Human Contradiction

            The “human contradiction” as stated by the Oankali is the fatal combination of hierarchical and intelligence. Jodahs is the long awaited final step in finding a final solution between these two tendencies found in human nature. As a construct ooloi Jodahs is a feared creature because it is both given the extreme abilities of the ooloi, and yet embodies the “human contradiction”. At first this fear is hard to understand. How could a child be such a threat to this “perfect” society? However, once Jodahs begins to cause dangerous alterations with everything it comes in contact with, I begin to see just how powerful it truly is.

            The only attribute keeping Jodahs restrained is the constant threat of dissolution. In this way though Jodahs is full of extreme power, it is not free to do with it as it pleases. It is bound to finding and providing for his human mates. I often find myself making the comparison between Jodahs and Genie from Aladdin, “It's all part 'n parcel of the whole genie gig: Phenomenal cosmic powers! Eeeetibity living space!”(John Musker, Aladdin). In order to keep Jodahs from using its power in favor of its human contradiction, it has to be eternally bound to human mates, who are in turn bound to him. However, it seems that the extreme fidelity that binds the human mates and the ooloi are part of the failure of the Oankali’s strive to create a solution to the human contradiction.

            The most obvious assertion that this enterprise to finding a solution to the human contradiction has failed occurs after Jodahs has been mated. When speaking to its closest sibling, Aaor, Jodahs instructs Aaor that they may need to sting and kill humans in order to save and secure their mates. However, earlier  in Imago the reader is told, “Humans had evolved from hierarchical life, dominating, often killing other life. Oankali had evolved from acquisitive life, collecting and combining with other life. To kill was not simply wasteful to the Oankali. It was as unacceptable as slicing off their own healthy limbs… When they killed even to save life, they died a little themselves.”(Butler, 564). Rather than correcting the human contradiction the Oankali have simply given a powerful creature dependence on an outside source. With their incredible power once mated and existence secured, the ooloi are willing to do what no Oankali would have been ever conceived possible. I see this as the possibility of being only the beginning to a long line of failures.

            More abstractly, I see dissolution itself as an abstract way of presenting the failure of solving the human solution. In class we discussed how in On Human Nature the dissolution of slavery in society means that slavery in itself is not genetically part of our beings. If this reasoning is valid, then it seems likely to me that Butler is implying that the prospect of discovering a resolution to the “human contradiction” is unattainable. Because Jodahs is the embodiment of the resolution of hierarchical tendencies and intelligence and is unable to exist on his own therefore the odds of finding a remedy to our contradiction are minute.

            With these in mind I feel that not only is Butler showing us that Jodahs as a resolution is a failure, but that the enterprise is completely unfeasible. Their ability to kill to defend their mates, and Butler’s device of dissolution makes it clear to me that Jodahs is a failure rectify the contradiction not out of design but out of genetic inability to succeed. Butler showing us our human contradiction is embedded into us in such a way that we are unable to correct it.

Citation
Aladdin. Dir. John Musker. By Robin Williams and Linda Larkin. Perf. Robin Williams. Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, 1992. Videocassette.

Butler, Octavia E. Lilith’s Brood. New York City: Grand Central Publishing, 1989

Wilson, Edward O. On Human Nature. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 2004. Print.