David Peat

Pausing the Cosmos 189Even the Dionysian elements of human nature were not ignoredby such rational societies. Room was made for them so that they didnot erupt in an uncontrolled way to threaten peace and order. Veniceand other city-states had their periodic carnivals, during which sexuallicense was permitted, but always within a framework that would containrule-breaking. By hiding their faces behind masks, for example,anonymity was preserved so that family relationships would remainuncompromised. When, in the sixteenth century, Venice experienced arise in the number of male prostitutes, the city avoided any confrontationwith the rules of the Church regarding homosexuality by decreeingthat a man wearing a female mask was officially a “masked woman”and therefore free from arrest. The forces of human desire were therebycontained through the exercise of wisdom.The Enlightenment had turned its back on superstition by stressingthat “man” is a rational animal. Then came the Utilitarians, JohnStuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, who argued that it was possible tomaximize human happiness, just as it is possible to quantify and maximizeany other commodity. The eighteenth century also saw the rise ofscience and an increased faith in the power of knowledge. Its logicaloutcome was the belief that science and its associated technologiescould solve the outstanding problems faced by society. Such problemswould be approached in a “scientific way” using logic, knowledge, andthe ability to predict the future through mathematics.The faith in a scientific future reached great heights with such technologicaloptimists as H. G. Wells (although Wells could also see scienceand the future of human society in a pessimistic light). Humanbeings would discover inexhaustible sources of free energy; they wouldlive longer; disease and famine would be eliminated; all knowledgewould be revealed to us. Thanks to rapid communication and ease oftravel we would realize that we inhabit a single world, and wars andconflicts would be things of the past. Poverty and inequality would beeliminated and there would be a world government of benevolent technocrats.This was the image of the future at the dawn of the twentiethcentury.