"If people were losing violence and cruelty, was that because they were losing an uncouth energy that had driven them from the caves to the ends of the Solar System? Could this evolution go on, or might it lash back in some new mania?" (p. 417)
This is a false dichotomy. Human beings can build and explore without being violent or cruel. New manias will arise only as long as we do not understand our own motives.
Patet veritas omnibus: "Truth lies open to all." (The motto of Lancaster University.)
Meanwhile, in Lancaster, it is raining and I must walk into town to meet a friend for lunch. An evening engagement, the sf group meeting at the Gregson Institute, has been cancelled for covid reasons.
5 comments:
The thesis in that statement -- one which I find persuasive -- is that the underlying drives which produce say, bold exploration, also produce violence and cruelty. Both require an indifference to pain, for example.
It is helpful to have the thesis spelt out a bit.
Kaor, Paul!
I have to disagree here. I think that kind of fierce, driving, uncouth energy is necessary for people to be creative, explorers, builders, etc. The violence and cruelty we rightly deplore are side effects or abuses of that kind of fierce determination. If we want the benefits from that kind of driving energy, then we have to accept the possibility of violence and cruelty.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But how much of this line of thinking is a rationalization of the kind of society that some of us happen to be living in?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I don't think what I wrote is a mere rationalization, but simply a description of what actually exists among imperfect, flawed, all too fallible human beings. And I don't believe it would be good for the human race if whatever it is that makes for fierce, driving, determination was somehow removed from the species. Again, if you want the benefits, then the possibility of abuse has to be accepted.
Could Michelangelo have achieve so MUCH in painting, sculpture, architecture if he had been lacking in that kind of passionate determination? A determination which, among its less pleasant aspects, led him to quarrel and feud with patrons and fellow artists. And so on and on in practically any field we can think of.
Ad astra! Sean
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