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Harry Nimbus's avatar

It sounds like the show reflects the misanthropy underlying the current zeitgeist. It used to be that science fiction would ultimately point us toward what makes us human, as when the terminator discovers the human heart beating inside his mechanical body. But now we get sci-fi that imagines the human heart itself is a fabrication, a lie. And yet as you illustrate, the inner world expresses itself whether we like it or not, and the show seems to be critiquing its own metaphysic, somewhere below the level of consciousness, as if the inner life out of which the story came is sending us an urgent warning. At the risk of sounding naive, I see this as a hopeful sign. The human spirit is revolting against our radical neglect of it, asserting itself, making itself known to us again.

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Allen Frantzen's avatar

Science and science fiction. I see this as a valuable comment on human habits understanding. We think of “Little Red Riding Hood” as a fairy tale, but you point to the truth value of its sobering themes. After all, such tales were once told to children to make them wary of friendly strangers, a very “woke” concern today, when some kids are not permitted to play outside lest they be snatched by predators. The fairy tale seems disturbingly pointed. Unseen dangers lurk.

We think of “science” as real, which means that it reveals unseen reality. The invisible world of science is a powerful force for control. “Science is real,” the virtue signalers remind us, eager to put “science” on the side of authority, their side. The virtuous tell us to obey. Only then will science save us from our selfish ways.

But as you point out, science is mysterious, contradictory, even confusing, its meaning easily reduced to what powerful people say. Masks are bad. Wait! Masks are good. Science is regarded as dogma and revealed truth. We are supposed to forget that science has its own hidden dangers and is open to error and mystification. Phrenology was very popular in the United States because it proposed a scientific explanation for individual difference and promised to correct social disorder, which it failed to do, even though most advocates of the science were among the elite. Sounds familiar. Now phrenology is a pseudo-science. There are plenty examples of one era’s science becoming another era’s joke.

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