-Robert Heinlein, The Man Who Sold The Moon (London, 1963), p. 5.
How unfortunate that Heinlein's Future History Chart ends with the beginning of the first mature culture. (I do not accept any later Heinlein novels as valid additions to his Future History.)
Poul Anderson's first, Psychotechnic, future history, based directly on Heinlein's Future History, focuses on attempts to build a mature civilization. In Anderson's later Harvest Of Stars future history:
"'...my father told me how we finally had an adult civilization and in the course of time it would make all of us individually sane. But it's been changing faster and faster...'"
-The Fleet Of Stars, 13, p. 162.
The Psychotechnic Institute, rightly, worked both on individual and on social sanity. I agree that, in a mature civilization, there will no longer be any causes of individual insanity but civilizational maturity will not begin merely when someone says that it has.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Frankly, I disbelieve in such dreamy notions of a "mature" civilization. And Poul Anderson would probably agree with me. I only have to point out how, by the time of THE FLEET OF STARS, frustration and discontent was spreading on Earth, as more and more people became dissatisfied with their "mature" but smothering and stifling civilization.
Ad astra! Sean
The idea that civilizations are "mature" or "immature" is meaningless IMHO -- simply an expression of personal preference dressed up in 'objective' sounding language.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree! Dreams of a "mature" society, however that is defined, are pipe dreams. Usually from people hankering to impose THEIR plans on every body else.
Ad astra! Sean
Not always from people wanting to impose their plans! Sheila's and my daughter is mature because we did not impose anything on her. Like me, she would have responded very badly to the kind of directiveness that an earlier generation would have imposed.
I think that societies, like individuals can grow - can, not necessarily will.
Kaor, Paul!
I do not entirely agree. I think parents have a duty to train their children into being at least somewhat civilized, including some NORMS of right behavior. And when done firmly but gently I don't think that will harm the children.
Parents might even teach their children how to PRAY without that harming them. I remember how my mother taught me how to pray the Pater Noster, for example.
But I, and probably Stirling as well, had sweeping, grandiose, tyrannical "planners" in mind, such as the Nazis, Communists, or "Progressive" Republicans of Stirling's Black Chamber books.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment