Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Arthur C. Clarke’s Inhuman Trade-Off in ‘Childhood’s End’
Arthur C. Clarke’s Inhuman Trade-Off in ‘Childhood’s End’
Jul 8, 2025 3:23 AM

The fears of the past resonate in the present, and it’s no wonder humanity sometimes grasps desperately for answers in response to a frightening and unknowable future. Sometimes these e to us through literature and film which may allow us to dispense with the worst of them, given enough time.

The Overlords of Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End – a classic 1953 science-fiction novel that serves as the basis for a Syfy network miniseries beginning Dec. 14 – turn out to be a very mixed bag for their underling humans. On the one hand, the aliens’ presumed benevolence ushers in a utopian era of peace and prosperity where armed conflict and atomic warfare are effectively abolished, and no person goes hungry or suffers illness long. On the other hand, the Overlords’ munificence generates intellectual sloth and cultural stagnation. To some, abandoning free will and flushing centuries of human plishments down the loo poses benefits far outweighing the costs. To others, it means sacrificing all that it really means to be human. Additionally, the Overlord “Supervisor” Karellen issues an edict – similar to the warning given Pandora by Zeus about opening a box – prohibiting humans from exploring space, which places profound limitations on human free-will.

According to Clarke, the trade-off is precursor to the next step of human evolution, rendering corporeal existence and Earth itself moot on the path to attaining a higher plane of being for ensuing generations. Humankind has to persevere, however, through the perils of the Atomic Age first, and the only way to avert a nuclear war is through intervention of the Overlords. However, as Clarke shows us, even the Overlords are devoid of free will after they are eventually revealed as performing the bidding of the next layer of galactic bureaucracy, the Overmind.

Childhood’s End appeals to the fears of political upheaval and nuclear annihilation in the decade immediately following World War II and beyond. Our Age of Anxiety, in the apt title of a work by W.H. Auden, begs for easy answers when even the plex responses inherently were doomed to fall short. Readers will recall 1953 also marked the publication of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, a novel featuring the debut of 007 Secret Service Agent Bond, James Bond. Today is no different; the latest incarnation of Bond continues to obliterate baddies on movie screens more than 50 years after the demise of Fleming, and cinematic superheroes are boffo box office whether solo or collectively protecting the world from mischief makers. Television presents humanity struggling to survive in numerous dramas depicting various visions of a zombie apocalypse where even the stoic resilience of The Walking Dead’s Rick Grimes may not be enough to ensure his own survival much less survival of the human race.

[spoiler alert] Clarke’s novel is divided into three sections: Earth and the Overlords, The Golden Age, and The Last Generation. The first section details the arrival of the alien Overlords, who hover their gigantic spacecraft over Earth’s cities. It seems the planet, as usual, is in such turmoil that it is perceived necessary to draft a World Constitution, which, presciently enough is scheduled to take place in Paris – coincidentally the city hosting the 2015 United Nations Climate Conference later this month. The Overlords’ presence, however, inaugurates what many think to be a Golden Age, which in reality is a period of cultural decadence albeit one without disease and war. The final section depicts the realization of the Overlords’ purpose, which is to shepherd the human race toward a more enlightened evolutionary phase.

Lest readers unfamiliar with Childhood’s End conclude Clarke was nothing more than an advocate for secular, scientific solutions for the eternal problems confronting humanity, rest assured he understood that culture is based on the religious notion of “cult” from whence derives the best of human endeavors. Unfortunately, the novel depicts the realization of these efforts meaningless in the grand scheme of the universe when it’s revealed the Overlords merely are midwives to the next stage of human development, finally departing Earth while humankind’s last generation drifts away as cosmic snowflakes.

Further, the story goes, the Overlords’ satanic appearance and malignant reputation are merely archetypal misinterpretations imprinted on the memory of the human race. The maturation promised in the book’s title winds up negating such pinnacles of human plishment as the Bible, the Sistine Chapel, the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris, bined works of Dante and Shakespeare, and positions of Bach, Beethoven and the Beatles. Resistance to this cosmic puberty is futile as the planet’s last progeny develop telekinetic and telepathic abilities in the manner of the children in Lewis Padgett’s 1943 classic short story “Mimsy Were the Borogroves.” The adults in Clarke’s novel resign themselves to the Void and the world ends with neither a bang nor a whimper, but instead “a soundless concussion of light…. For a little while the gravitational waves crossed and re-crossed the Solar System, disturbing ever so slightly the orbits of the planets.”

Clarke possessed a brilliant scientific mind and a remarkable literary and visionary talent, but lacked insight into human resiliency and resourcefulness. Additionally, he was a bit premature in his negative assessments of the human race. As it turns out, we’ve endured the past 60-some years without help from the extraterrestrial Karellen and fellow Overlords, and we’ve largely avoided catastrophe while exceeding many of Clarke’s predictions for technological advancements, curing diseases and eradicating poverty without centralized supervision and other government schemes.

