Drawing parallels to the biblical narrative of Adam and Eve, 2001: A Space Odyssey highlights the corrupting influence of knowledge. Before their encounter with the monolith, the man-apes live in a state of constant hunger, yet they are largely peaceful beings, living in harmony with one another and the world. After receiving knowledge from the monolith, however, Moon-Watcher and his tribe undergo a radical transformation. Made aware of what they could be—well-fed with sleek fur—and equipped with the tools to enact such change, the once-docile man-apes quickly become tribal, violent, and enterprising. Millions of years later, the man-apes’ distant descendants, present-day humans, are haunted by the same duality. Though they enjoy previously unimaginable material comforts, it comes at the cost of living under the ever-present specter of nuclear war. In this way, 2001: A Space Odyssey suggests that knowledge is a double-edged sword, granting humans immense power, but at the cost of conflict and war.
Despite ushering in a new era for humanity, the Star Child does not clearly transcend this dual-edged relationship with knowledge. Though he saves humanity from self-annihilation by destroying its nuclear arsenal, he does so merely out of preference for a “cleaner sky,” not benevolence. In fact, the Star Child’s interest in Earth seems almost entirely selfish. He wants to try his “untested powers,” and Earth, now but a “glittering toy,” is the perfect test subject. For all his knowledge and power, in other words, the Star Child has changed little from his distant ancestors, exemplified by his verbatim repetition of Moon Watcher’s final words: “Though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.” Drunk with power, the Star-Child is merely beginning anew the cycle of tribalism, violence, and conquest begun so long ago. As such, 2001: A Space Odyssey raises the question whether it is better to live in ignorance, weak but at peace with the world, or to be armed with knowledge, in conflict with the world, but empowered to change it.
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The Perils of Knowledge Quotes in 2001: A Space Odyssey
As he looked out upon the hostile world of the Pleistocene, there was already something in his gaze beyond the capacity of any ape. In those dark, deep-set eyes was a dawning awareness—the first intimations of an intelligence that could not possibly fulfill itself for ages yet, and might soon be extinguished forever.
Moon-Watcher felt the first faint twinges of a new and potent emotion. It was a vague and diffuse sense of envy–of dissatisfaction with his life. He had no idea of its cause, still less its cure; but discontent had come into his soul, and he had taken one step toward humanity.
For a few seconds Moon-Watcher stood uncertainly above his new victim, trying to grasp the strange and wonderful fact that the dead leopard could kill again. Now he was master of the world, and he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.
With the need for international cooperation more urgent than ever, there were still as many frontiers as in any earlier age. In a million years, the human race had lost few of its aggressive instincts; along symbolic lines visible only to politicians, the thirty-eight nuclear powers watched one another with belligerent anxiety. Among them, they possessed sufficient megatonnage to remove the entire surface crust of the planet. Although there had been—miraculously—no use of atomic weapons, this situation could hardly last forever.
Any man who had ever worked in a hardened missile site would have felt at home in Clavius. Here on the Moon were the same arts and hardware of underground living, and of protection against a hostile environment; but here they had been turned to the purposes of peace. After the thousand years, Man had at last found something as exciting as war.
So here, Floyd told himself, is the first generation of the Spaceborn; there would be more of them to come. Though there was sadness in this thought, there was also great hope. When Earth was tamed and tranquil, and perhaps a little tired, there would still be scope for those who loved freedom, for the tough pioneers, the restless adventurers…The time was fast approaching when Earth, like all mothers, must say farewell to her children.
Three million years! The infinitely crowded panorama of written history, with its empires, and its kings, its triumphs and its tragedies, covered barely one thousandth of this appalling span of time. Not only Man himself, but most of the animals now alive on Earth, did not even exist when this black enigma was so carefully buried here, in the most brilliant and most spectacular of all the craters on the moon.
Pandora’s box, thought Floyd, with a sudden sense of foreboding—waiting to be opened by inquisitive Man. And what will he find inside?
Poole and Bowman had often humorously referred to themselves as caretakers or janitors aboard a ship that could really run itself. They would have been astonished, and more than a little indignant, to discover how much truth that jest contained.
Nowadays, one could always tell when Hal was about to make an unscheduled announcement. Routine, automatic reports, or replies to questions that had been put to him, had no preliminaries; but when he was initiating his own outputs there would be a brief electronic throat-clearing. It was an idiosyncrasy that he acquired during the last few weeks; later, it if became annoying, they might do something about it.
Deliberate error was unthinkable. Even the concealment of truth filled him with a sense of imperfection, of wrongness—of what, in a human being, would have been called guilt. For like his makers, Hal had been created innocent; but, all too soon, a snake had entered his electronic Eden. For the last hundred million miles, he had been brooding over the secret he could not share with Poole and Bowman. He had been living a lie; and the time was fast approaching when his colleagues must learn that he had helped to deceive them.
It if it could happen to a man, then it could happen to Hal; and with that knowledge the bitterness and the sense of betrayal he felt toward the computer began to fade.
And if there was anything beyond that, its name could only be God.
And because, in all the galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped. And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.
For in the eons since their last meeting, much had been learned by the weaver; and the material on which he practiced his art was not of an infinitely finer texture. But whether it should be permitted to form part of his still-growing tapestry, only the future could tell.
Then he waited, marshalling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.
