The Time Machine

Memories & Connections

I got this book as a kid from either my grandma on my dad’s side or from one of his cousins. It came with a bunch of books that sat on a shelf in our basement for the longest time.

Mark Passio pointed out several interesting concepts from the 2002 Hollywood movie The Time Machine that I think about often.

The first concept is that the past is the past, and even with a time machine, you still cannot change the past. The events have been recorded in an objective record that cannot be altered.

In the film, the main character, the inventor, is engaged and goes on a date with his fiancée, where she is tragically killed.

He throws himself into his work, and in a year or two, he invents his time machine. The first thing he does is go back in time to prevent his fiancée from being killed.

He takes her on a completely different date, but to his horror, she is still killed at the same time. He, and we as the audience, learn the lesson that you cannot change the past.

The second thing that this book illustrates is the danger of an elite few gaining enough power to engineer the human race.

When the inventor goes into the future, he finds himself in a totally foreign world.

The main people group he encounters is totally primitive and docile. They have had the fight, or the ability to stand up for themselves, completely bred out of them. They are a distinct people group that has a childlike innocence to them.

There is a second group of people who are monstrous and resemble beastly dogs more than humans. These are the muscle for the elite who unquestionably follow orders and kill on command. They hunt and prey on the innocent people group.

This group is analogous to the police or military class of people.

Whereas today, someone like Ayn Rand might point out that a slave asks, “Is it legal?” and a freeman asks instead, “Is it right?” Well, these two groups have lost the capacity to ask either question. One group exists blissfully in the present, only to be terrorized by the stronger, brutish group. But when the terrorizing is finished, they unquestioningly go back to their lives like animals.

After encountering both groups, the inventor then meets the elite of the future. They are depicted as brainiacs with huge heads and mental powers.

They tell him how they engineered the human race into what it has become, and who is he to question their decisions?

It is a clear illustration of will to power and might over right.

There is a lot to unpack, and I plan to make a video to explore this book further because I think our current trajectory is exactly this.

They say all things in the West trace back to Plato, and this is no exception. It traces right back to Plato’s Republic: the noble lie, the philosopher-kings who rule over the population, and, of course, the watchers or fighting class of citizens.