The diminishment of Yuri Gagarin’s historic achievement as “no big deal” by the usual suspects will always be hilarious because it’s one cope against the achievement of a man who is destined to be vindicated in the course of the future.
In the far future, whether that’s when the human colonies of Mars declare independence from Earth and or eons later when humanity, if ever, reaches systems like Alpha Centauri, when they teach human history, frankly, they won’t give a shit about Armstrong who stepped on the Earth’s moon (oh excuse me, I forgot the proper spin: the “first to step on another ‘celestial object’”).
The one human from Earth that will matter, perhaps the only one that will matter at all, to those humans who will be so far distanced from humanity’s homeworld will be that person who first entered space, setting off the teleological historical narrative to the context of the journey to their extraterrestrial homes.
That one individual is Yuri Gagarin and it’s both profound to realize and empowering to think that while the entire weight of the contemporary West’s academic, political and intellectual classes might be arrayed to downplay the achievement of the first human to reach outer space as accomplished by the collective hands of the USSR, this is one struggle despite all their teeth gnashing that they will never win, will never be able to take away from socialist achievement and that, as sure as anyone can be, he will be commemorated long after perhaps any other human from this planet.
The diminishment of Yuri Gagarin’s historic achievement as “no big deal” by the usual suspects will always be hilarious because it’s one cope against the achievement of a man who is destined to be vindicated in the course of the future.
In the far future, whether that’s when the human colonies of Mars declare independence from Earth and or eons later when humanity, if ever, reaches systems like Alpha Centauri, when they teach human history, frankly, they won’t give a shit about Armstrong who stepped on the Earth’s moon (oh excuse me, I forgot the proper spin: the “first to step on another ‘celestial object’”).
The one human from Earth that will matter, perhaps the only one that will matter at all, to those humans who will be so far distanced from humanity’s homeworld will be that person who first entered space, setting off the teleological historical narrative to the context of the journey to their extraterrestrial homes.
That one individual is Yuri Gagarin and it’s both profound to realize and empowering to think that while the entire weight of the contemporary West’s academic, political and intellectual classes might be arrayed to downplay the achievement of the first human to reach outer space as accomplished by the collective hands of the USSR, this is one struggle despite all their teeth gnashing that they will never win, will never be able to take away from socialist achievement and that, as sure as anyone can be, he will be commemorated long after perhaps any other human from this planet.