¶ The Outlaw Area
← Outlaw | Outlaw Outlaw Area (1) →
Index Entry
The Outlaw Area:
"… Since the last ice age three-quarters of the Earth has been water, and of the one-quarter that is land very little has been lived on. Ninety-nine percent of humanity has lived on only about five per cent of the Earth-- a few little dry spots. Now, the law has always been applicable only to this five per cent of the Earth, and anyone who went outside of it-- the tiny minority who went to sea, for example-- immediately found himself outside the law. And the whole development of technology has been in the outlaw area, where you’re dealing with the toughness of nature. I find this fascinating and utterly true. All improvement has to be made in the outlaw area. You can’t reform man, and you can’t improve his situation where he is. But when you’ve made things so good out there in the outlaw area that they can’t help being recognized, then gradually they get drawn in and assimilated. . . .
“A good example of what I mean is going on right now in the space program…, where there’s no atmosphere and no water and no sewer lines and no berries to eat, for the first time in history you have to look out for man. Inadvertently, man is trying for the first time to learn how to make man a success. It’s inadvertent, but it’s being done.”
¶ Citations
- Calvin Tomkins, New Yorker, p.78, 8 Jan’66
