In my recent comment on Bill Gates’ piece on climate (110725), I criticized his dismissive remark that the climate crisis was not the “end of civilization.” I pointed out how, for some individual victims and societies, it—literally—is. There are important civilizational questions about how we and those to come will choose to memorialize those whose lives or cultures were cut off in this way. The Museum of Climatically-Extinguished Cultures and Creatures is likely to be pretty crowded by the 22C.
Still, while my life is not likely to come to an end due to climate change, nor is civilization in general likely to collapse by 2039 (my planning horizon according to the Social Security Administration’s life expectancy tables), this prospective doom got me wrestling with why and how I might think about those whose lives will continue into 2040 and beyond and how I should conduct myself in the meantime. In other words, since civilization will have come to an end as far as I’m concerned, why should I care about those left behind?
Philosophy has proposed and history has demonstrated several answers offered to this question. Just to put a bit of structure on this issue, we might divvy up our impact into these categories: the personal memories of those who will continue on, our biological progeny, physical manifestations of our existence, and cultural traces of our impact on the world. We might also distinguish between the impact/legacy of the few prominent people in the world and the vast remainder of us. Finally, we should note that many folks have lived based on their expected status/treatment in some shape of an afterlife (aka Heaven, Hell, Nirvana, Valhalla). However, since I don’t believe in an afterlife, doing stuff now to get credit in the hereafter seems futile (as well as a bit tawdry).
Based on how people behave, many folks want to be remembered by those still around or to come years and centuries post-mortem. And most are, at least by family and friends. But memory is a fickle thing, not only does it fade over the years, but by the time memories are passed down to succeeding generations, distortions are inevitable. Very, very few are likely to be remembered by anyone in any meaningful way more than 50-70 years after their own passing. Maybe that’s as far ahead as we can imagine, so we don’t care about our more distant legacies. The memories of the 5 billion (+/-) people who died over the course of the 20C are going quickly and in 30-50 years what will be left? My niece and nephew were in their teens when my mother passed. In fifty years, they will be in their 80s with faint wisps of her (either direct or through their father) remaining. I have a friend who is into genealogy and has reconstructed some of his family lines back for several centuries. It seems personally satisfying to him, but those long past have left only a name and a few traces of themselves. With all due respect to Ancestry.com et al., I don’t aspire to be an entry on a long list compiled by a greatx8 niece in the later 22C.
In terms of cultural remembrance, very few leave something behind. Wikipedia includes just over 2M biographical entries and maybe ten times that number have some sort of bio bit somewhere. Out of 100B people who ever lived, that’s not very good odds at being remembered in this way. Donating money will get you a building or a pew, but as with the above examples, the names of those that do will become only words with no meaning behind them all too soon (ditto for street names). A few folks will be memorialized in published articles or their archives dug up by Historians or click-bait chasers. Of course, with big bucks or some luck, you can play in the big leagues: sainthood and multiple churches, universities (unless your money came from enslavement), or cities (Charlestown), states (Penn-sylvania), countries (the Philippines, Bolivia); but that’s likely not more than a few thousand all in. Scientists and doctors have a nice racket going in naming diseases and natural phenomena after themselves (the Humboldt Current, Higgs’ boson, and Alzheimer’s disease all come to mind). The pinnacle is likely the Taj Mahal: prominence at the less than one-in-a-billion level. All-in-all, for ordinary folks, we will likely get swallowed up in the maw of time. Even if some electronic record remains, who will look for it or do anything with it? (In this regard, access some record of mine by an AI/Borg as it hoovers up items from the past for some college essay in 2076 doesn’t really seem to count!)
In sum, if we can’t count on being remembered in any meaningful way beyond a generation or two, the purpose of memorialization is more likely for the self-satisfaction of those who seek to be remembered; in other words: ego. If you think you’re an exception, see Shelley’s poem: Ozymandias (1818).
So, if personal, name-and-likeness legacy is a racket, is there anything I can leave behind? I think so, but it’s not likely to be identifiable. I used to say, when I was teaching in college, that my impact on my students was more likely to be in things they remembered or ways of thinking they learned even if they couldn’t remember my name, or even how they might have learned them originally. I suspect the same is true elsewhere, it terms of both family, social, or cultural influence (or even charitable donations).
