Death’s End is the third book in the trilogy that began with The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest. The 4rth in the series, The Redemption of Time, was co-authored by Baoshu with Cixin Liu. I will reference all four books but my main theme comes from Death’s End.

Cixin Liu

Translated by Ken Liu

China Educational Publications, 2016

ISBN (PB) 9781784971656

724 pages

Review by Joe Szimhart

December 2022

Spoiler alert: This essay/review will reveal some essential themes in the novels to be discussed.

Death’s End, the third book in The Three-Body Problem trilogy by Cixin Liu (published 2004 in Chinese in The People’s Republic of China; 2016 in English) is a fascinating saga about what happens after an Earth scientist contacts an alien civilization on a planet with three suns. For his effort, Mr. Liu won a Hugo Award for science fiction, the first Asian to do so. Called Trisolarans, the aliens are technologically far more advanced but psychologically quite different than humans—Trisolarans cannot hide their thoughts from each other! The story spans centuries with main characters reappearing throughout after submitting to hibernation technology that perfectly preserves the person over decades or centuries. An inevitable tension arises when Trisolaran spaceships approach the solar system. Humans are divided over whether to view the Trisolarans as friendly or a threat. Religious projections arise among human factions that interpret the approaching visitation as the Second Coming and find symbols of a Blessed Mother that will care for humans. Others are skeptical, sensing potential annihilation of humans. The reality that emerges is far more complex.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story that bases much of the fiction on plausible if fantastic science. However, I am not about to review the entire story here. My interest is in Cixin Liu’s keen plot twists that include conflicts in social dynamics, political theory, and individual creative power. I will concentrate on one concept introduced by Liu in the third book, Death’s End and on another featured in the second book, The Dark Forest.

The fourth book, The Redemption of Time (2016, English translation), resolves a host of gaps in the story—what do Trisolarans look like, for example—as well as explores the cosmic foundations of the story through myth and science. It explores questions about why humanity is here at all, why do we have time, and the riddle of a ten-layered universe in a multi-universe reality. For example, I found references to Gnostic myth (260), Greek myth, Chinese myth, string theory, and why a great prophet said we should love our enemies. On page 163, the authors reference Nietzsche’s terrifying Myth of the Eternal Return wherein infinite time, everything can be repeated ad infinitum. On page 128, they paraphrase St. Paul in the Christian Gospel regarding the immortal putting on immortality (appears to reference Paul’s letter to 1 Corinthians). The authors cast a wide net into the cosmological and spiritual ocean to augment scientific themes for their story of human origins and destiny in The Redemption of Time.

The cynical concept behind the title, The Dark Forest, is basically this: The universe is populated by various life forms that evolved into technologically advance civilizations on perhaps uncountable amounts of planets in star systems. Once a highly advanced life culture contacts another, it is impossible to tell whether that life form will be friendly. As a result, a hunter culture arose in the dark forest of the universe. The only recourse to secure self-preservation is to destroy an alien planet’s solar system before it can destroy yours once there is intelligent contact. As soon as humans naively contact Trisolaran culture, the total annihilation game was on.

Like the Fermi paradox: https://kottke.org/tag/The%20Three-Body%20Problem

With this as a theme, social pressures develop among humans on a reality scale never experienced in human history. Prior to this dark forest revelation, human cultures invented myths and stories about all powerful deities who could and did destroy the world as humans knew it—but it was religious belief, not hard reality. Coping with this new and dire reality led to Liu’s introduced concept of “social pressure personality disorder” that I wish to explore here.

In Death’s End, in a futuristic era when humans could reappear intact decades or centuries after hibernation, an astronaut soldier on trial in a spaceship for treason argues his case:

“I’m from California. In 1967, under the old calendar, a high school teacher in my hometown, Ron Jones did something interesting—please do not interrupt me. Thank you!

“In order to help his students to understand Nazism and totalitarianism, he tried to create a simulation of a totalitarian society with his students. It took only five days for him to succeed and his class to become a miniature fascist state. Every student willingly gave up the self and freedom, became one with the supreme collective and pursued the collective’s goals with religious zeal. In the end, this teaching experiment that began as a harmless game almost spun out of control. The Germans made a film based on Jones’s experiment, and Jones himself wrote the book about it: The Third Wave. When those of us aboard Bronze Age found out that we were doomed to wander space forever, we formed a totalitarian state as well. Do you know how long it took?

“Five minutes.

