Life As Performance Art 109

Does anyone of a certain age remember this kind of conversation with our parents? "Mom, I wanna go out and play." "Have you cleaned your room, yet?" "No." "Then go clean your room first." "That's boring." "Don't argue, go clean your room, then you can go outside and play. Hop to it." Now, with this current batch of kids that wouldn't tear themselves away from their precious little screens to go outside even if they were paid, it would be more like, "I'm gonna play computer games" (they no longer ask permission, the entitled little beasts just do whatever the hell they want now), and mom or dad asking them gently and timidly if first they might want to clean out their inbox. Or whatever. But it's the same argument that I have about all those idiots who are obsessed over this fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing when Neil Armstrong uttered his famous and eternal, if somewhat prosaic and banal words, "One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind (pardon the gendered language, Gentle Reader! We are talking fifty years ago!) So now, instead of following mom and dad's commonsense advice, everyone just wants to leave the planet, this beautiful wounded planet, in the current mess we have made of it, and now they just want to go on to ruin other worlds. This is worse than hubris. We are looking here at mass, collective toxic masculinity, completely unleashed. This nonsense that we can just go on and on exhausting our finite resources and accelerating global warming and species extinction while we aspire to the moon, Mars, the rest of the solar system and then eventually we are well into barmy Captain Kirk Zone. How can such highly educated, intelligent people be so chronically stupid, anyway! Space research and exploration burns up billions, if not trillions of dollars, money that could be much better spent on funding and developing renewable and nonpolluting forms of energy, international community development, peacemaking, education, poverty reduction, the production of food, preserving the environment, rescuing endangered species, combatting racism, misogyny and homophobia, and the list goes on. And instead, they want to go back to the moon. Well, sure. And why don't they stay on the moon and let the rest of us get on with undoing this damage that is the legacy of our human obsession with scientific progress and research and advancement? Not that that is all bad, either, but sheesh, to everything there has to be a limit and if they are not prepared to harness their scientific genius and expertise in morally, ethically and socially responsible projects and activity, then maybe the whole space program should be permanently suspended. Has anyone ever troubled to measure the carbon emissions dumped into the atmosphere by one single rocket launch? It isn't just a matter of cleaning up our planet. It is cleaning up our messy and contaminated little souls as well. It is the importance of reckoning with our shadow side, and understanding that our astronauts are not going to leave their shadow behind them on earth. They are going to carry it with them and if they in the next few hundred years (should we still be around by then) do find life on other planets, what is to stop our descendents from visiting the same kind of havoc and ruin on other planets and extraterrestrial life forms that earlier explorers and colonizers have already wreaked on indigenous peoples around the world, or what other invasive species have done to help wreck entire local biospheres? We also have to be reminded that we are not creatures fit for space travel. We are creatures of the earth. Our very DNA is tied to and binds us to our planet. We are not some highly favoured demigods above other life forms. We are animals that also have our place in the biosphere, and it is only because of the way we have misused and abused our Promethean intelligence that has landed us in this mess, with a window of less than a dozen years to clean up our act on climate change before it's game over, kablooie, and it's schnitzel for you, Tootsie! No one should be even permitted to escape from their, from our shared and collective responsibility of reckoning with and cleaning up this mess we have made of everything. We have only to consider what happens to the human body once it leaves the earth's gravitational field, if we are really serious about space travel. It isn't pretty, and the long term damage is something frightening. Not to mention, the unknown health impacts of living sealed in artificial environments, without the healing and healthful contact and benefits of fresh air and sunshine and whole and wholesome food, as well as contact with animals and plants, life forms other than and vastly more innocent and delightful than our toxic human species. And even if any of our descendents should find their way to another galaxy, to another planet, similar to earth, there is no knowing what an even slightly different composition of atmospheric gases and stellar radiation is going to have on them, nor the psychological impact of being cut off from everything that is familiar and dear. We are creatures and children of the earth. We are not equipped to live away from our mother. I say, scrap the space program, put a cap on our greed and hubris, and start focussing on the problems we have already created and, through our arrogant negligence and ultra nerdy fixation on scientific advancement, keep growing worse by the day. Get a conscience, you guys. And get one fast! Because next week they're all going to be talking about Woodstock, fifty years later. Yes. THAT Woodstock. And it ain't gonna be pretty!