CHAPTER THREE introduces the planet Shalmu. Chives, Flandry's Shalmuan servant, had already appeared in Captain Flandry stories set later. Shalmuans are humanoid, green and tailed but smaller than Merseians and different in character. Industrialization, inspired by extraplanetary contacts:
"...was slower than it had been on Terra; Shalmuans were less ferocious, less able to treat their fellow beings like vermin or machinery, than humankind is." (pp. 390-391)
It is good to read about a fictional intelligent species that is different in just this way. Flandry fact finds. Governor Snelund has introduced the Shalmuans to over-exploitation, slavery and crucifixions.
23 comments:
Though note what happened to areas on Earth slow to modernize. Usually nothing good...
There's a conversation in my latest alternate history, THE WARLORD OF THE STEPPES, about how the Japanese are modernizing at a breakneck pace.
One of the ways they do it is using colonial subjects like the Chinese or Russians in Siberia as cheap expendable labor to do things like build railroads or cut timber, reserving their scarce capital and skilled labor for other things like steel mills and chemical plants where you -can't- substitute mass labor for machinery.
One of the characters then reflects that if they -weren't- doing that, someone else would be doing -them- the dirty.
Or as the saying goes, "Do others before they get a chance to do you."
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
IOW, human beings are morally wretched creatures! And I don't believe that will ever change. And that means Utopian dreams of all mankind becoming nice and gentle are impossible fantasies.
Ad astra! Sean
"do things like build railroads or cut timber"
Cf: Chinese laborers in western N. America building railroads. They were paid, just not as much as white laborers.
IINM Japanese immigrants were treated similarly.
Jim: they were paid a lot more than they would have gotten in China, and nobody compelled them to come to the US and nobody forced them to stay there.
I'm talking about something rather more... direct.
Sean: I'd say that human beings just are what they are.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, except I would have said we humans are Fallen.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: there we differ. I see it as humans being as evolution made them.
Exactly. What evidence is there that anything but natural selection was involved? Quadrupeds became bipeds with forelimbs freed for manipulation. They cooperated, chattered and thus developed language. They became rational social beings with animal ancestry. We have risen, not fallen from anywhere.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: But I think we do agree on how flawed and imperfect human beings are. And we agree that our innate tendency to be quarrelsome, aggressive, prone to strife and conflicts, including wars, is not going to change.
Paul: Disagree, because I don't agree with your denial of the supernatural.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But you need to give evidence that a supernatural intervention, not just natural selection, transformed pre-human animals into initially sinless human beings.
Paul.
Sean: well, what does "imperfect" mean?
At what evolution selects for -- reproduction -- human beings are, to date, the most successful mammal.
There have been more human beings than individuals of any other species.
The other most numerous animals are those that either live with us (like dogs), or (like rats) live -off- us.
Excellent question. Of course, we have moral values that differ from survival values. But moral values come on the agenda only when there are self-conscious, intelligent beings around, namely us.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Then we have reached another impasse, for what I consider evidence, the teaching of the Catholic Church proclaiming as divine revelation the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection of Christ, and the divine authority of the OT/NT Scriptures, you deny. I also believe the miracles recorded at Lourdes or for the beatification/canonization of saints also gives us evidence for the supernatural. Ultimately, it comes down to either having or not having faith in the supernatural, God
I am not convinced by mere philosophic arguments against the existence of the supernatural when I can think of other philosophers, such as Jacques Maritain or Mortimer Adler, who could propose similar arguments for the supernatural. Philosophy, by its very nature, can never come to a final answer to such ultimate questions.
Mr. Stirling" I'm a bit surprised by your comment. In another combox, where slavery was being discussed, I mentioned finding the trafficking of women and children for abuse and torture esp. disgusting. MY view is that persons twisted enough to take pleasure in such depravity is ipso facto evidence of being imperfect. And, yes, FALLEN.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I accept that unexplained cures happen at Lourdes. They are unexplained. I do not think that Catholic apologists place such reliance on them. This is a contradiction: on the one hand there is evidence; on the other hand, it comes down to faith.
We do not have to disprove the supernatural. We should ask for evidence.
I think that morality derives from but transcends self-preservation. We are naturally selected to help others either because they bear the same genes or because they might help us in return but we experience this motivation as moral obligation, not as calculating self-interest.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No, to a Catholic the miracles at Lourdes are not unexplained: they are manifestations of the power and mercy of God. And it's mostly ME using miracles, albeit Catholic theologians have pondered the implications of miracles.
Not a contradiction. To a Catholic it's not "either X or Y," rather it's BOTH "X and Y."
No, here I insist on the legitimate use of reason and logical thinking in resolving questions simply of ethics.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But to people who for many other reasons do not accept monotheism or Christianity those cures are unexplained and there are always as yet unexplained phenomena.
We can respond only to evidence, not to an appeal to have faith.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree. It's more accurate to say those who reject Christianity don't want to believe the Catholic explanation for the miracles recorded at Lourdes. I still believe the simplest explanation for what happens there is divine intervention.
I even agree with your last sentence. That is, it still comes down to making a choice based on faith.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But you are accusing non-Christians of intellectual dishonesty. This is unwarranted. I could just as well claim that you believe something because you DO want to believe it. But I try to respond to the arguments given.
"A choice based on faith" is a very dubious phrase. Do you believe something because you choose to believe it? Beliefs are based on reasons and evidence, not on choice. Having been persuaded that the Earth is round, I cannot now choose to believe that it is flat. Choice does not come into it. But a choice based on faith? What is the faith based on? If there is evidence, let's just discuss that.
The nearest that I can come to religious "faith" is trust that a particular spiritual practice is worthwhile. This trust is based on experience and testimony. That is enough to motivate me to get up and meditate every morning even when I don't feel like it or when it seems pointless. There is some parallel here with Christian faith.
Paul.
Divine intervention is the simplest explanation only if you already believe that there is a divine to do the intervening. We keep making the same points here.
Kaor, Paul!
No accusation of intellectual dishonesty was meant or intended by me. Albeit I would not be surprised if there are people like that.
You are puzzling me here, with your comments about "faith." It seems obvious to me that if you believe in Christianity, that also means believing, as evidence, things like the Scriptures. I don't see how that cannot include not assenting to what the Scriptures teach. IOW, choice still enters into it, which is what the Catholic Church also believes.
You don't believe divine intervention explains what happens at Lourdes? Then I would ask those who think as you do how they would explain the miracles recorded there? After almost 160 years they have failed to answer such questions.
They are free to disbelieve, and I am free to believe divine intervention explains what happens at Lourdes and similar shrines.
I should reread Anderson's "A Chapter of Revelation," where we see him examining the questions about miracles and divine intervention.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I keep saying that those cures are unexplained.
Our freedom to believe or not to believe is not in question but belief is based on reasons and evidence, not on choice.
To say that people disbelieve a proposition merely because they do not want to believe it is to accuse them of intellectual dishonesty.
IF you believe in Christianity, then you accept its scriptures. Certainly! How does choice enter into that?
I think that you should find out what Catholic apologists currently say and tell us that. I am certain that it is completely different from years ago. I have read and heard enough to know that. When my father was receiving instruction in Catholicism, he was told that it was NOT possible to prove God's existence, completely contradicting earlier claims.
Paul.
To try to forestall yet more repetition, when I say that certain cures are unexplained, I mean that that is my answer to the question how do I explain them, not that I expect you to accept that they are unexplained. I do think that we need to avoid perpetual repetition.
Post a Comment