The West is characterized as 'adolescent' not only in political, but surely in metaphysical ken. We prize comfort and entertainment (and$) over all else. (Most of us East&West like to *watch* hard work and its results, of course - not Do it.)

I believe Sagan's was at least a small step towards introducing the rather Large ideas of scale and relativity into a closed mind-set -- a mindset which imagines that Everything can be written down in homo-sap words, about Infinities beyond intellectual comprehension.

While I 'agree' with your capsule summary = on that Scale! - the statement is incomprehensible to anyone who has never looked beyond childhood / cultural Western 'thought'.

Recall the ageless saying re casting Pearls before swine ?? It is a First-principle of all serious inquiry, just as is the tendency, whenever one has experienced a new Aha !!! ..to want to immediately 'spread it around'! Y'know?

No one knows.. how genuine fully-Human! Curiosity is to be restored to a culture whose dumbth-level has been measurably increasing for at least a couple of decades -
(some would say: since they went with metaphors as-if historical events!)

{sigh}

No, Carl was hardly a "fully conscious being" [whatever] - but Awe.. is a useful, and a Necessary prelude to ever looking farther than, ~what mommy and daddy told you. It ain't just Muricans who prefer the EZ and simplistic to.. fucking hard work. Carl at least retained Awe! so I say - give him a break! :-\ufffd


Ashton