Nature

On Dinosaurs

Mikhail Epstein

America welcomes us with dinosaurs. With their stupidly mocking mugs they seem stuck somewhere in the back row of evolution, like the class dunce who has already been left back once. Yet still, no matter where you look, you see them grinning at you: on movie posters, television screens, on magazine pages, t-shirts, labels, charm bracelets, and children's toys. Meanwhile, the industrious Americans, those whiz kids seated in the front row of historical evolution, are bent over their books, trying to solve the problems of the twenty-first century. As they do so, they continually turn back to glance behind them, exchanging a laugh or wink with these overgrown mental defectives, somehow envious of their more relaxed peers.

The extent of the dinosaur cult, here in the world's most advanced nation, is hard to believe. The dinosaur has become as much a symbol of America as the skyscraper or a space ship landing on the moon. The dinosaur staggers the imagination. It exceeds all human measure. It can overcome both space and time. The dinosaur is a colossus: is it not the behemoth of whom it is written in the Bible (Job, 40:17-19): "His tail is rigid as a cedar, the sinews of his flanks are closely knit, his bones are tubes of bronze, and his limbs like bars of iron. He is the chief of God's works, made to be a tyrant over his peers." Does this description perhaps offer an explanation for the sudden and mysterious disappearance of the dinosaurs, who had reigned on earth for millions of years? Until now scientists have been unable to offer any probable natural cause to account for this catastrophe — and perhaps they can't because "only the One who created him can lay a Sword upon him."

These invincible creatures cast an inexplicable spell on Americans. Even the best American specialist in dinosaurs, the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has to admit: "I do not pretend to know all the resons why dinosaurs fascinate so many people, particularly our children."[1]

Indeed, all American children know the basic difference between the allosaurus and brachiosaurus, between the brontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex, between the upright, meat-eating dinosaurs with their enormous jaws and tiny forearms, and the crawling herbivores whose neck alone is greater than the übermensch's dream of omnipotence.

Recently I ran across a children's book that tells the story of a little boy named Danny, who visits a museum. In the museum he sees Indians, bears, Eskimos, rifles and swords. Then suddenly, to quote from the book: "He saw . . . DINOSAURS." All of this emotion—the holding of breath, expressed in the three dots, and the rapture, which bursts out in the capital letters—is produced by the dinosaurs. A day spent with dinosaurs proves to be the happiest day of his, and his friends', life.

A school questionnaire, sent to parents, asks each respondent to describe the interests of his or her child. The questionnaire, which takes the form of a list, presents the following items: dinosaurs, cars, sports, television, reading, cooking, in that order. As can be seen, dinosaurs come first, preceding such all-American hobbies as love of cars and sports. That dinosaurs are more entertaining than any book, even a book on dinosaurs, goes without saying.

Why is it that contemporary Americans find dinosaurs so fascinating? How could the cult of these fossilized monsters become engrained in the culture and consciousness of a nation devoted to the search for the future?

Perhaps part of the answer to this question lies in the question itself. The American nation emerged in isolation, cut off from a past that was as if submerged by the waters of a Biblical Flood, the Atlantic Ocean, which separated the first immigrants to America from their historical past. This may very well be why Americans so deeply prize all evidence of their own American past — if not the historic past, then the prehistoric. The antediluvian.

As it steps into the future, a nation has a psychological need for something on which to brace its other leg. Although Americans are often thought of as recklessly future-oriented, this desire for equilibrium finds expression in American culture through various populist and socially conservative movements. The American South has produced several of them, such as the agrarian and farmers' movements, which have a lot in common with traditional Russian populism, expressing an identically passionate rejection of worldwide, "homeless" Catholicism (although from a Protestant as opposed to Russian Orthodox point of view); the same denunciations of revolution, the decline of values, the soullessness of technological progress and the influx of immigrants — the very same criticisms voiced by the ideologues of Russian anti-Westernism, although in America the anger is turned toward the East and South, the directions from which the foreign danger is believed to come.

