Blish's "Conscience" vs. Wolfe's "Fifth Head"

Mark · 02 Jan 2006, 19:42 · from rec.arts.sf.written.2006.mbox

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From: "Mark" <mtiedemann at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Blish's "Conscience" vs. Wolfe's "Fifth Head"
Date: 2 Jan 2006 11:42:31 -0800
Message-ID: <1136230951.130760.169440 at g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
References: <1135781723.546189.19520 at g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1136128612.366330.128000 at f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <Xns973F5BACDAC2Bidtoken at 204.153.244.170> <1136227104.069393.207880 at z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>

>Heck, half the US
population thinks that Noah's Ark really happened and that we need to
wait patiently for the return of Jesus.<

Well, two centuries ago probably more than 70 or 80 percent believed
both, ardently.  There have been dips and peaks in the stats since then
and will be again, but I'm not too discouraged if only half the general
population buys into mystical claptrap.  That means the other half
doesn't.

>My central claim however is that humankind is not getting any
more intelligent, may be getting less intelligent, and really isn't
very intelligent. I just don't believe we are going anywhere. SF tends
to posit a grand future, or at least an interesting one, <

Given that our "future" (ala SF) began to be imagined in, roughly, 1926
(I'm using the launch of Amazing Magazine as the beginning), I'd have
to say we live in a surprisingly interesting, far more advanced, and
less parochial future than most of our writers up to the Fifties or
even the Sixties imagined.  Along the way, we've more than doubled the
planet's population, and are now on an almost daily basis (if we wish)
far more informed about vast segments of the global population that
were rarely considered prior to the second world war.  Advancements in
medicine (including the "dreaded" genetic sciences), information
systems, transportation, communication, physics, and on and on and on
argue persuasively that we've pretty much built and even surpassed many
of the futures predicted along the way.  Bear in mind that a lot of our
best writers thought we would be either in a nuclear-war-induced stone
age by now or in the throes of massive economic depression leading to
dramatic returns to 19th and even 18th century conditions.  One may
quibble around the edges, but neither of those have happened.  Many
other writers didn't even both talking about this part of the future,
by-passing it for a rather broader interplanetary or interstellar
civilization--but the assumption was made that we'd get there.  The
only thing we seem to be lagging on is the space effort, but China may
yet realize that for us.

Depending on which news you imbibe, I can see how one can get the
impression that somehow we're getting collectively dumber--but an awful
lot of circumstantial evidence also argues to the contrary.  Take your
choice--hopeful or hopeless.  I'll go with hopeful.

Mark
author of:
THE SECANTIS SEQUENCE
REMAINS
www.marktiedemann.com

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