h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Put your suggestions here. World powers will take them under advisement, we have no doubt.

When I first moved to this part of Scotland almost 30 years ago, I noticed a Babylon Road not far from my house. That’s a funny name I thought, so I did a bit of research and found this story:

Abram Combe was born in Edinburgh in 1785 to a reasonably wealthy family but chose to become apprenticed to a tanner. After working in London and Glasgow he returned to Edinburgh in 1807 to start his own tannery and was soon a successful businessman. In 1820 he visited New Lanark, a few miles from here, met Robert Owen and immediately became an Owenite disciple, becoming a founder member of the Edinburgh Practical Society which promoted Owens ideas on education and co-operative distribution.

Around this time Owen was trying to set up a community based on his social philosophy and had bought some land from one of his supporters, Archibald James Hamilton whose father owned most of Motherwell and Bellshill. Hamilton, who had fought at the Battle of Waterloo, was, of course, a member of the Quite Interesting family of the Dukes of Hamilton. The Hamiltons had originally been given the lands in Lanarkshire by Robert the Bruce for their loyalty in changing sides from King Edward I to Bruce in time to be on the winning side at the end of the War of Independence in 1305. They were given an Earldom in the 15th century and this was raised to the rank of Marquess in the 16th century. The 3rd Marquess supported King Charles I (they had a habit of choosing the wrong side but it never seemed to do them much harm) and was made a Duke and the premier Peer in Scotland in 1643 and they started building themselves a nice house to celebrate (http://www.slleisureandculture.co.uk/info/202/hamilton_palace). Other Hamiltons include a grandson of the 3rd Duke who climbed Vesuvius 22 times and married Emma, who had a bit of a thing for Admiral Nelson, the 4th Duke who invested heavily in the Darien Scheme that bankrupted Scotland and led to the Union with England and the 14th Duke who was the first person to fly a plane over Everest in 1933.

Anyway, back to the story: Owen gave up the idea of creating his community in Scotland and went to Indiana instead where he started New Harmony. Combe (remember him?) knew Hamilton from the Edinburgh Practical Society so they decided to go ahead without Owen and by October 1825 the first residents had started moving to the site and by the following summer, 250 people were living there and working in an iron foundry, print works, dairy, grain mill and at various building trades. For some reason Combe decided to call the community The First Society of Adherents to Divine Revelation (he’d given up alcohol shortly after meeting Owen so we can’t blame the drink) but it rapidly gained the name Babylon around Bellshill when locals heard about (or imagined) stories of wild and licentious behaviour. Unfortunately, the effect of long hours organizing the community and taking part in the heavy physical labour of building the site broke Combe’s health and he died in 1827. The community had ceased to exist by the end of that year.

His epitaph in St. Cuthbert’s Churchyard, Edinburgh reads:
Abram Combe, who died 11 August 1827, while engaged in an attempt to ameliorate the condition of the labouring classes by a co-operative establishment at Orbiston in Lanarkshire. When dying he desired that if any epitaph should be written on him it might simply be that his conduct in life met with the approbation of his own mind at the hour of his death, aged 42.

This would make a good guide entry. Why not submit it?

I'm not sure that there's enough information available on Babylon to make a stand alone entry; perhaps as part of an article on 19th century Utopianism?

Well, you could expand it to that...but I think a short, stand-alone entry would just hit the spot.

I'll see what if I can find a bit more detail.

Here's a piece I wrote, Dmitri:

First of all, yes – I really am personally and seriously doing all I can think of to do, to make the world better! When I look around me, it is very clear to me that there exists a need … I see so many problems, still! But I also see much that is good, things that are improving. Having grown up in Apartheid South Africa, I’ve seen major changes in my country in my lifetime. Much of it was for the better. I now live in a country where people of dark or light skins can live and work together and get to know each other as human beings. People generally have much better opportunities today. Yet, inequalities persist, and animosity also. There remains a serious need for harmony between people to be furthered. We also are still facing vast problems like unemployment and poverty.

Then there is the problem of environmental degradation. While more people today are environmentally conscious than a few decades ago, ignorance is still rife. Many of our most unique and magnificent species are threatened; habitats keep getting degraded and destroyed as a result of the burgeoning population and the need of feeding, housing and providing energy to everybody.

