E.M. FORSTER died in June 1970, when the information technology revolution was beginning to gather speed. He was affectionately known as the 鈥渙ld maid鈥� of the Bloomsbury Group of writers, artists and intellectuals who held sway in London from just before the First World War to the end of the 1920s. Back in 1909 he wrote a short story called The Machine Stops, which was his one and only attempt at science fiction.
I am increasingly convinced that in this story Forster speaks clearly to us all about the dangers built into so-called 鈥渄eveloped鈥�, 鈥減ostindustrial鈥� societies. Yes, the theme has been explored by other authors, but he probably got there first and did it better. Furthermore, he was the first president of the National Council for Civil Liberties, promoted Indian independence, detested Nazism openly when the establishment did not and, with Eric Crozier, wrote the libretto for Benjamin Britten鈥檚 powerfully anti-authoritarian opera Billy Budd. Unlike many writers, Forster put himself where his pen was.
The only characters in The Machine Stops are Vashti and her son Kuno. Kuno had been removed to the public nurseries soon after birth. Everyone in the world lives in their own underground room; all services are provided by the omnipresent Machine. Vashti believes that she has many friends, although she has had no human contact since childhood 鈥� except during insemination 鈥� and that she never has any spare time. She gives and receives frequent lectures. She leaves her room only once, and is 鈥渟eized with the terrors of direct experience鈥�. The room contains one 鈥渟urvival from the ages of litter 鈥� the Book of the Machine鈥�, which she worships. 鈥淏eware of first-hand ideas!鈥� exclaims one lecturer. 鈥淟et your ideas 鈥� be far removed from that disturbing element 鈥� direct observation.鈥�
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Those who rebel against the Machine are ejected through the 鈥渧omitories鈥� to the harsh conditions on the surface, to which they are unaccustomed, and die. But by using a respirator, the determined Kuno manages to reach the surface and discovers people who have somehow managed to survive there; a woman trying to rescue him is killed by the Mending Apparatus which drags Kuno back underground. But 鈥測ear by year the Machine was served with increased efficiency and decreased intelligence鈥�. No one understands the monster as a whole. Gradually, almost imperceptibly at first, the Machine deteriorates, while apologists preach patience and the Committee of the Mending Apparatus continually refers complaints to the Central Committee.
Then the Machine stops. Kuno and Vashti are, improbably, reunited in the final cataclysm, and together they weep for humanity. 鈥淢an, the flower of all flesh 鈥� was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven. Truly the garment had seemed heavenly at first, shot with the colours of culture, sewn with the threads of self-denial. And heavenly it had been so long as it was a garment and no more, so long as man could shed it at will and live by the essence that is his soul, and the essence, equally divine, that is his body.鈥�
Forster thus foresaw at the beginning of the 20th century our present confusion of the flow and accessibility of information with knowledge, knowledge with wisdom, efficiency with intelligent effectiveness. Throughout his long life he was against centralisation, especially of authority and power and the means of maintaining them. He was very much for tolerance and liberty and wrote a book extolling democracy. He would have dismissed 鈥渧irtual reality鈥� as an oxymoron and dangerous with it. I am sure that he would have deprecated a National Curriculum for schools, because it does not instil in pupils the crucial ability to question received opinion and authority. Nor does it develop a capacity for superversion: that is, overturning the accepted order from above, unlike subversion which does it messily from below.
Forster鈥檚 idea of education, shaped by his unhappy experience at Tonbridge School, he expressed through Fielding in A Passage to India: 鈥淚 believe in teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals.鈥� Do computer games or surfing the superhighway make people happier and wiser? Does observation persuade us that massive information-handling power necessarily makes businesses more profitable, governments more able to govern well, the future more predictable? Word processors and printers generate more paper, but does the writing reflect carefully formulated thought, and how much of the paper is ever properly read? As Joanna Coles wrote recently in The Guardian: 鈥淚n the great race for technology we find ourselves up a creative cul-de-sac. Just because something is possible does not mean it has a point.鈥�
The Machine Stops was the first piece of genuine literature to grab my attention and demand a voluntary written response. My English teacher was so surprised that he read it aloud to the class. In the peroration of my essay back in 1951 I wrote: 鈥淲e are all potential Kunos.鈥� Now, I believe that we in the rich countries are potential Vashtis, content to put unthinking trust in yet higher technology, withdrawing from first-hand observation and experience, and decreasingly capable of originality and creativity. Our attention spans are shrinking, our family bonds are contracting or severed, and while we have shoals of fleeting acquaintances, we have few real friends.
Forster鈥檚 official biographer, Nick Furbank, wrote: 鈥淗e believed 鈥� literally, and as more than a sentimental clich茅 鈥� that the true history of the human race was the history of human affection.鈥� A later biographer, Nicola Beauman, described Forster鈥檚 Howards End as 鈥減erfectly contemporary for today in its contrasting of Thatcherism [the Wilcoxes] with liberal values [the Schlegel sisters]鈥�. Margaret Schlegel famously urged Henry Wilcox to achieve 鈥渢he building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion鈥�. Forster acknowledged the necessity of both the prose and the passion but, as he stated through the Schlegels, 鈥減ersonal relations are the important thing for ever and ever鈥�.
Is it too late, is it indeed possible, to change information technology from subtle slave-driver and good excuse for not meeting people into a way of increasing human contact and human affection?