Most important, humanity retains access to those permanent things reified by the poets T.S. Eliot and David Jones and other Christian Humanists such as Christopher Dawson, Jacques Maritain, Russell Kirk and – notably referenced in Childhood’s End – Lord Acton and G.K. Chesterton. Civilization thrives wherever ordered liberty is enjoyed, absolute power abjured and the moral imagination blossoms. Our race may remain children in the opinion of Arthur C. Clarke’s Overlords, but we persist as God’s humble children, flourishing because we implement self-restraint in the exercise of our gift of free will.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Jordan Ballor: Let Detroit’s farms flourish
Detroit has has been plagued by the economic downturn more than most cities, and has struggled to recover. However, sometimes gloomy economic conditions breed innovation. That is the focus of Jordan Ballor’s “Let Detroit’s farms flourish” which appeared in the Detroit News. Ballor explains that residents are putting vacant lots to use by urban farming: These areas of growth, in the form of munity programs and individual plots, represent a significant avenue for the revitalization of the city. The benefits...
Rev. Sirico: Not Whether to Help the Poor, But How
The budget proposed by House Republicans has lead to a heated debate; one key facet being whether funding should be cut for programs that benefit the poor and vulnerable. Critics claim the House Republicans’ proposed budget violates Catholic social teaching (click here to read the critics’ open letter to Speaker Boehner). Rev. Robert A. Sirico’s first response to Boehner’s critics appeared in NRO. In this mentary Rev. Sirico expands upon his first response and articulates how Catholics can disagree on...
What’s the new “+1” button on Acton PowerBlog posts all about?
You may have noticed a new addition to the PowerBlog; the new +1 button joins the existing Facebook and Twitter buttons at the top of posts. +1 is a new initiative from Google that brings forth more relevant search results influenced by user feedback. Here is a snippet from the official Google launch: +1 is as simple on the rest of the web as it is on Google search. With a single click you can mend that raincoat, news article...
Orsini on “Principled Conservatism”
Long-time Acton Institute friend and Markets and Morality contributor Jean-Francois Orsini has a new book out. In Fight the Left (yes, it has a polemical edge!), Orsini argues that there are essentially two approaches to the world: liberalism and conservatism. His use of liberalism is decidedly contemporary (i.e., modern, not classical liberalism). His conservatism is sympathetic to the free market but, more importantly, it is “first principled,” meaning that he lays out the foundation on which conservatism must be based....
The Paper Pope
I have said it many times in the past, but now I have confirmation: According to the editors of the New York Times, the Pope is not permitted to make moral judgments because only the Editorial Board of the New York Times (all genuflect here) is permitted to pontificate: “Ms. Abramson, 57, said that as a born-and-raised New Yorker, she considered being named editor of The Times to be like “ascending to Valhalla.” “In my house growing up, The Times...
Rev. Sirico on the Catholic Charities Controversy in Illinois
A dispute has arisen in Illinois between Catholic Charities and the state government. As the National Catholic Register explains it, “Catholic Charities branches of three Illinois dioceses have filed a lawsuit against the state of Illinois in order to continue operating according to Catholic principles — by providing foster care and adoption services only to married couples or non-cohabitating singles.” In an interview, with the newspaper, Rev. Robert A. Sirico defends Catholic Charities in light of the principle of subsidiarity...
Rev. Sirico: Kevorkian’s ‘Terminal TV’
Writing in the Detroit Free Press, reporters Joe Swickard and Pat Anstett describe the life and June 3 passing of Jack Kevorkian. Long before he made a name for himself as a “assisted suicide advocate,” Kevorkian was known to the nurses at Pontiac General Hospital in Michigan as “Dr. Death” for his bizarre experiments. Death came naturally to the man who’d vowed he’d starve himself rather than submit to the state’s authority behind bars. “It’s not a matter of starving...
Jim Wallis: From Sandalista to Champion of Big Government
Essential reading on Jim Wallis by long-time observer Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion & Democracy: How does Wallis—the old Students for a Democratic Society agitator who touted the Vietcong in the 1970s and the Sandinistas in the 1980s, who denounced welfare reform in the 1990s as a betrayal of the poor, and whose funding by George Soros was exposed last year—enlist Catholic bishops and mainstream evangelicals in his endless political campaigns? “We’re frankly challenging leadership on both sides...
Samuel Gregg: Truth, Lies, and Euros
It is very easy to forget what is happening in other parts of the world especially when we are in the midst of our own financial crisis in the United States. Considering the economic challenges we are faced with, this may be a mistake as we can learn from other’s problems. Europe is experiencing economic woes that continue to worsen. In the American Spectator, Samuel Gregg explains: As Europe’s financial crisis worsens, it’s increasingly apparent that the economic woes of...
My Visit to The Barnabas Group
I recently had a unique opportunity to speak about unity in Christ’s mission. I was asked to present an address to The Barnabas Group (TBG) in San Diego (May 9) and Costa Mesa (May 10). The Costa Mesa site is in Orange County for those who do not know Southern California. My title for both meetings was: “The Unity Factor: One Lord, One Church, One Mission.” The Barnabas Group is one of the more unique missions and ministries I’ve encountered....
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved