Here are some snippets from a June 5, 1939 LIFE prediction of life in 1960, inspired by the New York World's Fair and General Motor's "Futurama" display:
"When Americans of 1960 take their two-month vacations, they drive to the great parklands on giant express highways. A two-way skein consists of four 50-m.p.h. lanes on each of the outer edges; two pairs of 75-m.p.h. lanes in the center, two lanes for 100m-m.p.h. express traffic. Cars change from lane to lane at specified intervals, on signal from spaced control towers which can stop and start all traffic by radio. Being out of its driver's control, each car is safe against accident....
".....Off the highway, the driver dawdles again at his own speed and risk."
"The highways skirt the great cities. But the happiest people live in one-factory farm-villages producing one small industrial item and their own farm produce. Strip planting protects the valley fields against erosion. The land is really greener than it was in 1939. Federal laws forbid the wanton cutting of wooded hillsides."
"Cures for cancer and infantile paralysis have extended man's life span and his wife's skin is still perfect at the age of 75."
"Electronic microscopes literally see everything."
"On every front America in 1960 knows more about unleashing the best energies in its citizens. Nearly everyone is a high-school graduate. The talented get the best education in the world. More people are interested in life, the world, themselves and in making a better world. Politics and emotion still slow progress. But these obstructions are treated with dwindling patience in 1960."
I wonder why they were so sure that America would change so quickly in 21 years from what it was in 1939? Was this sheer optimism or a plan in the works? And what made these strange people so sure that such a monotone and boring collective would actually achieve a cure for cancer? As long as people are confined to "happy" farm collectives, and only the "talented" get education, and all traffic is controlled, and emotionless automatons are the norm there will be no cure for cancer.
Curing cancer requires that the parts of the brain intimately linked to emotion are fully operational and creative. Curing cancer requires an unleashing of individuality and freedom, for this is how it will be fought within the body's systems.
I think, we can see a bit how cancer operates on a daily basis in our world. It seems to start small and grow when a population doesn't recognize it as a threat, when individuals are prohibited from defending themselves and kept ignorant. The cancer grows and attacks a weak organ, such as another company or group. It gets the body to attack the weak organ too. Then the energy, or money is sucked from the company or group of people in the form of a settlement or other form. This energy is then given to the cancer to feed upon, thus making it increase in power and allowing it to spread into other systems until it is eating up the body and too late to fight. The host dies, which then kills the cancer because there remains nothing to feed it.
It is very difficult and bloody when a cancer has grown so large that the entire body must unite to fight against it. But if each individual cell were given power and knowledge, it, along with its immediate neighbors could stall or destroy the cancer before it grew and attacked a large organ. This little battle would barely even be noticed and not lead to blood and death.
A completely unified and controlled highway system as envisioned in 1939 is one also susceptible to disaster. Perhaps, it is safer, but it is not free or pleasurable. It also is like pushing a population of handicapped drivers down the road. They forget how to use their muscles and atrophy from lack of use.
Ask a person in a wheel chair if they would rather be pushed around the rest of their life, have doors opened for them, and elevators lift them; or walk even if it meant tripping once in awhile, stubbing their toes, and being called bow legged. Ask the person in the wheel chair if they'd rather be able to ride a bike even if it meant risking that nasty bar in the crotch once in awhile. Chances are they'd laugh and say all those risks are worth freedom and independence. They may cry and say, "Give me the pain. I'll love it because I'm free, I'm standing on these legs, I'm running, and I can carry another if I get the chance."
How does an individual stop to help another on a controlled system that won't let them have that freedom? Doesn't this create a system of people who ignore others because they assume the authorities, Who Ever's In Charge, will take care of the needy? It's an unsafe system that controls our every motion. How do we know the so called higher powers (or powers for hire) will see the problem or that they will have compassion? And how much more will it cost us to pay for this controlling higher power in comparison to what it would have cost a single private individual to be compassionate?
Rather than uniting in giant power groups, rather than driving upon a controlled highway, it would be better for people to get off onto the country roads and dawdle at one's own risk and safety. A giant-controlled highway or social movement is controlled by exterior guides who may not steer us in the correct directions, who may be deceived and deceiving under the guise of safety and public health.
Giant movements do not bring about change, but more of the same. England's Protestants overthrew their monarch for another form of tyranny. Russia's Bolshevik, and France's Revolution were also a despot's dream. The real power is not in confined and controlled power groups who yell and vociferate about morals and speak in us-against-them terms. The real power is when each person as an individual chooses to do the right thing, irregardless of the group, irregardless of the time's moral, political, religious, and scientific values.
A school of fish is netted as a group. A single fish must be caught one at a time. It's quite labor intensive and time consuming for a fisherman to catch every single fish in the pool or in the stream. It's more labor intensive for evil to catch people when they're not in a group to be netted, but must be caught one at a time, and outsmarted with baits and flies. If individuals cannot stand alone, cannot act on their own, then they cannot stand or act as a group either. A group of unwhole and helpless people is a group of mental cripples trampling over town and country, hopped up on false righteousness.
image: Via Appia, Rome, Italy, Paul Vlaar
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