"Un-Man," VI, pp. 47-48.
On these pages, Poul Anderson summarizes information about future society through the reflections of the Un-Man, Naysmith, e.g.:
"Murderers lurked in the slums around Manhattan Crater..." (p. 48)
Why should there be slums and crime around a crater? See Existence And Craters about a different Anderson future.
Naysmith refers to:
"...the World Wars and the Years of Hunger and the Years of Madness and the economic breakdowns..." (ibid.)
- thus again reviewing the background of the Psychotechnic History to date.
He contrasts:
Hindu peasants and their tiny fields with Chinese collectives and their new power plants;
murderers in the slums with technicians able to "...buy a house and furniture for six months' pay..." (ibid.);
floating ocean colonies and cities on the Moon, Mars and Venus with rain-cloud drummers in the Congo -
- and asks, "Reconciliation - how?" (ibid.)
A civilization that has built the massive apartment buildings (see The Daily Life Of The Future) and colonized the oceans and the planets can surely technologize peasant agriculture, clear the slums and improve conditions in the Congo? I suspect that Anderson projects present social divisions unnecessarily into a changed future.
Naysmith reflects that modern technology requires neither physical laborers nor routine intellectuals but highly trained technicians and therefore that:
"...education had to start early and, being free as long as you could pass exams, be ruthlessly selective." (p. 47)
He asks: how is it possible to escape the resultant snobbishness and friction? My answer: technology is made for man, not man for technology. Education, continuing to be free, should develop the diverse aptitudes and interests of the entire population, not just of that minority that can be selected for highly skilled technical roles.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I thought it was obvious why slums and criminals infesting them could be found around the edges of craters like that in Manhattan: land there was undesired and hence cheap. And even slums would provide SOME shelter for the down and outs of society. But it would provide lurking places for criminals, unfortunately.
I don't share your optimism, because there will always be some, high tech or not, who simply won't or even CAN'T succeed. Which is why I'm skeptical of such panaceas as "education." Esp. if that "education" involves giving up cherished ideas and beliefs (e.g., those Hindu peasants again).
Ad astra! Sean
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