The King and one of the Nine Witch-Queens of the pagan city of Ys are present at the death-bed of the Christian minister, Eucherius. Addressing Queen Bodilis, Eucherius says:
"'You are pagan, but wise and virtuous.'" (p. 359)
Lose that offensive "but," man! Either we converse as equals, with mutual respect - or we do not. This reminds us of a scene in James Blish's historical novel. A Franciscan, thanking and paying a Jewish doctor, adds:
"'Would God might send thee His grace as well as His wisdom.'"
-James Blish, Doctor Mirabilis IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 3-318 AT I, p. 27.
Throwing the money on the floor, the doctor replies:
"'Thou payest me ill enough already with thy blessing. I spit on thee.'" (Blish, op. cit., p. 28)
- and leaves. The Franciscan wonders:
"'What did I say?'" (ibid.)
- to which our hero, Roger Bacon, responds:
"'What matter?... 'Tis but a Jew.'" (ibid.)
The arrogance of the dominant ideology.
Continuing, Eucherius compares Bodilis to the virtuous pagans, Aristoteles and Vergilius, then asks her if she knows whether souls sometimes linger a while before judgement! She does not know but mentions the Ysan belief that the Witch-Queens can return as seals. Since we are reading a historical novel with fantasy elements, we are to understand that, in this narrative, that happens.
King Gratillonius promises to find a replacement for Eucherius. I would have thought that, in any case, this was his responsibility as Roman prefect.
When Eucherius speaks of God's will, Gratillonius reflects:
"Ahura-Mazda reigns, and beyond Him, inexorable Time." (p. 360)
Why identify ultimate reality with "Time"? The One is internally differentiated and dynamic. Thus, it is internally spatiotemporal. We know that because we are inside it, looking around us. Any self-conscious being must, some of us argue, exist and act in time. So is change the ultimate reality? That fits with Buddhist teachings of impermanence and emptiness.
49 comments:
A believing Christian more or less has to put in the "but", since Christianity necessarily contains a claim to a monopoly of ultimate "truth".
All the 'religions of the Book' do; it's one of their distinguishing characteristics.
From a Ysan p.o.v., Gratillonius made an error in who he picked to succeed the rather hapless Christian priest.
In his place I'd have made a point of getting someone either totally ineffectual, repulsively corrupt, or both.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: And I disagree with your objection to that "but," so I agree with Stirling's comments about it. Moreover, respect does not have to mean Eucherius had to concede Bodilis might be right about polytheism. So I agree with Eucherius' "but."
Mr. Stirling: I think you are missing a point I thought Gratillonius made quite plain in his MIND--he did not LIKE the Ysan gods, regarding them, privately, with distaste. He searched out an energetic and upright Christian priest to succeed Eucherius because he wanted Christianity to grow in Ys. Because that would weaken Ysan paganism. Something he would find politically useful in his conflicts with Ysan pagan hardliners.
At that time Gratillonius was still a devout Mithraist, but he had no illusions about it, meaning he knew it would never become numerous or the majority Ysan faith. Given that, it made sense for him to give quiet support to the Christians.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But polytheism need not be regarded as incompatible with wisdom or virtue.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I would say, rather, that polytheism need not prevent a person from being wise and virtuous.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Nor need Christianity! There are some vile versions of that religion, as we know.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Meaning those evangelical Protestants you strongly dislike? I am sure Anderson would agree there are unpleasant characters like that, but I recall how he spoke well of SOME "low church" Protestants in his essay "Science and Creation." While still disagreeing with them.
Ad astra! Sean
Well, of course.
Read James Joyce's A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN for an oppressive version of Catholicism.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course there are bad Catholics. No Catholic can or should deny that.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But the problem goes beyond bad individuals to oppressive institutions like the cover-up of clerical sexual abuse in Ireland.
Paul.
"From the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can be made".
The fact of the matter is that human beings are a kludge.
Many of our instincts and reflexes are at least partially dysfunctional, and others are poorly adapted to anything beyond the hunter-gatherer clan setup in which we evolved. Evolution usually produces mechanisms that are 'good enough', not perfect.
However, we're stuck with 'em.
Again, it's -extremely- important to be 'modest' and humble about 'solving problems', and in discerning what -are- problems and what are more in the nature of -conditions- with which we're stuck.
