Those Utopian Dreams: Part 3

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

Science Fiction authors have always dreamed big.  Whether in print, TV, or movies, they painted grand visions of the future.  As a child, I trusted that their promises could come true.  I accepted that the government, corporations, and even private citizens might soon be able to build spacecraft and launch them into space at a moment’s notice.  I accepted that, by applying the latest scientific research, and our willpower, that Humans could do anything.  Advancements in psychiatry would banish violence.  Herbicides and pesticides would banish famine.  Computers and robots would perform all the more mundane tasks for us. And of course, the House of Tomorrow would be maintenance-free.

Beyond all that, Humanity would restructure our societies so that no one would ever go hungry.  While we might still work, our shortened workdays would be less stressful.  Earth would become the paradise foretold by Biblical prophets.  To paraphrase Isaiah, peace, equality, and gentleness would reign. 

So much of science fiction, from Jules Verne to Gene Roddenberry, is driven by dreams of utopia.  Yet Science and Experience seem to have exposed such dreams as frauds.  We might have microwaves and smart phones, but flying cars, easily available space flight, stress-free workplaces and maintenance-free homes have been denied us.  People still lose their jobs, or fall through cracks in the structure of society, missing out on meals and health care.  Instead of fixing our bodies’ defects and living hundreds of years, cancer and disease still cut our lives short.

Yet those earlier dreams seem to be making a comeback.  Through the rising popularity of Steampunk, young people are looking back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century for inspiration on how to enhance their lives.  They read Steampunk novels that envision futures based on the promises of writers a hundred years ago, or seek out the stories crafted by those long-ago writers.  They even seek out the works of largely forgotten writers.  At first I questioned the enthusiasm and excitement for Steampunk and such old stories.  But then I realized that most Science Fiction writers working today, whether in print, TV, or in the movies, are envisioning dystopian futures.  Instead of painting fictional worlds filled with hope and enlightenment, they are extrapolating from present technological and social trends and warning us that we face imminent enslavement, the disillusion of our societies, even the destruction of the planet.  Those are not the dreams I grew up with!

So perhaps the young people, who are returning to these older works, and outdated visions of the future, are really onto something.  Perhaps, in our progress through the twentieth century, we have missed a vital turning point along the way.  Perhaps if we backtrack to those grander dreams, if we spend more time studying the great thinkers and dreamers of that time, we may find where we went wrong.  Maybe we can still fashion a society more in keeping with our once-great goals.  I, for one, hope that the current generation, which seems so in love with Steampunk, can channel that ideology and lifestyle into remaking our world into one where wars are abolished, no one goes hungry, and every individual is treated with equal respect and dignity.  Where we don’t spend our days stressed out over making money, and trampling over other people in the process.  Where we address the issues in climatology, space flight, and genetics that are holding us back from achieving our grand visions of the future.  

History teaches us that Humans are incapable of creating a utopia, so perhaps it’s naïve for me to cling to such dreams.  Still, I want to believe that the current Steampunk movement, and the renewed interest in the literature of a century or more ago, is about more than dressing up and making things that look cool.  I want to believe that it represents something more.

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

A Brief Survey of Victorian Science Fiction

Those Utopian Dreams: Part 2

 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 Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson, global warming causes a storm to flood Washington D. C.  Wild animals escape the zoo and roam the nearby parkland.  In the sequel, Fifty Degrees Below, Frank, a researcher from UCSD currently on assignment to the National Science Foundation, has been unable to find affordable housing due to the damage caused by the flood.  As he is an avid outdoorsman, he builds a treehouse and lives among the homeless and the wild animals in nearby parkland.  He volunteers to help track zoo animals that escaped during the flood.  He tours the heated shelters during the Winter, these large “toaster ovens” erected to protect the animals against the subzero temperatures.  One night he visits a shelter filled by deer, tapirs, foxes, a bobcat, ibex, and in the dark interior, what could be a jaguar.  The animals lay quietly, “none meeting the eye of any other; all pretending they were each alone, or with only their own kind.  As on an island created in a flood, it was a case of stay there or die.  Truce.  Time out.” 

