Along with Hugo Gernsback
and H.G.
Wells, Jules Verne is considered one of the fathers of the science fiction
genre. Best known for the novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), From the Earth
to the Moon (1865),
and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), Verne wrote during my favorite period of
Western literature. Characteristic
of much literature from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century was an
optimistic view of mankind’s potential. The
characters in Verne’s stories are daring Indiana Jones like adventures who
overcome impossible odds and thrive in the face of the most harrowing dangers.
Difficulties are surmounted as the protagonists demonstrate perseverance,
brilliance, learned creativity, fortitude, and principled exceptionalism. This
is the stuff characteristic of the best of which Western Civilization has
contributed to the world, culture, and history.
It’s also the stuff that is largely part of a bygone era.
Verne is noted for writing about technologies
that no one else had thought of, some of which were generations ahead of his
time, including: sky scrapers, glass structures, calculators, cell phones,
etc. These were so futuristic, but so
realistic, that the pioneering submarine designer, Simon Lake, credited Verne
as his life’s inspiration, calling him, “the director-general of my
life.”
The ability to
imagine what no one else has imagined is one of the truest indicators of
genius, and by this standard, Verne was certainly that. Not surprisingly, he is the second most
translated author in the World, following only Agatha Christie.
Verne's creations are so dramatic and relevant, that some of his books have been made
into live-action and animated films and television shows. In one of his
lesser known works, Five Weeks in a
Balloon, Verne constructed a novel around three adventurers—a scholar
who had invented a new type of hydrogen, “hot air” balloon and his two
companions, a servant and a professional hunter. The three experience harrowing adventures as
they sail across Africa in an effort to discover and document much about the then
unknown continent, including the source of the Nile, general topography, and
previously recorded explorations. Their
adventures include numerous treacherous encounters with savage African tribes, extreme
climatic conditions, a near-death experience with dehydration, attacks by wild
animals, an attack against their balloon by a flock of condors who destroy the
outer layer, and ultimately the final demise of their balloon during the most
serious threat and climax of the story—an encounter with Arab Muslim
banditos.
This last
encounter is particularly interesting from a worldview standpoint. In it we have an ironic picture that dramatically
illustrates the contrast in worldviews between the protagonists and
antagonists. Verne develops the threat in the concluding sequence of the
book. Here the balloon is facing its final
demise, but the aeronauts are unable to land because of the danger from the
hostile Islamists. Here is how Verne
develops the narrative:
"Let us
alight," suggested Kennedy, "and see what can be done with the
covering of the balloon." "I tell you, again, Dick, that we have no
means of repairing it." "Then what shall we do?" "We'll
have to sacrifice every thing not absolutely indispensable; I am anxious, at
all hazards, to avoid a detention in these regions. The forests over the tops
of which we are skimming are any thing but safe." "What! are there
lions in them, or hyenas?" asked Joe, with an expression of sovereign
contempt. "Worse than that, my boy! There are men, and some of the most
cruel, too, in all Africa."
"How is that
known?" "By the statements of travellers who have been here before us….They
have explored these countries formed by the elbow of the Senegal in places
where war and pillage have left nothing but ruins." "What, then, took
place?" "I will tell you. In 1854 a Marabout of the Senegalese Fouta,
Al-Hadji by name, declaring himself to be inspired like Mohammed, stirred up
all the tribes to war against the infidels—that is to say, against the
Europeans. He carried destruction and desolation over the regions between the
Senegal River and its tributary, the Fateme. Three hordes of fanatics led on by
him scoured the country, sparing neither a village nor a hut in their
pillaging, massacring career. He advanced in person on the town of Sego, which
was a long time threatened. In 1857 he worked up farther to the northward, and
invested the fortification of Medina, built by the French on the bank of the
river. This stronghold was defended by Paul Holl, who, for several months,
without provisions or ammunition, held out until Colonel Faidherbe came to his
relief. Al-Hadji and his bands then repassed the Senegal, and reappeared in the
Kaarta, continuing their rapine and
murder.—Well, here below us is the very country in which he has found refuge
with his hordes of banditti; and I assure you that it would not be a good thing
to fall into his hands."
…They had just
passed the borders of the forest, and the three friends could see some thirty
mounted men clad in broad pantaloons and the floating bournouses. They were
armed, some with lances, and others with long muskets, and they were following,
on their quick, fiery little steeds, the direction of the balloon, which was
moving at only moderate speed…." It is, indeed, they!" said the doctor;
"the cruel Talabas! the ferocious marabouts of Al-Hadji! I would rather
find myself in the middle of the forest encircled by wild beasts than fall into
the hands of these banditti…."
