Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Aspirational philosophy takes back seat to immediate gratification

*First appeared in the Nov. 12 edition of the Laurel Chronicle newspaper

I’ve been thinking a lot about space travel.

It started a few weeks ago with the tragedy of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShip Two crashing in the Mohave Desert, killing a test pilot and injuring the other. If you’re not familiar with the company, here’s a primer. Virgin Galactic is the world’s first commercial spaceline – or it intends to be, if commercial space travel becomes a successful venture. The company’s website says it aims to “transform access to outer space.”

I had two competing thoughts upon hearing about the tragedy: The first one, of course, was “what an awful tragedy.” The second, of course, was “man, it would be cool to go to space. I hope they succeed, eventually.”

Fast-forward to last week when I saw the preview for Interstellar (starring Matthew McConaughey who is, coincidentally, also rumored to appear in an upcoming movie about the Free State of Jones). The premise of this movie, or at least what I gleaned from the preview, is that Planet Earth is no longer sustainable, and lead man McConaughey must seek another world inhabitable by humankind. That leads him on a perilous mission to outer space – and leaves the viewer (me) wondering if he succeeds in saving the human race?

I let my mind sort of wander down this path – you know, the scenario in which humanity is no longer able to live on earth and must seek out other planets for long-term lodging. It wasn’t pretty. I concluded that we’d all die here worshipping the gods of immediate gratification.

The American Scholar frames the issue by referencing an old but apparently timeless work from the 1970s: “Our growing self-absorption was starving the idealism and aspirations of the postwar era. The ‘logic of individualism,’ argued [Christopher] Lasch in his 1978 polemic, The Culture of Narcissism, had transformed everyday life into a brutal social competition for affirmation…Yet even [Lasch] had no idea how self-centered mainstream culture would become. Nor could [he] have imagined the degree to which the selfish reflexes of the individual would become the template for an entire society.”

The American Scholar continues, “Our whole socioeconomic system is adopting an almost childlike impulsiveness, wholly obsessed with short-term gain and narrow self-interest and increasingly oblivious to long-term consequences.”

And this final point brings me full circle. If this is an apt description of the current state of our culture, then the Interstellar conundrum isn’t so much a challenge as it is a doomsday scenario.

Our intellectual energies are focused on the here and now. The consumer-driven marketplace is developing products that reflect these larger societal trends. It seems the latest question is: How can I use as little brain as possible when at home? Oh yeah, by purchasing that Amazon Echo thing (a black cylinder that responds to your voice, plays music, answers questions, keeps track of grocery lists, etc.). Because writing your own list is just too taxing.

That’s not what I call progress, you guys. We’re spending far too much time on things that – in my humble opinion – don’t matter. A black cone in your household may make your life easier, but it won’t put a man on Mars.

Sometimes I think aspirational goals like space travel seem far too, well, aspirational for my generation. Are we really too self-centered to care about the future? Have we really lost the vision for scientific exploration, for technological advances that matter?

I’m not sure. I think my generation can overcome its self-absorption, but we’ll need visionary leaders who don’t comply with the social constructs of an impulse society.

I’ll cease my rambling with this quote from the President who championed space travel and captivated an entire nation: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Will my generation choose to do what is hard or what is easy?

No comments:

Post a Comment