Contrast the awesomeness of where Broderson and his crew have been, with the Others at the end of two universes and the beginning of a new universe, with the pettiness of Ira Quick and his crony trying to save if not their political then at least their personal hides when their crimes have been exposed. Joelle the holothete is all too conscious that there are different levels of consciousness and that she is blind on many wavelengths both literally and figuratively. Quick and his fellow conspirators both fail to realize that they are blind and at the same time struggle to remain so!
We are in a similar situation, still struggling on Earth while surrounded by the universe.
"Do we want to remain big people in a tiny world or to become little people in a vaster world? This is the ultimate climax to which I have directed my narrative.
"J.B.
"17 January 2021"
-Fred Hoyle, The Black Cloud (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1965), EPILOGUE, p. 219.
16 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Pettiness is always going to be a part of human lives. And the desire to save one's hide.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Nothing is always going to be part of human lives.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Humans being what they are, pettiness will continue to exist.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Human beings will not remain what they are. Nothing remains what it is. Everything changes. The future will be different. I think that that is a (well founded) premise of sf.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And all our vices and faults will continue to exist.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Not necessarily.
Since everything changes, how can one aspect of reality become permanently unchanging?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
You insist on perfection--I don't believe/expect humans to ever be perfect.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I insist on change, not perfection.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But the implication is that you expect those "changes" to somehow eliminate our flaws, which I don't believe will happen.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I do more than imply. I think not that we will be the passive recipients of some externally occurring "changes" but that we CAN actively change our psychologies and our societies (these two aspects are interdependent and interactive) in ways that will eliminate these flaws. People who lack nothing materially or culturally and who have been brought up to value diversity instead of to resent differences will have no reason to be motivated by "malice" in their dealings with others. I spell this out in concrete contexts, not just in abstract platitudes.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And humans being what we are I believe something will always come up that will thwart such grandiose hopes. I don't believe material and technological changes will remove our innate flaws. No, your hopes are only that, hopes.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
And human beings will not remain what we are. And more that material and technological change will be involved. And innate flaws started some time so they can end some time. My hopes are based on experience, observation and potentialities.
Paul.
Me earlier: "People who lack nothing materially or culturally AND who have been brought up to value diversity..." That is a social change as well as a material and technological one. I don't think that you respond to the details of what is said.
Kaor, Paul!
I remain unconvinced, as was also the case with Anderson in stories of his as late as GENESIS. We are going to have to agree to disagree.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We are not trying to agree. I do not claim to agree with Anderson on this.
Of course you are not convinced. This is psychological, not just intellectual. Nothing that I say will convince you. Most people most of the time are determined to cling to their beliefs no matter what is said against them.
I am not going to change my beliefs because of a single argument. That is not how it works. But I have changed my beliefs over a lifetime until now and I am open to further changes although I will have to hear a better argument than that the way people are now is the way they are always going to be. (When how we are now is the result of change.)
I am formally committed to a particular view of how society can be changed but I question how this can work in practice. And we certainly know that, whatever happens in the future, it will not conform mechanically or schematically to any of our presuppositions. Theory is grey. Life is green. As Lenin quoted from Goethe.
Paul.
Humans cue their behavior on their immediate social environment.
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