I was born and grew up in the 1960s.
In 1969, I vividly remember my standard 2 teacher at North New Brighton Primary School, Christchurch, turning on the radio (most unusual) and having us all listen to the first walk of a human on the moon.
Around the 1980s, a seismic change in the Western mind occurred.
The Western world turned from things above and beyond and yet-to-come, to things below and in the-here-and-now and to our roots.
The focus was no longer the future, but the past; upon the immanent, not the transcendent.
We turned our eyes from the stars above to the earth below.
What was now considered a naive optimism gave way to a gritty pessimism.
What precipitated this change of vision? It is hard to say.
There was the spectacular disintegration of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, some 73 seconds into its 10th and final flight, killing all seven astronauts.
Nasa ground to a halt and never really got back to its space race heyday.
Perhaps it was a reaction to the continued dark shadow of nuclear weapons and, its benign cousin, nuclear power.
We recall the Chernobyl disaster, near Pripyat, Ukraine, that also occurred in 1986.
A giant steel and concrete "sarcophagus" was constructed over the nuclear power plant.
Manifestations of this "great turn inward" are readily seen in popular culture.
New Zealanders look with pride upon Sir Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings cinematic trilogy, with its subterranean kingdoms.
We have J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter children’s books about wizards casting spells and living in another parallel world invisible to ordinary unenchanted folk ("muggles").
The Game of Thrones television series, with its dragons and medieval-like kingdoms, caters for adult tastes.
There is the success of Avatar, with the gentle, peaceful humanoid people who live in symbiotic harmony with their surroundings and other creatures until rudely interrupted by the coolly-efficient, rapacious, mining-technology invaders.
In the world of ideas and academia, we see a similar transformation.
We have a renewed focus upon the natural environment and new disciplines like ecology.
Indigenous and ancient peoples and their cultures and pre-scientific worldview are the subject of intense and broadened inquiry by way of cultural and ethnic studies.
In politics, we experience the global rise of the Green movement and political parties of the same verdant hue.
The indigenous peoples lay claim to a greater share of influence and resources based upon historical claims to first-mover status.
In religion, we discern the re-emergence, in the West, of neo-paganism, with the sprouting of myriad novel faiths and diffuse spiritualties that, at their broadest, view nature and the created world as sacred and any claims to anthropogenic dominion as unbridled speciesism.
Now the "turn inward" was never complete, and there were still a minority who adhered to the optimistic 1960s outlook of my childhood.
In popular culture we still had science fiction as a beloved genre in books, television and films.
In academia, the STEM subjects rolled along.
The Enlightenment rationalists of modernity, who remained anchored in the realm of reason and objective, empirical epistemologies carried on as if the rest of the world had gone a little bit barmy.
In politics, the Enlightenment secular liberals remained a force even if some of the meliorist tendencies were directed to progressivist causes that themselves had taken a decidedly historical turn (indigenous rights, pagan [pre-Christian] sexual morality and the low value placed upon human life, the celebration and re-sacralisation of nature).
In 2024, I look for heroes who will capture the 1960s spirit and Elon Musk looms large.
He has, virtually single-handedly, reignited the space race with his ambition to achieve a manned mission to Mars.
Where is all this heading?
Notice I am posing a forward-looking, futurist question.
My speculation is that we will continue to be pre-occupied with the Earth and its preservation, with climate change and renewable energy, until there is a breakthrough in transportation technology.
Then our gaze will be unto the heavens once more, to solar systems and galaxies unknown.
There have been exponential advances in information and communications technology, as well as bio-genetic science.
By contrast, it has been a century since the jet engine was invented by Sir Frank Whittle.
His patent for a turbo-jet engine was registered in 1930.
Modern spacecraft still work on (greatly) advanced versions, using liquid or solid fuels, of the original rocket technology that powered the earliest Chinese fireworks and later the German V-2 bombs.
Professor Robert H. Goddard, the father of rocket engineering, launched the first liquid-propelled rocket in 1926, having earlier patented, in 1914, a liquid propulsion rocket and multi-stage rocket.
Until someone discovers and then engineers a super-fast propulsion system that nears or even exceeds the speed of light, we will continue in our current path.
Our priorities will be geo-centric.
Some yet to be revealed (or even born) lone genius beavering away in his or her basement, or if that be too romantic a depiction, an entire research and development department of a mega corporation, will achieve a breakthrough in transportation propulsion.
It is a matter of when, not if.
But then I would say that I’m a child of the optimistic, outward-looking 1960s.
— Rex Ahdar is Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Otago.
