THE ULTIMATE ASSAULT AGAINST MARRIAGE FOUND IN ISAAC ASIMOV'S PLANET "SOLARIA"

THE  ULTIMATE  ASSAULT  AGAINST  MARRIAGE  FOUND  IN

ISAAC  ASIMOV’S  PLANET  “SOLARIA”

    

     Defenders of traditional Western culture have been complaining of the many assaults against the institution of marriage in modern America.  But these assaults are minor when compared to the ultimate assault found in the ultimate fate of the planet Solaria in the science fiction of Isaac Asimov.  As the name implies, these Solarians are extreme individualists.  Each of them lives alone, and never visits anyone:  they contact each other only by “viewing” each other on their “teleprescence” viewing system, which is similar to a computer screen or a holographic projection, a foretaste of which we are now witnessing in today’s teenage cyber solipsism.  (By the way, these Solarians are NOT space aliens [Asimov never has aliens in his stories], but are descendants of astronauts from Earth who colonized the planet.)

     But the Solarian aim of the complete independence of the self was still thwarted by gender in ca. 5000 AD, the time period of Asimov’s novel The Naked Sun (written 60 years ago).  That is, at that time they were males and females, dependent upon each other for reproduction.  The Wikipedia entry “Solaria” aptly and succinctly notes how they overcame this: “During the period from 5,000 AD to 20,000 AD the Solarians had extensively modified themselves through genetic engineering to become hermaphrodites… .”  This final hermaphrodite state is discussed by Asimov in his sequels to his Foundation Trilogy, written during the 1980s.  It is introduced by a passenger on board a spaceship bus becoming puzzled as to the genderal identity of another (androgynous looking) passenger.  This passenger introduces himself/herself in a very haughty manner as being a Solarian, where, he says, each of us is “COMPLETE!!”.  This is highly esteemed by the Solarians as the ultimate in personal self-sufficiency.  On Solaria, there are no “people who need people”.

Forrest W. Schultz

June 15, 2015