By Rob Eschmann

Author Andy Weir, best known for his books The Martian and Project Hail Mary, both of which were turned into successful science fiction films starring Matt Damon and Ryan Gosling, has recently been enmeshed in controversy surrounding his anti-woke comments and insistence that politics has no place in fiction.

Though they’re just coming to light, due to the recent release of the blockbuster Project Hail Mary film, he’s held these views for some time. In a 2017 interview, Weir said:

When I’m reading a book, I just want to be entertained, not preached at by the author… I deeply dislike social commentary. For instance, as a lifelong Star Trek fan, it’s always bothered me that there is a presumed “responsibility” within Star Trek shows to talk about social issues. I just want to watch Romulans and the Federation shoot at each other.

This view suggests that social commentary takes away from the core of Star Trek, which for Weir might simply be fun, stylized violence between humans and aliens. This is a misunderstanding. Social themes are not distractions, they are central components of world building. Good science fiction is as sociological as it is scientific.

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry said:

Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. […] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.

Today, “diversity” is used in partisan politics to create fear among conservative constituents and to push anti-diversity policies that do harm to communities of Color. While the “anti-woke” crowd may suggest that diversity is an unwelcome pollution that ruins good storytelling, this quote demonstrates that diversity is central to Roddenberry’s vision of what type of human society would be capable of engaging in positive interplanetary relations.

One of the main characters of the original Star Trek show, Lieutenant Uhura, was portrayed by Black actress Nichelle Nichols. Nichols tells a story of almost leaving the show, but being talked out of this decision by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Nichols reports Dr. King said of her performance:

You are marching. You are reflecting what we are fighting for… For the first time, we are being seen the world over as we should be seen… This is the only show that my wife Coretta and I will allow our little children to stay up and watch.

King believed that Nichols’ work was integral to the Civil Rights Movement, her Star Trek character a sharp contrast to the ways Black folks were often portrayed in subservient roles on television. Nichols’ role on the show had the potential to open viewer imaginations to a world where Black folks were not subject to segregation and unequal treatment, and instead were given equal opportunities in education, employment, and as full, free participants in society.

In 1968, Lt Uhura and Captain Kirk (a White man) kissed in an episode of Star Trek, then one of the first interracial kisses on TV. For context, in 1968 only 20% of Americans supported interracial marriage, which was only legalized by the Supreme Court a year earlier in 1967. To include this kiss during this time period was a radical act.

What about this “social commentary” might Weir find problematic?

One of Weir’s strengths as a writer is his ability to reverse-engineer scientific problems. How much water does it take to grow potatoes on Mars? What type of fuel do we need to achieve near-light speed travel? What would alien physiology look like on a planet with different levels of atmospheric pressure than earth? Weir’s characters understand physics, do complex math in their head, and take the reader on exciting journeys of discovery as they solve technical problems with mind-breaking solutions that feel real.

But the ability to reverse-engineer social phenomena is just as important a skill for a science fiction writer.

A few years ago, I attended a talk by author N.K. Jemisin, whose Broken Earth Trilogy won the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel three years in a row. This series subverts a genre that has historically been overwhelmingly white, male, and straight with non-traditional conceptions of race, gender, and sexuality.

As a fan reading Jemisin, I assumed that her turning race and gender upside down was a form of activism. But in her talk, Jemisin discussed the ways these elements emerged organically from her world building. Jemisin started with a post-apocalyptic environment, then worked backwards, asking how race, gender, and sexuality would be socially constructed in this world.

Jemisin’s sociological world building reflects a complex understanding of how race and gender are created to respond to specific societal needs. Racist ideologies are designed to legitimate racist social systems, from slavery and colonization, to the more subtle forms of systemic racism in the twenty-first Century.

From Octavia Butler to George Orwell, and Ursula Le Guin to Mary Shelley, the best science fiction writers seem to understand the rules of society as well as the physics of the universe. Just as gravity and atmospheric pressure shape life on Weir’s fictional planet Erid, social forces shape our lived realities. Social commentary doesn’t reduce art. It gives it meaning that lasts long after the credits roll.