Text 15984, 68 rader
Skriven 2007-07-13 02:36:16 av Dwight Gruber (2457.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: obsolete thousand year-old shadow ships?
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"Don Strong" <desiredfx@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:ANidnWvYyNUKWQvbnZ2dnUVZ_gmdnZ2d@comcast.com...
>
> "Kurt Ullman" <kurtullman@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
news:kurtullman-24D419.19391012072007@customer-201-125-217-207.uninet.net.mx...
> >       We have always had society wide deaths of creativity. That is
> > basically what happened with the Romans and their society, etc. etc.
> > What I think is causing the brain shock this time is that the society
> > AND the race have essentially involved into the same thing.
>
> I think I misspoke: I didn't mean "the death of societal creativity" but
> "the death of all creativity within the society," if the difference there
is
> clear.
>
> When a society falls, as Rome did, certain expressions of
> creativity--architecture and art, for example--fall to the survival
> necessities the people didn't have to worry about as long as the society
was
> intact. If no one can afford to pay me for my art, I need to find another
> way to live...hunting, farming, prostitution...and I no longer contribute
to
> the artistic record. However, that doesn't mean my creativity is dead.
Heck,
> if I'm especially creative in a certain way, I could do really, really
well
> as a prostitute...
>
> Ahem. I think I'm wandering off topic, here.
>
> Anyway, the point is that there has been no societal stagnation in our
> history that has caused every single member of that society to reach the
> limits of creativity, or to eschew it. Throughout human history, there has
> always been a burning creative spark of a sort.

It strike me that there is something else going on here, which makes a
Shadow (or Vorlon) comparison with humans much less straightforward. The
Shadows--and the Vorlons--were a race with one society. So were,
essentially, all the other Alien races in the B5 universe. I think it is
fair to assume that this was the condition of the rest of the First Ones, as
well. Earth Humans are a...species...of multiple societies, a concept JMS
explored more than once.

The human species advances by fits and starts, advancing and stagnating as
its societies grow, flourish, and die. Philosophies and technologies are
lost and rediscovered through the creative urge. The general trend is to
advance (I'm sure that not everybody will agree with that conclusion...);
there has always existed--or come to being by this societal death and
rebirth--a cultural Lebensraum.

The Shadows and Vorlons are all-or-nothing in this regard--there is no one
waiting in their wings to pick up the pieces (Shadow agents
notwithstanding). For them, the end of creativity or imagination is truly
the dead end.

Makes one wonder if the human in "Deconstruction" is representitive of a
Human species having developed a single culture, and what that implies.

--DwightG

> There is a certain sadness, then, in the First Ones attempting to maintain
> their place in this galaxy despite that spark being extinguished, or at
> least, heavily banked. As you say, it seems a good bet they will regain
> their creativity and hunger once they have passed beyond the rim.
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32
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