Dark matter - the quiet way to change the universe

As we look around us on planet Earth the news we're fed by the media focuses on the bad things that happen.  We hear the latest incidents of terrorism and global warming, of how we are threatening the planet.  But this isn't the whole story of our existence.  It's nowhere near it.

The items that rise to the top of the news, that make it into mass consciousness, are a very, very, small part of the uncountable number of things that happen on our planet every day.  They're like the matter we can see in the universe, the part we can measure and react to.  But, just as in the universe, the majority of things that go on out there are unnoticed, like dark matter.  They're unseen, and undiscovered.

And some of that dark matter fuels the writing of books.  It fuels the championing of ideas and positions that the sound and fury of ordinary life (whatever that means) ignores.  It's a much quieter revolution than what ends up on TV.  Words drip into our minds, and cut channels there, channels that change how we think. 

Stephanie Saulter's world of gems and norms shows us the political, commercial, social, and moral consequences of bioengineering humans.  Humans who were used as slaves.  It is an exploration of where our limits should be.  Ann Leckie's challenge to the way we see gender in Ancillary Justice ruffled a lot of feathers.  When the uppity women won't even be classified as female so they can be ignored and discounted, things get uncomfortable.  Scott Westerfield's Uglies shows us what happens when beautifying ourselves goes too far.

All these voices use the dark matter of written words, black marks on a white page, to create ideas, scenarios, futures for us that may be terrifying.  And probably futures none of us would want to live in.  But that's the point of the stories.

The dark matter of stories can change our world.  Don't believe me?  Then why did the Sad and Rabid Puppies try to game the Hugos last year?  Because words are powerful.  Dark matter may not be visible, but without it the universe we know wouldn't exist.  And maybe our civilisations wouldn't exist if we didn't have the dark matter of stories, if we didn't have these explorations of morality to challenge and question us, and to keep us on a civilised path.