Carl Sagan (1934—1996) was a cosmologist; and, irrespective of his spites and barren, human foibles, signified the fertile best of humanity and purpose of his century. Of respect, feeble (and ever lingering and star-latched) admiration, and wishes for the peace of his passing legacy, Raiazome commits to digital page this commemorative page and excerpts of his brightest transumanist work: that, through the forked literacies of his writing’s work, we transcend the rapes of industry and civilization — and rehumanize.
Scientist, math-shaman, and unswayed, moon-swaddling poet-humanist, Carl fought the Mammon of civilization’s nationalism, geocentrism, and anthropocentrism: bedeviling ires of the moment and our mangling empathies. Given the stentorian tenor and caustic, violent thrusts of the present — raped of passionate goodness; purged of soothing, soothsaying comfort; smartly washed in sickened, urban throngs of patriotic fervor; and, finally, flashing hiss of missile’s flight — we may presume, in this, he failed.
But: the fight was worth its all! And in these Kingdom Halls of failed promise and lapsed, dying world, the premise of the just and kingly life, well-lived, may be the best of any fights…at all.