2001 An Earthly Lunacy

Dawn. The first rays of light reach through stark mountain peaks to strike a harsh desert valley. Primitive beings are lurking in the rocks, surviving as best they can. A small band of them comes to our attention. They are resting together for protection; suddenly they perk up. They realize something has entered their territory. Funny, it doesn't look like any of the animals they usually see! They peer out quizzically, they slowly move closer to get a better look. Fearful, they continue to carefully crawl toward it, fascinated by the straight, smooth sides of the thing. Cue Also Sprach Zarathustra.

The primitive beings rear back in disgust. They cry out something unintelligible, subtitles appear: "Western music, Allah forbids this!" They retreat from the cold metal side of the Abrams tank they have been considering surrendering to and run back to their caves, arms flailing wildly.

The above scene was brought to you by CCHEMT, the Committee to Correct Historical Errors in the Movie 2001. Thank you for your attendance at this theater.

We all loved the predictions of 2001 when it came out; too bad only a few of them came true. Now that we're at the end of what should have been a really amazing year, personally I'm upset. Sure we can crow over the Taliban's losing Kowbell, sorry, Kabul, but I still can't get reservations for a PanAm flight to the moonbase. Oops! Pan American is long in the airline graveyard and it looks like there'd be a ten month terrorist screening to go through to board the moonflight anyway. I hear they need to complete a few items on the moonbase too.

Oh well, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke at least got microwave ovens correct in the movie. Remember the scene where they prepared their space-goo dinners and pulled them out with an exaggerated hand motion to show they were hot? Nobody knew what a microwave oven was when they shot that. Another thing they got right was HAL 9000 talking, but we're still working on the part about computers thinking for themselves, or going insane because of being ordered to hide some secret information about the origin of mankind. And unlike Dave Bowman, we all know the proper solution for computer glitches now. Three Hail Gates and a re-boot! Certainly HAL would be more compact, not a behemoth with a whole room full of crystal memory cards containing a single programming function each. And if HAL really had artificial intelligence we all know he'd have a face like Haley Joel Osment.

Anything else they got right? Well, the Cold War did end and the Russians are our friends now. This week at least. But we still don't have anything like the spaceship Discovery to visit Jupiter and the space station with all the stylish curved floor lounges and the video telephones. Alas and no Utopia here on Earth, either. Well, we can dream can't we?

There's an expectation in humans that somehow we can achieve a state of societal bliss one day and then we'll live happily ever after. Call it the Kingdom of God, Xanadu or Utopia, it's a nice thought. Bliss forever! No changes. Maybe that's just a Western idea though. Taoist Chinese philosophy looks at a situation like that and says things that are stiff and unchanging are dead. The quality of a living thing is to be flexible and dynamic. Maybe the old Chinese curse is actually "May you live in flexible and dynamic times," not "interesting" ones. As Marshal McLuhan used to say, "It is the business of the Future to be dangerous."

Before the new millennium started my son kept asking about the new marvels that he expected, as if millions of video phones and computerized refrigerators were all in a warehouse somewhere scheduled for delivery on January 2nd. Sorry, it doesn't work like that, and yet things are getting better every day. We might even achieve something like society-wide perfection for a few years, for a few places on the planet. It's that "lasting forever" part I'm dubious about.

Back when the Black Death was ravaging Europe a few centuries ago, I'm sure they would have thought a society with advanced medicines and two thirds of the people not dying in childhood would be Utopia. Hell, they would've called anywhere with three square meals a day Utopia. But now that we are meeting those primary needs reliably, we keep upping the ante. We let our desires grow wildly, wanting digital Internet on our cell phones along with freedom from disease. And a house with a built-in home theater. And not only a house but a vacation condo and a giant SUV capable of 150 miles an hour off road. Plus snacks and cocktails on top of the three squares, thank you!