Because trying to solve a -condition- invites disaster; the human reflexes of in-group solidarity and confirmation bias and motivated reasoning, plus the tendency to overestimate the extent to which the consequences of our actions can be foretold make it all too easy for people to get fanatical about it and go far, far beyond the reasonable trying to accomplish the impossible.
For example, to a certain degree any State is going to be oppressive, because it will attempt to monopolize (and use) violence.
However, the alternative is the pre-State 'war of all against all', in which violence is the usual way for adults to die.
It's a trade-off. Life is like that.
I know people who want fundamental social change and who think that we can move to a post-State stage. Some are reasonable but too many are predictably fanatical. I think that the post-State idea has more going for it than just optimistic idealism but it obviously has to be demonstrated in practice if the human race survives long enough to go through further social developments.
How would a "post-State" society defend itself against attack, just for starters?
Or internally against people who just don't give a damn and enjoy killing and harming for their own sake? I've met a fair number of people like that. Only fear restrains them.
Any country that is under attack has to defend itself and for this it needs a state although there can be different kinds of states. I fully agree with that.
If humanity is permanently saddled with individuals who, when unrestrained, enjoy killing and harming others, then, yes, possibilities of social and moral progress are indeed limited.
Kaor, Paul!
And Stirling beat me to making similar comments and objections. We are always going to have some people who want to hurt and prey on others. That alone will make some kind of state, with courts, police, prisons, etc., necessary.
I get very impatient with what I consider Utopian impossibilities and fantasies!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I do not think that we are always going to have some people who want to hurt and prey on others. What will there be to prey for when technology enables everyone to share abundance? People have wanted to hurt others because of the conditions they have lived in but those conditions can be changed. Don't project the known past and present into an indefinite future.
Paul.
Paul: a lot of people just enjoy hurting others for its own sake because they find it pleasurable -in and of itself-.
They don't need reasons; doing it -is- a reason. The thrill is its own justification.
I've had people try to kill me simply because they thought they could and it would be fun.
Remember, we evolved in conditions of -relative- equality and material abundance. Hunter-gatherers are -relatively- egalitarian. But they kill each other -a lot-. Much more than people in our 'abundant' societies do.
If that kind of motivation does persist in some people into an indefinite future, then of course society will have to have ways to deal with it but I do not think that that will have to involve the massive apparatus of laws, police, courts, prisons and armed forces that we have at present.
If hunter-gatherers live in such favourable conditions, then why do they kill each other in such large numbers? Whatever their reasons for doing that, we can build a completely different kind of society in future.
Paul: basically, two reasons.
Competition between groups for territory; and competition between (mostly male) individuals for access to women and hence to reproductive success.
A good big territory made a group more secure, because while there was -general- abundance among hunter-gatherers(*), there were going to be 'bad years' or series of bad years when more territory was the margin between survival and death.
Bigger, more fertile territories increased the odds of your genes getting handed down.
Those forms of competition are linked, because the earliest form of slavery was abduction of young women -- they'd do the scut-work of the hunter-gatherer band, and a man or men would have sexual access to them.
This increased the reproductive rate of the kidnappers' band and decreased that of potential rivals.
Abduction of women was small-scale but very, very widespread; genetic investigations have supported this. The descendants of the captured woman would be (usually fairly rapidly) assimilated into the ordinary status of the band.
Women in the winning band generally went along with this, because being of higher status than recent captives meant their children got better treatment and prospects. And more territory did that too, only even more strongly.
This pattern goes back a long, long way -- long enough, IMHO, to be entrenched in humans at the instinctual level.
There are analogues among other social predators, though not exact ones, because though humans -are- social predators they're not exactly analogous to any other species and our relationships are mediated by culture as well as by genetics.
So you get a series of 'inclinations' bred into the human species by countless generations.
To compete for power -within- the group, because that meant your genes would be disproportionately passed down.
And -between- groups, because ditto. The former inclination more male (though not completely so) and the latter more general.
And if you couldn't be Numero Uno Dick, then being his close supporter/henchman was the next best thing, because he'd throw you a bone now and then. And general support for the leader/war chief etc. because group solidarity was essential to survival and, again, successfully passing down genes.
