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If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others

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"If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others", also known as the "Metz speech", is a 1977 essay and speech by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick that was delivered at the Second Metz International Science Fiction Festival in Metz, France, on September 24, 1977.[1] Dick, the guest of honor at the festival, was asked to deliver a shorter version of the original speech due to time constraints. The Metz speech, in its shorter form, was originally recorded on video and was translated to the French audience by an interpreter.

Dick’s speech lays out his typical, yet arcane thoughts on the philosophy of space and time, alternate universes, and the simulation argument. Declaring that "We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in our reality occurs", Dick cites his strange and unusual visions from 1974, his interpretation of Christian Gnosticism, and the role of alternate history in his own published work. The speech was not well received. Dick spoke in a monotone voice, the interpreter’s transcript differed from Dick’s speech due to a last minute rewrite, and the audience was left confused and bewildered.

At the time, nobody knew exactly what to make of the speech, as it defied conventional wisdom. Some accused Dick of being under the influence, which may have been true, or even of trying to start his own religion, which was a misunderstanding. Later, some critics argued that Dick had gone insane while writing Valis, which he talks about working on in the speech itself, but this conclusion was heavily debated with no clear resolution one way or the other. Dick himself admitted in the speech that what he was saying was neither provable nor rational. Several years later, he would admit that the speech "made no sense whatever".

The speech was subsequently published in print form as an edited essay in French, English, German, and Italian, from 1978 to 1991. The audio portion was first broadcast on the radio in 1978, and again in 1982. The speech was performed as spoken word theatre in the UK in the 1990s. It was finally uploaded as a video on the internet in the 2000s.

Background

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Philip K. Dick as he might have appeared in 1977

Biographer Paul Williams describes Dick as a "reluctant convention-goer", who would often cancel at the last minute due to illness when he was supposed to appear in public.[2] Dick was living in the East Bay when the 22nd World Science Fiction Convention came to Oakland in 1964. He attended, giving rise to many rumors and legends about his life. Biographer Brian J. Robb notes that "Dick's reputation as a mad, drug-fueled SF prophet emerged almost fully formed from the 1964 WorldCon, and persisted beyond his death."[3] Williams himself would go on to meet Dick for the first time in Berkeley at the 26th World Science Fiction Convention in 1968. Back at his hotel room, Williams shared his published work about Dick with him, while they both accidentally consumed PCP, which they thought was THC.[2] In correspondence with Andrew I. Porter, Dick spoke about having attended the 30th World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles in September 1972, expressing disappointment with his experience.[4]

His home was burglarized in November 1971, which caused him great anguish. Dick attended the Vancouver Science Fiction Convention as the guest of honor from February 18-19, 1972, delivering the speech "The Android and the Human". Staying in Canada for an extended period, by March he was despondent and attempted suicide, which he survived, enrolling into a rehabilitation program for a month, and then returning to California. His experience at rehab in Canada would later provide material for his novel A Scanner Darkly (1978). In 1974, Dick was asked to attend the West Coast Science Fantasy Conference as the guest of honor, but declined due to health issues. That same year, he was also asked to be the guest of honor for the future 35th World Science Fiction Convention in 1977, but also declined.[4] In 1975, Dick was scheduled to give the speech "Man, Android and Machine" at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, but never made it due to illness. In his absence, it was published as an essay in Science Fiction at Large (1976).[5]

By the summer of 1977, Dick was suffering from depression due to the lingering effects of his hallucinations from three years prior, the famous February–March 1974 vision, also known as "2-3-74". Dick struggled to adapt the strange experience into a novel, as he still had a Bantam contract to meet, which contributed to additional stress. At the same time, he was pursuing a new relationship with Joan Simpson.[6] Several years later, his book A Scanner Darkly was awarded the Graouilly d'Or for Best Novel at the Metz festival when it was published in France in 1979. Dick was invited to attend the International Festival of Science Fiction at Metz for a second time as guest of honor in June 1982, but he died unexpectedly from a stroke in May of that year at the age of 53.[7]

Invitation and preparation

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Philippe Hupp, a book reviewer and French translator of Time out of Joint (1959), as well as a columnist for the French version of Galaxy Science Fiction, started the Metz International Science Fiction Festival (Festival International de la Science-Fiction de Metz) which first took place from May 24-30, 1976. Building on the momentum from the success of the first festival, Hupp invited Dick on February 23, 1977, to attend the second festival as the guest of honor. Dick accepted on March 17, and responded to Hupp with a brief description of his planned speech:

My speech on high-order mimicry would study the relationship between the imaginative aspects of science fiction and the use of actual scientific theory; which is to say, a study of the contrasts and the relatedness between what we normally call reality and the reality depicted in science fiction works. If I can get the speech together I think it will be a good one.