Is all our technology really making things better? Well, not always, and maybe not in all ways. Things are all connected and delivering a luxury item here requires some peon to mine and refine the stuff to make it over there. Another peon has to put it together in a third place. And don't forget a fourth place to store all the slag caused by the refining processes. Ho hum, there's always these nagging delivery problems for Utopias. It seems Utopia is exactly the right word -- it really means "nowhere."

What would a perfect society really be like? The pursuit of happiness as conceived by our Founding Fathers involved becoming gentlemen, large landowners with mansions. They could rule their little agrarian fiefdoms and indulge in hobbies like flying kites for scientific discovery, dabbling in oils or becoming men of letters, and of course gathering once in awhile to discuss politics and vote. Women could sew, cook and have babies like they always had. Their dream also required lots of slaves to work their land, of course. Nice place to be as long as you were one of the genteel landowners. Their ideal lifestyle lives on in the American Dream of riches and success, only the slaves have become house servants from the Philippines. Well someone has to serve breakfast in bed!

Maybe the perfect society is something more like the world of Star Trek than 2001 - still heavy on technology but where everyone is equal and a paragon of virtue. No doubt the entire crew always returned their library books on time, and every one of them was comfortable staying the same rank for eight years or more. What happened to ambition in their world? Or salary increases? Who pays for the drinks in Ten Forward anyway? Everyone has a personal beaming station to take them wherever they want and all the high tech toys they can imagine when they get there. Moreover, everyone seems to lead the genteel life back on Earth whenever they visit. There's no overcrowding, no ghettos. Does a burger flipper rate the same mansion as a CEO when there's no money between equals? Do they even have money in the 23rd century? Sounds like a great life, but you never see who does all the upkeep on all that. Immigrants from C Quadrant? Let's hope it's robots.

Even if we could solve the Utopian delivery problems, there's always maintenance and upkeep. Perfection? We'll never get there. But it's perfectly appropriate to aim for perfection. And speaking of aiming, does Utopia require a missile defense system?

Alas for the 2001 Utopia that might have been. The real 2001 has turned out to be a circus of extremes -- a confusing muddle of knowledge and ignorance, of mundane luxury and desperate poverty, of great humanity and base cruelty. Who knew it would turn out like this? Let's hope the dreary world of 2019 depicted in Blade Runner is way off the mark! An even worse fate awaits us Beyond Thunderdome; let's try and avoid that one too.

Like McLuhan, Frank Zappa sure had it right when he said in The Blue Light, "The Future is scary, yes it sure is!" At least we can be thankful The Taliban will soon lose Kandybar, sorry, Kandahar, and a few more Afghan women will be taking off those ridiculous burqas. Maybe the genteel leaders of the Northern Alliance will even allow them to vote, and to play some music on radios and Walkmans, if not home theaters.

Music, hmm. Maybe we don't need more bombs. All our armies have large marching bands, and if they all played something decadent and Western like The Blue Danube Waltz really loud together, maybe it would flush Osama out of his cave. Unlike not-so-smart bombs, it won't kill more innocents. At least it won't hurt to try and it might help sell other Afghans on the benefits of moving into the 21st Century with the rest of us.

Sounds like a good time go back into the Closet to dig out my old copy of the 2001 soundtrack and listen to Lux Aeterna at high volume. Classical psychedelia on pristine vinyl tonight! And right after that it's some George Harrison. A shame he had to go, but maybe it is a kind of Utopia when the actual performances of The Beatles and others are with us forever. I've got to go inside anyway to get ready for the next meeting of the CCHEMT. It seems that people are not sleeping in suspended animation tubes yet, though sometimes the Closet sure feels that way. Thanks for reading and until next month the Closet is closed.



(C) 2001 - Rusty Pipes


Official Disclaimer: Hello? Can anybody hear me? This is the editor. Hel..hello? I'm stuck on the secret moonbase. Nobody else is here. I need to know what Rusty's column was about so I can give the monthly disclaimer. Can anyb... Hello? Hello? ... Damn...