If the end of the world (objectively) coincides with the end of the world (subjectively), then it won’t really matter. If the objective world carries on, who knows what direction things might take? Preserving the possibilities for future discovery is as about as far as I can see may be enough and my belief that I helped it to do so is valuable to me and sufficient as a motivation.
Still, while my life is not likely to come to an end due to climate change, nor is civilization in general likely to collapse by 2039 (my planning horizon according to the Social Security Administration’s life expectancy tables), this prospective doom got me wrestling with why and how I might think about those whose lives will continue into 2040 and beyond and how I should conduct myself in the meantime. In other words, since civilization will have come to an end as far as I’m concerned, why should I care about those left behind?
Philosophy has proposed and history has demonstrated several answers offered to this question. Just to put a bit of structure on this issue, we might divvy up our impact into these categories: the personal memories of those who will continue on, our biological progeny, physical manifestations of our existence, and cultural traces of our impact on the world. We might also distinguish between the impact/legacy of the few prominent people in the world and the vast remainder of us. Finally, we should note that many folks have lived based on their expected status/treatment in some shape of an afterlife (aka Heaven, Hell, Nirvana, Valhalla). However, since I don’t believe in an afterlife, doing stuff now to get credit in the hereafter seems futile (as well as a bit tawdry).
Based on how people behave, many folks want to be remembered by those still around or to come years and centuries post-mortem. And most are, at least by family and friends. But memory is a fickle thing, not only does it fade over the years, but by the time memories are passed down to succeeding generations, distortions are inevitable. Very, very few are likely to be remembered by anyone in any meaningful way more than 50-70 years after their own passing. Maybe that’s as far ahead as we can imagine, so we don’t care about our more distant legacies. The memories of the 5 billion (+/-) people who died over the course of the 20C are going quickly and in 30-50 years what will be left? My niece and nephew were in their teens when my mother passed. In fifty years, they will be in their 80s with faint wisps of her (either direct or through their father) remaining. I have a friend who is into genealogy and has reconstructed some of his family lines back for several centuries. It seems personally satisfying to him, but those long past have left only a name and a few traces of themselves. With all due respect to Ancestry.com et al., I don’t aspire to be an entry on a long list compiled by a greatx8 niece in the later 22C.
In terms of cultural remembrance, very few leave something behind. Wikipedia includes just over 2M biographical entries and maybe ten times that number have some sort of bio bit somewhere. Out of 100B people who ever lived, that’s not very good odds at being remembered in this way. Donating money will get you a building or a pew, but as with the above examples, the names of those that do will become only words with no meaning behind them all too soon (ditto for street names). A few folks will be memorialized in published articles or their archives dug up by Historians or click-bait chasers. Of course, with big bucks or some luck, you can play in the big leagues: sainthood and multiple churches, universities (unless your money came from enslavement), or cities (Charlestown), states (Penn-sylvania), countries (the Philippines, Bolivia); but that’s likely not more than a few thousand all in. Scientists and doctors have a nice racket going in naming diseases and natural phenomena after themselves (the Humboldt Current, Higgs’ boson, and Alzheimer’s disease all come to mind). The pinnacle is likely the Taj Mahal: prominence at the less than one-in-a-billion level. All-in-all, for ordinary folks, we will likely get swallowed up in the maw of time. Even if some electronic record remains, who will look for it or do anything with it? (In this regard, access some record of mine by an AI/Borg as it hoovers up items from the past for some college essay in 2076 doesn’t really seem to count!)
In sum, if we can’t count on being remembered in any meaningful way beyond a generation or two, the purpose of memorialization is more likely for the self-satisfaction of those who seek to be remembered; in other words: ego. If you think you’re an exception, see Shelley’s poem: Ozymandias (1818).
So, if personal, name-and-likeness legacy is a racket, is there anything I can leave behind? I think so, but it’s not likely to be identifiable. I used to say, when I was teaching in college, that my impact on my students was more likely to be in things they remembered or ways of thinking they learned even if they couldn’t remember my name, or even how they might have learned them originally. I suspect the same is true elsewhere, it terms of both family, social, or cultural influence (or even charitable donations).
If the end of the world (objectively) coincides with the end of the world (subjectively), then it won’t really matter. If the objective world carries on, who knows what direction things might take? Preserving the possibilities for future discovery is as about as far as I can see may be enough and my belief that I helped it to do so is valuable to me and sufficient as a motivation.
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