If Science Fiction still remembered its glory days, Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men would be listed next to the likes of The Foundation, The Martian Chronicles, 1984, The Time Machine, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Frankenstein. Struggling out of the darkest, slimiest depths of SF pulp in 1930, it prognosticated the rise and fall of sentience through willful destruction and degeneration, gleaming enlightened civilizations and their decay, the struggles of post-humanity along its lengthy retreat across the solar system through the aeons. Species after species from gentle yeti-like giants to giant brains to small nimble artificers and aquatic primitives succeed each other in the most grandiose of the great speculative works.
However, the story starts with a fairly detailed outline of the end of the First Men. That'd be you and me, gentle reader, unless some Neptunian post-human is reading over my shoulder from the year 2,000,000,000... in which case, ummm... sorry about wrecking the old homestead there buddy, no hard feelings? In any case, of Stapledon's many predictions about the nature of the coming Sino-American World State and its collapse, I'd like to focus on one rather poignant idiosyncrasy.
"For the all-pervading idea which tyrannized over the race was the fanatical
worship of movement. Gordelpus, the Prime Mover, demanded of his human
embodiments swift and intricate activity, and the individual's prospect of
eternal life depended on the fulfillment of this obligation. Curiously, though
science had long ago destroyed the belief in personal immortality as an
intrinsic attribute of man, a complementary belief had grown up to the effect
that those who justified themselves in action were preserved eternally, by
special miracle, in the swift spirit of Gordelpus. Thus from childhood to death
the individual's conduct was determined by the obligation to produce as much
motion as possible, whether by his own muscular activity or by the control of
natural forces.
[...]
Several causes had raised flying to a position of unique honour. As a means
of communication it was of extreme practical importance; and as the swiftest
locomotion it constituted the supreme act of worship. The accident that the
form of the aeroplane was reminiscent of the main symbol of the ancient
Christian religion lent flying an additional mystical significance. For though
the spirit of Christianity was lost, many of its symbols had been preserved in
the new faith. A more important source of the dominance of flying was that,
since warfare had long ceased to exist, aviation of a gratuitously dangerous
kind was the main outlet for the innate adventurousness of the human animal.
Young men and women risked their lives fervently for the glory of Gordelpus and
their own salvation, while their seniors took vicarious satisfaction in this
endless festival of youthful prowess. Indeed apart from the thrills of
devotional aerial acrobats, it is unlikely that the race would so long have
preserved its peace and its unity. On each of the frequent Days of Sacred
Flight special rituals of communal and solo aviation were performed at every
religious centre. On these occasions the whole sky would be intricately
patterned with thousands of planes, wheeling, tumbling, soaring, plunging, in
perfect order and at various altitudes, the dance at one level being subtly
complementary to the dance at others.
[...]
The collapse of this first world-civilization was due to the sudden failure
of the supplies of coal. All the original fields had been sapped centuries
earlier, and it should have been obvious that those more recently discovered
could not last for ever. For some thousands of years the main supply had come
from Antarctica. So prolific was this continent that latterly a superstition
had arisen in the clouded minds of the world-citizens that it was in some
mysterious manner inexhaustible. Thus when at last, in spite of strict
censorship, the news began to leak out that even the deepest possible borings
had failed to reveal further vegetable deposits of any kind, the world was at
first incredulous.
The sane policy would have been to abolish the huge expense of power on
ritual flying, which used more of the community's resources than the whole of
productive industry. But to believers in Gordelpus such a course was almost
unthinkable. Moreover it would have undermined the flying aristocracy. This
powerful class now declared that the time had come for the release of the
secret of divine power, and called on the [scientists] to inaugurate the new era.
Vociferous agitation in all lands put the scientists in an awkward plight. They
gained time by declaring that, though the moment of revelation was approaching,
it had not yet arrived; for they had received a divine intimation that this
failure of coal was imposed as a supreme test of man's faith. The service of
Gordelpus in ritual flight must be rather increased than reduced. Spending a
bare minimum of its power on secular matters, the race must concentrate upon
religion. When Gordelpus had evidence of their devotion and trust, he would
permit the scientists to save them.
[...]
For the race was now entering upon an unprecedented psychological crisis,
brought about by the impact of the economic disaster upon a permanently
unwholesome mentality. Each individual, it must be remembered, had once been a
questioning child, but had been taught to shun curiosity as the breath of
Satan. Consequently the whole race was suffering from a kind of inverted
repression, a repression of the intellective impulses. The sudden economic
change, which affected all classes throughout the planet, thrust into the focus
of attention a shocking curiosity, an obsessive scepticism, which had hitherto
been buried in the deepest recesses of the mind.
It is not easy to conceive the strange mental disorder that now afflicted
the whole race, symbolizing itself in some cases by fits of actual physical
vertigo. After centuries of prosperity, of routine, of orthodoxy, men were
suddenly possessed by a doubt which they regarded as diabolical. No one said a
word of it; but in each man's own mind the fiend raised a whispering head, and
each was haunted by the troubled eyes of his fellows. Indeed the whole changed
circumstances of his life jibed at his credulity.
Earlier in the career of the race, this world crisis might have served to
wake men into sanity. Under the first pressure of distress they might have
abandoned the extravagances of their culture. But by now the ancient way of
life was too deeply rooted. Consequently, we observe the fantastic spectacle of
a world engaged, devotedly and even heroically, on squandering its resources in
vast aeronautical displays, not through single-minded faith in their rightness
and efficacy, but solely in a kind of desperate automatism. Like those little
rodents whose migration became barred by an encroachment of the sea, so that
annually they drowned themselves in thousands, the First Men helplessly
continued in their ritualistic behaviour; but unlike the lemmings, they were
human enough to be at the same time oppressed by unbelief, an unbelief which,
moreover, they dared not recognize."
It's easy to find commentary on the British air show crash from two days ago. Media figures feign their most plasticized expressions of commiseration with those unfortunates who paid the price for mass hysteria and everyone is asking why? Why, Gordelphus, why? What could have happened? Do we blame the pilot, blame the mechanics, blame goose migrations, where's a goat when you really need something scapeable?
You know what I think the investigation will reveal? That an entire population was indulging in a hideous sublimation of their repressed impulses, in a ridiculously wasteful and senseless display of tribal dominance, attempting to ignore their vapid, institutionalized, purposeless wage-slavery by identifying with the tools of murder and oppression of the upper classes - and they will continue to do so until we are all scraped off the face of the planet by you apes' ritualistic, instinctive, murderous trumpeting of social power.
No comments:
Post a Comment