Ecology, the world's most powerful movement for the preservation of nature, is another expression of this tendency; and nature, for Americans, means something more than the biosphere alone. For Europeans nature is non-history, non-culture, a relatively small and separate sphere of existence, a relic. For Americans, nature is instead a crucially important part of the cultural and historical legacy. In the absence of social history on the American continent prior to European immigration, it is nature that constitutes the deepest stratum of American history. Natural history is national history. As immigrants from various historical worlds, Americans gain their sense of Americanness precisely through communion with American nature, whose length and breadth far exceeds the short but stormy span of American history. Americans love museums of natural history as much as Europeans love museums of national history.

As the exalted agents of this natural history, dinosaurs are of course seen as an embodiment of American national glory. Just as the titans of European history evoke strong—and contradictory—feelings of rapture, horror, pride, enthusiasm and terror in Europeans, so do dinosaurs evoke these same emotions in Americans. How, for instance, do Russians feel about Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great? How do the French feel about Robespierre or Napoleon? Ambivalent, tormented, full of an inherently irrational feeling.

For Americans, their historical figures lack this kind of visceral rootedness. Without doubt, everyone respects Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, but they are too unconditionally positive, single-mindedly virtuous. Everything about them is visible, everything known: they were chosen for and by the people, they have been x-rayed in the clear light of democracy, they appeared in an age of reason and progress to assure the triumph of reason and progress. They are lacking any suggestion of the picturesque and almost innocent hint of blood, that full-bodied and living villainy, the spirit of a chilling mystery, possessed by the heroes of European Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Renaissance. And the same can be said of that later, gravely [istead of "unfortunately"] mutilated age of European progress, led by Lenin and Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini. It's as though these American heroes were not completely historical, as if they too much share our contemporary moral tastes and democratic passions, which of course is their chief merit as well, stepping out of the eighteenth into the twentieth century without having to revise a single paragraph of their Constitution.

But what of history's darkness? Its bloody secrets? Its turbulent flowering and fatal putrefaction? What experience can we use to go through history again, in imagination? What historical experience will take our breath away? How to make our hearts sink in blood? [instead of:How to see ourselves covered in blood?] To die at the thought of the incomprehensible and unimaginable?

It is the history of the dinosaurs, whose one hundred and sixty million year earthly reign lasted far longer than any Egyptian dynasty, that allows Americans to participate in the irrational feeling of history; for without this irrational quality history itself would not be possible, it would instead be part of the completely transparent realm of logic — without kings, fate, or intrigue.

Such titanic passions! Imagine, from deep within the jungle's darkness, the roar of the female brontosaurus—member of the famous clan of saw-toothed and long-necked dinosaurs—as she sees an allosaurus about to eat her eggs, her posterity. Or perhaps it's a herd of allosauruses staking its historical claim — a truly historical claim, since it will determine the spirit and meaning of developments for the next ten million years — to the coastline of the primordial ocean, battling with a herd of tyrannosauruses. Compared to this, what importance does the paltry alternation of the kings of fashion have? And what of our stars of politics and entertainment, who dream of nothing more than shining on history's horizon for a measly two or three years?

And how much spilled blood! So much roaring! Imagine the passions, the jealousies, the epochal battles that took place in the vast groves of the primeval forest! And how many mysteries have been lost to us forever, such as the letters of Ivan the Terrible. And the chief mystery of all: the sudden disappearance of these titanic creatures from Earth. Without putting up a fight they exited haughtily from the stage, turning over their historical crown to a group of puny, feeble mammals!

But without this feast of the gods on ancient earth, without this irrational root growing directly out of primordial chaos, how else could Americans ground their historical feeling? Just like the dinosaurs, Americans have known history's benevolence, which has fed their titanic pretensions; but they have also known its fragility and perils, fraught with future catastrophe. The history of the dinosaurs has allowed them, if not scientifically to predict such fatal occurrences, at least to be prepared for them morally.

