"'No, son, we're mortal - which is to say, we're ignorant, stupid and sinful - but those are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for?'"
-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-192 AT Chapter Eighteen, p. 192.
Mortality involves ignorance (finite knowledge) but need not be identical with either stupidity or sinfulness. Mankind need not have fallen, according to orthodox Christian theology - but Abrams is Jewish so that might not be relevant.
However, Abrams, you are holding us back! I think that we can aspire way beyond occasional success. We have evolved and progressed this far and can (not inevitably will) go further. SM Stirling's Draka go a lot further but unfortunately by enslaving others, not by liberating everyone.
Our prehuman ancestors became human by changing their environment and changing themselves in the process so I do not recognize any unchangeable sinfulness in us. Indeed, cooperation, not conflict, is fundamental to humanity. Solitary animals could not have become linguistic. Meditative practice points towards a nonattached and contemplative level of consciousness although our "karma" (dispositions and consequences of past actions) continues to "endarken" individual consciousness.
(That is a mixture of Buddhism and Darwinism but we do have to synthesize ancient wisdom with modern knowledge.)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Again, I have to disagree with you and agree with Abrams. It doesn't matter if we humans can change our environment and develop high technology. It does not change the brute fact of how flawed and imperfect we are. This imperfection manifests itself how we all tend to be all the things Abrams listed. And I disagree with both "social Darwinism" and Buddhism.
Sean
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