When students arrive for the first day of my creative writing class, they have a range of expectations.
Many legitimately want to write, to reach across the void with words. Some simply want to check the “arts” box on their degree requirements. A few assume they can toss some flowery sentences together the night before assignments are due and get an easy “A.” Spoiler alert: That won’t work.
To calibrate our viewpoint at the beginning of the semester, I ask them to join me in a speculative thought experiment.
“Don’t think of your writing in this class as a throwaway, play-school assignment,” I tell them. “Instead, imagine that the Earth will be destroyed by plague or disaster or war just after our course ends in a few months.”
Eyebrows rise around the room.
“Imagine that extraterrestrial explorers stumble upon our little planet millions of years later. As their ship hovers above our decimated world, their archaeologists unearth the only surviving evidence that intelligent life once thrived here. All the aliens can find is the writing produced by our class. Imagine that our poems, stories and essays represent the whole of human history and experience.”
Eyes widen beneath those raised brows.
“What do you want these future aliens to think of humanity when they decipher our words?
I ask my students to consider this question as they lean into the glow of their laptops late at night or rise at dawn to revise a few lines in their old-school notebooks before the electric hum of their high-tech day begins. I hope they’ll think of their writing as a contribution to human culture. Each time a new assignment deadline approaches, I remind them that our future alien friends are depending on them.
Let’s apply that particular thought experiment to another scenario: What would those aliens think of our world if their discoveries were limited to this blink in time while Donald Trump is president?
If those aliens have eyes, how will they see us? If they have noses, how will the Trump years smell to them? Will they recoil at his countless insults and attacks? If they have an advanced sense of social responsibility, what will they make of his policies that enrich the wealthy and deprive the rest?
If those aliens have a God, will they ask why the most publicly religious among us ignored and excused Trump’s obvious violations of every scripture? If they’re atheist aliens who decipher right from wrong by personal morality rather than doctrine, will Trump’s self-aggrandizing ways mystify them? What about his adultery and porn-star payoffs? Do these aliens have adultery and porn stars? Trump certainly does. What will they make of his disdain for the rule of law as he calls for the jailing of political opponents and those investigating his own wrongdoing?
Will these be reality-based aliens whose policies grow from facts rather than fantasy agendas? If so, what will they think of the millions of humans who believe Trump’s torrential exaggerations, flip-flops, and lies? Will they think we’re stupid, ignorant, misinformed, or simply primitive?
If these aliens have neighbors, will they wall themselves off from them? Or will they reach out across the expanse because they recognize that what divides us is microscopic compared with the cosmic connections among all beings? What will they think of Trump’s treaty violations and threats to other countries? How will they judge a leader who encourages his followers to fear everyone different? What will they think of those followers who let that leader fan their fear into flames of hate?
Sadly, Trump and his enablers would make these aliens think that humanity was a gang of selfish, crude, dishonest, spiteful, faithless hypocrites. They’d be glad they missed us by a few million years. I’d rather we pass into oblivion than leave Trumpism as our only legacy.
Fortunately, the aliens would also find some who represented what is best about we poor human creatures. When faced with Trump, many among us have stood firm to oppose his degradations. In fact, the aliens will discover that our planet’s resisters outnumbered those who acquiesced or facilitated Trumpism as surely as our anti-Trump marches dwarfed his spotty inauguration crowd.
Maybe we don’t always show our best qualities as we resist. At times we curse and rant and froth. Our anger and sadness frequently overcomes our sympathy for those tangled in Trump’s web. But our alien friends would see that we most often keep our vision focused on the shared values of our nation and our humanity. We try our best to leave an honorable legacy.
I hope this thought experiment never becomes reality. While a visit from alien friends might be nice, I hope the encounter doesn’t come at the cost of our world destroyed — or even tarnished by a leader who doesn’t represent us at our best.
My students thrill me each semester with the tales they tell to represent our world, full of hope and humor and love and mystery and decency.
Those aliens would find evidence that humanity as a whole is far better than the worst we’ve shown during the Trump years. They’d find some gems.
John Sheirer is an author and teacher who lives in Florence. His most recent book is the satire, “Donald Trump’s Top Secret Concession Speech.” Find him at JohnSheirer.com.