"The first part of instruction was physical and psychological. Everard had never realized how his own life had crippled him, in body and mind; he was only half the man he could be. It came hard, but in the end it was a joy to feel the utterly controlled power of muscles, the emotions which had grown deeper for being disciplined, the swiftness and precision of conscious thought." (Time Patrol, p. 12)
The world needs an end to divisive ideological indoctrination and the education of an entire global generation, if not by Poul Anderson's Time Patrol, then maybe by his Psychotechnic Institute: controlled muscles; disciplined emotions; swift and precise conscious thought. Exactly.
Near the end of The Shape Of Things To Come, HG Wells contrasts two street scenes: a confused and fearful crowd in the twentieth century as against the intelligent and curious individuals of the twenty second century - a better outcome than Morlocks and Eloi. Wells excelled at utopias as well as dystopias.
Anderson's Time Patrol seems just about perfect but what a pity that they have to conceal all their advantages from earlier generations.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I say NO to the Psychotechnic Institute. We both know how badly that eventually turned out. And I'm skeptical that we will ever see an to all "idelogical indoctrination." Right now, fanatical Muslims indoctrinated in the Koran, Hadiths, Sharia, etc., are esp. bad.
And you already know how skeptical I am of utopias! A skepticism Poul Anderson also shared. A society which is simply not too terribly bad is about the most we can hope for.
Sean
Sean,
I know that the Institute went wrong. I thought that it started out rather well but then overreached itself.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly! The imperfect and flawed nature of mankind simply was not that easy to abolish!
Sean
Jerry Pournelle, in the anthology *There Will Be War*, wrote an afterword to "Marius" that implied the view that the Institute was wrong from the beginning:
"The usual interpretation of this story is that civilization has been saved; that Etienne Fourre is correct, and the social theories of Professor Valti should prevail.
"Yet this is not entirely clear. If soldiers have no great record as governors, academics have done no better--indeed, there are those who say it is better to be governed by a tyrant than by a theory. Certainly I would prefer to live under General Reinach, who is concerned for the suffering children he sees, than under those who have taken his place and see only unborn generations."
...
"Fourre and Valti are more concerned with theory--such as how many representatives shall be sent to the United Nations--than with such practical matters as rats and plague."
I'm not altogether sure of the rights and wrongs of either side, here ... but Pournelle raised some points I feel worthy of consideration.
David,
There is an additional factor here. The sf premise of "Marius" is that a practical predictive science of society is possible and that Valti has started to apply it so he is not a mere abstract academic like Plato.
Later in that future history, the Institute finds that its equations cannot cope with all the social variables. Instead of simply admitting this, they start to fake their results... The unforgivable sin for any scientist.
Paul.
The training seemed excessive. An Unattached agent might need knowledge of 50,000 years of weaponry and how to fly spacecraft, but he wasn't one then. Why would lesser ranks need thi ?
John,
I agree. Extremely excessive.
Paul.
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