Shame of Man by Piers Anthony
Another aspect I wanted to explore more thoroughly, but couldn't quite define, is the full nature of language. Perhaps this will never be completely clarified, but I'll keep searching. I remain fascinated by the connections between language and art, perhaps because I regard myself as an artist with words: I shape images and moods without paints or music, while appreciating all the other arts. Storytelling may be the most ancient art. But even when it is viewed as straight communication, there are mysteries about language. For example, Noam Chomsky suggests that the human brain is preprogrammed for particular syntax: when children of diverse linguistics are thrown together, they develop new languages with a set variety of syntax resembling that of the existing languages of the world. At first they use pidgin, which is a polyglot assemblage of words from all over. This evolves into a creole, which is an actual new language with syntax. The importance of syntax is unquestioned in this novel; I believe it is what separated mankind from Neandertal man. But is it wired in? I believe it is not—because there has been no actual test of this, no clear indication. The children who formed their pidgin had words borrowed from the several languages of their parents, and also the pattern of syntax from the same source. Naturally they used it in their new language. Thus both individual words and the common syntax were culturally inspired; there is no need to assume hard genetic wiring, and no reason for it to have evolved. But the matter has not yet been settled; if there is some future test that eliminates the cultural influence, the truth may yet come clear.
Similarly the truth of dreams has yet to be understood. My conjecture that they represent part of the sorting and classification process for memories is my own; I think it is safe to say that this is not presently accepted doctrine. The human brain, during its sleeping downtime, may be methodically calling up all the memories of the past day and seeking their affinities, however farfetched, in the manner of a computer search for particular combinations of symbols. When a match or partial match is found, it is as if a light flashes, and the two memories are compared in greater detail. Probably the background sorting and comparing is constant, and after affinities are evoked, the sorting is done again to see what new alignments have come into being in the light of that discovery. Most things stay in the background; only when new connections are forged is the dreaming process necessary. Then consciousness is invoked, as when a person checks the match the computer has found and put on the screen, and judges in what ways it makes sense. So our dreams do make sense—in ways we are doomed to forget. It is the startling juxtapositions that may be remembered after we wake, but this is like noting the coincidence of a crack of thunder just as a person invokes God's name: probably not meaningful, but nevertheless memorable. I suspect that most dream analysis, whether psychiatric or amateur, is worthless, because it mistakes the purpose of dreams.
Also as before, I tried to focus on aspects of history that are not currently fashionable, in an effort to broaden my base. The standard model I was raised on suggests that civilization started in Egypt, spread to Greece, advanced to Rome, and then collapsed into the Dark Ages until the Renaissance, British world dominion, and modern America. That model is an ignoramus. A whole lot was going on in the rest of the world throughout, as these volumes show, and the subject has hardly been addressed. I believe that the roots of civilization reach into many parts of the globe, and that much of what we have called progress has been an ongoing ecological disaster. For example, agriculture is commonly hailed as one of the greatest breakthroughs of mankind, because it enabled our species to control its food supply and prosper. But cultivation of human food crops destroys the natural plant and animal life of the region, helping to impoverish the diversity of the world's life. Similarly the use of wood has to a considerable degree governed the power and prosperity of human cultures, because it is so useful for housing, ships, and fuel. But deforestation is destroying the vitality of the land, leading to erosion and climatic change. Industry has multiplied human efficiency of accomplishment, but left in its wake the pollution of air, earth, and sea. Everything has its price, and the wasteful use and destruction of Earth's natural resources is the shame of mankind, for it is destroying the viability of the natural world and imperiling future human existence. Species extinctions are proceeding at a rate that promises to rival that of the holocaust of the dinosaurs—because of mankind's heedless exploitation of the world. Whether it is the endless destruction of war, as when the Mongols ravaged Asia; or China's Taiping Rebellion killed up to twenty million people and impoverished the nation; or hunting local whale populations to near extinction as the Basques of Terranova did; or leveling the forests of entire continents, as occurred in modern times; or wiping out the American Indians or the aborigines of Tasmania and elsewhere—we are doing it as we always have, everywhere across the globe. For shame.
Mankind is a species running amok. The qualities which enabled our species to prosper are now sending us to doom. Our intelligence and adaptability enabled us to prevail over other creatures and the rigors of the world's climate; they removed our limits of geography and season. Our ability to procreate enabled us to populate the world. Now those same qualities enable us to squeeze out all other life, and to overpopulate the world so badly that little remains ahead but disaster. Because a quality for which we had no prior need is now desperately needed: restraint.
We may already have seen it happen in a microcosm. Chapter 15, about Easter Island, focused on the mystery of the origin of its stoneworking inhabitants: did they come from Polynesia, or South America? The question may be summed up by POT: the lack of POTtery suggests the former, the presence of sweet POTatoes the latter. But if we focus on their later history, the implication is appalling. When mankind came there, the island was covered by forest, a paradise of its kind. But the human population increased without restraint. At one time the island supported several thousand people, and was making and erecting giant statues at a phenomenal rate. Other arts may have flourished similarly: woodworking, feather working, rock art, tattooing, and specialized cloth making. Civilization, by local definition, was at its peak. But the resources of the land were being squandered. All the trees were taken, leaving the isle bare. Then there was no more fresh wood to make boats, so that no one could seek new land, and deep-sea fishing could no longer be done. The denuded land suffered erosion and loss of fertility. Thus at a time of greatest industrial progress, the food gave out. The statue erection abruptly halted, and the population crashed as the survivors fought over the diminishing resources. Only an impoverished remnant remained, even before the depredations of the Europeans occurred. Thus do we conjecture that paradise became hell—because there was no foresight and no restraint about the exploitation of natural resources.
There are persuasive computer models suggesting that something similar is now happening to the whole of Earth. Common sense agrees. We are, after all, the same species that did it to Easter Island. Famine may be our future. In the prior volume, Isle of Woman, I conjectured that cannibalism would occur on a global scale as the food system collapsed. This volume evades that issue by focusing on the fringe, where the population never rises as high, so has less distance to fall. But even so, Draconian measures are likely to be required, with rigid control of population and protection of natural resources. Thus the six-person family lots of the final chapter, absolute control of births, and nonpolluting fuel cells whose residue is water, used to power vehicles and other devices. Thus death or banishment for those who willfully violate such strictures. Because if the lid is not kept on, the overpopulation and pollution and destruction of vital resources will resume, and that can not be tolerated. Gaea has been harmed too much already.
We are living in an age of disastrous pseudo-affluence that will soon enough be curbed, one way or another, as it was on Easter Island. I hope that this time sanity comes before destruction. Otherwise the shame of man will also be the doom of mankind.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1994 by Piers Anthony Jacob
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5820-2
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Piers Anthony, Shame of Man