The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with
the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child
will lead them.
Isaiah 11:6,
New International Version
In The Bionic Woman TV show, Jaime Sommers teaches an elementary
school class at an Air Force Base near her home in Ojai. In the episode “Claws,” a student named Katie
brings a male lion into the classroom for Show and Tell. The lion walks into the circle formed by the
students’ desks and lies on the floor. Katie
explains she is helping Susan Victor, who runs a wild animal sanctuary. Jaime then allows the entire class to rise
from their seats, and quietly approach the lion. The children kneel down beside him, and
gently stroke his soft fur and mane. The
lion closes his eyes, reveling in the attention.
Some of the charm of the bionic shows involves looking back on
us, as a people, at an earlier stage in our societal development. Before the rise of the Internet, and the
so-called Information Age, people found it more difficult to share experiences
and opinions. Without detailed
information readily at our fingertips, we didn’t realize how difficult it was
to transform our dreams into reality.
Thus, when it came to embracing Fiction, we found it easier to suspend
our belief. We believed we could replace
parts of our bodies that we had damaged beyond repair, and build better,
stronger, and perhaps even wiser people.
There were no limits to what we could accomplish! Through the application of Science and
Willpower, we would return our world to the utopia depicted in the Bible. Humanity would return to the Garden of
Eden. Farmers would sow and reap their
crops, untroubled by weeds, insects, or pests.
Humans and animals would coexist harmoniously. Like Adam and Even, even the fiercest species
would bow to us, allow us to name them, and follow our every command.
With facts so readily available now, few still believe that
bionic enhancements such as those Jaime Sommers and Steve Austin received lie
in our immediate future. And only a
miniscule percentage of us still defy the Law, and keep wild creatures as
pets. There have been too many attacks,
in homes, wild life sanctuaries, and zoos, to believe that we can ever tame such
savage creatures. Thus we can only look
back on an episode like “Claws,” in which gentle children kneel beside a domesticated
lion, as a relic of an earlier age: when we dreamed greater dreams than we do
now. Or, as Science Fiction author David Brin might say, at least
until we can figure out how to uplift them.
Still, it's fun to look back.
Dragon Dave
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