Dr. Courtney Brown | The Dilemma of Disclosure

Source: Guido Fox youtube



Dr. Courtney Brown is a tenured professor at Emory University. Among other courses, he teaches an undergraduate course on Science Fiction and politics. To understand political issues in the USA today, he draws on the rich content in science fiction novels, where characters have faced situations which may parallel exactly those very real challenges that we are encountering now in our current times.

This discussion occurred in a course focussed on the famous novel of Ursula Le Guin, called The Left Hand of Darkness.

In this excerpt, Dr Brown discusses with his students the dilemma of how to announce to two very different planets, the reality of a Extra-terrestrial presence. The power structure on both planets does not want this to happen, and prefers that the cover-up continues. Brown digs into the issues that are involved. What struck me was the FEAR. The intelligence organizations were afraid of losing control when the people find out that they are not the only human-like creatures in the universe.

Will the people still willingly follow leaders who have lied to them, and covered up this very important reality? Perhaps not. The Fear may be real, and in the novel it was such fears which delayed both societies from moving forward and joining the Galactic community around them.

Aren't these issues exactly the same ones we face today? - Guido Fox