Arthur C. Clarke's 1973 novel Rendezvous with Rama is considered a key example of hard science
fiction. However, as a realistic vision of the future, it is notably lacking.
Set in the year 2130, read forty years after its publication, its future feels
archaic. Clarke's future is one dominated by white Anglo-Saxon men,
neo-Judeo-Christian undertones, and an uncanny sense that the future resembles
the past more than the present.
*In fairness, I didn't read Rama, rather I listened to an audiobook of it. It's possible that
the audiobook was abridged (I don't recall), and the unabridged text could
include some additional detail that might paint Clarke in a more favourable
light.
There is also the stuffy council that debates and ultimately
decides to send the shuttle Endeavour
to investigate Rama. While the
members of the council are not described in great detail, there is a pervasive
sense of a congressional hearing - old gray-haired white men make all the
important decisions. To Clarke's defense, Rama
is meant to be realistic, not idealistic, and depicting institutions as slow
moving, resistant to change, and governed by the cast of The McLaughlin Group may certainly have seemed reasonable in the
seventies, now it is evident that this will not be the case. By 2130 there will
certainly be more influence from the rest of the world outside of USA and
Russia, as today we see the relative influence of old powers waning in the face
of emerging economies. While the stereotype of old men with all the power seems
likely to fall further into the future, there are reasons why such change may
be slow to happen: for one, new medical technologies will improve human health
and extend lifetimes, those who are older will have all the advantages of
experience, credibility and achievements with none of the usually associated
downsides such as failing memory, mental capacity, or physical ability. One
might expect in such a future that all top positions will be dominated by the
elderly, while young people struggle for increasingly seldom employment
opportunities and to make names for themselves. As for the lack of female
representation, we can note that while initiatives to bring more women into the
field of STEM jobs have increased in funding and outreach over the past several
decades, these fields remain dominated by men, and continue to have a
"boy's club" attitude long after such social attitudes should have
been relegated to the way of the dinosaur.
Then there are the simps - chimpanzees that have been
trained to assist with the daily tasks onboard the shuttle endeavour. Even at
the time of the novel's writing, the idea of using chimpanzees in forced labor
for scientific or military purposes would have been met with fierce protest. In the time since, our reliance on animal
labor has greatly diminished in the industrialized world, to the point that
were such a thing as simps to be suggested in a potential human-led exploration
mission by NASA, the authors would likely be laughed out of a career as
scientists. In Clarke's future, technological progress with computers and
machines has apparently seen a rocky road, as how chimpanzees could be
considered a more cost effective or safer alternative to automation with only
today's level of technology is difficult to imagine. More than any other
aspect, the simps really date the novel - they make it feel like a product of
the fifties rather than the seventies, and one gets a creeping sense of racist
undertones. Of course the simps die, and while the crewmembers are upset by
this, a simp isn't nearly as important as a person.
References:
Clarke, Arthur C. (1973) Rendezvous
with Rama. London, UK: Victor Gollancz Ltd.
