The Overlords have transformed Earth into a utopian society, free from competition, struggle, or suffering. Every human being has access to everything they need for next to no cost, education has become a lifelong pursuit, and life itself—formerly defined by conflict—has become defined by comfort and leisure. However, this loss of conflict and struggle has resulted in a simultaneous loss of ideals—no progress has been made in the arts or sciences, and the humanistic spirit is languishing. Clarke suggests, as many authors in his era did, that human beings require conflict, suffering, and challenges in order to create the greatest masterpieces and seek answers to the questions that make life meaningful.
In the Overlord utopia, struggle has been eliminated, but so has triumph. Artists are left with nothing to feel strongly about, no questions worth asking, and, as such, nothing worth creating. The excess of leisure time created by the new wealth of utopia ironically causes the sheer number of artists and productive individuals to explode, yet the things that they create lack any substance or power; quality has been superseded by quantity.
With disease, war, strife, and even fear of the future largely eradicated, humanity finds that it has little left to say. This suggests that art that evokes strong feelings and passions depends upon contrast: there can be no sense of triumph if there was not first the threat of failure, heart-breaking beauty does not show itself if it was never preceded by the grotesque and horrible, and the relief of abundance is never felt if there was no famine to compare it to. Though it thrives materially, then, humanity is left looking over its shoulder at bygone eras when suffering was widespread but the art that resulted was more powerful than anything they are able to create in their era of plenty.
Scientific progress also languishes under the Overlords. Humanity has been banned from exploration and the Overlords possess such vast knowledge that it seems that there is nothing worth left discovering anyway. Clarke suggests that access to all knowledge and understanding actually results in less inquisitive, more complacent human beings. Though they are well-provided for, humanity’s adventuring, pioneering spirit is crushed with no new frontiers to conquer. World travel has become an easy and simple affair—making the globe suddenly feel very small and that nothing is foreign anymore—and space exploration has been prohibited. No new horizons are available. The pioneering lust for adventure, the consuming curiosity of what lies elsewhere has largely been quashed, leaving many people wondering, “Where do we go from here?” Without limitations to overcome or challenges to rise to, the sciences face the same fate as the arts: obsolescence. Utopia has robbed humanity of the necessary stimuli that propelled the race to grow and progress, even though it has stabilized its material needs.
The colony of New Athens aims to “restore humanity’s pride in its own achievements,” hoping that by imposing artificial limitations on themselves they can re-stimulate something of the humanistic spirit and produce something worthwhile. New Athens is fundamentally an attempt to get back to doing something. As a commune of artists and intellectuals, the members of New Athens are encouraged to strive to be the best on the island at one particular thing of their choosing; more important than achieving this is holding it up as an ideal to strive for, a purpose around which to orient their lives. The novel thus suggests that in the face of utopia, which many believe is inevitable with the progression of science and technology, mankind will need to learn to set challenges for itself to encourage growth, such as in the way that New Athens chooses to live without many modern amenities and fosters individual competition between its members to create idealism is in an ideal-less world. However, while it does enjoy some success in revitalizing the human spirit, New Athens is ultimately destroyed by the ascension of the children into the Overmind. Its success was, in a sense, as artificial as the limitations it imposed upon itself, as the real human progress was being made by forces unknown to them until it was too late.
The problem with utopia is that the strongest characters, the greatest innovations, and the grandest art are often forged difficult circumstances. Where there is no struggle or suffering, there is no crucible to refine people or ideas. The novel thus suggests that without trial, there can be no triumph. Faced with utopia, human beings risk losing the spirit that defines humanity itself.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Utopia and Creative Apathy ThemeTracker
Utopia and Creative Apathy Quotes in Childhood’s End
“Can you deny that the Overlords have brought security, peace, and prosperity to the world?”
“That is true, but they have taken our liberty. Man does not live—”
“—by bread alone. Yes, I know—but this is the first age in which every man was sure of getting even that.”
With the arrival of the Overlords, nations knew that they need no longer fear each other, and they guessed—even before the experiment was made—that their existing weapons were certainly impotent against a civilization that could bridge the stars. So at once the greatest single obstacle to the happiness of mankind had been removed.
Fifty years is ample time in which to change a world and its people almost beyond recognition. All that is required for the task are a sound knowledge of social engineering, a clear sight of the intended goal—and power.
The end of strife and conflict of all kinds had also meant the virtual end of creative art. There were myriads of performers, amateur and professional, yet there had been no really outstanding new works of literature, music, painting, or sculpture for a generation. The world was still living on the glories of a past that could never return.
Man was, therefore, still a prisoner on his own planet. It was a much fairer, but a much smaller, planet than it had been a century before. When the Overlords had abolished war and hunger and disease, they had also abolished adventure.
The human race continued to bask in the long, cloudless summer afternoon of peace and prosperity. Would there ever be a winter again? It was unthinkable. The age of reason, prematurely welcomed by the leaders of the French Revolution two and a half centuries before, had now really arrived. This time, there was no mistake.
Yet among all the distractions and diversions of a planet which now seemed well on the way to becoming one vast playground, there were some who still found time to repeat an ancient and never-answered question:
“Where do we go from here?”
“It is a bitter thought, but you must face it. The planets you may one day possess. But the stars are not for man.”
“There’s nothing left to struggle for, and there are too many distractions and entertainments. Do you realize that every day something like five hundred hours of radio and TV pour out over various channels? [...] Soon people won’t be living their own lives anymore.”
Suppose, in [the Overlords’] altruistic passion for justice and order, they had determined to reform the world, but had not realized that they were destroying the soul of man?
Twenty years ago, the Overlords had announced that they had discontinued all use of their surveillance devices, so that humanity no longer need consider itself spied upon. However, the fact that such devices still existed meant that nothing could be hidden form the Overlords if they really wanted to see it.
“Everybody on the island has one ambition, which may be summed up very simply. It is to do something, however small it may be, better than anyone else. Of course, it’s an ideal we don’t all achieve. But in this modern world, the great thing is to have an ideal. Achieving it is considerably less important.”
It was thus with [New] Athens. The island had been born in fire; in fire it chose to die. Those who wished to leave did so, but most remained, to meet the end among the broken fragments of their dreams.