“That’s right. Five minutes into the all-hands meeting, the fundamental values of this totalitarian society had received the support of the vast majority of the crew. So, let me tell you! When humans are lost in space, it takes all of five minutes to reach totalitarianism.” (Pp 124, 125)

And later in Death’s End, an evolved human in a future time chides a newly awakened hibernator from the past:

“You’re one of those people from the past, like my dissertation advisor, torn by conflict between two ideals. But, in our age, conscience and duty are not ideals: an excess of either is seen as a mental illness called social-pressure personality disorder. You should seek treatment.” (p 133)

Social pressure personality disorder is a mental illness in a future culture as imagined by Cixin Lui through one of his fascinating characters that I encountered while reading his best-selling trilogy. Mr. Liu won applause from millions of fans at home and abroad including President Barack Obama whose endorsement was printed on the cover of the third book: “Wildly imaginative, really interesting…” Couched as science fiction, Liu nevertheless risked censure by his government by exploring criticism of totalitarian societies and how political pressure affects individual choice and perception. In our present world, social pressure personality disorder is not an available diagnosis approved by the Diagnostic Systems Manual (DSM) for mental health professionals. Should it be included? Does it help define what critics of controversial cults observe in highly motivated cult members?

The reference to “The Wave” incident in 1967 when a high school teacher named Ron Jones created a mock fascist cult among his students that got out of control within a week is well-known to the average deprogrammer and cult specialist. The 1981 “After School Special” docudrama based on that incident became a go-to video during interventions to help clients grasp just how easily an authority figure can manipulate a devoted crowd to become a faction of fanatics with a radically superior group personality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qlBC45jk3I

https://www.thewavehome.com/film/

We will explore similar, behavior-related notions listed as disorders (or not) in diagnostic manuals.

1.       In a book by James Morrison, Diagnosis Made Easier, we read that “Relational disorder” is not yet sorted out in the DSM mentioned above. “The early years of the 21st Century have witnessed a huge debate over whether to include relational problems as a regular part of future diagnostic manuals. As of this writing, the issue hadn’t yet been sorted out, but regardless of the degree to which they are formulated in criteria, the problems still exist and must be identified and treated.”[1]

2.       Folie à deux is communicated insanity or psychosis of association—a shared psychotic disorder. Again, this requires a social relationship held together by a basic assumption that is either unprovable, fantastic, or delusional. In mental health, the influencer (inducer) might have a diagnosed disorder—schizophrenia, for example—, whereas the influenced adapt to the basic assumption of the influencer. The influencer might be the messenger for a deity who resides on a planet in another star system, for example. But it gets complicated.

3.       “Recent psychiatric classifications refer to the syndrome as shared psychotic disorder (DSM-4 – 297.3) and induced delusional disorder (ICD-10 – F24), although the research literature largely uses the original name. This disorder is not in the current, fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), which considers the criteria to be insufficient or inadequate. DSM-5 does not consider Shared Psychotic Disorder (Folie à Deux) as a separate entity; rather, the physician should classify it as "Delusional Disorder" or in the "Other Specified Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorder".”

              And to extend folie à deux, we have this: Folie imposée

“Where a dominant person (known as the 'primary', 'inducer', or 'principal') initially forms a delusional belief during a psychotic episode and imposes it on another person or persons (the 'secondary', 'acceptor', or 'associate') with the assumption that the secondary person might not have become deluded if left to his or her own devices. If the parties are admitted to hospital separately, then the delusions in the person with the induced beliefs usually resolve without the need of medication.”[2]

4.       Turning back Morrison in Diagnosis Made Easier, we read this about folie à deux: “To an extent, the devotees of religious cults occupy this same boat, believing often impossible stories fed them by leaders. Some of these leaders may be psychotic, as was probably true of Marshall Applewhite, who founded the Heaven’s Gate cult…Other leaders may have personality disorders or other mental problems. Some writers believe that shared psychotic disorder isn’t really a specific illness at all, but a phenomenon in some way attached to psychotic illnesses.” [3]

5.       Overvalued ideation is a symptom of the mind that does not qualify as delusion yet takes something of value and exaggerates it, for example, to sell it. Snake oil preparations or tonics in the 19th Century may have had some value as sedatives or antibacterial lotions, but the hype or sales pitch often made the product appear miraculous. The same overvalued ideation might be applied to salvation roads offered by grandiose evangelical preachers who guarantee glory to loyalists to their sect. More to the point, Andrew Sims writes in Symptoms in the Mind: “An overvalued idea is an acceptable, comprehensible idea pursued by the patient beyond bounds of reason. It is usually associated with abnormal personality…An overvalued idea…is an isolated notion associated with strong affect and abnormal personality, and similar in quality to passionate political, religious, or ethical conviction…The patient with the overvalued idea invariably acted on it, determinedly and repeatedly; it is almost carried out with the drive of an instinct, like nest building.” And: “Morbid jealousy is often an overvalued idea.”[4]

Relational problems, shared crazy ideas, and overvalued ideas are all observable features in psychosocial behavior. It is not much of a stretch, in my view, to find an occurrence of social pressure personality disorder arising in those contexts. We have all experienced, either directly or vicariously, an entire throng of people “go crazy,” at least temporarily at a music concert, soccer match, or spirit-filled church service. If that state of mind is sustained over time due to social influence, the related behavior could appear as a disorder. An example might be throngs of Rajneesh devotees lined up along a road feeling bliss while their guru drives by in one of his 80 Rolls Royce luxury cars.[5] Due to the suspect reputation and manipulative behavior of the guru, devotional behavior toward him would be characterized as social pressure personality disorder according to the futuristic character in Death’s End.

