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Title: Saturn and Scientism Author: David Watson Language: en Topics: anti-civ, scientism Source: Retrieved on August 22, 2009 from http://www.eco-action.org/dt/saturn.html
There she is, looking vaguely pornographic on the glossy covers of the
weekly magazines, the planet Saturn. What have we discovered? I don’t
know, I haven’t read them, feeling squashed as I do to the Earth by the
giddying inertia of this century which plummets like a flaming satellite
towards the nothingness. Grey skies, the weather turning cold, sirens in
the distance. Some citizens walk by whispering reverently of the wonders
of Saturn, disputing the number of rings and moons according to the
latest counts, as the corroding universe about them threatens to be
annihilated. They drool over photographs of a planet most of them
couldn’t spot in a clear night sky — that is, if the night sky hadn’t
already been colonized and obliterated by the city light and the lethal
dust of the very civilization which made it possible to send gadgets and
technicians to the stars. But everything is so groovy on Saturn, so
colorful and tempestuous. They know because they watched it all on
television.
The spectacularization of space: a form of disassociation from an Earth
which is coming apart at the seams. It is an odd addiction to scientific
trivia which on the one hand resembles the “equipment mania” of
hobbyism, and a futuristic brand of scientistic and mystical
obscurantism on the other. They are hypnotized by the latest additions
to an endless series of eternally changing scientistic truths. They
think the universe is “out there” in the sky. They turn it into an
alienated object just as they turn their daily creative activity and
their life energy into commodities. And well they should so that the
existing state of affairs may continue to prevail, for if they realized
that this is their universe, that the only universe is their own world
and their own lives, and that they are converting it into a vast,
radioactive ruin, they would tremble with fear, and with passion and
rage, and they would overturn it all.
They think going great distances at enormous velocities will bring them
understanding. But the mystery is all around them; the center of the
universe is everywhere, and the circumference nowhere. They are on a
treadmill, no matter what the velocity of their machines; and when they
arrive at the remote reaches that they seek, they understand no more
than they did when they left. (They could have gone there more readily
in dreams.)
They think that if they launch enough rockets and feed enough facts into
computers that they will someday discover the secret to life. But they
will never find any answers, only more facts to feed to their computers,
truths which will quickly be overthrown by new, more “revolutionary”
truths. They have mistaken the question of how to live in their
universe, with a technological scholasticism. They will only succeed in
creating a world of gadgets, gadgets which will do their living for
them. What does it mean, after all, to vicariously explore a
pseudo-universe by gazing at the video-image on a television screen?
What is this knowledge but a massive, technocratic illusion?
They think that the space program represents more freedom, an extension
of their universe. In reality it is an element in their reduction. The
night sky no longer exists for modern humanity. We live in these cities
like rats in holes. Primitives, on the other hand, have a much more
intimate relation with the stars, which haven’t been reduced to mere
images. They know the seasons and the plants, guide their migrations and
their agricultural cycles by them; they name the heavenly bodies, feel
their power.
Modern humanity’s relation with the stars is mediated by experts; we
look at the planetary pornography in magazines, and know a sampling of
reified facts and scientistic gibberish which we can spout when it is
convenient, but we may as well be living in a cave. Our universe is an
artifice, and nature is a commodity to be consumed. Our waking life is
reduced to the cubicle and the production line, our dreams to television
static, our wisdom to statistical jargon. Modern humanity thinks its
scientistic metaphors more accurately reflect “reality” than the mystic
metaphors of the primitive, but they only reflect an impoverishment and
a fundamental widespread ignorance.
The defenders of the scientistic faith cite the spirit of discovery and
exploration in their ecstatic panegyrics for the space program. The
hallucination which these addicts of technology defend is nothing more
than the spirit of capitalism in its early development, which is linked
historically with the exploration and conquest of the “new world”, a
commercial expansion which initiated the greatest pillage and slaughter
of all time. The “achievements” of capital cannot be considered
separately from the slavery and extermination of indigenous peoples
everywhere. The space program has been paid for in oceans of blood.
But of course it won’t be “Man” who explores and conquers outer space
any more than it was “Man” who explored and conquered America, but
Capital. Human beings will function as the pawns of the
military-industrial complex, East and West, which will transform space
into capital. Incredible profits will be reaped in space, perhaps as it
is divided into territories and spheres of influence. And if there are
profits to be made, they will certainly lead to imperialist wars in the
skies, star wars which will inevitably spread to the Earth.
This sinister side of the space program reveals how far the
disassociation can go. Everyone knows that every advance in space
technology and computer technology which accompanies it is an advance in
military technology. Faster missiles, more accurate trajectories, more
durable equipment, and more efficient fuels intensify the arms race and
bring us closer to holocaust. Everyone knows this, but few utter it
aloud.
The adventure is here and now on earth, not in desperate technological
forays into space. We must begin by taking back this world which has
been stolen from us, and learn to live upon it so that we can stand
beneath the stars on a clear and silent night and know who we truly are
and where we are going.