From: Fireeye978@aol.com
Date: Tue Jun 16 1998 - 01:12:56 MDT
In a message dated 98-06-15 21:18:04 EDT, you write:
<< On the topic of "Why the X-Files is Scary", William Gibson had this to say:
'What we are afraid of is that we are becoming posthuman, that Earth is the
alien planet and that we are the aliens...'
I don't sound, it sounded fairly glib when he said it. Is this really what
scares people?
>>
I think that what he may mean is the same old fear of the unknown...taken to
the point where even we ourselves are the unknown...It wasn't that long ago
that people could take a measure of security in knowing that even if the rest
of the planet was a strange, often frightening place, humans knew what they
were and had confidence that we were the be all end all... Even tho that was
and is a false sense of security, people had it. Now, however, if our
children are likely to be as different in their mindset from us as we are from
our ancestors of 2 or three generations ago.
I'm not really putting this well, I realise, but it seems to me that it is
linked to the quickening pace of change and the greater realization of our
potential. We ( humans collectively ) are afraid of that potential to a
degree, unsure of how to cope with the responsibility of being "adults" as it
were.
The same sort of fear we felt the first time each of us left home and went out
to wing it on our own...
Cori
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