Anxiety

"Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home." - Carl Sagan

I think this is the more specific idea that Tom may have been pointing out. It goes with the general notion inherent in the Pale Blue Dot theory of our own insignificance in relation to greater (to be understood in an unnormative sense) things, one of these being science.

It's a basic human trait that we seek certainty of what to regard as true and false, and we incessantly construct narratives and create a linearity in the way we understand things to progress. However, on an almost daily basis we're faced with new discoveries in the sciences that question and challenge some of our most fundamental views on who we are as human beings in act and being.

One example could be how it is nowadays possible to scan for Down's Syndrome and subsequently choose an abortion. Such a relatively simple scientific development opens up for a great number of moral questions which we are bound to face. On another scale, an example could be our place in the universe which seems to be constantly revised these days.

All in all, scientific progress inevitably leads to an increasing number of confrontations with our own self-understanding. This naturally gives rise to a state of anxiety as we are but passive spectators (passengers) that can only respond to these developments a posteriori and, therefore, will have to deal with their actual consequences. The following lines convey this sentiment well as I interpret them to refer to the BP oil spill:

"Waiting/We're silly, we're so reckless/The city, it's so heartless/A bottle full of crude/ That washed up in the tide"

What it really comes down to in my opinion is a recklessness resulting from the paradox that our awareness of uncertainty breeds anxiety which in turn leaves us seeking certainty however illusory it may be. Whether it be financiers believing they could built models to account for every market factor, BP's inadequate safety measures, or debt-founded welfare schemes, what is lacking is a sense of humility, hoensty and appreciation of our limitations as human beings.

To me, this song sends out the message that we should ask ourselves for a moment whether we are creating a 'Frankenstein's monster' and recognise our anxieties and doubts. It's not a question of rolling back science or suspending progress. Rather, as is the theme of this album, it is a question of our recognising and acknowledging ourselves as human beings in what it entails in terms of limitations and possibilities.