This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt word, “altruism,” is brought to us by Rohini. Check out their blog here!

My first real exposure to the concept of altruism was in a Science Fiction class I took in high school. Throughout a single school year, we read fourteen novels; it was amazing how many of the plots and characters lacked altruism.

From Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, a heartbreaking novel that’s stayed with me for forty-plus years, to 1984 by George Orwell, to Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury and many others, the absolutely dismal amount of caring is astounding.

It occurs to me now how many science fiction novels paint science as distanced from humanity. Then again, many of them are based around the idea of future governments taking over with little regard to anyone but their own ranks.

I wonder why that sounds so familiar.

This science fictiony post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link in the comments. It’s fun!

Thanks again to Rohini for today’s prompt!