Octavia Butler and Creative Resistance

Octavia Butler’s profound awareness of the cognitive dissonance held by dominant culture, specifically how it manifests in the form of religious persecution and mythic constructions, is a recurring theme in narratives across her work. She adeptly explores how societal beliefs and ideologies can be cloaked in religion and mythology, presenting them as benign or beneficial while subtly perpetuating systemic biases and injustices. This critical perspective is vividly evident in her nuanced portrayal of how dominant ideologies and beliefs can lead to societal discord and individual suffering.

In a 1995 Los Angeles Times interview following her MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius’ Grant recognition, Butler expressed surprise that the foundation had cited the intermingling of “elements of African and African American spiritualism, mysticism, and mythology” in her science fiction. Her response to inquiries about the religious aspects of her work, were that they reflected her interest in broader human experiences and societal issues, rather than religiosity itself. She questioned the relevance of discussing religion in the context of her work, emphasizing that her focus was on “what it means to be human, our capacities, and our failings.”

A decade later, in a 2005 interview with Democracy Now, Butler further elaborated on the themes of religion and dissonance in her narratives, especially within her Parable series. She discussed how her character, Lauren, creates the Earthseed  religion as a solution to societal problems, illustrating both the positive and negative potentials of such constructs: “Religion is everywhere; there are no human societies without it— whether they acknowledge it as real or not—so I thought religion might be an answer, as well as in some cases, a problem. For instance, in Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, it’s both.” She portrayed scenarios illustrating how religion, often intertwined with mythology, can become a tool for liberation as well as oppression. reflecting the contradictions within an American society where religious ideals are both revered and weaponized.

Through her literature, Butler provides profound commentary on the ways dominant culture’s dissonance impacts both the oppressed and the fabric of society at large. Her ability to dissect and challenge the foundational myths that often underpin and justify systemic injustices offers not only a critique of these practices, but also presents alternative visions for where new myths and beliefs can potentially reshape societal values towards more equitable outcomes. Lauren in Parable of the Talents, reflects Butler’s poetic grace around the dissonance of harmful dominant politics.  In response to the rise of a fascist dictator, Lauren  warns: “Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be led by all the coward fears, to be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool, to be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen, to be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to, to be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.”

Butler, both individually and through her characters, addresses the dissonances that she perceives as the greatest threats to humanity. Her own conscience and consciousness serve as a refractive space that enriches her characters with profound insights.

In a later part of the Democracy Now interview, she discusses her own upbringing in the Baptist church, where she was raised as a fundamentalist by a grandfather who was a preacher. She reflects, “I’m actually grateful for one specific thing—having that conscience instilled in me early on, and it’s a formidable one. I can’t easily dismiss it. It’s not the fear of others catching me that concerns me; my own conscience is what I contend with. What truly alarms me is when people use their religion as a tool to gain power over others. This is alarmingly common today. For example, those who promote creationism are often aware of their deceit, yet they persist under the guise of religious authority. This misuse of religion, where individuals impose their beliefs to control aspects of others’ lives, like sex education, due to religious mandates, is deeply troubling. Yet, given its potent influence, it’s almost inevitable that religion can be, and often is, misused.”

Butler’s formal prowess lies in her ability to materialize the intricate matrix of holding and withholding, observing the dissonance engendered by patriarchy, white supremacy, and fascism. Butler exploits this dissonance, using the nebulous state opened up by incongruent realities, to expand scientific imaginaries back into and through the consciousness of Black feminine Being. Her work in rhizomatic fiction bears a resemblance to a Lacanian Real, setting itself apart from the ontic in a genealogical sense. Butler navigates through her “matrixial complex” of knots, which are unraveled by fictional displacements—such as time travel, alien life, and genetic mutation and diversity—to forge a new real order, from the obscurities of news and science. This collapse of the Kantian thing-in-itself and racist dissonance facilitates intimate, race-based violences inherent in colonial, white supremacist, and fascist contact zones. 

Butler explodes Lacan’s four discourses, reinterpreting them as fields of cognition that are not only knowable but also historically indexable in our current era. In the Parable series, and across Butler’s oeuvre  an ontic hyperreality of lived experiences for the oppressed emerges at the crossroads of dissonant beliefs.  These fugitive narratives are eased into non-Black or ruling class’ consciousnesses, whose eyes are opened to ‘see’ this dissonance through the perspectives of alien beings and oppressed peoples. 

