Bokelskere.no

(forts. herfra)

"These organisms then," said Mark, "are friendly to humanity?"

"If you reflect for a moment, you will see that your question
has no meaning except on the level of the crudest popular
thought.
Friendship is a chemical phenomenon, so is hatred.
Both of them presuppose organisms of our own type.
The first step towards intercourse with the macrobes
is the realisation
that one must go outside the whole world of subjective
emotions.
Only as you begin to do so, you discover how much
of what you mistook for your thoughts, was merely a
by-product of your blood and nervous tissues."

"Oh, of course. I didn't quite mean "friendly", in that sense.
I really meant, were their aims compatible with our own?"

"What do you mean by our own aims?"

"Well -- I suppose -- the scientific reconstruction of the
human race in the direction of increased efficiency --
the elimination of war and poverty
and other forms of waste -- a fuller exploitation of Nature --
the preservation and extension of our species, in fact."

"I do not think this pseudo-scientific language really
modifies the essentially subjective and instinctive basis of
the ethics you are describing. I will return to the matter
at a later stage. For the moment, I would merely remark that
your view of war and your reference to the preservation of
the species suggest a profound misconception. They are mere
generalisations from affectional feelings."

"Surely," said Mark, "one requires a pretty large population
for the full exploitation of Nature, if for nothing else?
And surely war is disgenic and reduces efficiency?
Even if population needs thinning, is not war the worst
possible method of thinning it?"

"That idea is a survival from conditions which are rapidly
being altered. A few centuries ago, war did not operate in
the way you describe. A large agricultural population was
essential; and war destroyed types which were then useful.

But every advance in industry and agriculture reduces the
number of work-people who are required.
A large, unintelligent population is now becoming a deadweight.

The real importance of scientific war is that scientists have
to be reserved. It was not the great technocrats of Koenigsberg
or Moscow who supplied the casualties in the siege of Stalingrad:
it was superstitious Bavarian peasants and low-grade Russian
agricultural workers.
The effect of modern war is to eliminate retrogressive types,
while sparing the technocracy and increasing its hold upon
public affairs.
In the new age, what has hitherto been merely the intellectual
nucleus of the race
is to become, by gradual stages, the race itself.

You are to conceive the species as an animal which has now
discovered how to simplify nutrition and locomotion to such a
point that the old complex organs and the large body which
contained them are no longer necessary.
That large body is therefore to disappear. Only a tenth part
of it will now be needed to support the brain.
The individual is to become all head. The human race is to
become all Technocracy."

"I see," said Mark. "I had thought rather vaguely -- that the
intelligent nucleus would be extended by education."

"That is pure chimera. The great majority of the human race
can be educated only in the sense of being given knowledge:
They cannot be trained into the total objectivity of mind
which is now necessary.
They will always remain animals, looking at the world through
the haze of their subjective reactions.
Even if they could, the day for a large population has passed.

It has served its function by acting as a kind of cocoon for
Technocratic and Objective Man.
Now, the macrobes, and the selected humans who can co-operate
with them, have no further use for it."

"The two big wars, then, were not disasters on your view?"

"On the contrary, they were simply the beginning of the
programme -- the first two of the sixteen major wars which
are scheduled to take place in this century.

I am aware of the emotional (that is, the chemical) reactions
which a statement like this produces in you, and you are wasting
your time in trying to conceal then from me. I do not expect
you to control them. That is not the path to objectivity.
I deliberately raise them in order that you may become
accustomed to regard them in a purely scientific light and
distinguish them as sharply as possible from the facts."

Mark (...) was fully occupied with the conflict between his
resolution not to trust these men, never again be lured by
any bait into a real co-operation,
and the terrible strength -- of an opposite emotion.
For here, here surely at last (so his desire whispered to him)
was the true inner circle of all,
the circle whose centre was outside the human race --
the ultimate secret, the supreme power,
the last initiation.

The fact that it was almost completely horrible did not in the
least diminish its attraction.
Nothing that lacked the tang of horror would have been quite
strong enough to satisfy the delirious excitement which now
set his temples hammering.
It came into his mind that Frost knew all about the excitement,
and also about the opposite determination,
and reckoned securely on the excitement as the thing which was
certain to carry the day in his victim's mind.

( C.S.Lewis, 1945 )