Transhumanism (1957)
Context: The first thing that the human species has to do to prepare itself for the cosmic office to which it finds itself appointed is to explore human nature, to find out what are the possibilities open to it (including, of course, its limitations, whether inherent or imposed by the facts of external nature)... The great men of the past have given us glimpses of what is possible in the way of personality, of intellectual understanding, of spiritual achievement, of artistic creation. But these are scarcely more than Pisgah glimpses. We need to explore and map the whole realm of human possibility, as the realm of physical geography has been explored and mapped. How to create new possibilities for ordinary living? What can be done to bring out the latent capacities of the ordinary man and woman for understanding and enjoyment; to teach people the techniques of achieving spiritual experience (after all, one can acquire the technique of dancing or tennis, so why not of mystical ecstasy or spiritual peace?); to develop native talent and intelligence in the growing child, Instead of frustrating or distorting them?
“The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.”
Source: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007), Chapter 9
Interview for KFRC RKO Radio (8 December 1980)
Foreword to The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Tower of Babylon; first appeared in Omni, 1990.
Stories of Your Life and Others (2002)
Source: Tristes Tropiques (1955), Chapter 4 : The Quest for Power, p. 43
Context: While I complain of being able to glimpse no more than the shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is taking shape at this very moment, since I have not reached the stage of development at which I would be capable of perceiving it. A few hundred years hence, in this same place, another traveller, as despairing as myself, will mourn the disappearance of what I might have seen, but failed to see.
“A glimpse into the world proves that horror is nothing other than reality.”