"See,"
said Ferguson, "those villages in ruins, those huts burned down—that is
their work! Where vast stretches of cultivated land were once seen, they have
brought barrenness and devastation."
Ironically, the greatest threat to the
aeronauts were not the cannibals whom they had seen devouring one another alive
in the midst of battle. Neither was the
greatest threat the climate, wild animals, or even their failing balloon. It was the villainous Arab-Muslim raiders who
followed the orders of a mad-man in the role and persona of a Muhammadan style
leader. These individuals, in the words
of the Dr., engaged in “rapine and murder” and a “pillaging, massacring career” leaving villages in
ruin, with burned huts, and “vast stretches of cultivated land…barren…and
devesta[ed].”
Here is the irony. The aeronauts are the quintessential representatives
of Judeo-Christianity in contrast to the representatives of savage barbarism
and destructive Islam. They are daring, principled;
they sacrifice for one another and strangers.
They are virtuous, they respect life—human and animal, accomplishment,
productivity, etc. As they soar in the
sky and prevail over the elements, they represent the best of Western
culture. Like the protagonists in most
of Verne’s works, they trust in God while fully engaging themselves in their
endeavors. They take initiative in rescuing
a missionary from savages, and proclaim him to be the greatest among the men in
the balloon. While they engage in
fulfilling the creation mandate—the subduing of the elements, they are as far
above the savages and destructive Islamists in principle as they are in
altitude. [Note: Both Verne and his heroes were likely deists, a worldview that
developed out of Christian-theism and for a time perpetuated its values].
Yet there is another, more striking irony. As brilliant and noble minded as Verne was,
there was a future that he would not, dare not imagine, a future that we are on
the cusp of seeing realized. As the West
has become post-Christian, other ideologies have become dominant, ideologies that
neither contribute to the thriving of the species, nor are even sustainable on
their own terms. Christian-theism was
replaced as the dominant worldview in the West by deism. Deism was short lived and gave way to
naturalism. Naturalism, which leads to nihilism
as its logical consequence is too negative to be embraced by secularists,
except for those who are philosophically honest. So, as it presently stands, naturalism has morphed
into something aggressive, yet unsustainable—secular progressivism. Though on the rise statistically and in terms
of influence, secularism cannot thrive, neither can it remain dominant for long—it
is inherently devoid of transcendental values.
No worldview devoid of transcendental values can compete with an
opposing worldview/religion/philosophy propelled by transcendental
values, at least over the long run.
To illustrate, consider Verne’s own caricature
of a naturalist’s evaluation of a pearl from his famous 20,000
Leagues Under the Sea. Here, Professor
Aronnax is asked by his two co-prisoners aboard the Nautilus the following
question. “Sir, what is a pearl?” His response is as follows: “My worthy Ned…to
the poet, a pearl is a tear of the sea; to the Orientals, it is a drop of dew
solidified; to the ladies, it is a jewel of an oblong shape, of a brilliancy of
mother-of-pearl substance, which they wear on their fingers, their necks, or
their ears; for the chemist it is a mixture of phosphate and carbonate of lime,
with a little gelatin; and lastly, for naturalists, it is simply a
morbid secretion of the organ that produces the mother-of-pearl amongst certain
bivalves.”
Notice the vacuous, hollow definition of the
naturalist. There is no real
value, aesthetically, or teleologically speaking, to the pearl. Naturalism has no transcendental values. Of
course, naturalists assign value that is not merely survival value to things
all the time, but when they do so, they abandon their espoused philosophical viewpoint
in preference for a worldview with transcendental values, until it becomes
inconvenient, and so back and forth they go.
The result—secularist Europe, which has
followed the above path much more quickly than America, is on the path to becoming
philosophically, religiously Islamic due to immigration and biological growth
of Islamic practitioners. The latest
reports show this transition occurring in the next few decades in England. Soon, secularism in several European countries,
including Verne’s own France, will be overcome by this even more dangerous,
destructive worldview and the day will arrive when thoughtful secularists will long
for the time when their biggest philosophical worry was an evangelical sharing
the Gospel with them, or protesting at their abortion clinics, or playing
Christmas music at the Mall, or hanging the Ten Commandments in courthouses, or
arguing that families naturally consists of opposite sex couples, or suggesting
that having men sexually attracted to other men as leaders in a man boy
relationship, e.g. the Boy Scouts is not an ideal situation. The future that we are on the cusp of
realizing is one that not even Jules Verne could have imagined, and one which
will only be recognized by secularists after it is too late.
How relevant is all of this? Click here (note the date):
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