Neither dinosaurs nor Americans fit within the framework of social history, as do, for instance, the French, who are indeed pleased to drape themselves in it. For Americans, who have recently celebrated their bicentennial, social history is both too spacious and too constricting. They feel more at home within cosmic history, [whose prize-winning space they share with the dinosaurs; or rather, with] where they compete with dinosaurs for world records in time and space [they share with dinosaurs with whom they compete, if not in form, then in content. ] This competition can be observed in American gigantomania, in the impetuous outlines of its cities and rocket ships, soaring up and away.

The more refined taste of Europeans is oriented toward the humble proportions of our graceful brothers in life — the mammals. Americans feel better served by the grand proportions of our distant ancestors — by a different, prehistoric order of kinship. When it's not dinosaurs, they go in for whales, the only living creature that has preserved an image of primordial power, praised by God himself in the Book of Job.

In refutation of Job's vain [not vainglorious] complaints about human sufferings, both the Leviathan and the Behemoth are described. They are presented as examples of the unshakable power of nature, always pleasing to God, never caviling, without the human breast-beating and falseness that Americans find so repulsive. If the Leviathan described in Job is the King of the Sea, the wonder-whale, then the Behemoth, we can assume, is not today's hippopotamus; far from being that lazy and decrepit creature good for little more than displacing swamp liquid with his hulk [instead of: filling himself with swamp swill], the biblical Behemoth, to judge from the description (with a "tail rigid as a cedar" and for whom "the cattle of the hills" is his prey), is more likely to be a one hundred ton, thirty-meter long brontosaurus rippling with muscles, the nomadic mountain of the Mesozoic plains.

Why should today's dinosaur cult surprise us, given that Moby Dick, the giant white whale, became a crucial myth and key novel of nineteenth century America? Just like the dinosaurs, Moby Dick seemed to gather within his virtually indestructible body all of nature's fury and the mysterious evil of history. This mystery, which Americans found so difficult to understand, fascinated readers just as Captain Ahab was fascinated by Moby Dick. Dinosaurs, as we have seen, come from the same stock of giants as do whales; and if they could not swim across the ocean, they did succeed in swimming through the flood of time — the Jurassic, Triassic, and Cretaceous periods. In each they left a rather large and memorable trace.

For all these reasons the European peoples ought not to make such a big fuss over their own ancient history. Compared to Europe's historical past, Americans have their own, far deeper, prehistoric past. What's more, American prehistory is more visually present than the European's, it can even be touched. For instance, in the hills of Connecticut, which is one of America's most densely populated and developed states, one can see and touch fossilized dinosaur remains on the rock faces uncovered in the process of highway construction. Moreover, between Colorado and Utah, the world's largest national dinosaur park (I am of course referring to dinosaur fossils) has been established, covering some eight million square acres. This youthful civilization was at first unable, and in the end decided it did not want, to cover up the traces of its antediluvian ancestors.

Where in Europe can you find dinosaur tracks? Although a knowledgeable archeologist might know where, what about the typical European, or European society as such, cloaked as it is in the excavated ruins of Roman basilicas and Celtic habitations, in the multiple layers of a supposedly early but in fact late-blooming civilization? Americans, by contrast, live in a deep historical well, in which sepulchral depths are nearly contiguous with the bubbling surface: the twenty-first century skirting two hundred twenty-five million years ago.

Significantly, these irrational premises do not prevent Americans from drawing perfectly rational conclusions about the history of the dinosaurs. Indeed they see these favorites of the Mesozoic period as teachers in the crucial science of survival. Ultimately, Americans intend on living long. Whatever our planet becomes in a thousand years, the Americans intend on being there to inherit it. Who among the creatures that have roamed the earth have had a more instructive experience in the art of survival than the dinosaurs?

