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The vision of Eudaimonia Fog had besieged the time-honoured university town since nearly a week ago and this morning it was even denser than usual. It was a condition that certainly provided latitude for the late medieval buildings; the boundary between myth and reality withered away and imagination was given free scope. Here great ideas had been thought; ideas that once changed man's view of the world and himself, but this place had also served as an abode for idle romantic dreamers who with the power of poetry had tried to catch an epoch that eventually in itself drew away like dreams. It was the Lord's year of 2303. In a swift pace the students gathered themselves for what should be their first lecture in theological politics. They knew that the coming course would be demanding, for even if they already were familiar with the professor this course was legendary for its particular high standard. The classical lecture hall was spacious; barely half the seats were filled when professor Hythloday closed the large oak doors and turned to the students: "Good morning! I have chosen to call today's first lecture in this series of three for 'the limits of mankind'. I will take my point of departure in a text written by Friedrich Nietzsche and thereafter I will in rather general terms move over the philosophical mould out of which the modern theologicalpolitical discourse can be said to have grown." After these short words the professor reached out for the manœuvre panel that lied on the rostrum and with once, the light was soften and a piece of text was projected in the air just in front of the professor:
The professor looked out over his reading audience. For them the words were perhaps new, for him it was a welcome reiteration; like a piece of music that you have heard time after time but still can be carried away by. He let the text settle a few extra seconds before he spoke: "These prophetic words, written more than four hundred and fifty years ago, still mark out the temptation that is perhaps the most difficult to resist, namely the will to become God's equal, by one's own force. For the savage this temptation only existed for short moments; cold, hunger and war always waked him up and forced him into an incessant reminder of his own mortality. But there mankind today is in its history there are no longer any external alarm clocks; we know that we could prolong the human life to ten thousands years, our genetic science could create individuals who could feel nothing but endless pleasure, and our virtual realities, for those who never sojourn outside them, could be taken for paradise. Yet we chose to restrict ourselves, to subject ourselves to something greater, to live an authentic life with all its shortcomings so that we can obtain the true freedom. There was a time then man thought that freedom was to, by himself, invent his own moral standard. Today, everyone in this room knows that true freedom is based on submissiveness, on admitting one's inadequacy, and on, like a child, seeking God." The professor once again let his words spread over the lecture hall, his thoughts drifted away and he contemplated on that the world, in what nearly resembled some Hellenistic principle, appeared to move in a circle. The words he just had uttered would have been most natural when the university was founded more than a thousand years ago, then during modernity they would have been banned as "religious drivel", and now today, once again, most natural in an academic discussion. He once again addressed the lecture hall: "It is essential to remember that the man whom Nietzsche encourages to action is the Faustian man, he who goes out in the world as a harvester and distrusts that the creation is good. The Faustian man does not see himself as a gardener in a paradise garden but as a destroyer, as one who has the right to devastate an entire world in a lunatic fight when he tries to realise a constructed concept of 'rationality'. Today we easily forget that this was exactly how the modern man lived, in a relentless pursuit of new nature to loot and new grounds to incorporate in the technosphere." Here he stopped and once again started to contemplate. Should he take the long or the short track? After a brief pause he settled for the first alternative. "So far the Faustian man. In late modernity there were political philosophers who believed that it was necessary that man once again started to live like an animal, with crude tools in small communities. They were so afraid of the effects of the freedom that man had come in possession of due to modernity that they were willing to deprive him of that freedom and through him back into the darkness of ignorance. And the anxiety that these philosophers felt was justified. One shall not forget that mankind was well underway to annihilate himself out of cosmos, to actually in a fierce battle over the last resources let live itself come to an end. Fortunately man reconsidered his destiny, when all hope seemed to be gone man became aware of his history and set out to with imagination and ingenuity reshape the world. But man did not do this to become God, instead he did it to serve God, since it would be wrong as trustee of the creation to deny Eternity its longing for temporality. Just as it would be wrong to believe that temporality could be Eternity by its own will." By now the students began to lack in concentration, as if they did not really comprehend what the professor had said, what did Eternity's longing for temporality mean? "The rest is, as one says, history" the professor continued. "As the printing press revolutionized human knowledge, so did the replicator revolutionize mankind's relationship to nature. When we freely, as in a database, may alter the very building bricks of the universe we no longer need the machinery of power that filled up modernity. Who need to enslave others or the animals of the forests to extract resources when it suffices to download the appropriate pattern to the replicator in order to create whatever artefact one now may want? Today this technique is so unremarkable that we nearly ever reflect upon it, but when you shortly will take a break and go the replicators to get your cups of delicious coffee, then think of what intricate processes that earlier were required to achieve something so simple. Humans cultivated beans in tropical countries, transported them over the surface of the planet, roasted them, blended them, before they finally made the coffee. Every step required its labour, its machinery and its economical compensation". The professor realised that he lectured on matters of course, but he nevertheless felt uneasy over the prevalent ignorance of the youth. They seemed to take the post-scarcity civilisation for granted, and thus he found it appropriate to in this way recount the historical background before he closed in on the crux of the matter. "The replicator technique, or matter editation, is actually a good point of departure for our further analysis. This technique, which perhaps represents our most important achievement, was for a long time a source for great concern. Philosophers sharply questioned if man was ready to in this way lay the very fundamentals of the universe under his feet? What would happen if the technique was used without ethical ripeness and judgement? These philosophers feared a development there experiments with the genetic code would create disfigured life forms and there the neural network of the human brain would be copied into electronic system and thus result in an utter dilution of the existence. Fortunately these fears, at least this far, have been proven to be unwarranted. We have grown with our task and taken our responsibility. To grow in enlightenment is to grow in understanding of the rightful limits that mankind is subjected to. Not to transgress them like an obstinate child. This is also the fundamental principle for theological politics." The professor straightened himself up, took a turn around the rostrum and declared that it was time for a break. The students streamed out of the lecture hall and we with them. Here we leave the British Isles behind us and set of for the European continent. It is a beautiful spring morning and when we come in over France the air is clearing. We are on our way to Strasbourg. In the city centre, around the statue that carries the poetic exhortation to take Europe to one's heart, or "Europe A Cœur" as it says in the local tongue, a few senators in blue mantles have assembled. One of them seems to deliver a spontaneous and slightly stammering speech. "We have create a world there humans are no longer divided into nations or tribes. Right here, in this city, one of the fundaments was erected. By showing that cooperation and not distrust was the road to the future, the people of Europe were capable of uniting. Let us therefore, in this decisive moment of mankind, recall what a leap it was that the different people of Europe once took when we now are confronted with this new situation. So that we may remain bright children of the stars and together dance in and out of ten thousand years, celebrating the gift of consciousness without feeling fear and tremble for the unknown." | ||
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