The other and the self through time and space

H.G. Wells’ time traveler expounds quite a bit upon the idea of representing time as the fourth dimension. He notes that a cube, despite occupying space in three dimensions, cannot exist without occupying a particular time as well; he also boldly proclaims that “There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it.” What is implied, of course, is that technology might permit the liberation of such consciousness from its fourth dimensional prison. The Time Machine itself is a vessel that does exactly this by allowing its rider to move along the fourth dimension as if it were merely space.

Nevermind the questionable and vague science behind the physics of time travel in Wells’ universe; the perception of time as a pseudo-spatial dimension is rather groundbreaking in and of itself. In the context of alterity in science fiction, it reconceptualizes the colonial theme of discovering new worlds (and new peoples) with respect to a different frontier: that is, instead of visiting other worlds in outer space, time travel allows us to visit our own world at different points in four-dimensional space. In a sense, it is the ultimate representation of Suvin’s “cognitive estrangement” – what can be more disconcertingly familiar and unfamiliar than a dystopian vision of our own future?

How, then, can we reconcile our notions of alterity with the idea that the “other” may simply be another version of ourselves? Theoretically, cognitive estrangement creates perspective to emphasize discovery of self, but the discoveries we make through time travel are often more overtly representative of the human condition than those made through space travel. In The Time Machine (particularly in the novella), the descendants of mankind are so estranged that they may as well have been an alien species; however, because they occupy the very (three dimensional) space in which the time traveller grew up, he is inclined to apply his knowledge of man to explain their situation. His theories are actually never fully confirmed; the reader can only rely on the time traveller’s speculations, speculations which are heavily rooted in late 19^th century intellectual thought.

It should be noted that throughout history, man has not been afraid to frame new discoveries within older schools of thought. For example, the time traveller’s journey to the world of the Eloi and Murlocks can be seen as a classic, colonial tale of conquer and salvation: educated Englishman arrives in new (four-dimensional) place to educate and inspire the simple-minded aboriginals. The film adaptation even offers a sexual parallel to this conquest with its depiction of Weena (though one can argue that the book alluded to the same conquest in less explicit terms). Nevertheless, the time traveller is actually unable to fully decouple himself from his fourth-dimensional space. That is, though he is able to physically traverse the space of time, his consciousness is still embedded in his present. Yet, because his ideas are founded upon thousands of years of human intellect, not to mention influenced by prediction and expectation, one might say that moving through four-dimensional space is not so hard after all. In addition, if human intellect can be reasoned to transcend the fourth dimension, then the Eloi and Murlocks (and any "other" that may exist) can be understood as future manifestations of the self.

Categorizing Humanity's Future

As The Time Machine emphasizes, the Time Traveller’s experience of his temporal destination is shaped by his understanding of the present. When time travellers are displaced from their own eras, they often must reframe the world by fitting it within their own conceptions of society. By imposing his “current” social/philosophical theories into the unfamiliar world, the Time Traveller simultaneously recognizes historical continuity and defines the new era through its differences from the current one. These observations probably seem intuitive and obvious, but reading and watching The Time Machine and The Terminator uses these themes to raise important questions about the way we think of the present.

One prime example of subjecting the future world to a contemporary world view occurs when Wells’s time traveller analyzes 802701 A.D. through a socialist lens. Even as he finds information that contradicts his theories, the time traveller refuses to consider that his observations can’t be explained through socialism’s theories or prophecies. Interestingly, just as George Orwell and Aldous Huxley and Ayn Rand crafted worlds that emphasize the evils of socialism, H.G. Wells shows a future where capitalism continues to widen the rift between social classes, and the “have-nots” are ultimately both crafty and resourceless enough feed off of the lazy “haves”; this is supposed to show us the dangers of not overthrowing the oppressors.

The Time Traveller also assumes that the Eloi and Morlocks descended from humans. He seems preoccupied by categorizing their behaviors as “human” or “inhuman.” One of his initial fears before he meets the Eloi is that “the race had lost its manliness, and had developed into something inhuman, unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful?” (20). As he observes the Eloi and Morlocks, readers gain insight into what he considers “human” qualities - humans have language and they read and write , but the Eloi don’t. Weena seems “more human than she was, perhaps because her affection was so human” (51). He continues to cast himself as human, and the Eloi and Morlocks as inhuman, even justifying his own “inhuman” actions (“Very inhuman, you may think, to want to go killing one’s own descendants! But it was impossible, somehow, to feel any humanity in the things.” (54)) The 1960 movie version casts cannibalism as “the lowest form of human life.” It seems that humanity is often defined by what is less human or inhuman - it constitutes itself by stigmatizing its "Other" and its "inferiors." The movie version makes these divides even more clear - the time traveller only identifies with the (Aryan) Eloi, pushing them to rebel against their captors. The movie erases the only marginally-sympathetic aspect of the Morlocks - that they were the “have-nots” who were forced to hunt their captors; instead, the Morlocks always bred and controlled the Eloi like cattle.

Watching/reading about the Time Traveller’s way of organizing the future world prompted me to think about our current ways of labeling and categorizing the present and the past. When we impose a philosophical theory (ie. as Engels imposed Marxism on the distant history of humanity in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884)) upon “known” facts, are we forcing those details into an anachronistic labeling, one that will always be inadequate? Also, how many other things do we define through biased characteristics? (I’m sure that quite a few cultures do not have a high literacy rate or produce many formal written works, and it doesn’t make sense to deem them “inhuman” or “less human”). Also, I wonder what a time travel narrative that is entirely isolated from current political/theoretical agendas might look like (and I don’t think that’s entirely possible.) Finally, the movie definitely pointed to these questions much more at the end: should the time traveller intervene and reshape the world specifically through his 1890s knowledge of what humanity should be? That already looks odd to me - there’s already an entirely new world of theory that has surfaced in the last century, and it’s clear that the Time Traveller might have a severely narrow world view. Both The Terminator and The Time Machine raise questions about the ethics surrounding time travel, but they do not directly engage them.