The Dimming of Starlight
Chapter 2b
THE OBJECTIONS
Ideological Criticisms
The ideological critics argue that wisdom does not lie along any road that exploration may discover. "People," admonished one of their forerunners, the 18th-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "know once and for all that nature wanted to keep you from being harmed by knowledge, just as a mother wrests a dangerous weapon from her child's hands; that all the secrets she hides from you are so many evils from which she protects you."[1] Rousseau's romanticism lives on among the ideological critics of space exploration. As they see it, the secrets our curiosity has pried from nature have brought us to the brink of disaster. We should have heeded Lao Tzu's warning: "[T]hose who would take the whole world to tinker with as they see fit . . . never succeed."[2] Ignoring this advice, Western science aims to control nature by interfering with it. In spite of all the so-called progress of the scientific era, Western science has not succeeded and will not succeed.
To come to this conclusion, these critics argue, we only need observe the trends set in the previous century: the population explosion; the massive use of resources at an ever increasing rate; and the unparalleled poisoning of the soil, the air, and the water of the Earth. It is doubtful that our planet can withstand this situation for long. Indeed, the Club of Rome Study, among others, has predicted a global environmental collapse around the middle of this century.[3] Even if this crisis does not spell doom for mankind, and it might, it deserves serious attention. The first thing we must determine is what makes all these dangerous trends possible. And, the ideological critics say, it does not take much to isolate the main factor: technology has coupled with the mentality of growth and together they have run amok. But surely technology on such a grand scale could not have existed without prior great advances in science.
And what is space exploration, these critics ask, if not the expansion of this mentality of growth and scientific development? Hence they find unacceptable the suggestion that space exploration can help us out of our dire straits. For that suggestion masks the imminence of the crisis and entreats us to engage in distracting pursuits – at a time when all our attention and effort should be concentrated on the abyss that is opening just a few careless steps ahead of us.
From this ideological perspective, space exploration is no more than another technological fix for problems that cry out for a different approach. The only solution is to realize that the crisis is upon us and to stop the activities that have created it. Above all, we must stop interfering with nature. Space exploration not only delays the real solution to the problem but is itself a symptom of the problem.
The ideological critics thus find little hope in the attempt to push science and technology beyond the confines of our natural habitat. Nor is the search for truth enough of a warrant. As Rousseau put it: "What dangers there are! What false paths when investigating the sciences! How many errors, a thousand times more dangerous than the truth is useful, must be surmounted in order to reach the truth? The disadvantage is evident, for falsity is susceptible of infinite combinations, whereas truth has only one form."[4] Wisdom dictates, then, neither investigation nor exploration, but living in harmony with nature.
An extreme fringe of ideological critics finds space exploration not just unwise, but positively evil. They fear, for instance, that a satanical science and technology will lead to the destruction of the human race at the hands of terrifying weapons. The Mercury Program may have sent astronauts on voyages of discovery, but its Atlas rockets became also the first intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) poised to destroy human lives by the hundreds of millions. Some writers, such as Lewis Mumford, hold that big science and technology magnify some of the worst human traits: Not only have men wrought a brutal conquest of nature in "the effecting of all things possible" (in the words of that early promoter of science, the English philosopher Francis Bacon), but the social "megamachine" they have produced has developed means for the complete extermination of the race.[5] Others like C.S. Lewis think that space exploration is a manifestation of unchecked pride and power. These critics argue that we have no right to pollute the heavens with our fallen race. Only a return to a more spiritual way of life can save us from a degrading future.[6]
How true another of Rousseau's dictums must seem to these critics: "Men are perverse; they would be even worse if they had the misfortune to be born learned."[vii] If perchance there is a future, it will curse the day man reached for the stars.
In this day and age, however, neither this extreme view (which will be discussed in Chapter 9), nor the main ideological objection, comes as readily to mind as the social objections to be discussed in he next posting.
[1]. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts," in The First and Second Discourses, St. Martin's Press, translation by Roger and Judith Masters, 1964, p. 47.
[2]. As quoted by E.F. Schumacher in Space Colonies, a Co-Evolution Book, S. Brand, ed., Penguin Books, 1977, p. 38.
[3]. The Club of Rome's main report was The Limits to Growth, Signet Books, 1972.
[4]. Rousseau, op. cit., p. 49.
[5]. See particularly Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine II: The Pentagon of Power, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970.
[6]. C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, MacMillan, 1967.
[vii]. Ibid.
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