Even though Dick had accepted the invite, his reputation for not showing up to conferences was well known. Hupp made the decision to fly out to the United States to make the case to Dick in person. They met up for lunch at an Italian restaurant near his home in Santa Ana, California. Hupp sold him on the festival, explaining exactly how it would work and how he would be taken care of during his time in France. At the meeting, Dick gave Hupp a tape of the speech he had already prepared (dated May 21), and they enjoyed a meal over two bottles of red wine. Hupp made note of the fact that Dick appeared to be happy. Acting also as photographer, Hupp captured several notable images of Dick after lunch, including one of him holding his cat and another where he is seen wearing a large, ornate crucifix.[8] On June 27, Dick wrote a letter to Ralph Vicinanza, his New York literary agent, sending him a copy of his planned Metz speech, with the note, "I hope you enjoy the speech; I hope they do, too. Fortunately for me the French make no clear distinction between genius and madness."[9]

Metz International Science Fiction Festival

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Dick gave the speech at city hall on the Place d'Armes, Metz, France[10]

Dick and Simpson set off together as a couple to Metz, France, in September. Before leaving for the trip, Dick acquired a certain amount of methamphetamine, one of the last known times he would use hard drugs.[6] Hupp picked them up at the airport in Luxembourg.[8] Dick and Simpson checked into the Sofitel hotel.[11] Simpson later came down with the stomach flu and was unable to leave the hotel for a time. They would eventually breakup several months later. Simpson was the last serious relationship Dick would ever have.[6] Just before delivering his scheduled speech, titled "If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others", Dick was asked to cut out 20 minutes from the original material. Due to these last minute revisions, the speech he delivered and the version used by the French interpreter were entirely out of sync, leaving the audience in a state of confusion.[6]

Writers Harlan Ellison, Roger Zelazny, John Brunner, Harry Harrison, Robert Sheckley, and Fritz Leiber were all in attendance at the second Metz festival, which took place from September 19-25, 1977. Also invited was film producer Gary Kurtz, who was promoting his film Star Wars (1977) at the time in Europe.[11] The film had just been released in May, and it was screened at the festival, although it was in English as the French version had not yet been made.[9] Dick became a huge fan of the film and later claimed that George Lucas was drawing on the same ideas as he was. German musical duo Cluster, just coming off their Cluster & Eno sessions in June, performed live at Metz, with their performance memorialized in their 22 minute, live recording titled "Festival International de la Science-Fiction, Metz 1977" (2017).[12] Dick remembered his experience in France fondly, describing the 1977 Metz festival as the greatest time of his life. "I think that there at Metz I was really happy for the first time", he recalled, believing that he had finally come home to his people.[13]

Synopsis

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Dick explains to the audience that his speech concerns the topic of his original theory on "orthogonal or right-angle time". He presents ideas related to the philosophy of space and time and briefly describes his own version of the simulation hypothesis, and proposes the existence of alternate universes as a thought experiment in relation to his own personal experiences and published works.

Using the extended metaphor of the chessboard, and informed by ideas belonging to Joseph Campbell and gnostic Christian theology, Dick describes how he believes that many worlds branch off due to a kind of chess game being played that alters the timeline of the "matrix world" by what he calls a "Programmer-Reprogrammer", a god-like entity who maintains an advantage playing against a "dark counterplayer", the personification of evil or death.

Dick argues, by way of this metaphor, that the Programmer-Reprogrammer, or god, interferes with the timeline by changing the past to create a better future, and that some people (like himself) can perceive the relics and vestiges of the older timeline or alternate branches by various means, such as writing science fiction, which documents what these other worlds are like, feeling déjà vu, and even by way of religious experience.

Critical reception

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Ellison did not attend Dick's speech, as they had both been estranged since 1975. He was at the bar drinking bottled mineral water when the audience arrived after Dick was finished, recalling that they "looked like they had been stunned by a ball peen hammer...they thought [Dick] was either drunk or doped".[6] Brunner, who originally met Dick in 1964 at a party before Worldcon in Oakland, recalled his own confusion on the matter a decade later: "I...failed to figure out how literally [Dick] intended people to regard his claims", wrote Brunner. "I could not decide whether, after so many years of inner suffering, his reason had been usurped by his own inventions, or whether he had reached the bitter conclusion that the only way to cope with our lunatic world was to treat it as one vast and rather vicious joke, and fight back on the same irrational level."[14]

In the essay and speech, Dick mentions that he is in the process of writing Valis, which he would eventually publish a year later in 1978. After Dick gave the Metz speech, the question of Dick's state of mind was hotly debated, with people like Eric S. Rabkin arguing that Dick had gone insane after writing Valis, while Umberto Rossi argued against the idea.[15]

Dick notes in the essay, "I am aware that the claims I am making -- claims of having retrieved buried memories of an alternate present and to have perceived the agency responsible for arranging that alteration -- these claims can neither be proved nor can they even be made to sound rational in the usual sense of the word. It has taken me over three years to reach the point where I am willing to tell anyone but my closest friends about my experience beginning back at the vernal equinox of 1974."[16]

Dick continued his self-appraisal of his Metz performance several years later in the essay "The Lucky Dog Pet Store" (1979), which was edited and republished as a new "Introduction" to "The Golden Man" (1980). In the essay, he talks about how the Metz speech "typically, made no sense whatever". "Even the French couldn't understand it, despite a translation", Dick writes. "Something goes haywire in my brain when I write speeches; I think I imagine I'm a reincarnation of Zoroaster bringing news of God. So I try to make as few speeches as possible."[13]

