Human history is centered around the divisions that continue to divide our species. Divisiveness is next to “humanliness”. One of the staples of commonly joked about stereotypes concerning the study of history is that, at least in the eyes of elementary and high school students, all that human history is is a long list of wars. And in a certain light that stereotype isn’t too misleading. The very word civilization, a concept which – because it caries the implication of writing with it – is thought of as being the foundation of human history, also caries with it divisions, and divisions lead to conflict. People understand themselves in terms of groups before they consider their own unique individual attributes. Who am I? Male, an American of European decent, an agnostic, a college student, a history major, etcetera… All of these refer to groups more so than to specific qualities. I may say I am a history major, but all that it communicates about me is that I’m working to fulfill a credit requirement weighed toward history courses. When one considers the actual term objectively, deductively and logically, “being a history major” in what it communicates specifically doesn’t even necessarily communicate that I enjoy the study of history. But when you take me and put me in a group of history majors, suddenly we gain much more – although less reliable – information about me. Considering that as a group, history majors enjoy the study of history, one might reasonably guess that I enjoy history as well, and he’d have guessed right. One could go further. One might suppose that if I went to graduate school, I’d begin wearing sport jackets on campus, as is the convention among the group, and here again by placing me in the context of the group one has access to reasonable inferences that can only be made by considering my specific subdivision in the human race.
What I’d like this discussion to boil down to is the future of human division, the future of human groups. I believe that within the younger generation’s lifetime or within our children’s lifetime the human race will have been split into two important groups in the future history of our species. The new groups will bear the titles Martian and Earthling. And important differences will divide them due to distance and the progress time will take them along what will undoubtably be different histories (one for each planet). But I believe human Martians and Human Earthlings will also probably look very different in appearance. What creates the appearance of an individual is primarily two factors: genetics and environment. Now genetics will probably be unaltered, but I’m wondering if the Martian environment will have an effect on Martian height due to lower gravity levels which would otherwise slow growth in humans adapted to growth in earth’s gravity. Will there be a physical difference in the appearance of Martians? Only time will tell. But what is more important is even more unforeseeable. Only the future of human history will recount the events surrounding the dynamic between the undoubtedly very different and much divided Martians and Earthlings.