These aren't -conscious- strategies; they're tendencies, inclinations, that are the product of emotional 'vulnerabilities', proclivities, and genuinely instinctual. They're not done -deliberately- for purposes of maximizing reproduction, they just served that -purpose- in the conditions in which we evolved.
(In current conditions they may not maximize genetic transfer... but they don't need to. They're there anyway. The modern world is far too recent to have a comparable influence.)
As social complexity increases, the opportunity for these behaviors increases in -scale-, but not in -nature-.
Basically, what we just saw in Russia was exactly the sort of thing that happened 80,000 years ago, just on a much bigger scale.
Alpha male, henchman, henchman trying a little upward mobility, backed by -his- henchmen.
That's why 10% of the population of Asia is descended from Genghis Khan.
It's also why 'political tribalism' and identification with leaders is so prevalent.
And yeah, we could build a completely different kind of society -- except that this would require -genetic- as well as cultural changes.
(*) this can be shown because their average heights matched ours, which shows consistently high levels of nutrition. Heights dropped by 4 inches or more when agriculture came in.
That explains a lot, identifies the problem and (maybe) a way to start addressing it.
The problem there is that anyone who changed their genetics so that their descendants -didn't- have these proclivities and inclinations would be making them so much meat on the chopping block for the descendants of those who -didn't- change their genes.
Human beings are fine-tuned for inter-group and intra-group competition.
Kaor, Paul!
And I agree with Stirling, not with you. The "problem," as you called it, of inter-group and intra-group conflict and competition is not something to be "solved," only MANAGED.
Any attempts at genetically changing humans into meek little lambs are far more likely than not to backfire CATASTROPHICALLY.
I urge you to dismiss Utopian dreams and fantasies!
Ad astra! Sean
Some further thoughts about genetically engineering the human race came to mind. Several stories by SF writers suggests some possibilities, none of them good!
In H.G. Wells' THE TIME MACHINE the far future Eloi were gentle and meek, and also the feeble witted prey of the Morlocks!
S.M. Stirling's DRAKON shows us how the monstrous Draka gene engineered most of the human race (aside from those who escaped the Solar System) to be Homines servii, people who remained fully intelligent, but bred to be the willing slaves of the Draka. Btw, the Draka remained fully aggressive and competitive, among themselves and all others.
"The High Ones" has been one of Anderson's stories that really stuck with me. The non-human Zolotoyans belonged to a formerly intelligent species which became mindless hive creatures after a totalitarian regime unified and ruled Zolotoy for many thousands of years.
I have no doubt other stories, examining how catastrophically wrong genetic engineering humans to be less aggressive and competitive, could be added to such a list.
Ad astra! Sean
I do not advocate genetic engineering.
In London, I spoke to someone whose understanding was that:
hunter-gatherers were small groups spread over wide areas for long periods;
they usually killed prisoners who would otherwise have become unwilling extra mouths to feed;
systematic subjugation of women began with agriculture and class division;
primitive societies surviving into modern times have had sexual equality.
Kaor, Paul!
And I don't buy this simplistic outline. It takes inadequate account of the human phenomenon to be competitive both within groups and against other groups.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But there you are assuming. What does the evidence show about surviving primitive societies?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I don't believe there were ever any primitive societies as dreamily Arcadian as some fools believe was the case. That's the kind of fantasy propagated by Jean Jacques Rousseau and Margaret Murray.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But these are just statements of prejudice and people who disagree with you are not "fools." Equality of the sexes is not dreamy Arcadia. And what is the evidence from surviving primitive societies?
Paul.
I know that there is evidence, I do not know much about it, I think that it contradicts some of your expectations and I also think that it might be ambiguous.
Kaor, Paul!
I don't understand what you mean by "equality of the sexes." There has always been male competition for women, in both bad and good ways. And women compete as well by favoring mates they are most attracted to, for both rational and irrational reasons. That does not seem "equal" to me!
No, the best evidence we've found in modern times about primitive societies, tribes still at or before a Stone Age level of technology, on the island of New Guineau, shows us humans were as aggressive, competitive, warlike, etc., many thousands of years ago as they are now.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
If you do not understand "equality of the sexes," then we really do have a communication problem! I understand that there have been primitive societies where a pairing marriage was revocable at any time by either party. There was not (yet) patriarchal monogamy.