Release

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Dick was interviewed during the conference, selected excerpts of which later appeared on the BBC in 1994 and on French cable television in 2002.[17] Dick's short story, "Explorers We" (1959) was reprinted in French as "Le retour des explorateurs" by Henry-Luc Planchât as a limited edition, 16 page booklet to commemorate Dick's participation at the conference in Metz.[18]

A year after Dick delivered his speech, it was published as an essay in French as "Si vous trouvez ce monde mauvais, vous devriez en voir quelques autres" in the work L'année 1977-1978 de la Science-Fiction et du Fantastique. It was later translated into German in 1986 and included in Kosmische Puppen und andere Lebensformen. The Philip K. Dick Society first published the essay in English in 1991, and it was later published in Italian in Se vi pare che questo mondo sia brutto in 1999. The essay was included in the anthology The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick by Pantheon Books in 1995, and later by Vintage Books.[19]

The original speech delivered at Metz differs in many ways from the published essay, as many significant points raised, often in relation to a question and answer period, such as Dick's famous declaration, "We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in our reality occurs",[α] did not find its way into the final essay. A second followup speech, "How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later" (1978) was written a year later, but it is unlikely that it was ever delivered to an audience. It was first included in I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (1985).[1]

Berkeley Pacifica radio station KPFA was allegedly the first to publish, air, and popularize the audio of the Metz speech in 1978, followed by a re-broadcast in 1982.[20] The video of the lecture was released on the internet in the 2000s.

Notes and references

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Notes

  1. ^ This quote occurs at 17:16 in the edited version of the video hosted by CNRS.

References

  1. ^ a b Sutin, Lawrence (Ed.). (1995). The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings. 1st ed. Pantheon Books. ISBN 9780679426448. OCLC 30734361.
  2. ^ a b Williams, Paul (1986). Only Apparently Real: The World of Philip K. Dick. New York: Arbor House. pp. 15-18; 147. ISBN 0877958009. OCLC 12978503.
  3. ^ Robb, Brian J. (2006). Counterfeit Worlds: Philip K. Dick on Film. London: Titan. p. 30. ISBN 9781840239683. OCLC 60965602.
  4. ^ a b Williams, Paul (Ed.) (1991). The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick. Underwood Books. p. 237. ISBN 0887331041. OCLC 20671009.
  5. ^ Dick, Philip K. (1976). "Man, Android and Machine". In Nicholls, Peter (Ed.) Science Fiction at Large: A Collection of Essays, by Various Hands, About the Interface Between Science Fiction and Reality. London: Gollancz. ISBN 0575021780. OCLC 1392110040.
  6. ^ a b c d e Sutin, Lawrence (1989). Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick. 1st ed. New York: Harmony Books. pp. 250-252. ISBN 9780517572047. OCLC 19354368.
  7. ^ Warrick, Patricia (July 1982). "In Memory of Philip K. Dick". Science Fiction Studies. 9 (2): 227-228.
  8. ^ a b Buchanan, Nick (February 2017). "Mes Excuses". PKD Otaku. 35. pp. 4-6.
  9. ^ a b Dick, Philip K; Herron, Don (Ed.). (1993). The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick: 1977-1979. Novato: Underwood-Miller. pp. 83-84; 101-103. ISBN 0887331203. OCLC 20671009.
  10. ^ Anton, Uwe; Fuchs, Werner; Bertrand, Frank C. (Spring 1996). "So I Don't Write About Heroes: An Interview with Philip K. Dick". SF Eye. pp. 37–46.
  11. ^ a b Schejtman, Fabián. (2018). Philip Dick con Jacques Lacan Clínica Psicoanalítica Como Ciencia-Ficción. Buenas Aires: Grama ediciones.ISBN 9878372286. OCLC 1228032635.
  12. ^ Heller, Jason. (2018). Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded.  London: Melville House. p. 149. ISBN 1612196977. OCLC 1088606485.
  13. ^ a b Dick, Philip K. (1995). "Introduction to The Golden Man". In Sutin, Lawrence (Ed.) The Shifting Reality of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0679426442. OCLC 30734361.
  14. ^ Brunner, John (1987)[2002]. "Introduction". In Second Variety: And Other Classic Stories from Philip K. Dick. ISBN 0806512261. OCLC 7387062. Note: Brunner originally published this passage in a preface to The Best of Philip K. Dick by Ballantine in 1986.
  15. ^ DiTommaso, Lorenzo (1999). "Redemption in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle". Science Fiction Studies. 26 (1).
  16. ^ Dick, Philip K. (1995). "If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others". In Sutin, Lawrence (Ed.) The Shifting Reality of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0679426442. OCLC 30734361.
  17. ^ Goullet, Gilles (2002). "Philip K. Dick. Metz, Sept. 77, Interview". Le ParaDick. Retrieved July 22, 2024.
  18. ^ Guiot, Denis (January 1979). "Le Retour des explorateurs, Philip K. DICK (critique de Denis GUIOT)". Fiction. 297.
  19. ^ If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
  20. ^ "Philip K. Dick: The Metz Speech". KPFA Folio. p. 7. October 1982.
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