We Want to Believe

Dear Reader,

No one to date has found conclusive proof of intelligent life anywhere in the universe except our own planet. It’s not for lack of trying. A vast world of Internet-enabled amateur sleuths is always hard at work. Congress has held hearings. The conventional scientific establishment, inside and outside government, has spent a great deal of time and money looking, with no definite result.

This is the third book for Columbia Global Reports by the brilliant polymathic critic Adam Kirsch. As in the previous books—The Global Novel (2017) and The Revolt Against Humanity (2023), he shows an uncanny ability to survey a daunting range of material, some of it quite technical, and find the salient themes. Without ever falling prey to the urge to deny respect to the people he is writing about, Kirsch makes it clear that this is less a book about whether extraterrestrial life exists, and more one about what it is about our times that makes the question feel so urgent.

Part of Kirsch’s explanation, but only part, is technological: the advent of aviation, space travel, and advanced astronomy made it hard to believe that others don’t have the same capabilities, and easier to look for life outside of Earth. But mainly he sees our interest as, one might say, spiritual. We live in a secularizing age, and one of growing mistrust of conventional authority. We are more inclined to feel the absence of a higher power than we used to be, and less inclined to accord that status to the people in charge of the world we know. Extraterrestrial life could fill the gap; we may not be able to find it, but we need it.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Lemann
Director, Columbia Global Reports