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Thomas Parker Final Exam Begin 9:35 am Break 10:20am Finish 11:45 The scenarios of the future that we have covered since the midterm can be organized according to the basic ideologies upon which they are based. The dividing line between these scenarios seems to be the authors' views on which path our society will take, either towards an ever increasing technologically advanced society based upon the forms which civilization has taken in the past few centuries, or on much older forms of society that industrialization and the the recent human obsession with progress have all but wiped out. The scenarios seem to either go along with the progression of society towards technological advancement, at times somewhat bleakly, or break from this tradition and move into a world with a closer connection to the earth, its cycles and the ways in which humankind has existed in peace with it for thousands of years. In stories like "Johnny Mnemonic," and "Burning Chrome" it seems that the most influential period of human history occurred after industrialization and the scenario of the future portrayed in cyberpunk literature assumes that the world will continue to progress in its pursuit of high technology and urban growth. "The Logical Legend of Heliopause and Cyberfiddle" contains a future that is a warning against the loss of basic human experience within a world of high technology where virtual reality has replaced reality itself, a warning that is echoed in "The Onion and I". In this scenario of the future, which is decidely hi-tech, the needs of humanity are not being fully met and there is an undertone of spiritual longing throught the story. In the off planet and alien contact scenarios technological progress drives us off our own planet in search either technological advancement at very high prices such as in "Hinterlands" or merely a way to escape from a poisoned and dying earth in "Newton's Sleep" With "The Onion and I,"and "Drapes and Folds" the world is still a very high-tech place and is missing the qualities of human existence such as the ties to the earth that spring up through close human contact with agriculture and the feel of cloth. Theses stories portray a scenario of the future that is a dystopic where ancient human activities are replaced by high technology. With the introduction to Future Primitive, an entirely different take on the possibilities that the future may hold is presented. In "Chocco" it is not the age of machines that has had the most lasting influence upon the world, but rather the more ancient practices of much earlier human societies which have triumphed to stand at the gateway to the future. The solution for the ills of our present society are presented as coming from our distant past. "In House of Bones" a knew way of looking at the early societies formed by the ancestors of Homo Sapiens is shown. New ways of thinking about our ancestry are directly linked to new ways of thinking about what our future may hold. If our ancestors were not the barbaric, violent, and stupid creatures that we have at times perceived them to be, perhaps it is our perception that is faulty. In "Shikasta" the past century is described with a heightened awareness of the brutalities and cruelties of its wars and the ravaging of the planets natural resources is linked in a compelling way to the ever increasing violence in human behavior. These stories together call into question our beliefs not only about the past and the future, but also the present era in which we live and proposes the theory that the salvation of humankind may lie in the "primitive" tribal cultures that have been so decimated in the wake of industry and progress. This recalling of the past in hopes of saving the future can also be seen in the dreams of the old man in "Men on the Moon" where our advancement into space exploration is seen in the same light as the wave of "progress" that carried the European settlers to this content and disenfranchised our wiped out the native tribal populations. This division between ideologies was most clearly shown with our reading "from Shikasta" and Terri's presentation of Ayn Rand's Anthem. In "Shikasta" it is only with the numbers of our population severely decreased by famine and war that the "substance of we feeling" returns civilization and allows us to recover from the madness of war and self annihilation. Anthem, emphasizes the individual over the community and puts "I" before "we." Clearly, these divisions speak to much broader movements within society as a whole, which are in direct conflict with one another. What part of our history will we look to in the future? Will it be this era in which the consumption of goods and the emphasis on the individual have become the driving force of civilization, or will we look around and see that the price of our current way of living is indeed too high and return to a more "primitive" existence? Will technology be able to save us from the myriad of social and ecological ills is that we now face, or will survival depend upon a shift in emphasis from "I" to "we"; from technology to a deeper undertansing of the true limits of our planet and its natural rhythms and cycles. This seems to be the central questions around which the scenarios of the future are weaved. |