrong? It's just fantasy."

"Yes, but the fantasy doesn't make sense. You can't really get lost in it, because in the back of your mind you know it couldn't really be like that."

I was perplexed. "What's wrong with it? You're supposed to suspend your disbelief, aren't you?"

"Oh, no. There's much more to it than that. You can't suspend your disbelief unless you have a good reason. And what's the payoff, if the fantasy isn't any better than the reality?

"The people of Barsoom - that's Mars, in case you haven't read the book - are too much like us. They speak good English, live in little kingdoms that fight constantly with each other. Their society is full of petty intrigues; they fall in love and scheme against each other, all that sort of thing.

"And they're all human. Two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs; all that. Some of them have four arms and two legs, but they're symmetrical like we are, and anyway, they act like us. And the odd-looking ones are all villains.

"But they grew up on Mars, where they have canals instead of oceans. And yellow vegetation instead of green. A smaller sun, less water. Surely that would change their attitudes, and society; even their physiology. I'm not sure what they ought to be like, but they'd have to be different from us."

"Can't you ignore all that, and just enjoy the story?"

"Sure, but that wouldn't be much fun. I prefer to imagine what Martians would really be like. Cobalt blue hair, maybe, and light green skin. Four eyes, or perhaps six - bright purple and always bloodshot; three arms and five legs. Maybe it takes three or four of them to create one baby, or maybe it takes only one. Or maybe they grow on trees, like figs.

"And their disposition would be so strange to us, we'd find them unpredictable, even dangerous. Maybe when they want to kiss each other, what they actually do is spit in each other's faces. It means the same thing to them, even if we'd find it repulsive, and it's no less hygienic than our custom.

"Maybe they have customs that make no sense at all to us. Maybe it's all right to steal your best friend's goods on the night of the full moon, but only if you've known him for more than ten years. He's supposed to act outraged, but that's only for show. Actually, he's secretly delighted you think so much of him that you're willing to do him this great honor.

"Imagine you're one of these Martians who's come to Earth to live. You manage to make a few friends, get a job, get along. Everyone thinks you're a little strange - not to mention ugly - but they leave you alone because it's none of their business.

"After ten years, one night when the moon is full, you're thinking how much you love and respect your best friend. He's accepted you all these years even though you're a blue-haired, green-skinned horror with three arms, five legs, four purple bloodshot eyes, and doubtful gender.

"He was even understanding the time you got sick all over his rug, when he served you stewed figs for lunch. You're so grateful for his kindness you decide to give him the highest honor you're capable of.

"You sneak over to his house in the dead of night, and steal his furniture, his wife's jewelry, his golf clubs, and several other things he really values. Just to make sure he understands the honor you're giving him, you leave him a note proudly announcing you're the one who did it."

"The next morning he arrives at your house, furious. He demands to know why you stole all his stuff. You say, 'Because I love you and I'm grateful for everything you've done for me.'

"He gets a strange look in his eyes and says, 'Well, if that's how you feel, why don't you just come on over and take the rest of it?'

"You're so overcome with love for this man who is willing to give you everything he's got, you lose control of yourself. Even though you're not given to displays of affection, you spit in his face. He turns purple, and runs out of the house.

"You're standing there thinking what a wonderful experience this is. He's so overcome with the emotion of the moment, he can't stand it, and has to go calm himself down. While you stand there enjoying the moment, he comes back with six policemen, who throw you to the ground, handcuff you, and drag you off to jail.

"You have enough sense to know what jail is, so you know it's a grave insult to be taken there. And while you sit there for weeks waiting for your case to come to trial, you turn the situation over and over in your mind, trying to figure out why your friend betrayed you, when you had just given him the highest honor you knew how to give.

"Meanwhile, he's sitting across town, trying to figure out why someone he's been kind to for ten years suddenly turned on him.

"Neither one of you is really in the wrong - it's just that your expectations, based on your backgrounds, are quite radically different. From your perspective you behaved reasonably, and from his perspective, so did he.

"Now that's what I think an encounter between citizens of Earth and citizens of Mars would be like. It would be great fun to try to figure out how these two people could resolve their differences, and be friends again.

"Or maybe they don't become friends again. Instead, they start a feud that lasts twenty years, and results in the death of half their descendants. Maybe the earthling develops the mad habit of cutting down fig trees wherever he finds them."

I objected to a basic flaw in his story. "Isn't the idea of stealing someone's possessions as a sign of affection pretty far-fetched? That doesn't make any sense."

He pounced almost before I finished speaking. "That's just the point. Our Martian friend would have habits that make no sense at all to you or me, because we didn't grow up with them. But habits that make perfect sense to us would seem positively outrageous, even immoral to him."

I still wasn't satisfied.

"But those two knew each other for ten years. Wouldn't they discuss their differences? The Martian had lived on Earth for quite a while. Wouldn't he learn that burglary is considered wrong here?"

Starke shrugged. "Maybe so. Of course they would have talked about their two separate societies, and their customs. And when the Martian puked on his friend's carpet, that would have had to be explained."

He frowned in thought. "But a lot of what you learn in life doesn't stay in the front of your mind. It's stuff you learned without thinking about it, so deeply buried you don't really even know it's there.

"Do you remember learning about kissing? I don't, and I doubt that it would ever occur to me to discuss the meaning of kissing with anyone else: I'd just assume he knew what it meant. If the subject never came up, it wouldn't occur to me that someone else expressed affection some other way. I'd sure never guess spitting in someone's face was one of the possibilities.

"And when it comes to stealing, our customs would be just as strange to a Martian as his are to us. We have this strange custom where buying the right pieces of paper gives you the right to throw a man out of his office, or even his home. The Martian legal system wouldn't have to be very different from ours for this to make no sense - what has paper got to do with where you work or live?

"And our peculiar rules for thievery depend on the circumstances, just like in his world. If you threw a man out of his office or home without proper papers, you'd be a criminal. In his world, you'd be guilty of a crime if he wasn't your best friend, or you'd known him less than ten years, or it wasn't the night of the full moon. Which set of rules do you suppose is the more outrageous?"

I started to object again, but Farrell, standing behind Starke, grinned and shook his head.

"It's no use. Of course he's crazy - we all know that - but he's thought it all out. I doubt you could come up with anything he can't answer. Don't encourage him - he can go on like this for hours."

Starke grinned. "And why not? I'll bet you didn't think about your bum leg even one time while we talked."

The Pearl of Great Price

The point of the Pearl of Great Price is that the Kingdom is so precious that we would be willing to give up everything we have – our very lives, even – to be a part of it. This can be distinguished from what we have been led to believe all our lives – that Christ is the solution to our problems. Indeed he is – but that is not the point, and if we focus on Christ as a solution, we fail to see how the Kingdom benefits us. We all have problems in varying degrees, for that is the human condition, and in addition to Christ there are various solutions to at least some of our difficulties. Some of the solutions, though not directly attributable to the work of the Cross, are legitimate and beneficial and we would not depart from virtue to pursue them. Of course Christ is the ultimate solution to everything in the sense that by his death and resurrection he defeated death and made all things new, but the ultimate reason for entering the Kingdom of God is that it presents benefits so compelling that we would give up everything to enter it, even if we had no problems to solve. Even if our lives were otherwise perfect in every respect. We tend to attempt to “sell” the Kingdom as a solution because it is often only at the point of our need that it makes sense to us as a panacea for our troubles, but that is because we are so limited in our ability to recognize our own best interests that we cannot easily see the greater benefits of the Kingdom unless they are contrasted with some trouble in our lives.