Call it the Crisis of the Librarian.
We need a new "specialist" who is not a specialist, but a synthesist. We need a new science to be the perfect secretary to all other sciences.
But we are not likely to get either one in a hurry and we have a powerful lot of grief before us in the meantime.
Fortunetellers can always be sure of repeat customers by predicting what the customer wants to hear... it matters not whether the prediction comes true. Contrariwise, the weatherman is often blamed for bad weather.
Brace yourself.
In 1900 the cloud on the horizon was no bigger than a man's hand - but what lay ahead was the Panic of 1907, World War I, the panic following it, the Depression, Fascism, World War II, the Atom Bomb, and Red Russia.
Today the clouds obscure the sky, and the wind that overturns the world is sighing in the distance.
The period immediately ahead will be the roughest, cruelest one in the long, hard history of mankind. It will probably include the worst World War of them all. It might even end with a war with Mars, God save the Mark! Even if we are spared that fantastic possibility, it is certain that there will be no security anywhere, save that which you dig out of your own inner spirit.
But what of that picture we drew of domestic luxury and tranquility for Mrs. Middleclass, style 2000 A.D.?
She lived through it. She survived.
Our prospects need not dismay you, not if you or your kin were at Bloody Nose Ridge, at Gettysburg - or trudged across the Plains. You and I are here because we carry the genes of uncountable ancestors who fought - and won - against death in all its forms. We're tough. We'll survive. Most of us.
We've lasted through the preliminary bouts; the main event is coming up.
But it's not for sissies.
The last thing to come fluttering out of Pandora's Box was Hope - without which men die.
The gathering wind will not destroy everything, nor will the Age of Science change everything. Long after the first star ship leaves for parts unknown, there will still be outhouses in upstate New York, there will still be steers in Texas, and - no doubt - the English will still stop for tea.
Afterthoughts, fifteen years later - (1965)
I see no reason to change any of the negative predictions which follow the numbered affirmative ones. They are all conceivably possible; they are all wildly unlikely by year 2000. Some of them are debatable if the terms are defined to suit the affirmative side - definitions of "life" and "manlike," for example. Let it stand that I am not talking about an amino acid in one case, or a machine that plays chess in the other.
Today the forerunners of synthesists are already at work in many places. Their titles may be anything; their degrees may be in anything - or they may have no degrees. Today they are called "operations researchers," or sometimes "systems development engineers," or other interim tags. But they are all interdisciplinary people, generalists, not specialists - the new Renaissance Man. The very explosion of data which forced most scholars to specialize very narrowly created the necessity which evoked this new non - specialist. So far, this "unspecialty" is in its infancy; its methodology is inchoate, the results are sometimes trivial, and no one knows how to train to become such a man. But the results are often spectacularly brilliant, too - this new man may yet save all of us.
I'm an optimist. I have great confidence in Homo sapiens.
We have rough times ahead - but when didn't we? Things have always been "tough all over." H - bombs, Communism, race riots, water shortage - all nasty problems. But not basic problems, merely current ones.
We have three basic and continuing problems: The problem of population explosion; the problem of data explosion; and the problem of government.
Population problems have a horrid way of solving themselves when they are not solved rationally; the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are always saddled up and ready to ride. The data explosion is now being solved, mostly by cybernetics and electronics men rather than by librarians - and if the solutions are less than perfect, at least they are better than what
Grandpa had to work with. The problem of government has not been solved either by the "Western Democracies" or the "Peoples' Democracies," as of now. (Anyone who thinks the people of the United States have solved the problem of government is using too short a time scale.) The peoples of the world are now engaged in a long, long struggle with no end in sight, testing whether one concept works better than another; in that conflict millions have already died and it is possible that hundreds of millions will die in it before year 2000. But not all.
I hold both opinions and preferences as to the outcome. But my personal preference for a maximum of looseness is irrelevant; what we are experiencing is an evolutionary process in which personal preference matters, at most, only statistically. Biologists, ecologists in particular, are working around to the idea that natural selection and survival of the fittest is a notion that applies more to groups and how they are structured than it does to individuals. The present problem will solve itself in the cold terms of evolutionary survival, and in the course of it both sides will make changes in group structure. The system that survives might be called "Communism" or it might be called "Democracy" (the latter is my guess) - but one thing we can be certain of: it will not resemble very closely what either Marx or Jefferson had in mind. Or it might be called by some equally inappropriate neologism; political tags are rarely logical.
For Man is rarely logical. But I have great confidence in Man, based on his past record. He is mean, ornery, cantankerous, illogical, emotional - and amazingly hard to kill. Religious leaders have faith in the spiritual redemption of Man; humanist leaders subscribe to a belief in the perfectibility of Man through his own efforts; but I am not discussing either of these two viewpoints. My confidence in our species lies in its past history and is founded quite as much on Man's so - called vices as on his so - called virtues. When the chips are down, quarrelsomeness and selfishness can be as useful to the survival of the human race as is altruism, and pig - headedness can be a trait superior to sweet reasonableness. If this were not true, these "vices" would have died out through the early deaths of their hosts, at least a half million years back.
I have a deep and abiding confidence in Man as he is, imperfect and often unlovable - plus still greater confidence in his potential. No matter how tough things are, Man copes. He comes up with adequate answers from illogical reasons. But the answers work.
Last to come out of Pandora's Box was a gleaming, beautiful thing - eternal Hope.
(1980 - I see no point in saying more. R.A.H.)
If It's Sinful, It's More Fun.
FOREWORD
The editor who disliked science fiction (and me) but liked my sales grumbled to me, on my delivering my annual boys' novel, that she did wish that someone would write girls' stories. I answered, "Very well, I'll write a story for girls. When do you want it?"
She was simultaneously astonished, offended, and amused at the ridiculous and arrogant notion that a mere man could write stories for girls. So that's how Puddin' was born: I started writing first - person - female - adolescent stories - but not for that old harridan.
Since this is not the first of the Puddin' stories, let me introduce her. Her name is Maureen, her nickname derives from her weight problem. She is eternally an undergraduate on a small campus in Somewhere, U.S.A., where her father teaches anthropology smokes his pipe. Maureen has an unbearable younger brother (all younger brothers are unbearable; I should know, I was one).
I grew so fond of Maureen that I helped her to get rid of that excess weight, changed her name to "Podkayne," and moved her to Mars (along with her unbearable kid brother). And now and again she turns up under other names in other science fiction stories.