In almost every field of activity human beings are pulled more than one way intellectually, emotionally and socially. The rest of the animal kingdom on the surface, would appear to be simpler but even there the tensions of interacting with other animals are constant. We make traditions from these tensions, winding them tighter by binding them to tribe, family and nation.
But the most constant of all tensions is modernity. As a wise lady once said to me everyone who has ever lived, has been a modern; and the naturally occurring tensions of the young to be doing ‘differently’ to their parents, to take one more step away from the kinds of things their parents thought of as indelibly part of life, is very strong.
The electronic age has narrowed the time scale of these tensions from a generation to a decade and if the old adage of not planning to fight the last war is true, then we can no longer plan civil society without planning our science. We have gone too far with our machines to live without them but our minds are not yet fully made up about leaving our past needs, or indeed simple our pasts.
The tensions in our lives are the problems that shape our future. The randomisation of choosing the science which makes us money over and against that which opens up our minds, is a recipe for chaos.