The phenomenon of “white defensiveness,” a protective cognition arising in the context of racial violence, epitomizes cognitive dissonance among white individuals. This defensiveness manifests as a psychological shield used to maintain a self-image that denies racial biases and evades acknowledgment of systemic complicity. Such defensiveness is notably relevant in the context of recent legislative efforts in the southeastern United States, where laws are being passed to prevent ‘white discomfort’ in educational and public spaces.  These laws are an attempt to legislatively eliminate discussions that might force a confrontation with historical and ongoing racial injustices. This avoidance strategy is a clear manifestation of the dissonance reduction techniques outlined by Festinger, where changing the environment to stifle information that might illuminate dissonance is a key tactic.

The collapse of self and social schemas is critically tied to these dynamics. In Kantian terms, the moral autonomy necessary for genuine free will is undermined by the cultural and systemic structures of white supremacy, which distort individual perceptions of reality and self. In her essay “White Supremacy Culture”, Tema Okun outlines 15 characteristics of white supremacy culture—ranging from perfectionism and defensiveness to objectivity and the right to comfort—that serve as cognitive and behavioral fortifications to maintain this distorted reality. These are the underpinning constructions for a dissonant state that allows the ruling class to rationalize their behaviors without true self-risk.

Moreover, the deliberate suppression of uncomfortable historical truths can be likened to mechanisms employed by totalitarian regimes such as those under Nazi and fascist rule, where control of narrative and suppression of dissent were critical to maintaining the status quo. The contemporary legal developments to curb discussions around race effectively work to maintain a frictionless facade —where the ruling class imagines itself as perpetually at risk yet is disproportionately rewarded—that collapses under scrutiny.Addressing the dynamics of cognitive dissonance requires a dismantling of the narratives and structures that support it, particularly those that distort the realities of necropolitical regimes and their modern counterparts in systemic racism and oppression.

Entering the realm of fiction and cinema, media that transfers racial violence from historical contexts to fictional ones creates a mythic, perhaps seemingly impossible, narrative. An apparatus for rationalizing or resolving the dissonance of racism without resolution in the political sphere, this narrative allows for the imagination of a universal experience of such violence by all humanity, thus specifically negating the white discomfort caused by recognizing white supremacist violence in social and political policies.

Dissonance theory is fundamentally anchored in the concepts of perceived power, risk, and incentivization. These elements are crucial in understanding how individuals resolve conflicting beliefs to maintain internal consistency. In the context of white supremacy, these principles manifest as ‘layers of languages’—a metaphor for the various justifications and rationalizations that uphold systemic racial hierarchies and the social, economic, and political benefits disproportionately available to white people. 

Perceived power within white supremacy is the assumed authority and dominance granted by societal structures that favor white individuals. This perceived power enables them to navigate societal interactions with minimal personal risk. 

By framing white supremacy in terms of dissonance theory, it becomes clear that the system is sustained not just through overt acts of racism but through a complex language of justification. This language serves to rationalize and normalize the discrepancies between egalitarian beliefs and discriminatory practices. The result is a perpetuation of white supremacy, masked by a veneer of rationality and false narratives of meritocracy and equal opportunity.

Because of this dissonance, Black Sci-Fi and Afrofuturism exist in a complex contact zone characterized by simultaneous retention, regulation, and subjection. In many ways, Black women artists, through their world-building and fictional narratives, engage in a praxis of anti-dissonance or a deconstruction of the dissonance that shapes their world and life experiences. They delve into issues of desirability, transmutation, transubstantiation, betrayals, violence, co-birthings, and coping mechanisms—reflecting the reality of living at the imperial colonial intersections of gender and race.

This framing of white supremacy illustrates how these culturally ingrained norms perpetuate cognitive dissonance. Black Sci-Fi and Afrofuturism challenge these norms by creating narratives that confront and question the underlying assumptions of white supremacy. These genres offer alternative visions where the consequences of these supremacist points are explored and subverted, providing a space where the marginalized can articulate and reimagine new realities beyond the restrictive frameworks imposed by the dominant culture. Through this creative resistance, Black women artists articulate a counter-narrative that not only highlights but actively works against the dissonance inflicted by white supremacist culture.