The Human Future
I have no children or grandchildren in my life. Sometimes I feel this as a profound loss. But at other times, contemplating the human future, I feel relief: I have no descendants whose inevitable future suffering would keep me awake.
I have no doubts that worldwide human suffering will define our future, perhaps for a century or more. It's not only that Nature is getting its justifiable revenge from what Cummings called mankind's "prodding fingers," pushing short term "progress" without regard to long term consequences. This has started and will become far worse. But what bothers me more are the conflicts that will be driven by water and food shortages.
I foresee another historic period of revolutions, lasting decades and defined by an angry poor subclass rising against a frightened ruling wealthy class. It will be as horrific and ugly as anything experienced in the French Revolution. This is our legacy to grandchildren and future generations.
Those who can afford it will escape and colonize Mars. This is how the species will survive. The wasteland left behind on Earth will make Eliot's vision look like utopia.
This story is neither new nor original. There are many theories of why humans developed this way, but the one that makes the most sense to me is found in the magnificent prose poem LOVE'S BODY by Norman O. Brown.
Brown's book ends this way: "Everything is only a metaphor; there is only poetry." He closes with a quotation from Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism.
Western culture came to dominate the world and, driven by what Brown calls Protestant Literalism, led the parade to our crisis today. Considerable contrary visions in the culture itself were ignored to do this: Transcendentalism, for example, where Emerson argued that a man is defined by his thinking; the interior life trumps action. Thus Brown can argue that contemporary war is war perverted, and the problem is not war itself but the perversion.
And what is this perversion? Brown turns to William Blake, one of his greatest influences: the real fight is the mental fight, "the Fiery Chariot of His Contemplative Thought." Blake's image has always resonated with me. It is the basis of the title of my first play, Above the Fire. It creates the subtext of my recent essay, Creativity. Faith. Impotence.
I think Brown is right about where Western Culture went wrong but I get no satisfaction from this. The human tragedy remains the same. However, I do get a kind of solitary solace, knowing I can step away and create my own world in which baking bread, playing with the dog, brooding, writing, are acts that bring me peace, acts that are their own reward.
My life has been blessed, and I feel blessed, in moments like writing here, that I am old and my future short, and when I pass I leave no generation behind. If this is not the best of possible worlds, it also is not the worst.
I have no children or grandchildren in my life. Sometimes I feel this as a profound loss. But at other times, contemplating the human future, I feel relief: I have no descendants whose inevitable future suffering would keep me awake.
I have no doubts that worldwide human suffering will define our future, perhaps for a century or more. It's not only that Nature is getting its justifiable revenge from what Cummings called mankind's "prodding fingers," pushing short term "progress" without regard to long term consequences. This has started and will become far worse. But what bothers me more are the conflicts that will be driven by water and food shortages.
I foresee another historic period of revolutions, lasting decades and defined by an angry poor subclass rising against a frightened ruling wealthy class. It will be as horrific and ugly as anything experienced in the French Revolution. This is our legacy to grandchildren and future generations.
Those who can afford it will escape and colonize Mars. This is how the species will survive. The wasteland left behind on Earth will make Eliot's vision look like utopia.
This story is neither new nor original. There are many theories of why humans developed this way, but the one that makes the most sense to me is found in the magnificent prose poem LOVE'S BODY by Norman O. Brown.
Brown's book ends this way: "Everything is only a metaphor; there is only poetry." He closes with a quotation from Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism.
Western culture came to dominate the world and, driven by what Brown calls Protestant Literalism, led the parade to our crisis today. Considerable contrary visions in the culture itself were ignored to do this: Transcendentalism, for example, where Emerson argued that a man is defined by his thinking; the interior life trumps action. Thus Brown can argue that contemporary war is war perverted, and the problem is not war itself but the perversion.
And what is this perversion? Brown turns to William Blake, one of his greatest influences: the real fight is the mental fight, "the Fiery Chariot of His Contemplative Thought." Blake's image has always resonated with me. It is the basis of the title of my first play, Above the Fire. It creates the subtext of my recent essay, Creativity. Faith. Impotence.
I think Brown is right about where Western Culture went wrong but I get no satisfaction from this. The human tragedy remains the same. However, I do get a kind of solitary solace, knowing I can step away and create my own world in which baking bread, playing with the dog, brooding, writing, are acts that bring me peace, acts that are their own reward.
My life has been blessed, and I feel blessed, in moments like writing here, that I am old and my future short, and when I pass I leave no generation behind. If this is not the best of possible worlds, it also is not the worst.
