Watching the eclipse yesterday (at an abandoned cement factory in eastern Oregon) one thing I realized was that most partial solar eclipses probably went unnoticed by humans throughout most of the history of our species. People don't normally cast a casual glance at the sun, because it hurts. And if they did glance up at the sun even when it was half eclipsed by the moon, I don't think they would have noticed the partial eclipse. I tried a couple of quick glances without my welder's glasses, and the bright light that blinded me didn't look any differently as far as I could tell. Even the after-image on my retina seemed circular, though I could look through the glasses and see a crescent. So, I don't think a partial eclipse would be easy to detect by a casual observer not expecting it.
However, as yesterday’s eclipse progressed, the ambient light did gradually change, and I started noticing it when the sun was maybe 40 percent occluded, but it was subtle. Not until the occlusion was perhaps 80 percent did it become obvious that something was different - something that might be explained by a cloudy sky, but would appear strange in the absence of clouds. I imagine our ancestors starting to take note of the changing light at this point, but still not able to perceive the change in the appearance of the sun. I imagine them just starting to look around quizzically, starting to feel uncomfortable, right before the lid snapped shut.
In the last minute or so before totality, things start changing fast, and the last few seconds are when the world turns inside out. I imagine at that last moment our ancestors finally turned towards the sun only to catch the last glimpse of it as it disappeared, having fallen through a hole in the sky, leaving only a residual ring of sun-fire smoldering around the black hole that had swallowed it. If humans were always rational - ignorant by modern standards but rational by definition - then every rational human, naked or draped in mammoth hide, knew with certainty at that moment that the world was coming to an end and everything which had been before was no longer. The sun was gone, leaving a hole in the sky. Eternal night had descended - if even the night would hold. A rational person would know all of this instantly.
So - at a time when we talk so much about privilege - here our collective privilege is that we all know better. Today, when the sun fell backwards into a hole in the sky, and the day turned into a nightmare of dishonest colors and troubled shadows, we were not afraid, because we were calmed by the protective arm and knowing smile of science.
When I looked up at the hole in the sky, I did not fall down on the cold ground and go insane with terror, but rather felt my thorax swell with wonder at the silver ring of starlight that I knew had no power to destroy or even persist. I didn't cower, but instead found myself walking forward towards the ring as if that would bring me closer - as if I could somehow advance and seize the treasure of this spectacular moment and make it my own. Unlike my distraught ancestors, I could enjoy this boldness by virtue of a privilege bequeathed to me by science.
This privilege is a kind of which we should all want to see more: the privilege of taking for granted something our ancestors never could, knowing it is a privilege everyone today can equally enjoy.