You'd
be a sad simulated-topography Ming Dynasty clay lion at the alien base
on B-57, too, if
the rich kids came over to your part of the Galaxy to play, and then
went off again without deciphering a single one of your carefully
prepared
coded messages designed to help them save the universe from themselves,
before it's too late ("batteries went dead" -- right, it's always
something... oh, "a shirt problem", yeah...): image via Philae Lander @ Philae2014, 14 November 2014
#SF riots: image via Not Frantz Fanon @violentfanon, 30 October 2014
The wall of rock facing the Philae lander where it has come to rest on
comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko: Photo by ESA/REX/ESA/REX, 13 November 2014
Hi! and aren't I cute then? I went for my first simulated walk today...: image via Philae Lander @ Philae2014, 14 November 2014
Paris, France. President Francois Hollande wears 3D glasses to watch the Philae probe as it lands on comet 67P: photo by Jacques Brinon/Reuters via The Guardian, 13 November 2014
Rosetta and Philae: Why this space story fills us with so much awe: The comet landing has given us a rare glimpse of the outer limits of human excellence –- and restored our faith in progress
Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, Friday 14 November 2014 14.47 EST
These
could be the dying hours of Philae, the device the size of a washing
machine which travelled 4bn miles to hitch a ride on a comet. Philae is
the “lander” which on Wednesday sprung from the craft that had carried
it into deep, dark space, bounced a couple of times on the comet’s
surface, and eventually found itself lodged in the shadows, starved of
the sunlight its solar batteries needed to live.
Yesterday, the scientists who had been planning this voyage for the
past quarter-century sat and waited for word from their little explorer,
hoping against hope that it still had enough energy to reveal its
discoveries.
#SF riots: image via Not Frantz Fanon @violentfanon, 30 October 2014
If Philae expires on the hard, rocky surface of Comet 67P the sadness
will be felt far beyond mission control in Darmstadt, Germany. Indeed,
it may be felt there least of all: those who have dedicated their
working lives to this project pronounced it a success, regardless of a
landing that didn’t quite go to plan (Philae’s anchor harpoons didn’t
fire, so with gravity feeble there was nothing to keep the machine
anchored to the original, optimal landing site). They were delighted to
have got there at all and thrilled at Philae’s early work. Up to 90% of
the science they planned to carry out has been done. As one scientist
put it, “We’ve already got fantastic data.”
Sexist Shirts Aren't Cool, Even If You Have Landed A Spacecraft On A
Comet #MattTaylor: image via Feminism Trends @ Feminismolizer, 14
November 2014
Those who lacked their expertise couldn’t help feel a pang all the
same. The human instinct to anthropomorphise does not confine itself to
cute animals, as anyone who has seen the film Wall-E
can testify. If Pixar could make us well up for a waste-disposing
robot, it’s little wonder the European Space Agency has had us
empathising with a lander ejected from its “mothership”, identifiable
only by its “spindly leg”. In those nervous hours, many will have been
rooting for Philae, imagining it on that cold, hard surface yearning for
sunlight, its beeps of data slowly petering out as its strength faded.
#SF riots: image via Not Frantz Fanon @violentfanon, 30 October 2014
But that barely accounts for the fascination this adventure has
stirred. Part of it is simple, a break from the torments down here on
earth. You don’t have to go as far as the Christopher Nolan film Interstellar,
which fantasises about leaving our broken, ravaged planet and starting
somewhere else -- to enjoy a rare respite from our earthly woes. For a
few merciful days, the news has featured a story remote from the
bloodshed of Islamic State and Ukraine, from the pain of child abuse and
poverty. Even those who don’t dream of escaping this planet can relish
the escapism.
