"Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition"
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Asimov’s sentence is a rocket launch disguised as a scolding: it starts with uplift and ends with a slap. “Humanity has the stars in its future” is classic mid-century techno-optimism, the kind that assumes progress is not just possible but almost owed to us. Then he pivots hard, framing that future as something fragile, a collective inheritance that can be “lost” not to asteroid impacts or resource limits, but to failures of maturity and reason. The villain isn’t nature; it’s us.
The phrasing does quiet, strategic work. “Burden” suggests dead weight, the way superstition and showboating don’t merely coexist with scientific ambition but actively slow it down. “Juvenile folly” isn’t just youthful mistakes; it’s politics-as-prank, ideology-as-impulse, the appetite for spectacle over stewardship. Pairing it with “ignorant superstition” tightens the net: Asimov isn’t only anti-religious in the crude sense. He’s targeting any belief system, sacred or secular, that demands obedience without evidence. “Ignorant” is the key insult because it implies a choice: you can learn, or you can cling.
The context matters. Asimov wrote from within the Cold War’s double image of science: the same species that could orbit the moon could also incinerate cities. Spaceflight was a symbol of human possibility, but also of how easily wonder gets conscripted into nationalism, paranoia, and pseudoscience. His intent is moral, not merely technical: a future among the stars requires an adult civilization, one willing to trade comforting myths for the hard, liberating discipline of knowing.
The phrasing does quiet, strategic work. “Burden” suggests dead weight, the way superstition and showboating don’t merely coexist with scientific ambition but actively slow it down. “Juvenile folly” isn’t just youthful mistakes; it’s politics-as-prank, ideology-as-impulse, the appetite for spectacle over stewardship. Pairing it with “ignorant superstition” tightens the net: Asimov isn’t only anti-religious in the crude sense. He’s targeting any belief system, sacred or secular, that demands obedience without evidence. “Ignorant” is the key insult because it implies a choice: you can learn, or you can cling.
The context matters. Asimov wrote from within the Cold War’s double image of science: the same species that could orbit the moon could also incinerate cities. Spaceflight was a symbol of human possibility, but also of how easily wonder gets conscripted into nationalism, paranoia, and pseudoscience. His intent is moral, not merely technical: a future among the stars requires an adult civilization, one willing to trade comforting myths for the hard, liberating discipline of knowing.
Quote Details
| Topic | Science |
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