First:
"Details change; the drama continues. Technology races ahead while people remain stubbornly the same. Recently I counted fourteen different sorts of astrology magazines on one news stand - but not one magazine on astronomy."
-Robert Heinlein, Preface IN Heinlein, The Man Who Sold The Moon (London, 1963), pp. 9-10.
In accordance with this:
in Heinlein's Future History, the US becomes a theocracy;
in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, the Humanist Revolt outlaws the Psychotechnic Institute;
later in the Psychotechnic History, there is global conflict between Kali worshipers, being one branch of the Ramakrishian Eclectics, and puritanical protechnologists.
(That last conflict, mentioned only once, remains off-stage and sounds implausible, at least as stated, the underlying issues less so.)
Secondly:
"Our wildest dreams of the future will be surpassed by what lies ahead of us. Come bad, come good, I want to take part in the show as long as possible.
"Robert A. Heinlein." (ibid.)
Exactly what Lazarus Long says. See Endings.
I am not happy about the "Come bad..." right now.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Robert Heinlein seems to have strongly disliked certain types of "evangelical" Protestantism, and my personal contacts with such persons makes that dislike very understandable! However, I remain skeptical that some kind of theocratic dictatorship springing from evangelical Protestantism is likely. For one thing Christianity is poor, stony ground for such a thing.
In a few stories like "The Bitter Bread," we do see Anderson speculating about a post WW III Protectorate arising to rule the US and most of the world, having some kind of Protestant established church. But it was plain the PROTECTORATE, not the church, was governing.
And, of course, one of the timelines in "Amazement of the World," shows a warped Catholic Church becoming a theocracy.
Unfortunately, at least for now, we are stuck with bad things like the coronavirus pandemic!
Ad astra! Sean
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