But
the comet landing has provided more than a diversion: it’s been an
antidote too. For this has been a story of human cooperation in a world
of conflict. The narrow version of this point focuses on this as a
European success story. When our daily news sees “Europe” only as the
source of unwanted migrants or maddening regulation, Philae has offered
an alternative vision; that Germany, Italy, France, Britain and others
can achieve far more together than they could ever dream of alone. The
geopolitical experts so often speak of the global pivot to Asia, the
rise of the Bric nations and the like -– but this extraordinary voyage
has proved that Europe is not dead yet.
Rosetta scientist Dr #MattTaylor apologises for ‘offensive’ shirt #gamergate: image by #GamerGate Trends @Gamergatolizer, 15 November 2014
Even
that, as I say, is to view it too narrowly. The US, through
Nasa, is involved as well. And note the language attached to the
hardware: the Rosetta satellite, the Ptolemy measuring instrument, the
Osiris on-board camera, Philea itself -– all
imagery drawn from ancient Egypt. The spacecraft was named after the
Rosetta stone, the discovery that unlocked hieroglyphics, as if to
suggest a similar, if not greater, ambition: to decode the secrets of
the universe. By evoking humankind’s ancient past, this is presented as a
mission of the entire human race. There will be no flag planting on
Comet 67P. As the Open University’s Jessica Hughes puts it, Philea,
Rosetta and the rest “have become distant representatives of our shared,
earthly heritage”.
"I don't care if ..." you are marie curie. #shirtstorm #shirtgate: image via DeadShane #5421 @Shane5016, 14 November 2014
That fits because this is how we experience such a moment: as a human
triumph. When we marvel at the numbers -- a probe has travelled for 10
years, crossed those 4bn miles, landed on a comet speeding at 34,000mph
and done so within two minutes of its planned arrival -- we marvel at
what our species is capable of. I can barely get past the communication:
that Darmstadt is able to contact an object 300 million miles away,
sending instructions, receiving pictures. I can’t get phone reception in
my kitchen, yet the ESA can be in touch with a robot that lies far
beyond Mars. Like watching Usain Bolt run or hearing Maria Callas sing,
we find joy and exhilaration in the outer limits of human excellence.
Who's going to get the #Matt
Taylor shirt produced so we can signal we aren't interested in
#feminist or #SJW scolds: image via Worst Dude Ever @worst, 14 November
2014
And of course we feel awe. What Interstellar prompts us to feel
artificially -- making us gasp at the confected scale and digitally
assisted magnitude -- Philae gives us for real. It is the stretch of time
and place, glimpsing somewhere so far away it is as out of reach as
ancient Egypt.
#SF riots: image via Not Frantz Fanon @violentfanon, 30 October 2014
All that is before you reckon with the voyage’s scholarly purpose.
“We are on the cutting edge of science,” they say, and of course they
are. They are probing the deepest mysteries, including the riddle of how
life began. (One theory suggests a comet brought water to a previously
arid Earth.) What the authors of the Book of Genesis understood is that
this question of origins is intimately bound up with the question of
purpose. From the dawn of human time, to ask “How did we get here?” has
been to ask “Why are we here?”
Well done, whoever coined the term #shirtstorm MT @astroprofhoff #CometLanding: image via Meg Rosenburg @trueanomalies, 12 November 2014
It’s
why contemplation of the cosmic so soon reverts to the
spiritual. Interstellar, like 2001: A Space Odyssey before it, is no
different. It’s why one of the most powerful moments of Ronald Reagan’s
presidency came when he paid tribute to the astronauts killed in the
Challenger disaster. They had, he said, “slipped the surly bonds of
Earth to touch the face of God”.
#SF riots: image via Not Frantz Fanon @violentfanon, 30 October 2014
Not that you have to believe in such things to share the romance.
Secularists, especially on the left, used to have a faith of their own.
They believed that humanity was proceeding along an inexorable path of
progress, that the world was getting better and better with each
generation. The slaughter of the past century robbed them -- us -- of that
once-certain conviction. Yet every now and again comes an unambiguous
advance, what one ESA scientist called “A big step for human
civilisation”. Even if we never hear from Philae again, we can delight
in that.
