Why, Faustus?

‘The end of physic is our body’s health.’
Why, Faustus, hast thou not attain’d that end?
Is not thy common talk sound Aphorisms?
Are not thy bills hung up as monuments,
Whereby whole cities have escap’d the plague,
And thousand desperate maladies eas’d?
Yet art thou still Faustus and a man.
Wouldst thou make men to live eternally,
Or, being dead, raise them to life again? (Marlowe, Dr Faustus, Scene 1)

We live in times when the signs of human hubris, the intimations of our Faustian bargains, abound. The consequences of the earthquake off the north coast of Japan conflagrates as a result of short-sighted, vulnerable placement of diesel generators for cooling pumps. In the name of cost-cutting and a “we’ll deal with it later” attitude, the latent question, “How much do we need?” doesn’t get asked in any serious way. We cut costs on necessities, in order to enjoy our comforts. This works, until “the man comes around.”

“Yet art thou still Faustus and a man.”

We have been mining the Earth for millennia for advantage, for power, to ease our troubled lives. Whether we cut down forests for fuel, drill for oil, dam rivers, erect windmills, or initiate nuclear reactions to turn turbines, we believe that we will always be able to make more, and we will be able to do this with impunity. This however, is not new. I would suggest that this is, at the core, the human condition. We are not simply moving toward a point of no return; we have been there from the start. This is in the nature of our genetic material. We are “made” this way.

The Christian story of the Fall is this story. The Faustian bargain is always already there too. What greater temptation can there be than to be asked if you want to be like God? To see like God? To know right from wrong? To be able to divine righteousness from horror. Of course we took it up! Who of us would not have taken what has been so freely offered?

The paradox of this divine and profane understanding of our condition is manifest in everything we do. We overreach, as a matter of course. We strive for greater income, a better car or bicycle, a better sexual experience, a better cup of coffee, a better high. It is what we do. Those who do not recognize this in themselves, who do not see the hubris in the simplest of their actions or ambitions will seek to raise us above it. They will campaign to save the lost souls, or to save the planet, but whatever their crusade, they are only making the point. The volume of their complaint, the force with which they make their warnings, only betrays their own ambition.

We are driven by purpose and progress. That is our nature. That is our damnation. That is what has made the human species work. And screw up. We are driven to improve, to better our state. We are damned to sabotage ourselves. And in that Faustus is always among us. We can move slowly or quickly. We may, as luck would have it, live in a time and place when the wheels of progress grind slow or, as seems to be our fate today, when they whirl at breakneck pace.

We know too, from our experience, that the devil will show up at some time to take his measure. We know that our time is limited. We are bound by this realization too, that we can see into the future that the bargain we have engaged will exact a price. Still we ante up and wait for the flop. Then hope for the turn. Finally we pray for the river.

Then there’s a nine-point quake and we remember where we placed the pumps.

Ride report
in: -3'C wind 15 ks SE
out: -8'C wind 30 ks NW