But the context in the novel is important. The central character accused of having a mental illness, Cheng Xin, argues, “There’s almost three centuries separating us. I don’t expect us to understand each other right away” (Death’s End, 133). The question is about duty and conscience, about when either or both are ideologically urgent. In that future time, showing such urgency is unnecessary when society remains quite stable—for the time, at least. Of course, this is science fiction with dramatic turns, so Cheng Xin’s idealism and sense of urgent duty comes to the fore as realistic again.

The point here is that context is everything if not only counting for a lot. The idealism and duty in devotion to the guru, Rajneesh, is a disorder because the context is silly, selfish, manipulated, lacking in healthy social value, and regrettable in the long run to former devotees who awakened to and rejected the corruption of spirituality they experienced in the guru, in the group, and in themselves. Of course, today we yet have people who think Rajneesh, a.k.a. Osho, was a genius, but his social relevance to historical reality is practically nil—he led a small, eccentric faction of humans for a while; and then he died. Cheng Xin’s role as a special agent of insight against the alien enemy has an ominously relevant social context when that enemy reappears. And the enemy does reappear.

Going back to Symptoms in the Mind by Sims, he writes under “Disturbances in Judgement” that “religious experiences are usually regarded by the believer as being metaphorical or ‘spiritual’; the physical boundaries of self are not invaded. In fact, the paradox the Christian describes is that he is a ‘freer’ person, more independent of external influences than previously, when Christ ‘lives in him’.[6]

Sims is talking about mental context. The context in the mind shifts into poor reality testing when the thinker moves beyond metaphor and unknowable transcendent spirituality into certainty and absolutism—the Holy Spirit prophesied through me that the world will end before this generation passes away. The latter overvalued idea came to Hal Lindsay in his blockbuster, best-selling religious tome, The Late Great Planet Earth, first published in 1970. Lindsay predicted that the Apocalypse predicted in the Book of Revelations will occur in 1988. Coincidently, the New Age phenomenon called The Harmonic Convergence based on The Mayan Calendar by Jose Arguelles triggered a worldwide apocalyptic event in 1987. Yes, tens of millions of spiritually inclined human beings bought into these two prophecies. The world did not change much during those two years, unless you are apt to think that the election of President Bill Clinton or the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, becoming the longest-serving Prime Minister of the 20th century, were earth-shaking events.

The realistic Christian (or reality-based follower of any religion) can sustain a healthy reality-tested life while properly compartmentalizing her metaphysical inner world. Someone with schizophrenia, extreme overvalued ideas, or, in this argument, social pressure personality disorder, likely cannot.

My last point regards the foundation of the American republic in the late 18th Century. In The Federalist Papers, the writers addressed the public through a series of 85 essays published between October 1787 and May 1788 to clarify the concepts of a new government proposed by the founders. Without the persuasive talents of Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, the new nation may have not formed when it did. Federalist 10, written by James Madison, has emerged as one of the more important foundation documents for American constitutional interpretation. 10 concerns “factions” that form inevitably due to the nature of man.

Madison saw, for example, that the Southern states would align with factions that protected their agrarian way of life, whereas Northern states would protect their manufacturing and shipping interests. Furthermore, the working class and poor would form factions against the landed gentry and industrial tycoons.  We can extend this to other factions formed among the intelligentsia and the illiterate, the liberal and the conservative, the religious and the secular. The argument that the Constitution protected the rights of the people fell into imprecise and fuzzy approaches to the embarrassing facts of slavery and treatment of indigenous peoples. The peoples’ rights when dealing with children, women, slaves, natives, and the labor classes were essentially punted by the founders to a future time. The more perfect union dreamed of has been a progressing if painful journey.

The Federalist writers through Madison argued that repression and forced homogenization of the public would not work and, in any case, was antithetical to the spirit of freedom in the Constitution. Thus, the proper solution was a most difficult one, to manage the effects of factionalism:

Madison (in papers 9 and 10) saw the federal Constitution as providing for a "happy combination" of a republic and a purer democracy, with "the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures" resulting in a decentralized governmental structure. In his view, this would make it "more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried."[7] By vicious arts, Madison meant factional propaganda and influence using exaggeration and convincing lies. By spreading the viciousness into segments, no one big lie would likely sweep the country, and the debates could allow for a more reasonable awareness among the electors. In other words, less voters should suffer from social pressure personality disorder in the end. In current times, we saw the “vicious arts” of radical anti-government conspirators create the Q-Anon faction of millions of American true-believers that supported President Trump.

