It would seem that an intelligent species like ourselves, equipped with the enormous amount of accumulated knowledge and technical skills we have at our disposal, should be capable of solving all of mankind's problems. Obviously, this has not been the case. For the most part, our major problems—overpopulation, pollution, dwindling water supplies, etc.—are instead worsening. We've invented a thousand kinds of breakfast cereal, but we can't eliminate periodic famine. We can put a zillion features on a silicon computer chip the size of a fingernail, but we can't seem to prevent a never-ending series of armed conflicts. We can readily jet to all corners of the world, but everywhere we land we end up wrecking the place. And on and on it goes.
If pressed to confront this predicament, most people, I believe, would reluctantly concede that these depressing trends are inevitable given our hopelessly moribund “human condition.” Thanks to our psychological makeup, there will always be wars, famine, poverty, etc.
Personally, I prefer a more optimistic explanation for our situation. In my opinion, mankind’s misbehavior is due not so much to our faulty nature as to our faulty nurturing—i.e., our trouble stems from our having unthinkingly permitted ourselves to be governed by whatever dysfunctional archaic ideas feckless history has handed down to us. And if I am right on this score, the picture brightens. Exchanging new functional ideas for old dysfunctional ones—that is to say, improving our upbringing—might well allow us to successfully tackle the seemingly intractable problems that burden us today. In other words, we have a software not a hardware problem. There need not always be wars, famine, poverty, etc.
Once retirement from the engineering profession allowed me the time, I decided to undertake a thought experiment that might lend support to this thesis. I would create an imaginary planet called Luxenben and populate it with inhabitants who were every bit as fallible as ourselves. However, unlike the nurturing we earthlings receive, I would provide Luxanders with a more rational, more coherent set of precepts.
Since, in my opinion, none of our existing "isms" had a good enough track record to serve as the foundation for the genuinely workable system I had in mind, I set about developing from scratch an entirely new set of solutions. The Luxanders’ belief system, I decided, would be based on nature’s declared truths rather than man’s; their economy designed to utilize money as a trading vehicle stripped of any intrinsic value; their political system emphatically democratic but mercifully relieved of politicking; and their social system taken out of governmental hands and handed over to the tender mercies of the private sector. Armed with these ideas, imperfect Luxanders, I am convinced, could enjoy the equitable, workable, and sustainable, civilization that we human beings have failed to achieve.
The results of the above thought experiment have been encapsulated in "Stelzer’s Travels" in what I hope is a straightforward, readable manner. To make the book more fun to write and hopefully more enjoyable to read, I have coupled the essay material with a fictional narrative. The result, I would like to believe, is a literary novel in the tradition of such books as “Gulliver’s Travels,” “Penguin Island,” “Erewhon,” and “Looking Backward.” Those readers who might have some interest in my ideas but none in my storytelling are directed to the index in back of the book.
Finally, I should own up, I suppose, to the desultory circumstances of this book's creation. It took an inordinately long time to write. Years ago if an outside observer had seen me in my paper-strewn office flailing away at the keyboard, he might well have been reminded of those of the legendary troops of monkeys sitting before their typewriters randomly punching keys over the millennia in the hope of one day reproducing the Bible. And were he to revisit the scene today, he would probably conclude that his initial impression was correct, but that I had sold out for a far less worthy goal when my blind efforts happened to reproduce "Stelzer’s Travels." Be that as it may, the creation of this book was assuredly no way for man or beast to write a novel.
Dan Hurwitz
December, 2005
Read more about the book from Description, Excerpts and Reviews.
Purchase a copy of STELZER'S TRAVELS from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble or Booklocker.com.
Contact Dan Hurwitz to send your comments or questions.
