The science fiction starts on p. 24, the eighteenth page of the text, when a circle of earth, ten feet wide, twenty thick, rises straight into the air in response to an instrument held by Storm.
There have been more hints of her futurity. She referred to "'...your current work on the genetic code.'" (CHAPTER TWO, p. 20)
Obviously Lockridge is not working on the genetic code! She predicts that:
"'...it will be possible to know what a man is fit for before he is born.'" (ibid.)
Storm refers not to the full development of the potential within each individual human being but only to the subordination of the bulk of the population within a hierarchical society with herself as one of the goddesses. Lockridge says that he prefers everyone to be born free. I agree with him but we will be freer in a society where understanding of genetics and psychology is used in the service of individual enrichment and development. I want something like Anderson's earlier Psychotechnic Institute, not manipulating mass psychology but sharing its knowledge and acknowledging when it is still ignorant.
When Storm says:
"'Ninety per cent of this species are domestic animals by nature.'" (ibid.)
- she sounds like Nicholas van Rijn at the end of "The Master Key." See Philosophy And Fiction IV. However, van Rijn wants to sell to the masses, not to domesticate them.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I still think you are missing the point underlying what Nicholas van Rijn said near the end of "The Master Key." What made him angry was his belief that too many humans WANT to be "domesticated animals" being taken care of as the Cainites took care of their Lugals.
Nor do I think every human being has the kind of "potential," or even the desire to have that kind of "potential" that you were talking about. Bluntly, most humans will become philosophers, artists, scientists, scholars, aesthetes, or even restrained, sophisticated sybarites. The most you can do is let such opportunities be open to those who want them.
Sean
In a technical sense, human beings -are- domesticated animals; self-domesticated. We share the characteristic physical characteristics of domesticated animals; physical and behavioral neoteny, for example.
This has become increasingly so throughout human and pre-human hominid history. If you compare a baby chip and a baby human, they -look- more alike than the adult specimens of either species, and adult humans look more "baby-like" than adult chimps.
Genetics may tell us things we very much don't want to know... 8-).
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Again, many thanks for making very interesting and PERTINENT comments. And remarks I agree with. I was also reminded of "Vercors" very telling novel, YOU SHALL KNOW THEM. Too briefly, more primitive hominids more resembled apes than they did undisputed human beings. I would call Vercors' book "anthropological" science fiction.
I've also seen how similar analogies were made comparing wolves and dogs with each other. Domesticated canids (dogs) were less "wild" than wolves. Wolf cubs were more doglike than adult wolves. And so on.
Sean
Sean
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