Hi! and aren't I cute then? I went for my first simulated walk today...: image via Philae Lander @ Philae2014, 14 November 2014
Frantz Fanon: Les damnés de la terre
Come, then, comrades; it would be as well to
decide at once to change our ways. We must shake off the heavy darkness
in which we were plunged, and leave it behind. The new day which is
already at hand must find us firm, prudent and resolute.
We must leave our dreams and abandon our old beliefs and friendships
of the time before life began. Let us waste no time in sterile litanies
and nauseating mimicry. Leave this Europe where they are never done
talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner
of every one of their own streets, in all the corners of the globe. For
centuries they have stifled almost the whole of humanity in the name of a
so-called spiritual experience. Look at them today swaying between
atomic and spiritual disintegration.
Paris, France. President Francois Hollande wears 3D glasses to watch the Philae probe as it lands on comet 67P: photo by Jacques Brinon/Reuters via The Guardian, 13 November 2014
And yet it may be said that Europe has been successful inasmuch as everything that she has attempted has succeeded.
Europe undertook the leadership of the world with ardour, cynicism
and violence. Look at how the shadow of her palaces stretches out ever
farther! Every one of her movements has burst the bounds of space and
thought. Europe has declined all humility and all modesty; but she has
also set her face against all solicitude and all tenderness.
She has only shown herself parsimonious and niggardly where men are concerned; it is only men that she has killed and devoured.
Sierra Leone double whammy: #Ebola + #TonyBlair photo visit @georgegalloway: image via taigs @taigstaigs (Southampton, South East) 14 November 2014
So, my brothers, how is it that we do not understand that we have better things to do than to follow that same Europe?
That same Europe where they were never done talking of Man, and where
they never stopped proclaiming that they were only anxious for the
welfare of Man: today we know with what sufferings humanity has paid for
every one of their triumphs of the mind.
Easy does it... baby steps... hey, now I'm getting kinda tired... think I'll take a little simulated nap...: image via Philae Lander @ Philae2014, 14 November 2014
Come, then, comrades, the European game has finally ended; we must
find something different. We today can do everything, so long as we do
not imitate Europe, so long as we are not obsessed by the desire to
catch up with Europe.
Europe now lives at such a mad, reckless pace that she has shaken off
all guidance and all reason, and she is running headlong into the
abyss; we would do well to avoid it with all possible speed.
Migrants from Africa and the Middle East are taken to the mainland after being rescued off Malta by the Italian navy: photo by Giuseppe Lami / EPA via The Guardian, 18 September 2014
Yet it is very true that we need a model, and that we want blueprints
and examples. For many among us the European model is the most
inspiring. We have therefore seen in the preceding pages to what
mortifying set-backs such an imitation has led us. European
achievements, European techniques and the European style ought no longer
to tempt us and to throw us off our balance.
When I search for Man in the technique and the style of Europe, I see
only a succession of negations of man, and an avalanche of murders.
Health systems are collapsing under the weight of #Ebola crisis response. Demand global action: image via AmnestyInternational @amnesty, 14 November 2014
The human condition, plans for mankind and collaboration between men
in those tasks which increase the sum total of humanity are new
problems, which demand true inventions.
Let us decide not to imitate Europe; let us combine our muscles and
our brains in a new direction. Let us try to create the whole man, whom
Europe has been incapable of bringing to triumphant birth.
#shirtstorm #GamerGate #OpSKYNET Wear whatever shirt you want. You're awesome and what you achieved was amazing: image via Dattebayo! @OddKinzo, 14 November 2014
Two centuries ago, a former European colony decided to catch up with
Europe. It succeeded so well that the United States of America became a
monster, in which the taints, the sickness and the inhumanity of Europe
have grown to appalling dimensions.
#SF riots: image via Not Frantz Fanon @violentfanon, 30 October 2014
Comrades, have we not other work to do than to create a third Europe?