Factions form under influence games of social pressure that seek to alter the social and psychological environs to fulfill selfish or even delusional agendas. Selfishness alone in these contexts is not of necessity a bad thing: Suffragettes acted in feminine self-interest as well as national interest. Selfishness in factions turn bad when one class seeks to suppress another class of people, when white supremacists seek to interfere with the rights of black people, immigrants, or non-Protestants. Factions can also creep into the elite classes in business and education. Freedom of the press can collapse into freedom of liberal ideas only. We do not have to mention the problems of monopoly and oligarchy—those factions are a constant threat to free enterprise. As the writers of the Federalist Papers knew well, the flaws in human nature will ever threaten the stability of the social fabric. The proper, Constitutional approach should be through managing the effects without extreme authoritarian controls. In other words, the nation should avoid falling into social pressure personality disorder on a national scale.

Social pressure that causes personality disorders must be tolerated in democratic republics if they are to prevent reasonable freedoms from evaporating under totalitarian rule. The lesson from Death’s End remains: Totalitarian rule is likely unavoidable when an entire culture is under threat of annihilation without acting as a unit to defend themselves. It took only “five minutes” for totalism to arise among thousands of humans in outer space on a warship in the novel.

Both extreme conservatives and extreme liberals fear that a kind of global factionalism will arise unless they can stop the opposition. One side weaponizes the climate crisis, gender-fluid equality, and the environment while the other weaponizes their versions of nation, God, and the family. Americans can only hope that state and federal governments will properly manage the effects of both versions of social pressure personality disorder. Spaceship Earth, under global informational overload in the digital age, is ripening for takeover by factions that selfishly want to rule the world. We could end up with a planet with a pervasive social pressure personality disorder.

The cult I was in, Church Universal and Triumphant, decreed and prayed against a New World Order arising that would control the planet. The irony of the cult philosophy was its desire to be that one government that rules the world through its Ascended Masters. The themes in Cixin’s trilogy reverberate throughout the dark forest of exclusive and totalist cults operating throughout the planet.

One issue I have with Death’s End character who labels the hero, Cheng Xin with a personality disorder is that she calls it a mental illness. Having a personality disorder does not mean you are mentally ill.  We all have personality or characterological traits that make us unique. Having a keener than average sense of duty toward a contract, a job, or a family does not rank as a disorder. Expecting everyone to believe we are important does. The latter is typically called narcissism. And the typical narcissist might be socially annoying and manipulative, but that does not mean he is mentally ill.[8]

In any case, diagnosis for professionals in mental health is a process of continually refining and defining human behavior with new criteria based on experiment and evidence changing our manuals over time. Social pressure personality disorder might just show up in a future diagnostic manual.  

References:

Federalist Papers: https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/full-text

Symptoms in the Mind: An Introduction to descriptive psychopathology by Andrew Sims (1989)

“Extreme beliefs often mistaken for insanity, new study finds”, Science Daily (May 23, 2016)

Diagnosis Made Easier: Principles and Techniques for Mental Health Clinicians by James Morrison (2007)

 Footnotes:

[1] Diagnosis Made Easier: Principles and Techniques for Mental Health Clinicians by James Morrison, 2007 (264-265)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux#:~:text=DSM%2D5%20does%20not%20consider,Spectrum%20and%20Other%20Psychotic%20Disorder%22.

[3] Diagnosis Made Easier: Principles and Techniques for Mental Health Clinicians by James Morrison, 2007 (211)

[4] Symptoms in the Mind: An Introduction to descriptive psychopathology by Andrew Sims, 1989 (92-93) Also, see footnote 7.

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gr8YO078Ys  This YouTube video, “The Children of Osho Miniseries Part 1,” was produced by Cult Vault and features an interview with Sam Jahara, a mental health professional, who grew up in a Rajneesh (Osho) commune. Children were essentially set aside and controlled so their parents could pursue eccentric, guru-directed self-growth activities .Jahara called her cult childhood “mayhem” and “chaos.”

[6] Symptoms in the Mind: An Introduction to descriptive psychopathology by Andrew Sims, 1989 (114)

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._10#:~:text=Madison%20defines%20a%20faction%20as,community.%22%20He%20identifies%20the%20most

[8] “Extreme beliefs often mistaken for insanity, new study finds”, Science Daily (May 23, 2016) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160523130806.htm  “Current clinical guides, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, offer vague descriptions of alternative reasons a person may commit such crimes. Our suggested term for criminally violent behavior when psychosis can be ruled out is 'extreme overvalued belief.'"