Foundation by Isaac Asimov
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Life in the Garden of Letters

Foundation is a technological society which believes it can avoid its likely demise through the application of more technology. Even its ‘thought leaders’ believe their job is to preserve technological knowledge in anticipation of the impending dark ages.

But everything they think they know about the past and their projected future and their role in both is false. The question they face is: can a new purpose into which they have been manipulated by their ancestors as well as by current events be accepted as their own?

What does it mean to accept such a purpose which appears to be already determined? To fake participation in an inevitable fate? To promote technology as a sort of religious cult? Is anyone really in charge? Democracy, to which Foundation is ostensibly committed, is a fickle and unpredictable form. What is approved today may be cast aside tomorrow.

Asimov’s understanding of science and imaginative story-telling makes him a credible writer. His ability to incorporate perennial questions of human import - including the moral and political - into this understanding makes him a great writer. Dealing with our inheritance of what is usually called culture, or tradition, or simply the past is a difficult subject to think about. Does it matter? Can anything be done to overcome an historical trajectory? Or do we have some sort of cosmic duty to conform to its demands?

Perhaps there is a Plan after all. If not God’s then one very astute scientist’s. And perhaps it involves keeping as many of us alive as possible to carry it out. The essence of this Plan is not taking action until the only action to take becomes clear. The only decision in such a strategy is the refusal to take a decision. Who knows. Could be. The result could hardly be worse than the rationalised missteps of arrogant political leaders or the volatile preferences of the democratic mob.

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