Icarus (IK-uh-rus)
"Son of Daedalus who dared to fly too near the sun on wings of feathers and wax. Daedalus had been imprisoned by King Minos of Crete within the walls of his own invention, the Labyrinth. But the great craftsman's genius would not suffer captivity. He made two pairs of wings by adhering feathers to a wooden frame with wax. Giving one pair to his son, he cautioned him that flying too near the sun would cause the wax to melt. But Icarus became ecstatic with the ability to fly and forgot his father's warning. The feathers came loose and Icarus plunged to his death in the sea".
It is an intriguing story, given the era it was handed down from generation to generation. It first surfaced between 30-60 B.C. Evidently, no written records were kept, let alone the identity of authorship, which is the reason for the wide estimate of the time of origin but had since evoked all kinds of interpretations.. The orally told and re-told story at the time when human capabilities were primarily measured in running the fastest or paddling the fastest boats to get across waters, human flight was farthest from any realm of possibilities, yet, there it was - the dream to fly.
Icarus had all kinds of allegorical lessons, even a cautionary tale about human hubris, unfettered ambitions, or man's proclivity to overdo certain things. It also symbolizes human desires to aim for the impossible.
Every technology we see today were once impossible, or so most people thought at the time it was conceived. And everything was at first someone's dream, wishful thinking, even mere folly of thought. Some were borne out of challenges posed by need or dare. Today it is almost as if anything anyone can think of is merely a case of "it's a matter of time". But, is it?
Flight always fascinated humanity and the dream of flying may have begun as early as several centuries before the first flight at Kitty Hawk. Technology building upon technology was and still is such a powerful engine of progressive development that in sixty-six years after the first powered flight that took a mere 120 feet, humanity had landed on the moon. Those who may yet have to grasp the meaning of exponential path, grab on to that example.
From my previous musing, "First We Dream" (11/7/2016), I noted that dreams are "what makes us human. First we dream. Then we go after it. Everything we have today – the discovery of the new world, birth of nations, modern farming, mass production, etc. all took seed and germinated from a dream by one person or a group of people who share the same dream".
However, many of the dreamers were not necessarily scientists and inventors. Men and women science fiction writers wrote the bulk of predictions - or the inspirations - that powerfully influenced the paths that inventors and engineers took to get us where we are today.
Flight always fascinated humanity and the dream of flying may have begun as early as several centuries before the first flight at Kitty Hawk. Technology building upon technology was and still is such a powerful engine of progressive development that in sixty-six years after the first powered flight that took a mere 120 feet, humanity had landed on the moon. Those who may yet have to grasp the meaning of exponential path, grab on to that example.
From my previous musing, "First We Dream" (11/7/2016), I noted that dreams are "what makes us human. First we dream. Then we go after it. Everything we have today – the discovery of the new world, birth of nations, modern farming, mass production, etc. all took seed and germinated from a dream by one person or a group of people who share the same dream".
However, many of the dreamers were not necessarily scientists and inventors. Men and women science fiction writers wrote the bulk of predictions - or the inspirations - that powerfully influenced the paths that inventors and engineers took to get us where we are today.
Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946), or more popularly known as H.G. Wells was one prolific prognosticator of things to come. His life straddled two centuries, the 19th and 20th, during which and thereafter up through this century, many of what he predicted became true. The passage below from one of his novels eerily foresaw emails or phone messaging, long before it was even a glimmer.
“A message is sent to the station of the district in which the recipient is known to be, and there it waits until he chooses to tap his accumulated messages. And any that one wishes to repeat can be repeated. Then he talks back to the senders and dispatches any other messages he wishes. The transmission is wireless.”
Then he went on to suggest genetic engineering in "The Island of Dr. Moreau".
In "The Time Machine" that was published in 1895 he wrote about the atomic bomb and the nuclear war that wiped out almost the entire earth's population. 1895 was far too early to ponder the idea behind splitting the atom to release such cataclysmic energy from a small mass. But nothing can be so terrifying among his visions than what was in the passage below, long before we feared about weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists.
“Destruction was becoming so facile that any little body of malcontents could use it; it was revolutionizing the problems of police and internal rule. Before the last war began it was a matter of common knowledge that a man could carry about in a handbag an amount of latent energy sufficient to wreck half a city,” he wrote.
Should we be worried? Yes, but perhaps not just from the last paragraph, because H.G. Wells had other darker visions - darker than the errant use of technology. You see, H.G. Wells was an avowed socialist and he had visions of a Utopian society where he idealized a political system embraced by socialists then and now.
