Post #4: Schuyler and the Art of Predicting Technology

The aspect of George S. Schuyler’s two serialized novels, The Black Internationale  and Black Empire, which intrigued me the most were the inventions and science with which the followers of the insidious Dr. Belsidus conquered Africa and became a world power. The first of these is Hydroponic farming. 

The Black Internationale’s Sam Hamilton, a chemist, devised the means to grow crops without soil:

One can best describe it by calling it a mile-square rectangle of cement, gridironed by cement dikes a hundred yards apart. These gridirons converted the artificial lake or reservoir into contiguous pools, each about…four feet deep and half filled with greenish water in which plants were growing in serried rows. At intervals of about two feet, slender concrete posts were spaced across the pools and…On to these the plants clung. (48)

Hamilton, at Slater’s questioning, goes on to explain that the pools are kept at proper temperature through the use of steam and that the water is enriched with “chemical food, the same elements vegetables extract from the soil” (49). In the foreword, John A. Williams observes that “[hydroponic farming] was[n’t ] recognized as a viable method to grow food until the Israelis began to use it, mainly through the drip process, after 1948” (xiii).

However, it turns out that hydroponic farming was nothing new, by any means; the growingedge.com article “History of Hydroponics” cites Howard M. Resh: “The hanging gardens of Babylon, the floating gardens of the Aztecs of Mexico and those of the Chinese are examples of ‘Hydroponic’ culture. Egyptian hieroglyphic records dating back several hundred years B.C. describe the growing of plants in water.” But in modern terms, arizona.edu writes that “In the U.S., interest began to develop in the possible use of complete nutrient solutions about 1925” but that “While there was commercial interest in the use of such systems, hydroponics was not widely accepted due to the high cost in construction of the concrete growing beds.” In a different page from the samesource, variations on the hydroponic system are described, sounding shockingly similar to the fields devised by Schuyler’s Hamilton. The only substantial  difference is that the temperature is maintained by greenhouses as opposed to steam power.

In a twisted, contradictory sort of way, this recalls Carl Slater’s musings mid-flight en route to New York:

Physically, we live in the Twentieth Century; psychologically, we live many thousands of years ago. We come into this world made for a life as huntsman or herdsman and find ourselves in an environment of whirling machines, confusion upon confusion for the sake of order…” (94)

While this passage is actually Slater inwardly whining about the complications of courting an active, independent woman (which, naturally, brings up its own issues in context), I think it can also be taken as an overarching theme for the novel as a whole, and especially for this issue. While Schuyler is undoubtedly trying to make an anti-machine age statement with this quote, it also emphasizes the ancient elements of his future, from the historical origins of Hydroponic farming, the Egyptian themes evident in Belsidus’ opulent chambers and the spectacle of the Temple of Love to the cyclic nature of history and conquest.

Questions

1. How do we reconcile the repetition of history evident in Dr. Belsidus’ re-conquering of Africa? His role as dictator/emperor? His attitudes toward Fascism and how he also resembles a Fascist?

2. What other factors in Black Empire can be said to look back (historically) while also moving forward? What about in the other books we have read so far?