Knowledge plays an important part in human life, and is crucial to human
development. The book
The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, and the Holocaust in
WW2 proves this idea.
The Midwich Cuckoos is a tale about how a small town in
England named Midwich, was invaded by alien babies who took over the female inhabitants’ wombs. The alien babies were later named the Children. It forced the
Midwich population into facing the terrifying unknown because all of the alien babies had the power to control the minds of other and within the same gender they could talk with each other telepathically and share information that way. In the end, the main character, Gordon Zellaby lured the Children to a room, and bombed them. In the
Holocaust, Hitler led the Nazi and their allies in a bloody war against all Jewish people in Germany. Using many methods of death like gas chambers where poisonous gas would be released into an air tight room, concentration camps where people would starve to death, and bombing. Those two events greatly prove that knowledge can be used to help humans dominate another species that might be threatening us. It also can be used to strengthen oneself. Yet the most important way knowledge helps humans in daily life is that it is used to defend oneself and ensure one’s own survival.
When challenged by another species or person, humans have a tendency to use
their own knowledge to establish dominance over the enemy. Information on the enemy and their habits are obtained to be used later to manipulate the enemy. In
The Midwich
Cuckoos
, the Children were able to control the humans by forms of manipulation “they both watched the next in turn make an equally fruitless attempt to get on board.” (Pg.
166)