"[W]e might read [in the history of dinosaurs] an important lesson for our current age, and for our own assesments of human strength and status."[2] - such is the authoritative opinion of Stephen Gould, the distinguished American paleontologist and naturalist, who shares American kids' admiration and excitement about dinosaurs. Stephen Gould resents the nickname "dinosaur" in reference to a failed business or a defeated politician and summons us to "consider the utter inappropriateness of such an image. The dinasaurs were among the most successful creatures that ever lived, and any comparison with them should be viewed as a badge of honor."[3]

This is why, after having satisfied the thirst for horror in page after page of blood-curdling battle, American children find at the end of the book a valuable bit of instruction and advice which can be conveyed as follows: "Think about it, boys and girls, our human civilization has only lasted a few thousand years, and yet at every second we are threatened with extinction because of our own excesses. But the dinosaurs, who gnawed and tore each other apart, lived on Earth for one hundred fifty million years — let's only hope we're as lucky as they were! Surely in all that time they discovered some secret about long life and developed a survival strategy, since they left Earth unvanquished. What might that secret be? Perhaps the sad difference between us and the dinosaurs is that humans continually try to remake nature while dinosaurs were able to adapt themselves to it. Adapt yourselves to nature, my friends, if you wish for a long life. And if you do so, you will grow tall, you will grow strong..."

My only hope is that my children will come to love dinosaurs too — but will not imitate them always and in everything!

January 1991

Trans. Thomas Epstein

The March of Time

Mikhail Epstein

Each place on earth has its own way of experiencing time. In Russia time flows differently than anywhere else in the world: in Russia time drags on and on, as it does for an insomniac lying in bed with arms and legs immobile while the head, burning with agitation, is conscious of its tormenting repose. "Then it is for me the gloom and quiet breed / Long hours of agonized prostration": apparently, Pushkin wrote these lines not only about himself but about an entire country's insomnia; a nation which, although tightly swaddled in a snowy blanket, has one of Petersburg's white nights shining on the headboard. Not to be able to sleep, not to be able to wake: this duality defines Russia's fate, its eternally painful experience of time. If only Russia had been able to fall asleep, then time would have passed as it does in oriental countries: unnoticed, where centuries may elapse without a single drop of change spilling from time's vessel. If Russia had been able to awaken, then time would have sped forward with the lively step of day, with all its hustle and bustle, and the experience of its duration would have been reduced.

However, there is nothing more tormenting than insomnia, the "inertia of night," when the body rests but the mind remains vigilant, each moment stretching into infinity. For the experience of time is a result of the relationship between two velocities: the velocity of consciousness and the velocity of existence. In the waking state, consciousness flows parallel to existence, is in step with it, and for this reason time takes on a defined magnitude, which is larger or smaller depending on the case. The more action takes place in a moment of consciosness, the faster time flows, the more consciousness in a moment [per unit] of action, the slower [instead of: The more action operates on the unity of consciousness the faster time flows, the more consciousness on action the slower.] For someone hurrying somewhere time flies headlong; for someone waiting time is painfully lengthened. Sleep and insomnia are the two boundaries of this relationship. In sleep the conscious mind ceases to operate, which is why time is, for all intents and purposes, not perceived. In insomnia the opposite obtains: consciousness alone operates, which is why time stretches into infinity. This is how time is experienced in Russia: a wearying infinity, which is nothing like pure repose, but rather restlessness and torment, the tormenting attempt to raise oneself up and throw off the torpor, to speed time toward some positive act.

This is why Russia longs so mightily for history: for Russia, it is as if history were unable to penetrate its snowy borders, as if everything occurred elsewhere, on the western side of the world. Yet when history does finally visit Russia, as it has explosively done under Peter the Great, Lenin, and during the the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era, its velocity does not seem to suit Russia either; rather it immediately gives rise to a bout of sleepiness, the desire to stop in place and "sleep eternally." This is because time, in its very essence, implies a turning: time must turn and we must turn with it; but souls habituated to the "inertia of night" can not long stand such turning.[4]

This constant back-and-forth between waking and sleep and back again creates a condition of troubled sleep, that is to say a state of insomnia with its infinite surplus of time, which even the most patient soul can not endure.

