Imagine widespread ignorance and casual cruelty

That’s only part of the setting of Mark Twain’s novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court…

There’s also slavery, poverty and “a ruling class established mostly on the grounds of inherited ignorance.” The New Atlantis continues this exercise in imagination…

Instantly impressed with all these problems, Hank believes that, possessed as he is with the benefits of a modern education, he should do what he can to relieve medieval man’s estate. He endeavors to build an educational system, encourage ­inventions, establish a free press, promote freedom of conscience and a multiplicity of religious sects, improve communications and transportation, and diminish suffering and injustice wherever he encounters them.

Sounds hopeful. But hardly…

The book concludes with the massive death and destruction brought on when Hank’s reforms meet with a counter-revolution and a bloody civil war…Excitement and satisfaction at their initial victories give way to the realization that they, the conquerors, have now been conquered. If much of the novel appears to be a celebration of reform, progress, and Yankee ingenuity, the end is distinctly ­otherwise.

Rewind…..

Hank, the prototypical American, is a cheerful, optimistic fellow, slow to take offense and wedded to modern conveniences and to the way of thought that underlies them; all problems can be solved pragmatically, he seems to think, and he expects that he himself will be central to their solution. He is committed to republican government, religious diversity, modern science and technology, patent laws as a way of promoting the useful arts, comfort and cleanliness, and public newspapers to make information available to all. Instinctively averse to human suffering, his heart goes out to victims of injustice and disease. He undertakes great personal risk for good causes, such as the liberation of unjustly enslaved prisoners and the education of the king.

This is Twain’s critique of feudalism. Fascinating depiction of modern man.

Hank has badly misjudged the people of Camelot. He may have brought them the trappings of modernity, but they are not moderns. His external reforms have not been matched by an internal transformation. The Yankee ought to have foreseen this problem, having earlier repeatedly lamented the imperviousness of the English to rational arguments like his; such arguments “have no chance against petrified training; they wear it as little as the waves wear a cliff.” Reason and argument cannot easily divert the “inherited ideas” that flow “in ruts worn deep by time and habit.” The people of Camelot, he had recognized, were intractable:

“Training—training is everything; training is all there is to a person. We speak of nature; it is folly; there is no such thing as nature; what we call by that misleading name is merely heredity and training. We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own; they are transmitted to us, trained into us.”

Indoctrination, so to speak.

So where is this excursion into the Dark Ages going? Can exposure to modern ideas and technologies break people out of destructive group behaviors?

Twain finally seems ambivalent toward his Yankee, and this ambivalence reflects his complex assessment of the attitudes and principles that characterize his modern hero. The Yankee and his author both condemn the injustice and superstition of Arthurian England, and we may join them in cheering modern liberty and progress.

On the other hand, with the blessings of the modern age come great risks (and lesser ones as well). Oblivious to these risks, the Yankee destroys Camelot, friends and foes alike, without even being aware of what he is doing—one might say that he seems almost as free of real responsibility as a child, rabbit, or lunatic.

But with Twain’s warning, we are not. Mixing powerful technologies unreflectingly with modern ideologies makes for a toxic brew, and while our naïve optimism and democratic tastes can be charming, they may not suffice to stave off destruction.

Amazing timing, coming across this. On this weekend’s ‘America’s Lifeline’, bioethics expert Wesley J. Smith ran through a brilliant and staggering list of ways we’re stumbling down that same dark path. He exudes frank realism more than pessimism, but that’s just how things are at this precise point.

Bioethics is not a narrow category of topics now, he says, but includes “everything having to do with human exceptionalism.” What’s most important in our society is related somehow to bioethics. “How we perceive the importance of being human, of how we treat each other, how we should treat those with disabilities and those who are frail and elderly. How we treat people who are dying and how we include them into our community. How to assure that biotechnology remains ethical” instead of turning human beings into another ‘corn crop’, Wesley said, ticking off a rapidfire list of gut (and conscience) checks for ‘modern man’.

“Will being human continue to be morally relevant?” Wesley asked, rhetorically, but in all seriousness. After all, world bodies are now not only considering extending human rights to animals and plants, they’re actually doing it, and enforcing these brave new world mandates through governments and the ‘court of human rights’, which is an increasingly odd misnomer. “In the ideology of the ‘deep ecology’ movement, humans are the scourge of the earth,” he said. 

“Then there’s the Peter Singer mentality that being human isn’t what matters but being a ‘person’, defined by cognitive abilities. It’s a quality of life ethic. The higher your capacities, the greater your value. And Singer’s ‘ethics’ are triumphing. It’s an effort to make us a ‘moral community of equals’, whether humans, gorillas, apes, orangutans, etc. And people say ‘oh sure, gorillas with human rights, that’ll be the day’ but it’s not the kook fringe saying these things. Spain has ratified this legislation. Austria refused to declare a chimp a person and were taken to court. The Swiss constitution says plants have ‘intrinsic dignity’ and rights as humans….It’s a collapse of critical thinking.”

When that show becomes available in audio archives, listen to it, download it, tell others. The other two co-hosts of the show are the brother and sister of Terri Schiavo, who was deemed unworthy of life and then by court order, starved and dehydrated to death. While the flowers next to her bed were kept well watered.

After doing that show, I stumbled across the New Atlantis piece on Twain’s book and the “toxic brew” of “mixing powerful technologies unreflectingly with modern ideologies”. And they dovetailed too fittingly.