Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so we are finishing
our discussion of Dougal Dixon’s speculative zoology instead.
Now, ‘Anthropology of the Future’ is a book of a different
sort from the other two – it is presented not as a book of fact, but of
fiction, straightforward, not unlike Stephen Baxter’s ‘Evolution’, just with
fewer pages, much more illustrations, and fewer semiotics or whatever you want
to call it. Instead, what we got in ‘Anthropology…’ are echoes of Jules Verne’s
‘Time Traveller’ novella, in particular – the social division aspect.
Let us elaborate. In the latter, Jules Verne showed how the ‘haves’
became the eloi, and the ‘have-nots’ – the morlocks. It was more intricate than
that, true, and had plenty of references/influences/what-else-have-you
regarding Jules Verne’s own social philosophy, reflected in plenty of his other
novels, from the ‘War of the Worlds’ to ‘Anna-Veronica’, but what Dougal Dixon
took for his own ‘Anthropology…’ what that split. Throughout ‘Anthropology…’ we
constantly see class/social class distinctions and the various genetic
manipulations only made it all worse. The single species – Homo sapiens, aka us – got split into dozens of new species, all
adapted, or pre-adapted, to existence in different environments – plains,
jungles, temperate woodlands, underwater, and so on – with the only main
distinction being the presence of a mind/sentience/intelligence… pause.
No. My bad. The actual distinction was whether the ancestral
humans were able to go into space to colonize new worlds, or not – they stayed
on Earth, humanity’s home planet, and survived/evolved/existed/etc. there
instead. Anything else proved to be secondary, as the descendants of the
initial space colonists eventually came back to Earth and took over it. In
their defence, it must be said, that the descendants of humans that stayed on
Earth by that time had evolved, or rather devolved, into being nothing more
than ‘mere mammals’, no more sentient and advanced than their counterparts from
the ‘Zoology of the Future’ had been, so this is less of a ‘War of the Worlds’,
and more of ‘humanity coming to a natural ecosystem’, (think New Zealand or
Australia), ‘and buggering it all beyond recognition’. There is not much
difference between the two, true, but there is. Where were we?
…Stephen Baxter’s ‘Evolution’ was written among similar
lines though much more semiotic and pro-feminine. Sadly, because it is not a
good book, all the drama tends to be overwhelming at best of times, it is not
really ‘woke’ either, more like annoying and tiresome and pessimistic. So’s ‘Anthropology
of the Future’, of course, but at least it ends on a more positive note – after
the ‘new eloi’ finished with the ‘old Earth’ and left, there is a single
species of human descendants left on the planet – a hardy deep-water dweller,
so who knows? Maybe sentient life will come back to the world of ‘Anthropology…’
once again.
…Baxter’s take is different – he claims that sentient, or
semi-sentient, life will survive on Earth until the very end, when the sun
itself will explode/implode/etc., and destroy the Solar System. Somehow, he
still makes it sound depressive as anything – does he want humanity to die? Well, maybe, but this does not mean that we
have to agree with him… Anything else?
Well, in regards to Jules Verne, it can be pointed out that
his ‘Time Traveller’ also ends on a similar note – his titular hero goes even further
into the future, and he arrives at a time where there’s no sentient life, and
the only life period are some plants and small mammals – less of a bang and more
of a whimper, put otherwise, but there are similarities to Dixon and Baxter too.
…Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!
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