America, from the Russian perspective, is seen as the center of historical existence. This error is a result of a narrowly geographical perspective. Russia, viewing history in a westerly direction, toward Europe, transfers it, by the law of widening perspective, to its most western point, America. Yet in America the movement of history produces, if possible, an even more hollow echo than it does in Russia. Generally speaking, "history" is a category of European existence, as far removed from Russia as from America. The difference is that Russia longs for history, suffers pangs of jealousy for it, while America is virtually indifferent to it.

America can be viewed as the most western point of the Western world; and yet at the same time it is more eastern than the Far East, and for this reason: a maximum of (western) temporal velocity as a means to its (eastern) annihilation. America is a land of nature and technology: there is little space left over for history. Civilization in America has taken on a form notable for its naturalness and tranquillity; it lacks the nervous tick, the passionate break with nature that marks European history. For history is the unhappy consciousness of "Faustian" man, who has broken with spontaneity and experienced the guilt of acceleration, alienation from the soil and the intoxicating freedom of uncertainty. If a person constantly moves at high speed, he or she ultimately ceases to feel its jolt and alienation, with its corresponding complex of temptation and repentance, freedom and guilt. Moving at the same speed as the soil, this person takes the motion itself as a form of rootedness.

Americans of course live very fast-paced and active lives; however, they do not experience time in its historical sense, as constituted by events, landmarks, and transitions from the old to the new. America lacks a feeling for boundaries and canons, it does not make qualitative leaps because it does not accumulate enough quantitative change to create the conditions for a qualitative leap: it simply advances from one quantity to another. The old is unable to take root and harden, nor is novelty perceived as a great leap: things simply change, and these very changes generate a feeling of permanency. The train barrels down tracks so smooth and straight that nothing shakes or rattles: movement becomes a form of rest.

This is why it is so difficult to identify which novelties and which representatives of cultural innovation really matter in America. As renewal takes place steadily and continuously, each agent of change is granted but a few quanta of any new quality. This is quite different from the case of Europe, and especially Russia, where change erupts like a volcano, having been held back by the brake of tradition so that it eventually explodes with incredible force.

The American sensation of congealed time remains constant whether one is looking at the flat surface of a lake, at the distant forest, or at the panorama of a huge city and its stream of passing cars. Time here is everywhere accelerated — and yet it remains tranquil within this speed. The surface of an American superhighway, on which myriads of automobiles flow, is in its own way as serene as the still surface of a pond.

Even in the busy round of daily activities, when there's not enough time, an idyllic feeling remains. In Russia, by contrast, the lack of time is tormenting, it's like the feeling of trying to catch a train for which one is late: if you don't hurry up, if you don't rush, press forward, it might leave you behind forever. In America, this feeling of not having enough time is experienced by someone who is already seated on the train. Of course the train may arrive late at its designated stop, but there is no longer any danger of being left behind . . . This is the joy experienced by someone who has mastered the rhythms of motion: even if you slow down, you will still be carried forward.

This kind of time moves at the speed of a superhighway; yet, because surrounded by nothing other than velocity, time seems to stand in place, as if swaying peacefully on a still lake in a fine light wind. In this mild and sad idyll, civilization merges with the landscape, and no wind from distant European history can disturb it. Thus, at the far edge of the agitated Western world, one suddenly discovers an almost sleeping East.

September 1992

Trans. Thomas Epstein

[1]Stephen Jay Gould. The Fascination of Dinosaurs, in The World Almanac and Book of Facts. 1997. Mahwah (N.J.), 1996, p.36.

[4] The author here is making an untranslatable etymological point: the Russian word for time, vremya, shares the same root with the Russian word for the verb to turn or spin, vertet'.