Community Profile

In classical Greek mythology, the brothers Prometheus (“the foresighted”) and Epimetheus (“the hindsighted”) were members of the race of Titans, progenitors and sometimes enemies of the gods. They occupied themselves in creating living creatures. When they made humans, Prometheus stole the divine fire to give to the new creatures, who thus became like gods themselves. Zeus, enraged, bound Prometheus to a mountain, where a vulture tore out and ate his liver every day for thirty thousand years (disadvantage of immortality!), until Herakles ultimately released him.

Prometheus thus signifies the creative force within humanity, which in recent generations has utterly transformed the conditions of human life. The steam engine, and its companion the dynamo-electric machine, have swept away the toil and drudgery, the serfdom and slavery, to which the mass of mankind were for long ages condemned. The artificial fixation of nitrogen has banished the spectre of famine. Vaccines and antibiotics have conquered smallpox and plague. All this has been achieved by investigating the natural world (science), and applying the understanding thus gained (technology).

Quite suddenly, and almost simultaneously, in the middle of the Twentieth Century, came mastery over gravity by means of the high-speed rocket, and over the intranuclear strong force (the strongest force of modern physics) by means of the fission chain reaction. These light the stars and shape the galaxies, and they are now in our hands. Even more than the somewhat more recent discovery of the molecular basis of heredity and how to manipulate it, this gives us the power of gods. The test before us is whether we shall use these powers wisely — which means creatively.

We are, therefore, in favour of :

technic civilization itself ;

extending its blessings and building upon its accomplishments, so that all humans have the chance to realize their potential, and the natural world is relieved of its heavy burdens ;

the maximum use of nuclear energy ;

both to displace present uses of combustible fuels —

and to go beyond what has been achieved by their use, to set rivers free and make deserts bloom

maximum effort in cislunar and planetary space ;

both industrial development, to win and work raw materials outside the biosphere of Earth —

and settlement, the radiation outward from Earth of human (and non-human) life, in a word, the humanization of space and the cosmification of Man

peace, justice, and freedom.

which cannot exist unless people, as individuals and communities, have the maximum scope for bettering their condition, without impinging upon the ability of others to do likewise

We likewise oppose :

war and armament ;

not only the amalgam of genocide and blackmail known as “strategic deterrence” —

not only nuclear war and nuclear weapons, which are an incredible abuse of our powers and betrayal of the Prometheus within us —

not only active warfare, which destroys human beings and everything they spend their lives building and loving —

but the whole model of human society organized around mass violence

totalitarianism and authoritarianism ;

all forms, political and economic, of the dominating exercise of power over human beings and the suppression of human freedom —

as regards not only individuals, but communities, whether marginalized or homogenized

anti-science, anti-intellectualism, and pastoralism.

the attempt to flee from Prometheus, that is, from our own human nature, and seek refuge in an imagined tranquil state of non-action —

the very dream of the Lotus Eaters, which can only be realized in death

Those who say both Power to the People! and No Nukes! are caught in a contradiction. Without technic civilization and the dense energy sources to sustain it, four people in every five are doomed to a brutish existence of drudgery, if they can live at all. We say, Atomic Power to the People!