![[View of Shanghai, 1927; photograph by L. Ron Hubbard.]](img/pg11_1.jpg)
For a thing is not worth seeing unless it has some quality which is its own, which quality should not be so general that it is not novel. Once each state in these United States had its own individuality. In the past twelve years I have seen the last traces vanishing. For the talking picture is a great propaganda medium. It spreads one viewpoint of living and that viewpoint, being a good and decent one, catches hold and kills less strong manifestations. It is growing increasingly difficult to distinguish differences in speech, even between North and South. I can remember how broad they were. But transportation is easy now. People shift readily around. The war has transplanted tens of millions. The population seeks its level of similarity. The individuality of places is vanishing. And so it shall continue to vanish, more rapidly in less of the future, throughout the world. I shall live, perhaps, to see that occur. And what is the use of going to Shanghai when it will so much resemble San Francisco or London or Grand Rapids, Michigan? This is an extreme view, perhaps, but I have seen it.
Returning to the African cities of the Kranois ——it would be (and was) exciting to adventure in a world where something as unexpected might be waiting just over the next hill. It is pleasant to think of an era where such things might have been possible. But we are in no such era now. All geographical things are becoming too well known. And as they become well known so shall civilization seek, like water, a common level which shall hold no surprises for such as I.
The Great Era of Adventure is over. The Ocean of the Air has come into its day and outward shall flow Sears Roebuck dresses, Time magazine and the leaping images of the Lana Turners.
Such a viewpoint is hideous to such as I. There must be wide spaces in which to think, strange music to hear, odd costumes to see and the elements to battle against. Man works toward bringing all things to his heel and killing or leveling all things different from himself. Money, nice cars, good food and a “good job” mean nothing to me when compared to being able to possess the thought that there is a surprise over the horizon.
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