The West saw itself as a spiritual adventure. It is in the name of the
spirit, in the name of the spirit of Europe, that Europe has made her
encroachments, that she has justified her crimes and legitimized the
slavery in which she holds four-fifths of humanity.
Yes, the European spirit has strange roots. All European thought has
unfolded in places which were increasingly more deserted and more
encircled by precipices; and thus it was that the custom grew up in
those places of very seldom meeting man.
A permanent dialogue with oneself and an increasingly obscene
narcissism never ceased to prepare the way for a half delirious state,
where intellectual work became suffering and the reality was not at all
that of a living man, working and creating himself, but rather words,
different combinations of words, and the tensions springing from the
meanings contained in words. Yet some Europeans were found to urge the
European workers to shatter this narcissism and to break with this
un-reality.
But in general the workers of Europe have not replied to these calls;
for the workers believe, too, that they are part of the prodigious
adventure of the European spirit.
Amanata lies dead under the tree after a day of writhing in the hot sun. No bed available #ebola: image via alex thomson @alextomo, 11 November 2014
All the elements of a solution to the great problems of humanity
have, at different times, existed in European thought. But Europeans
have not carried out in practice the mission which fell to them, which
consisted of bringing their whole weight to bear violently upon these
elements, of modifying their arrangement and their nature, of changing
them and, finally, of bringing the problem of mankind to an infinitely
higher plane.
Today, we are present at the stasis of Europe. Comrades, let us flee
from this motionless movement where gradually dialectic is changing into
the logic of equilibrium. Let us reconsider the question of mankind.
Let us reconsider the question of cerebral reality and of the cerebral
mass of all humanity, whose connexions must be increased, whose channels
must be diversified and whose messages must be re-humanized.
Come, brothers, we have far too much work to do for us to play the
game of rear-guard.
Europe has done what she set out to do and on the
whole she has done it well; let us stop blaming her, but let us say to
her firmly that she should not make such a song and dance about it. We
have no more to fear; so let us stop envying her.
The view is absolutely breathtaking ESA_Rosetta! Unlike anything I've ever seen #CometLanding: image via Philae Lander @Philae2014, 13 November 2014
The Third World today faces Europe like a colossal mass whose aim
should be to try to resolve the problems to which Europe has not been
able to find the answers.
But let us be clear: what matters is to stop talking about output, and intensification, and the rhythm of work.
No, there is no question of a return to Nature. It is simply a very
concrete question of not dragging men towards mutilation, of not
imposing upon the brain rhythms which very quickly obliterate it and
wreck it. The pretext of catching up must not be used to push man
around, to tear him away from himself or from his privacy, to break and
kill him.
Staff at the European Operations Space Centre in Darmstadt, Germany on November 12, 2014 during the landing of the Philae craft: photo: Handout/ESA
No, we do not want to catch up with anyone. What we want to do is to
go forward all the time, night and day, in the company of Man, in the
company of all men. The caravan should not be stretched out, for in that
case each line will hardly see those who precede it; and men who no
longer recognize each other meet less and less together, and talk to
each other less and less.
It is a question of the Third World starting a new history of Man, a
history which will have regard to the sometimes prodigious theses which
Europe has put forward, but which will also not forget Europe’s crimes,
of which the most horrible was committed in the heart of man, and
consisted of the pathological tearing apart of his functions and the
crumbling away of his unity. And in the framework of the collectivity
there were the differentiations, the stratification and the bloodthirsty
tensions fed by classes; and finally, on the immense scale of humanity,
there were racial hatreds, slavery, exploitation and above all the
bloodless genocide which consisted in the setting aside of fifteen
thousand millions of men.
So, comrades, let us not pay tribute to Europe by creating states,
institutions and societies which draw their inspiration from her.
Humanity is waiting for something other from us than such an imitation, which would be almost an obscene caricature.
