We're all unstuck in time at some point in our lives. The essence of a human being relies on memory and comprehension and a certain amount of self-consciousness about our time and place on this mortal coil. We may be the only species on Earth that can't survive without those traits.
I write these words as a 65-year-old man, thinking about a book I received as a boy from a man who probably wanted to have sex with me. That book, written before I was born, is about a future history of human strife and upheaval that resonates with the current malevolence swelling in the hearts of many humans, especially here in the United States.
How's THAT for being unstuck?
"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom." - Isaac Asimov, 1920-1992
The book in question, Isaac Asimov's The Foundation Trilogy (TFT), is a benchmark of 20th century science-fiction spanning a thousand years of future human history. It should be required reading for every high school Senior to help them better understand the world they'll graduate into. They need to become unstuck in time to understand the future they'll help to create as thinking, feeling, emotionally complex human beings, even though the story covers vast distances in time and space.
My hardcover copy of TFT is worn out from multiple readings, its spine held together with packing tape, the pages yellowed with age. I was around 12 or 13 years old when it was gifted to me by one of the male Boy Scout leaders involved with our troop after he found out I was inhaling science-fiction novels. The guy didn't have any kids.
I came to understand much later that this man - unmarried, pasty-faced and overweight - was likely a pedophile who involved himself in scouting to groom young boys for sex. I remember the day he presented the book to me as our Troop gathered at my house for an event (Dad was our Scoutmaster), signing his name on the inside cover and telling me he knew I'd enjoy reading it. Thankfully, he disappeared from our orbit soon after, who knows why (I think I know why).
Side Note: Pedophilia has ALWAYS been on the fringes of Boy Scouts. It's not a new phenomenon, and IMHO seemed to have increased as churches became more prominent supporters of Scouting activities. I never saw or knew anyone in my Scouting life who was abused or molested by a leader, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
So it goes.
He was right about the book. I read it right away, then a second time to revel in the fantastic saga of science and galactic war and space travel. What I didn't grasp... and wouldn't until I read it again as an adult... was that the story was actually about human interaction, human emotion, human loss and human achievement, cloaked as a space Western... a galactic 'Dallas'... a sci-fi 'How The West Was Won'.
The central theme of The Foundation Trilogy revolves around the science of 'psychohistory' and a man named Hari Seldon, a university mathematician living on the planet Trantor (as Earth would be called in a future time). He developed and championed a theory that could foresee the future of humankind solely based on human psychology, emotion and predictability. His predictions also included thirty-thousand years of galactic turmoil and war unless certain things happened at certain times, which relied on human beings being just that: HUMAN.
However, he couldn't know that his barely-accepted theory of psychohistory (and the entire galaxy) would be threatened by a mutant possessing incredible mental powers that could control the thoughts and actions of others across the vast distances of space. Known only as 'The Mule', the mutant would wreak havoc and threaten to upend the human race with the aforementioned thirty-thousand years of war and death and mental servitude.
No one really knew when The Mule was exerting his powerful mind control. They just 'thought' with seeming free will, but were in fact being manipulated by an unseen force that bent them to his bidding with literally no effort. Entire fleets of men and warships were controlled in this way, and planetary systems fell one after the other to The Mule.
Naturally, I ain't about to give away how the story ends, but OMIGOSH is it a great ending.
I'm NOT the only person to make this connection, as I've read a couple of articles that connect DJT with The Mule in concept.
Here's the rub: whereas The Mule used his incredible powers of mind control over others without their knowledge, DJT has created a 'cult of personality' that's been accepted, codified and practiced by his followers, seemingly with their full knowledge and approval. BUT... are his followers fully cognizant of the control he seems to have over them?
In fact, the idea of a 'Trump cult' is gaining traction due to the way his acolytes ignore science and facts and information which completely refute everything he says and does, yet they still pledge allegiance to him. Some are even claiming he was 'sent by God to smite those who don't believe in Trump, the one true savior of our country.'
Really, truly scary.
A pathological liar, tax cheat and failed businessman with hundreds of millions of dollars in personal debt to foreign banks.
An aggressive philanderer, misogynist and accused rapist with dozens of women credibly claiming he'd abused and assaulted them.
A man who displayed a stunning level of ignorance of science, history and politics.
