Carl Sagan's Silky way (with words)
Wisdom wears a pastel roll-neck sweater beneath a contrasting 'sports coat' - story 23
Carl Sagan is part of my childhood. There were others. I rushed home from a school exam to watch Mohammed Ali’s Rumble in the Jungle. (Actually Harry Carpenter talking over some photos on BBC Grandstand) I read Erich Von Daniken. Geoff Boycott was the only acceptable Yorkshireman.
Carl Sagan was different.
I remember his tone. The care he took with each word. His very Americaness (a word?)
I remember him talking about ‘the pale blue dot’. An Apollo child who watched the moon landing whilst at primary school, this stayed with me. It is still magical.
A few months ago I returned to Sagan. I wanted to know more about him. I enjoyed reading about the genesis of the dot.
I came across this paragraph which struck a chord.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching at crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties are in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true…”
That was from his 1995 book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. I now know this book also contained the quote which has stayed with me for over thirty years. This is the longer version:
Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet.
This was one of his final works. The book explained the importance of critical thinking, scientific literacy, and active participation in shaping the future of our world.
Five words summed up that last idea. In some ways that call to action framed a lot of my public service career. Now I think it explains my energy for this blog.
Carl Sagan died in 1996. Were he still alive, he would be part of the global discourse like David Attenborough. I believe his message would be essentially the same. And I would still be motivated by it.
Don’t sit this one out.