Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
The Stars are Ours (Andre Norton) (Part I)

The Stars are Ours (Andre Norton) (Part I)

Last updated on: January 10, 2020 at 7:56 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

The Stars are Ours (Andre Norton) (Part I) 2020-01-10T19:56:07-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Stars are Ours was a set of slogans for life in the 1960’s if you wanted to do engineering and not drop out and drop acid. At the very end of the book, the hero looked into the future as heroes of a certain kind of book do:

Dard’s eyes were on the painted cliffs but inwardly he saw beyond—across the wide and waiting land. Alliance with the merpeople—taming of the land—building a new civilization—his breath came faster. Why a lifetime was not going to be time enough to do everything that even he could see had to be done. Could their breed be defeated? He gave his answer to the uncertain future with a single word: “NO!”*

The stars are ours or so the book told me. The title stuck with me more than the story, this book that I read long, long ago as a preteen at childhood’s end.

As some fun Christmas reading, I dug up a copy and realized three things. This is better than average Golden Age science fiction, but that was not saying much. Golden Age science fiction is worse than I recalled. ( What will happen if I take a second look at Isaac Asimov?) Second, secularism has changed from my childhood in two ways that are important to understanding our present. Finally, a woman’s voice matters everywhere.

The cover was dated when I read it, now it is cringe inducing. Andre Alice Norton was a woman who refused to let men have all the Golden Age nerd fun. You were a fan when you knew Andre Norton had done an Eowyn: she was no man. Her fantasy is better than her science fiction and if you do not over expect, there are good times to be had.

What happened to the old secularism? From Scientism ad Astra to Fearful Fantasy?

The old secularism in American from (about) 1900 to (about) 1970 was optimistic, humanistic, and scientistic.

Anyone reading science fiction in the Golden Age** got our optimism, humanism, and scientism straight up. In fact, popular secularism was often just a confident scientism challenging us to go to the stars. Golden Age science fiction writers were the prophets of the coming new age of Science. Humans, if they were rational (scientists!), could not be stopped. We had moxie: ad astra.

We actually made it to the moon, but then secularism changed. You can see this in our interest in engineering and NASA. We do not tell tales glorifying engineering feats so much anymore. The stars are ours on handheld devices and not because NASA is going to give us warp drive.

The old secularism saw NASA and said: ad Astra! Reagan was the last President (in tension with his sincere Christian faith) who also knew the lure of the old secularism in his bones. He wanted to go back to the moon and Mars. Star Wars? Of course scientists, American scientists, could give us a defense against Soviet missiles. What disease could they not cure?

To the extent Reagan was a Christian humanist, he picked an enduring tradition; to the extent he was influenced by the old secularism, he was out of date.

Reagan was not perfect, influenced, like all of us, by the popular prejudices of his time. One such prejudice picked up was the old secularism. Like many smart young people, Reagan found science fiction as an intellectual outlet. From his childhood right through his time as governor of California, science was going to produce (in the words of Disneyland’s Tomorrow Land) a “great big beautiful tomorrow” in a continuous carousel of progress.

The echoes of the early science fiction he read were old fashioned and hopelessly dated. He was fortune in his foes as the Soviets also were trapped in a mid-twentieth century scientism even more than Reagan. The President of the United States had his faith to help him. The poor commissars really suspected that (ad Astra!) if the Americans wanted to build “Star Wars” they just might.

Scientism was the Proposed Solution and the Problem

Sadly, scientism undermined the joint right-left support for science and engineering. By making science the highest good, there was an unchecked aristocracy that could become quite inhuman. Science and mathematics are hard and only an elite can do both at a high level. The training requires an almost monastic discipline and can leave little time for other disciplines.

The rigor is paralleled in the arts and humanities, but the arts and humanities lost social prestige under scientism. Specialization in every field led to a failure for disciplines to listen to each other. Scientism wanted to give “science” the ruling role theology had once held in the university, but science lacked the breadth to fill the role.

The humanities too often responded by becoming soft (not real) sciences or by attacking objective science itself (some forms of postmodernism). The rigors of philosophy, literature, and languages were not science, but they were needful to science.

The old secularism, especially the scientism, alienated people who should have been allies. A Walt Disney was an ally of the old secularism. Later artists, filmmakers, and creatives outside of science, found the old secularism demeaning and incoherent. Engineers build roads and pumped water from the Colorado to Los Angeles in brilliant engineering works, but they could not ground these accomplishments in ethics or an adequately human worldview.

The great big beautiful tomorrow was filing the ocean with plastic.

Part II is here.

—————————————

*Andre Norton, The Stars are Ours, Kindle edition.

**I fell into scientism for a time. The books were “old fashioned” by the time I read them, but I loved them. Star Trek in reruns kept the old secularism going for me.

Spiritual Reflections

Previous Post

January 8, 2020

homeless god (Poems by Phillip Aijian)

Next Post

January 10, 2020 The Stars Were Ours (Part II)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Apologetics Art Culture Education On Books On Education Philosophy Politics Pop Culture Spiritual Reflections Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 July 2025 June 2025 September 2024 July 2024 June 2024 December 2023 June 2023 September 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did Jesus feed the 5,000 with?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Loaves and fish Bread and wine Manna and honey Figs and water

Books by This Author John Mark Reynolds

See All Titles »