A bully who would personally abuse, insult, demean, debase and denigrate anyone he pleased.
And finally, as a failed Presidential candidate, an instigating traitor who fomented an insurrection against the U.S. Capitol to support 'The Big Lie' and stood idly by, watching on TV from the White House, while his violent mob threatened the lives of lawmakers and law enforcement and tried to force the 2020 election results to be overturned.
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." - Isaac Asimov, 'Foundation'
Donald Trump was and is all of these things... and yet he's still revered, supported, promoted and defended by a large swath of the GOP and the citizenry.
Willful ignorance? Brainwashing? Mass psychosis? Latent stupidity?
None of this is mind-control on the level displayed by The Mule in TFT, but what can explain the counter-intuitive behavior of so many people?
I think there are several things at work here which may not be considered mind-control per se, but in concert manipulated the thinking and opinions for millions of people. This includes a slavish devotion to celebrity, the aforementioned willful ignorance, pernicious misinformation and the 'The Gish Gallop', barely-disguised criminality, an unchecked and unregulated social media, FOX NEWS, and a Congressional GOP that's degenerated into the Disloyal Opposition.
Think about it: every one of these conditions set up a Foundation of Mass Misinformation that was absorbed and shared by millions of people, duped by their own inability to know the difference between facts and bullshit. Since they couldn't (or wouldn't) question their own belief systems, they decided to follow DJT while he attempted to steer the Ship of State over Niagara Falls. He almost did and still might if given the chance.
I could (and should) go on... but you get the picture, right?
In TFT, there were people determined to stop The Mule by any means necessary, but they were beholden to something he was not: humanity. They were checked in many ways by their own inability to overlook their essential humane-ness, the very thing that separates us from the other non-human inhabitants of our small Blue Marble. They had two crucial human traits: EMPATHY and COMPASSION.
Has ignorance, venality, vengeance and violence now become the hallmarks of conservatism in the United States of America?
We'll know in a year or two if this country learned a valuable lesson about putting a criminally-malevolent political terrorist in The White House. We'll find out if our collective humanity can prevent an inhumane leader from once-again gaining power in and control of our nation.
Here's what I've learned: the past is ALWAYS prologue, and we usually get the leaders we deserve.
The sci-fi novels I read as a youth are still important to me, mostly because I can read them now with the eyes and perspective of a seasoned Old.
Isaac Asimov... Arthur C. Clark... Ray Bradbury... Harlan Ellison... Kurt Vonnegut... Kim Stanley Robinson... Robert Heinlein... these writers held the wild future of the human experience in their big brains and shared it without trepidation or hesitation or apology. They put forth ideas which, with the passage of time, are now more real than ever.
The youth I once was, star-struck and inspired by the fantastic future these brilliant people created, gained an open mind and open heart and a willingness to question everything. That questioning mind rejected the simple-minded poetry of religious belief and chose instead to ask a lifetime of questions that result when asking hard questions without easy answers. I've not regretted that decision for a nanosecond ever since.
The grizzled adult I am now can still see that wild future with the same youthful open mind and open heart, regardless of the willful ignorance or the mindless religious fervor held by so many around us. The future of our Nation will rise or fall as the tides of political and sectarian turmoil ebb and flow, constantly rebuilding or eroding the foundation we stand on, literally and figuratively.
As revealed in Isaac Asimov's story, The Foundation was shackled by a fear of ignorance and tethered to an ideology that valued knowledge, empathy, humanity and the certainty that civilization would eventually find it's way to universal peace through education and enlightenment.
A single hardcover sci-fi novel has given me a lifetime of reading enjoyment, filled my head with questions about mortality and continues to offer a peek towards a vast future history as yet unwritten.
It doesn't matter that my life will end sometime in the next 20 to 30 years, because I've already seen the wild future, or at least several versions of it. I'm a spectral mote of dust, insignificant and expendable. At the same time, I'm made from the stuff of stars, living a singularly unique life on this small Blue Marble that spins around a dying star on the far edge of a galaxy intermingled among millions of other galaxies.
It just doesn't get any better than that, nor should it.
All images, Gracias de Google Images; Living Colour 'Cult of Personality' and 'Blue Danube Waltz' videos, Muchisimas Gracias de YouTube; Do not fear death or the unknown... always look it straight in the eye and laugh mightily.
