“For instance, just this matter of the siesta. Right now, all through this time zone on the planet, hardly a wheel is turning, hardly a machine is tended, hardly a man is at his work. They’re all lying in the sun making poems or humming songs or just drowsing. There’s a whole civilization to be built, Vahino! There are plantations, mines, factories, cities abuilding — you just can’t do it on a four-hour working day.”
“No. But perhaps we haven’t the energy of your race. You are a hyperthyroid species, you know.”
“You’ll just have to learn. Work doesn’t have to be backbreaking. The whole aim of mechanizing your culture is to release you from physical labor and the uncertainty of dependence on the land. And a mechanical civilization can’t be cluttered with as many old beliefs and rituals and customs and traditions as yours is. There just isn’t time. Life is too short. And it’s too incongruous. You’re still like the Skontarans, lugging their silly spears around after they’ve lost all practical value.”
“Tradition makes life — the meaning of life…”
“The machine culture has its own tradition. You’ll learn. It has its own meaning, and I think that is the meaning of the future. If you insist on clinging to outworn habits, you’ll never catch up with history. Why, your currency system…”
“It’s practical.”
In its own field. But how can you trade with Sol if you base your credits on silver and Sol’s are an abstract actuarial quantity? You’ll have to convert to our system for purpose of trade — so you might as well change over at home, too. Similarly, you’ll have to learn the metric system if you expect to use our machines or make sense to our scientists. You’ll have to adopt… oh, everything!
“Why, your very society — No wonder you haven’t exploited even the planets of your own system when every man insists on being buried at his birthplace. It’s a pretty sentiment, but it’s no more than that, and you’ll have to get rid of it if you’re to reach the stars.
“Even your religion.. excuse me… but you must realize that it has many elements which modern science has flatly disproved.”
“I’m an agnostic,” said Vahino quietly. “But the religion of Mauiroa means a lot to many people.”