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Most summers I like to re-watch of the original Planet of the Apes movies released from 1968-73. I finally got around to reading the source material, the 1963 novel by Pierre Boulle. Few novels of the 20th century have ignited the imagination of many and led to nine feature films, a TV show, and graphic novels.
A swift read, Boulle's style recalls that of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, fast paced action- adventure with a philosophical underpinning. It bears many similarities to the classic 1968 film, but at the same time tells a much different story. Like the movie, the story begins with a group of astronauts en route to the Betelgeuse system. They crash land onto a planet and quickly discover an upside down world where humans are subjugated by apes.
The protagonist Ulysse Merou bears little resemblance to "Taylor" famously played by Charlton Heston. A fairly bland character, Merou acts as more of an observer with his narration throughout. It was smart for the movie to give him a misanthropic and colonial attitude, here he's more of a bystander. When Merou and the crew are put into captivity by the apes, he amazes them at his ability to talk and display intelligence, so sympathetic Chimpanzee scientists Cornelius and Zira become his benefactors (like the movie). The political leader Dr. Zaius symbolizes establishment attitudes on earth - and fears what the human visitor will entail for his planet.
Merou becomes a celebrity and has a son with a primitive woman Nova (she was partnered with him in a science experiment). Fearing a social revolution to come, the leaders of ape society decide Merou must leave the planet. The conclusion diverges from the movie, although Tim Burton sort of used for his remake in 2001.
Planet of the Apes is a fun read. Boulle's use of satire makes for a compelling allegory of power structures and how they respond to change. All societies have an interest in keeping a social balance, anything threatening such a balance will be considered hostile. The cycle of films would serve as an allegory of race relations in America, as explained in Planet of the Apes as American Myth by Eric Greene. There's also pro-science theme in the novel, as it explores the dangers of politicizing scientific advancement, an obstacle holding civilization away from reaching full potential. The novel also makes you think about why there is so much resistance to change and what that tells about the rise and fall of communities.
The Demon-Haunted World was Carl Sagan's final book. It was published in 1997 and feels alarmingly prescient when we look at the world a fifth of the way through the 21st Century. Sagan takes on the rise of pseudo-science in the culture and the consequences of living in a world where anti-science attitudes prevail from top to bottom, even given credence by heads of state (Trump). I don't even have the words for what Sagan would think if he were alive today. I'm sure he would see some signs of hope, but if you read the news we see the consequences of magical thinking prevails on a grand scale.
Consider this quote:
I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy, when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching their crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness (25).
Throughout Demon-Haunted World, Sagan makes the case for the scientific perspective as essential if civilization is to survive into the 21st century. He counters the view that science and spirituality must be in conflict, science can evoke wonder in a way similar to religion. Stepping away from the idea of a universe without a creator is too frightening for many. A scientific world view values radical skepticism and requires overwhelming evidence to support any hypothesis. Holding to beliefs without evidence or going by intuition solves little, the idea everything happens for a reason, leads to complacency and susceptibility to charlatans who will distort the truth. While Sagan has no qualm with spiritual world views that are self-critical, the prevalence of fundamentalism entails a regression of civilization.
Many chapters look at unnerving cultural trends throughout the 1990s, the decade that saw conspiracy theory thinking rule over pop culture. Widespread beliefs in alien abductions and widespread government cover ups of everything from AIDS to crop circles. While governments have been known to lie and attempt to cover up the truth, going down the rabbit hole where everything is a conspiracy leads to slipshod thinking.
A chapter is devoted to the "Roswell Landing," the most famous UFO hoax. Sagan looks at the more outrageous claims and finds no evidence to support any of them (and offers his own hypothesis much less dramatic than the explosive conspiracies). Alien abduction narratives can be explained through neuroscience and psychology - and how easy it is to fall into self deception. The most outrageous claims must be supported with equally compelling evidence.
Sagan also defends science from some post-modern critics who view it as simply one path to knowledge, no different than witchcraft or transcendental meditation. Other criticisms criticize the history of sexism and racism within science. Sagan concedes all scientists have bias (including himself), but scientists must undergo the most intense scrutiny from their peers. Science is a self-correcting approach to knowledge. A chapter is devoted to ethical issues scientists face, especially in light of the atomic age, and argues scientists must be aware of transgressions they've made in the past.
Demon-Haunted Earth fine work of popular science and a fitting culmination to Dr. Sagan's career as a public intellectual. We desperately miss him.
