"'There aren't any turning points in history, except those we arbitrarily chose long afterward.'" (p. 179)
No turning points? The Time Patrol recognizes nexuses when it does matter more than usual what happens. Olaf Stapledon's Last And First Men describes the early twentieth century as a turning point. Someone commented that every age would regard itself as a turning point. I don't think so. Some ages regarded their regimes as changeless. But maybe we have been in a continual turning point or succession of turning points since the Industrial Revolution? What the human race needs is change without the continual threat of annihilation.
"'...the ecological restoration program. Earth too shall bloom.'" (p. 179)
And, in "Watershed" at the end of James Blish's The Seedling Stars, Adapted Men are about to reseed the desert planet, Earth. Sf writers envisage remote future turning points.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And most people are too busy with their everyday lives to think of nexuses and turning points. Or, bluntly, don't care. And it would be better if more of us did care, and took an interest in history and speculations about the future.
This is as good a place as any to tell you I'm going away for a week's holiday, starting tomorrow. So I will be "gone" from the blog for seven days.
Ad astra! Sean
Thanks.
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