After jumping five thousand years into the future, Edward Langley reflects:
"'What price progress?...I've gotten pessimistic about change for the sake of change; a petrified civilization may be the only final answer for man, provided it's reasonably humane. I don't see much to choose between either of the great powers today.'" (p. 102)
Human beings are capable of dynamism and creativity, not just petrification!
Langley continues:
"'There will never be peace and freedom till every individual man out of a majority, at least, is prepared to think for himself and act accordingly; and I'm becoming afraid that day will never come.'" (p. 103)
That day will not come spontaneously but individuals and society interact. Major social movements can oblige more individuals to think for themselves. While we breathe, there is hope.
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I am not so optimistic--because humans are going to continue being flawed, imperfect, quarrelsome, and all too prone to being violent. And compared to so many real world regimes in the here and now the Technarchy of THE LONG WAY HOME was not that bad. Nothing like either the monstrous USSR or a totally failed nation like Haiti. That latter is a gruesome example of what happens when even a bad gov't fails to maintain some kind of order.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
There can be conditions in which people are not quarrelsome and not prone to violence.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I don't believe in that--my conviction remains that humans can and will quarrel and fight about anything, no matter how prosperous they are.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But there will be no need to fight when there is shared prosperity not only of the body but also of the mind. I do not dream of attacking my daughter and every younger woman can be like my daughter. My tribe can embrace the whole species.
Paul.
Paul: I'd be much more convinced that 'tribe' can embrace the whole species if we were threatened by -another- species.
Tribalism evolved as an part of our instinctual repertoire to deal with inter-group conflicts and rivalries.
Furthermore, the larger the 'tent' of your tribe, the more fragile the feeling of inclusion and the easier it is to lapse into internal feuding.
Kaor, Paul!
No, mere prosperity and a long peace will not, by themselves, make everybody peaceful, mild, gentle. In fact I suspect sheer boredom will make some people start quarreling, just for something to do, as we see in GENESIS.
Moreover, what would unify the kind of "tribe" you hope for? I suspect Stirling is right, I think mankind is more likely to unite if Earth was threatened by a hostile alien species.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
"...mere prosperity and a long peace..." There would be nothing "mere" about that! "...sheer boredom..."? That is a terrible indictment of humanity. Some people living through a transition to a genuine peace would not adjust - career soldiers for a start - but people brought up in changed conditions would take those conditions for granted and would benefit from the opportunities offered by a peace that would active and dynamic, not passive.
What would unify us? Shared life. Common humanity. Inherited traditions reassessed, for some (not all) Christianity. Our instincts are something that we can understand and reassess. Of course this is not easy but is not worth trying to do?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then we cannot agree. I don't believe mere "changed conditions" will somehow magically transform human beings from what we are: imperfect, flawed, prone to being quarrelsome and violent, etc.
I agree it's right/necessary for people to strive to be better than what we/they are. But that's not going to be true of everybody and not all will succeed. And, yes, ennui/boredom will be a problem in any society with a post-scarcity economy, as Anderson apparently believed would be the case in THE HARVEST OF STARS books and GENESIS.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It will not be somehow magical. People do respond and behave differently in different circumstances. We are not prone to be quarrelsome and violent in any and every circumstances. People are very prone to help strangers in distress, to donate to charities, to organize neighbourhood events and to cooperate with each other.
Just to say "a post-scarcity economy" is to imply no necessity to do paid work, therefore nothing to do! People find lots of things to do voluntarily in their spare time even in a scarcity economy.
Paul.
Paul: what unifies people is an external threat.
And even that doesn't work. Eg., in North America some sense of joint "Indianness" did arise, eventually, but it was nonexistent when the first English settlers arrived, and never became very strong.
Which is why there were always Indians fighting for the whites as well as against them.
In Alan Moore's WATCHMEN, a superhero fakes an alien threat.
And prevents WWIII.
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