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Friday, July 11, 2003
posted by gbarto at 3:04 AM:
Natalie Solent has several bits about hero-scientists in sci-fi. I haven't read through all the links, but was surprised not to run across the uber-scientist-god/psychometrician, Hari Seldon, from the Foundation series. What is sad is that this seems to be the best known book of his, whereas the Robot novels were much better. Still, the place Asimov shone was the short story. I think this was because the short story is a little more reminiscent of his short about-science articles: one idea and to the point. Writing novels, Asimov - like many sci-fi writers - got too hung up on the future and sometimes the future seemed grander or more important than the people who were living in it. In the short story, Asimov was forced to stick to his argument and did so beautifully, particularly in a few short stories trying to figure out what being human was all about. "Jerry was a man" comes to mind, but especially "Robot Dreams," which left me dumb with horror and sadness at the end. I have never figured out what to do with the Foundation series for it feels at times like an unintentional parody (or was it intentional) of the Soviet five-year plans gone even more awry than that awful society so long guided by the question, "What would Lenin do?" But "Robot Dreams" hit hard in a matter of pages and has stuck with me ever since.The one great who could write all about the future - even posited a "future history" - and not lose the people did get a mention. I speak, of course, of Robert Heinlein, whose characters always happen to live in the time in which they live and to go about their lives accordingly. Their own lives. From DT Burroughs to Jubal Harshaw to Lazarus Long, there is a universal polemic for individualism, freedom and hope that tomorrow will be better in spite of itself. As Friday navigates the mess she's in at the beginning of the novel of the same name, she is not the inhabitant of a future we little comprehend; she's a human being in a rough spot doing her best to get out of it. When Hugh Farnham sets up camp, he is not a disoriented time-traveler so much as every head-of-household dealing with a family crisis and an alcoholic to aggravate it. I think the correspondance between love for individuals and strong individual characters with the rejection of the all-powerful scientist is not an accident. Recalling what every sharp conservative knows - human nature is what human nature is - none of his characters are totally free of the defects which make the individual interesting but which would lead to disaster if projected on to the entire race.
It is failure to grapple with that one point - human nature is what human nature is - that gives us campaign finance reform, planned economies, dreams of "scientific" government and countless other horrors. How embarrassing, indeed, the way the smart set fails to see its own blind spots. Fortunately for Americans, at least, there was once a group of wise men that either from wisdom or from simple mistrust of one another decided such universal power was to be avoided. And despite the best efforts of generations of progressives and too frequent totterings in the wrong direction, what they put together has not yet been fully rent asunder. Thank God for the framers of the US Constitution, and thank God as well for the Robert Heinleins of the world who have come after to remind of their wisdom.
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