54 pages • 1 hour read
Carl SaganPale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Carl SaganNonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1994A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
“The Folly of Human Conceits”
Sagan’s famous passage describing the “pale blue dot” introduces multiple themes that define the book. But the central thesis of that passage, and perhaps of the book, is that exploration into space will provide humans with enough self-awareness to overcome some of our character flaws. Understanding that Earth is a rare resource and that humanity’s future is not preordained or guaranteed can lead to humans realizing what truly matters. As Sagan writes, “there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world” (7). For Sagan, the image is one example of the cosmic perspective provided by increased knowledge about the solar system and the Milk Way. The more we learn and the farther we venture into space, the easier it will be to end resource hoarding, war, chauvinism, and willful ignorance on Earth.
Galileo, turning his telescope to Jupiter and finding moons, might have felt a similar clarity regarding the wasted energy spent on Earth discussing Earth as unique, special, and the center of the universe. By looking back at Earth after every discovery in the solar system, and by narrating how often those discoveries have changed our understanding of Earth, Sagan asks the reader to keep an open mind. He is asking his readers to treat what they already know about something as an incomplete, preliminary version of knowledge. In other words, Sagan promotes what philosophers in the Enlightenment Era refer to as experimental knowledge. Through experiments that interrogate the world, we are constantly adjusting what we know to be true.
This approach to nature and the universe necessitates an understanding of our ignorance. Sagan’s repeated quotations by Voltaire, one of the key figures of the Enlightenment, align him with Voltaire’s scorn for traditional religion, especially the belief that the universe is designed for humans alone. By illustrating the insignificance of humans, “a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump of rock and metal” (3), Sagan underlines that we are not only insignificant in the context of the universe, but that we know so little of that universe that we should never look at it as something we believe as definitely true. The truth is too big, and we play too small a part “in the cosmic drama” (37).
These arguments, and Sagan’s penultimate book The Demon-Haunted World, have made him an important figure in atheist communities. But in Pale Blue Dot, Sagan’s larger concern is chauvinism—the prejudiced support of one’s group over others. Human insignificance is absolute and not distributed unevenly among groups on Earth. The greatest “human conceit” is the belief that one group has a right to make choices for others, to use the resources of a planet also needed by others, and to act with hatred or aggression toward any group when the survival of the larger group relies on banding together.
The Rise of Techno-Optimism
Sagan wrote Pale Blue Dot at a moment when technological optimism was at a high. The internet appeared to be democratizing knowledge at rates never seen before. Innovation in the computing industry was accelerating, and most inventions coming out of Silicon Valley seemed to be innocent tools for increased communication, productivity, and expression.
Similarly, NASA’s robotic missions, outside of the Mars Observer, had been successful beyond expectation. Every new mission delivered more new findings than the mission prior. Sagan argues that the trend can continue if governments maintain adequate funding. He repeatedly ends chapters with the promise that discoveries will become so common they will seem mundane. Newscasts from other plants will, he says, “make everyone on Earth a part of the adventure” (198). People will “explore the ancient riverbeds of Mars" while “snuggled up in bed with the kids” (208).
Sagan’s goal is to promote this optimism. One reason he fights for future space expeditions is that he believes that their success can “increase the general sense of optimism in the society” (227). The book promotes a sense of a technological future that is safe and family oriented. Events since the publication of Sagan’s book perhaps make his vision less plausible. Funding for space travel has moved increasingly to the private sphere, where the goal is profit rather than scientific discovery or social improvement. Moreover, many new technologies have been used for surveillance, control, and destruction rather than to improve human life. His optimism about planetary exploration and technology in general may seem naïve to some readers today.
The Frontier
Sagan believes in the power of frontiers to transform the explorer or settler into a heroic figure through which others can vicariously improve their lives. He writes: “We’re the kind of species that needs a frontier—for fundamental biological reasons. Every time humanity stretches itself and turns a corner, it receives a jolt of productive vitality that can carry it for centuries” (230-31). Sagan combines his theory that humans have an evolutionary need to wander with what was a common cultural understanding of space as the “final frontier.” The language Sagan uses to describe space exploration draws on the legacy of the American West: for instance, pioneering and homesteading.
Sagan wrote at a time when US historians were debating the value of the frontier as an analytical tool for investigating American history. The “frontier thesis,” developed by Frederick Jackson Turner in the 1890s, argued that the process by which Americans ventured into and settled the frontier gave the United States its democratic culture, entrepreneurial drive, and enduring spirit. The theory that frontiers revitalize groups of people was a common theme in histories of United States expansion before historians revised their approach in the 1990s. Today, Sagan’s idea that a frontier maintains a culture or drives new inventions is considered an incomplete and overly simple interpretation of history. More recent histories point out the violence and exploitation that often accompanies exploration and settlement.
Sagan’s discussion of Christopher Columbus and James Cook does not consider the negative consequences of their voyages. The same is true of invocations of the American West. Turner’s famous 1893 essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” does not acknowledge that the frontier was already inhabited. Space is, as far as we know, uninhabited. However, Sagan’s use of the frontier metaphor implicitly discourages displaced groups from imagining themselves as part of the future that Sagan envisions. Sagan’s imagined future is purportedly anti-chauvinist, but his reliance on the frontier metaphor at times seems incompatible with a future that is worth feeling optimistic about.
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