In a memorable scene from Don't Look Back, the 1967 documentary which followed Bob Dylan during his tour of England in 1965, he sat down with a Time Magazine writer Horace Freeland Judson. Instead of respectfully answering the questions from the esteemed culture journalist, Dylan turned the tables. He dared to be irreverent towards a respected publication that considered him to be a curious fad.
Many focus on Dylan's alleged cruelty towards Judson, but that's a misrepresentation at best. Some recent takes claim Dylan was calling out the fake news media. That's a simplistic interpretation as well. If you listen closely something else entirely was going on.The exchange was a clash was over ideas about art and the media. Dylan despised being subjected to a patronizing write up in Time about him being a folk singer who spoke for his generation. Dylan's defiance towards Judson led to a deconstruction of what Time Magazine represented.
Their verbal spar moved the interview into surreal territory. Dylan criticized the magazine's approach to reporting world news, pointing out how they make the news simple and concise, like a consumer product you might say. He states the magazine had "too much to lose by printing the truth." When questioned further on what constitutes the truth, Dylan casually suggests the truth is a "plain picture" and that collages of "tramps" and "Mr. Rockefeller" would make more sense.
I imagine Time magazine in 1965 as being run by Ivy League/East Coast establishment types, cultural gatekeepers with deep networks into all sectors of American life. Dylan was calling out the magazine's sanitized presentation of reality, one out of touch with the emerging counterculture. The reality represented by Time did not resonate with the experiences of young people - so they created their own media and culture.
The exchange got me thinking about today. This past week a group of 150 respected members of the establishment composed of writers and academics (overwhelming majority over age 40) signed a petition in Harper's Magazine decrying so called "cancel culture" without naming it specifically. The "letter" generated a lively debate online. Those who signed the letter see an "illiberal" attitude among the younger generation. As many have pointed out the letter says more about gatekeepers in a shaky political climate. What's viewed as an attack on freedom of speech from the left is more of a new accountability they view as persecution. If Dylan was moving faster than the culture at large in the 1960s, the young must move even faster these days. They have no choice considering the state of the world.
Another tactic is to demonize youth (woke) culture as a new form of McCarthyism. The logic being that if one makes an offhand comment on race or gender, their career will be derailed. A twitter mob will be unleashed. Off to the gulag then I presume? Or maybe a lucrative speaking tour! It's a dubious comparison and a bizarre rhetorical ploy. The Red Scare of the 1950s targeted free thought, anyone suspected of communist sympathies could be jailed or even executed for treason. Calling out intolerance and bias within institutions bears little resemblance to the tactics of McCarthy, especially when it comes from the marginalized of society, voices typically silenced or ignored in the past. Screaming "New McCarthyism" today would be the same as labeling Martin Luther King an "SJW" or "communist" (many did) for upsetting the status quo in the 1960s and actually having the temerity to call upon white people to reconsider their views on race as he did in his Letter From A Birmingham Jail:
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose of establishing justice they become dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress . . . we who engage in non-violent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.
With the safe distance of history, even red state conservatives pay lip service to Dr. King (even though many of their forebears fought passionately against a holiday dedicated to his memory).
Victims of McCarthyism were served subpoenas, got late night knocks on the door, lost their jobs, and faced prison time if they refused to "name names." Anyone who dissented from the consensus of Cold War culture was suspect. It's also well documented people of color, the Jewish community, and gay people were targets of HUAC (House of Un-American Activities Comm). Loyalty oaths were also required for all civil servants allowing for union busting on a grand scale. The extreme anti-communism McCarthyism fomented did not die with him either, but led indirectly to the Vietnam War and resulted in electing a President in 2016 who admires Tail gunner Joe (yet progressive millennials are labeled the new McCarthyites?). The past is not even past.
Young people desperate for change have the right to be confrontational. They're also our best hope. Think about the world they inherited. The generation under 30, born after 1990, has experienced the 2008 crash at age 18, an increasing class divide, forever wars, and the rise of authoritarianism. The year 2020 has been one of a global pandemic, another economic disaster, and civil unrest brought on by decades of unchecked police brutality. The status quo is no longer acceptable. As British songwriter Billy Bragg argued in the Guardian, social media now fills the role of pop music in the past as a space for youthful dissent - and appears to be more effective for the time being. Those who've never had to answer to anyone before now find their sacred conventional wisdom on trial - as it should be.
Just as many viewed Dylan, Joan Baez, or other luminaries in the 60s as a threat to social order because of their creative expressions and influence on the young, the powers that be of today lament the new critical voices aimed at them and also must live with the knowledge they left a heavy burden on future generations - whether it was by electing Trump, supporting Brexit, or their lack of action on the environment. They will have to adjust to the changing times, as Dylan wrote:
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'
