Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the poem Ozymandias. In it a traveler tells of the ruins he encountered in the desert. Shelley writes:
“And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
I close my eyes and I imagine a great walled city with a large monument of the great king Ozymandias standing as a sentinel at the main gate of the city. Opulence and splendor greet every visitor. But there are obvious fortifications and imposing garrisons of troops letting the world know that this city cannot be conquered. Ozymandias is the king who lacks nothing. His power and wealth are on full display. His city is the envy of all who have set foot inside but do not reside there.
Yet time passes and Ozymandias is no more. His city ceases to exist and eventually it is entirely forgotten. Only centuries or millennia later are the remains of that statue discovered and people begin to wonder who was this Ozymandias? Unfortunately his city and his exploits cannot be named.
Even if Ozymandias was never real his story is. Throughout history knowledge has been lost. Great civilizations have been created and destroyed. Vast stores of knowledge have been lost. It made me wonder what are we losing today without even realizing it.
How many of the 7 ancient wonders of the world can we name? How much wisdom was lost when the library at Alexandria burned? How many of the below do we know:
Agamemnon
Menelaus
Ali Baba
Sinbad the sailor
Arjuna
Li Bai
Osiris
Iago
Rosalind
Cimourdain
Perhaps it is not necessary to know these figures from literary history but it should be concerning when knowledge more pertinent to our day is lost. Quoting from a Forbes article entitled How We Lost the Ability to Travel to the Moon:
“The Saturn V rocket had over three million parts. The command and service modules and lunar module were composed of millions of additional parts. An individual person cannot contemplate the scale of detail needed to assemble and operate those vehicles.
So, when the Apollo program ended, the factories that assembled those vehicles were retasked or shut down. The jigs were disassembled. The molds were destroyed. The technicians, engineers, scientists, and flight controllers moved onto other jobs. Over time, some of the materials used became obsolete.
If we, today, said – “Let us build another Saturn V rocket and Apollo CSM/LEM and go to the moon!” it would not be a simple task of pulling out the blueprints and bending and cutting metal.
We don’t have the factories or tools. We don’t have the materials. We don’t have the expertise to understand how the real vehicle differed from the drawings. We don’t have the expertise to operate the vehicle.”
The same experience can be seen in the construction of nuclear power plants. South Carolina poured billions of dollars into building new nuclear power plants and eventually had to pull the plug because the team tasked to build them could not do the job.
Landing on the moon or building nuclear power plants are enormous undertakings and if we can lose those abilities what else are we losing? Can we sew a button on a shirt if it falls off? Could we make a loaf of bread? Do we know how to use a compass? Do we know what a bushel or a peck is? Do we know the history behind commonly heard terms like “the writing is on the wall?” Perhaps none of this is important. However every piece of knowledge we lose increases our dependence on someone or something else. Perhaps some future poet will write about finding an old cracked iPhone in the sand and wonder what purpose it once served. Perhaps it is time for me to pick up a needle and some thread.
