Arthur C. Clarke, in Childhood’s End, paints a future of pure intellect, humans evolving to only thought, mental power. Bodies no longer needed. The novel is evocative and prescient, like most of Clarke’s work, but simplistic. He sees history in a linear fashion: moving from unrefined (that would be us) to refined (that would them), from ignorant to all seeing, limited to unlimited. Straight lines of evolution, no curves, no circles.

Of course, as with all science fiction – propagated ceaselessly in books and movies – the alien beings, and the worlds they inhabit, are always smarter, more technically advanced, ethically grounded, politically and morally clear. It is as if the writers and directors (almost exclusively male and white) have a gnawing anxiety about their changing times (and receding culture) and almost desperate need to build a vision of something better (or, at least, how they would like things to be).

And so Childhood’s End, conforming to this tradition, puts our future first in the hands of Overlords (aptly named as they literally lord over the world), an evolved species who, somewhat comically, have larger heads and brains (not to mention excellent vocabularies and faintly Anglo diction). However, we soon learn the Overlords are mere servants to an even greater Overmind (another apt moniker, with ‘mind’ superior to ‘lord’, thought trumping religion), a godlike force in the universe, using Karellan, his demonic (in shape only) surrogate to “bridge” to a new species of human, starting with the very young (ah, the unsullied young!) and infusing them with supranatural mental capabilities. These powerful, clairvoyant, soon nuclear toddlers shed the mundane needs of their physiology and the familial and societal constraints of Earth and push their powers deep into space, moving mountains and worlds and futures.

Nah.

Evolution doesn’t work like this. Life moves in circles – geology, space, history, culture, parenting – endlessly repeating itself. Lets look at planet earth in geologic time. We know of five mass extinctions, spanning the Cambrian, Devonian, Triassic and Tertiary periods, and many scientists predict a sixth. In each case, life (whether primordial creatures, dinosaurs or humans) is eliminated, but not completely. New life finds its way back and the cycle moves on. Or look at space-time. Einstein posited curved space, which causes an object, like a planet, to move in a circular fashion; even though the planet is actually moving in a straight line, it is the curvature of space-time that causes the circular motion. Taken to its extreme, a person walking around space would end up where they started. Around and around, again and again.

History endlessly predicts and repeats itself – “what’s past is prologue” as Shakespeare tells us in The Tempest. Take war: Tension builds in a region or political system, an event sparks violence, then violence escalates to an uprising and more violence, thus leading to war. The Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War all follow this pattern. Even our current cultural war – Democrats versus Republicans, government as helpmate versus government as dictator – seems to run headlong into this pattern. Maybe we are just waiting for the spark. And maybe we want to see it; as Haruki Murakami states: “Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.” But it won’t end.

Even art follows the pattern. Is Jackson Pollack really all that different from Salvador Dali? And is Dali really all that different from Hieronymus Bosch? They first shocked us, then we studied and admired them, then they became part of our cultural lexicon. What is shocking and singular is ultimately accepted by the masses. Of course, as with geology, physics, and war the details are always different, but the pattern is not – a circular pattern. Around and around, again and again.

Of course, Clarke doesn’t see any of this, He is an intellectual man with an intellectual vision – and is enamored by that vision. Minds controlling the future. Not emotion, or bodies or love or lust or anger or ambition. Just logic. Rationality becoming pure energy, and this energy expanding outward and forever, a powerful and continued improvement. It is a lofty vision, but doesn’t resonate with reality. As any parent knows, energy is finite. You give your energy to your kids, not to yourself. It doesn’t expand, but is transferred – one life to another, around and around – which is why parents look so tired, while their kids bound forth.

This is the way of the world, and has always been the way of the world. Messy. Circular. End, then again.

– by MJB