In his novel, "A Modern Utopia", he took his vision of a world government that had one currency, customs and laws, abolishment of personal properties because everything was owned and provided for by the government, etc. He put a lot of meat to his idealized visions - a pun is intended here because in his Utopia meat is banned! Such wishful thoughts are not lost to those who today embrace the legislation against all kinds of evil caused by plastic straws, gas powered vehicles, consumption of sugared drinks, animal fur, etc. H.G. Wells was disappointed up to the day he died that not much of his Utopian dreams came to be. He predicted and campaigned for the creation of the UN and if he lived to see the European Union, the concept would have pleased him dearly.
The possibilities of what then might have been considered impossible longings by someone whose many predictions came to pass is indeed worrisome if for one thing and only one thing - the rise of socialism as a platform from a portion of mainstream politicians and social circles. That is and should be cause for worry. The voices are getting louder, the revived ideology that used to be relegated to the fringes of liberal academia is taking on a larger stage. The momentum continues even after a failed presidential run of an improbable but persistent candidate who is still pressing hard to be heard; a rising young star in Congress; and the socialist pundits with ever growing bullhorns are signs of a growing ideology or a resurrected one that used to have become extinct decades ago but getting a new image and acceptance.
That is one possibility we cannot ignore or take for granted. Everyone is emboldened. After all, one such impossibility occurred in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, that is catalyzing those who oppose and are still badly hurt by such an unprecedented performance by someone counted out early in the campaign by almost all pundits, experts and political geniuses who were caught off guard in the early morning hours of Nov. 9, 2016.
Socialism, for it to have an impact in the U.S. needs to be accepted as a viable alternative to the Republic and when it does, H.G. Wells will have sealed his reputation as an unerring predictor of world events. Or, at least his dream of one will have been made true.
I enjoyed H. G. Wells in high school and his fascinating novels took my breath away as a teenager but he was flat wrong on socialism. Socialism, like democracy, was an experiment touted by many then and now as a viable social and political system. Unlike democracy, many socialist experiments in a variety of forms, had failed time and time again. Yet, leaders from the past, today, and many more in the future had tried and will keep trying. It will still not work.
Finally, a quote from Ronald Reagan:
“Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don't need it and hell where they already have it.”
Should we be worried? Yes, but perhaps not just from the last paragraph, because H.G. Wells had other darker visions - darker than the errant use of technology. You see, H.G. Wells was an avowed socialist and he had visions of a Utopian society where he idealized a political system embraced by socialists then and now.
In his novel, "A Modern Utopia", he took his vision of a world government that had one currency, customs and laws, abolishment of personal properties because everything was owned and provided for by the government, etc. He put a lot of meat to his idealized visions - a pun is intended here because in his Utopia meat is banned! Such wishful thoughts are not lost to those who today embrace the legislation against all kinds of evil caused by plastic straws, gas powered vehicles, consumption of sugared drinks, animal fur, etc. H.G. Wells was disappointed up to the day he died that not much of his Utopian dreams came to be. He predicted and campaigned for the creation of the UN and if he lived to see the European Union, the concept would have pleased him dearly.
The possibilities of what then might have been considered impossible longings by someone whose many predictions came to pass is indeed worrisome if for one thing and only one thing - the rise of socialism as a platform from a portion of mainstream politicians and social circles. That is and should be cause for worry. The voices are getting louder, the revived ideology that used to be relegated to the fringes of liberal academia is taking on a larger stage. The momentum continues even after a failed presidential run of an improbable but persistent candidate who is still pressing hard to be heard; a rising young star in Congress; and the socialist pundits with ever growing bullhorns are signs of a growing ideology or a resurrected one that used to have become extinct decades ago but getting a new image and acceptance.
That is one possibility we cannot ignore or take for granted. Everyone is emboldened. After all, one such impossibility occurred in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, that is catalyzing those who oppose and are still badly hurt by such an unprecedented performance by someone counted out early in the campaign by almost all pundits, experts and political geniuses who were caught off guard in the early morning hours of Nov. 9, 2016.
Socialism, for it to have an impact in the U.S. needs to be accepted as a viable alternative to the Republic and when it does, H.G. Wells will have sealed his reputation as an unerring predictor of world events. Or, at least his dream of one will have been made true.
I enjoyed H. G. Wells in high school and his fascinating novels took my breath away as a teenager but he was flat wrong on socialism. Socialism, like democracy, was an experiment touted by many then and now as a viable social and political system. Unlike democracy, many socialist experiments in a variety of forms, had failed time and time again. Yet, leaders from the past, today, and many more in the future had tried and will keep trying. It will still not work.
Finally, a quote from Ronald Reagan:
“Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don't need it and hell where they already have it.”
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