Alien Nation

Two major areas of intellectual life can be merged with quite a long story about science fiction space aliens and the philosophical and sociological concept of alienation.

This is an intriguing idea for several reasons. The vast scale and scope of such a story that encompasses everything in the separation of one's microscopic innermost individual subjectivity to the outermost reaches of the universe could just be enough to address all the very nuances of the fascinating concept of alienation alluding to the various interpretations of many authors.

It begins with a contemplation on the subject of alienation itself, and how the meaning of alienation has been alienated, so that the various meanings appear alien compared to the other. The scope of the story broadens to involve a protagonist who is conflicted with the alienation of self and others. The previous contemplations of alienation are revealed to be the protagonist's own, having been alienated from the protagonist for the purposes of story writing.

The story then proceeds to describe contemporary systems of alienation that further expand the scope of the novel to the modern world system. As the scope broadens it is made clear that each successive layer alienates the other by scale. Image alienates object, mind alienates image, mind alienates self, self to others, society to self, world system to society. Oh, and the protagonists are really two people Allie and Nathan, who are in love but find that they are separated by the alienating aspects of the world.

Then the aliens attack. The aliens hate alienation and will do anything to stop it. The people of Earth being alienated hate the alien nation and they conflict with them. Allie and Nathan are brought together through the conflict selling many copies, alienating their relationship further.

In a surprise ending Allie and Nathan are made to realize they are a single schizophrenic person. However quite suddenly having just won a victory against Earth, the aliens burst into the mental hospital and explain that they were tricked by the psychiatrists and are infact two separate people. They then get married, which offends the aliens. The end.