If we want to turn Africa into a new Europe, and America into a new
Europe, then let us leave the destiny of our countries to Europeans.
They will know how to do it better than the most gifted among us.
We saw 2 more people ill with #Ebola in the community of Devil Hole Junction -- here a husband & wife...: image via Stuart Webb @Worldwidewebb1, 10 November 2014
But if we want humanity to advance a step farther, if we want to
bring it up to a different level than that which Europe has shown it,
then we must invent and we must make discoveries.
If we wish to live up to our peoples’ expectations, we must seek the response elsewhere than in Europe.
Moreover, if we wish to reply to the expectations of the people of
Europe, it is no good sending them back a reflection, even an ideal
reflection, of their society and their thought with which from time to
time they feel immeasurably sickened.
For Europe, for ourselves and for humanity, comrades, we must turn
over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a
new man.
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961): Chapter 6. Conclusion, in Les damnés de la terre, 1961, translated into English as The Wretched of the Earth by Constance Farrington, 1963, first published in English 1965
Illegal migrants attempting to escape into the Club Campo de Golf de Melilla, a public golf course in the small Spanish enclave of Melilla, a tourist and fishing town on Morocco's northern coast, where games can cost up to about $28 per 18 holes. The per capita income of Melilla is 15 times more than that of the surrounding areas of Morocco and astronomically higher than many parts of sub-Saharan Africa: Jose Palazon / Reuters, via Business Insider, 23 October 2014
Thanks, Tom, for putting this techno-circus in perspective. Excellent. Concerning these matters, Mr. Eliot was quite prescient, as in these lines from The Hollow Men:
ReplyDeleteBetween the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
. . .
Nothing is so far away from us as understanding.
Hazen,
ReplyDeleteThat's certainly apt. As the old radio show from our day had it, Only The Shadow Knows; and hereabouts the long shadow of Money -- projected by the extended cold mechanical arms of the nouveau hyper rich tech industry, and "reaching out" (much as a kind of bumper) in the direction of the less fortunate pre-existing masses in order to sweep them from the path of the luxury google buses and out of rental housing now designated to be priced and styled up and secured for the new custodians of the future -- has pretty much blocked out everything. The scattered views here of impromptu street protests in SF and of the protestors of the BDS Block The Boat movement (an ongoing peaceful interdiction of the shipping wing of the Israeli state colonialist war industry) were captured by an anonymous political resister who calls himself Not Frantz Fanon, in memory of the great anti-colonialist writer (in some way perhaps attempting to carry on the work of Fanon, who died at 36 of leukemia). As to the great Mechano Triumph That Wasn't, and the attendant embarrassing upwelling of Euro editorial enthusiasm for Progress; for adorable mechanical toys and for the sort of brain-teasing games that keep privileged adolescents busy in their rooms late at night (ideally, though in fact they may be simply wanking to screenshots of Jennifer Lawrence for all we foreigners would know); and for the abiding superiority of European values, in the great creative tradition of Ronald Reagan -- one hardly knew when to give in to helpless laughter, as an even more stupefingly, cosmically silly bit was sure to follow.
All of which might have seemed nothing more than a wonderful offering of harmless diversionary between-holidays nonsense (That's Entertainment!!), imbedded with potential Christmas retail apps and imps galore (you've got to know the home models of the Comet Game, including the X-Rated versions with the ESA copyright Sex Bondage shirt, are in furious production even now) -- if not for the annoying, impossible-to-dispel thought that, to shift for a moment from the figurative language of global marketing to that of epidemiology, a single droplet of the money poured into invading a perfectly harmless comet in outer space might actually have bought a couple of hospital beds, a protective suit or two, or at least a palm-leaf fan for that person lying dead upon the sultry earth beneath that tree in West Africa. But hey, that stuff's all happening on the continent Europe left to die, once everything perceived to be of value had been dug up, cut down, killed off, and carted away.
15 November 2014 16:14