Through his experiences, Frank begins to re-envision humans and society through a philosophy he call Repaleolithization.  He wonders if man might be happier if he were to adopt attitudes and behaviors from past hunter-gatherer societies.  In communities less defined by technology, humans might live more in harmony with nature, each other, and themselves.  He doesn’t go so far as to suggest that man and wild animal will ever become friends, however.  His character Frank, with nothing else to do that evening, decides to join the animals in the shelter.  He sits quietly, not looking directly at any of the animals.  But “the animals were not happy.  They stared at him, wary, affronted…the lion had lain down with the lamb, but man was not welcome.” 

At the San Diego Safari Park, I spoke with an employee by the lion enclosure.  She talked about the lions’ lives, their temperaments, and how well they got along together.  Despite their size and strength, they looked so loveable, and like the students in Jaime’s class, I longed to run my fingers through their fur.  But knowing their potential ferocity, I told her that I didn’t think I’d crawl inside and pet them today.  She readily agreed this was a good idea. 

Tippi Hedron, who played Susan Victor, the owner of the animal sanctuary in The Bionic Woman episode "Claws," was a great lover of wild animals.  Seven years after she appeared in “Claws,” she established The Roar Foundation, which maintains the Shambala Preserve in California.  She may not pet the animals, or believe that they can ever be tamed, but she cares for and protects them, much as her character did in the show.  In this way, she exemplifies how Fiction often translates into Reality.  Thus, she helps fulfill some of our dreams, and makes our world a better place, even if a return to Eden still seems so impossible.

This series will conclude tomorrow.

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Kim Stanley Robinson: Repaleolithation

Tippi Hedron & The Roar Foundation

Those Utopian Dreams: Part 1

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

Related Internet Links

The Bionic Woman: “Claws”

Dr. Zaius’ Prophesy

Point Dume

In the 1968 film “Planet of the Apes,” Taylor (played by Charlton Heston) binds Dr. Zaius to a tree trunk that has washed ashore.  He tells Dr. Zaius that he intends to learn what happened to the humans who once ruled the planet.  The orangutan scientist, Chief Scientist and Defender of the Faith, warns Taylor, “If you do, you may wish you had not sought the truth.”

(Spoiler Alert: I am about to reveal the surprise ending of this forty-four year-old film.  So if you have not seen it, you have been warned!)

Taylor pulls Nova onto his horse, and the two ride off along the beach.  It is at Point Dume that the full impact of Dr. Zaius’ prophesy hits him.  He has traveled for two thousand years before his ship crashed on this planet.  He had believed that he was on another world, far away from Earth.  But when he sees the Statue of Liberty half-buried in the sand, he knows exactly where he is, and that his worst fears about humanity have proven true.

"Uh, guys, wait up!"

As they marched through the arid desert at the beginning of the film, Taylor told his fellow astronaut Landon that he accepted this mission because he hoped that, somewhere out there, there was “something better than man.”  Taylor was fed up by the mixture of selfishness, greed, politics, and violence that prevents man from making the Earth into a utopia.  So he travels into space, leaving everything behind, in the hope of finding a place where people truly care more about others than they do about themselves.  Sadly, his greatest fear—that man would destroy himself—has proven true. 

"If you need some help, let me know!"

Is Taylor right to be so cynical?  Is Dr. Zaius right to condemn all of humanity for its record of violence against itself?  At times, I side with them, choosing to believe that even those who perform good deeds do so for selfish reasons.  I hold up the injuries others have caused me as proof of man’s inherent callousness.  But then I have to ask myself: what am I doing to make the lives of those around me better?  How much of my time, energy, and caring can I afford to give others, without slowing or halting my progress along my desired path? 

Proof of Apocalyse, or Utopia?

Taylor and Dr. Zaius would point to all the mansions atop the cliffs as proof of man’s callousness, of how he allows his fellow humans to starve and suffer while he lives in luxury.  I watch the scuba divers venturing into the ocean, the people rock-climbing, the children and parents playing together.  Like Taylor, I pause with my life-companion before Point Dume.  I acknowledge the validity of his beliefs, and recognize that his worst fears may yet come true.  But perhaps he and Dr. Zaius may eventually be proved wrong.  Perhaps, working together, we can all make this world into a utopia. 

I’d like to be a part of that.

Dragon Dave