A distracting side-effect I’ve experienced from reading Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism is a newfound mental habit of playing Spot the Fascist Tendencies with everything I read.
“The Overview Effect,” a phrase coined in the book of the same name by space philosopher and writer Frank White. It refers to the experience of seeing firsthand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately understood to be a tiny, fragile ball of life, hanging in the void, shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere. From space, the astronauts tell us, national boundaries vanish, the conflicts that divide us become less important and the need to create a planetary society with the united will to protect this “pale blue dot” becomes both obvious and imperative.
Oh, I know they mean well, and are probably not likely to start strutting around in jackbooted spacesuits, pressing us all into the worship of a unified pan-human World-State or whatever. But it’s hard now to read such things without noticing the odor of mystical collectivism they emit. It’s also difficult to read things like this and not speculate on where such mysticism could easily lead — namely, regarding space as some sort of sacred wilderness to be preserved in perpetuity from intrusive human activities.
Personally I prefer rationalism and individualism as the basis for the permanent settlement of space.
On the other hand, I can’t fault them for wanting more people to go into space (even if we may disagree as to the why of it). At least they get that part right.
[via Clark Lindsay]