Now these are the problems in my own country. But we’re not isolated … we’re part of the world, in which everyone and everything is interconnected and interdependent. The problems we have, are problems other peoples also have. Even in the most prosperous countries like the USA, Britain, or the countries of Europe, there are serious problems of inequality and ill-will between people. Most countries in the world face environmental crises, which might become much worse if global warming proves to be serious (which some folks still deny). We still don’t seem to have figured out this thing called ‘economics’, which should as I see things, be concerned with providing basic wealth to the average human being on this planet, instead of serving to make the small, wealthy elite even wealthier - which seems to be what it is actually doing at the moment.

These are the problems I see … and there may be other problems which I’m not seeing but which are still serious. As for the problems I do see though, I feel some duty towards helping alleviate them. They are so vast, and I’m just a simple, single man, with not much power or influence. Nevertheless, I am dedicated to doing what I can indeed do … and despite my limitations, I can see many things that are within my power. I’ve decided to try to use my art talents to make people more aware of wild things, of biodiversity, of evolution and of ecology … which is why I’m writing the ‘Colours of Wildlife’ column which you can find every week in The Post! I’m not only trying to share and encourage biodiversity-awareness, I’m also trying to contribute beauty. I’m doing my best to portray every species in a beautiful way, creating works of art which people can enjoy in their own right. I know I’m not nearly as good an artist as I’d like to be … but I’m endeavouring to become better. As I see it, the world needs more beauty. Any kind of artist can help with that!

I really hope to be creating a lot more art over the rest of my lifetime, and doing what I can to ensure that it reaches more people. I’m honestly not concerned about money … although I would like to at least make a bit of it, so that I can remain alive and keep producing more art. Though h2g2-ers would know about my wildlife art, I actually create other kinds of art also. I’m particularly fond of fantasy art and surreal art; I’ve done some of that, but hope to do even more. That, too, is in my view something valuable … these kinds of flights-of-fancy, purely imaginative creations, can help open people’s minds, help them see beyond the everyday, glimpsing new possibilities. Which, again, is something humanity needs. We need visionaries to see something better … how can we strive for something we can’t envision? So, we all need to be imaginative and open-minded.

Now aside from the visual art, I’ve done a fair amount of writing so far … much of it towards projects you’ve not yet seen on h2g2. I’ve written some fantasy stories and at present I’m working on a big philosophical book. Even in the works of fiction I’m dealing with some philosophy (but just a light sprinkling so as to not make the stories too hard to digest) and social issues. My goal is more to get people thinking about possibilities, than saying ‘this is so’. But even if the stories are just entertaining, that too is something people need. Even stories that are just escapism, serve a purpose - so long as they are *good* escapist stories. Sometimes people need to escape in their minds from the dreariness of the present. But more - we need to see that things don’t have to be dreary like this! There are indeed wonderful possibilities that we could realise if we could see them and work towards them.

But I do want also to educate people about what ‘is so’ … that is to say, history and science. But I also want to caution people: I myself don’t completely know what ‘is so’ … I know what I’ve experienced and what I’ve been told, but I could be wrong about both! We still live with human imperfections, with misconceptions and with outright misinformation coming from certain sources. Now this is philosophy again - but it is vital; none of us can escape from the situation of being wrongly ‘informed’ from many simultaneous directions. Which is why we all need to be critical about pretty much everything we hear and read … and even about much that we see with our own eyes! So that is another aspect I emphasize in my writings.

Lastly there is my own struggle with mental illness. Now this struggle is ongoing … but I’ve made much progress, and I feel I’ve also come to understand much about my own mind, and indeed about other minds - about human psychology in general. This, too, I want to share. I’m not very ready to do that yet, I’m still battling some particular personal demons. But I do feel that if I can overcome, to some degree, the problems that I have, it can encourage many other people, whether they battle similar demons or not.

So. That’s about it, that’s what I’m trying to do. Do you think it is helping? Can you give me advice and tips for doing it better? Does it give you an idea or two about what to do to make a better world?

Thank you for that, Willem. Is it okay to publish this in the h2g2 Post?

Inspirational post, Willem

Hiya Dmitri and Chris! Of course Dmitri that's why I wrote it! I may have some more thingies for you ... very busy these days but I'll see what I can do.

~ ~

Attention, all of you people who were kind enough to send in your articles, stories, essays, and Guide Entries for the May 2017 Create Challenge. We've really enjoyed them.

As a token of our appreciation, please accept this badge:



Display it proudly on your PS, if you so desire.