There has not always been anything. The kind of competition you refer to there is not social inequality.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
"Equality of the sexes" has become one of those cant phrases which gets tossed around so carelessly that they have lost meaning.
I disagree, because I believe a reasonable assurance by males that any children he supports are actually his explains why patriarchal monogamy/polygamy became the dominant norm. And that this goes back so long and long ago the drive or urge became instinctual. Here I'm summarizing what Stirling has argued, arguments I agree with.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Equality of the sexes means equality between men and women.
Male property owners imposed patriarchal monogamy, with a distinction between legitimacy and illegitimacy, because they wanted to bequeath their property to identifiable male heirs. That was not instinctual but was the earliest stage of the development of class society.
Paul.
Paul: actually, wanting high social status for your children -is- instinctual.
The -form- it takes in any given social context varies.
But the basic -phenomenon- is universal.
Otherwise, why would men ever -want- to pass on property?
We do, because in our evolutionary history, high social status correlated with successful reproduction.
For hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of years.
From SM Stirling:
Paul: and subordination of women is -not- a recent development.
It was less -elaborated- in hunter-gatherer bands than in subsequent agricultural societies, but every single one ever studied had it.
Post-Paleolithic societies built on the biological foundations of hundreds of thousands of years of Paleolithic evolution.
Your friend was engaging in wishful thinking and projection.
You see the same thing every time some period of history is proclaimed to be 'peaceful'.
Then someone digs up the battlegrounds and the massacre-pits.
I can remember when lots of archaeologists said the European Bronze Age was 'peaceful', with 'thinly-scattered' populations and 'symbolic' weapons.
Then they dug up the Tollense battlefield, with the vast numbers of bodies that isotope analysis showed came from all over central Europe -- implying massive State-levels of organization.
Then there were the early Neolithic massacre-pits, and now they've found them right back into Paleolithic times.
So it goes... so it goes... so it goes.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
As regards women specifically, I am quoting Engels quoting Morgan.
I believe that Gordon Childe, later, was of a similar view although I have not read his stuff.
Also relevant are Chris Harman's A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE WORLD and the sources for his opening chapters but I am having my usual problem in finding a copy.
I have found that the text of A PEOPLE'S HISTORY... is on-line.
https://files.libcom.org/files/A%20People%27s%20History%20of%20the%20World%20-%20Harman,%20Chris.pdf
Kaor, Paul!
We are not going to agree, about either expunging the desire for power and competition for it or impossible Arcadian notions of sexual equality. Stirling's arguments, and my own observations and reading, are far more realistic than what you hope for.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Sexual equality impossible? We are working toward it now. Many of us do not desire power and do not need to live in a society that provides means of power. I can state that my views are more realistic. Merely stating that, either way, does not make it so. If you follow the link that I emailed and read the opening chapters of A PEOPLE'S HISTORY..., then you will see that there is a completely different understanding of pre-history and early history.
This is technologically possible: a society in which it is no longer necessary to work for a wage or salary to earn a living and no longer necessary to acquire, hoard and defend personal wealth. That will mean individual and collective freedom. Freedom is not just the ability of some to invest money and employ others. How can social relationships and individual psychologies not be transformed by such fundamental changes to the material conditions of existence?
If you want to close off the discussion by reiterating that you are right and I am wrong, then the discussion will continue.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
You still don't understand, I see no reason, zero, for ever thinking competition for power, status, wealth of all kinds (not necessarily material), mates, etc., will ever be expunged from the human race. Nor do I believe it will be possible to make sure everyone will always be prevented from hurting or preying on others. Which means the continued necessity of having courts, police, prisons, etc.
I do not believe a post-scarcity economy, where everyone is wealthy and comfortable, means there will be no competition for status, power, etc. In fact boredom, ennui, a desire to do "something" makes that competition more likely, not less. As we see starting to happen in GENESIS, before the AI prevented humans from even fighting!
I believe your hopes to be impossible and will end only in disappointment.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I do understand. I have stated the reasons why competition for power, status, wealth, mates etc are not innate. What will there be to prey for when wealth is abundant? I have replied to the argument that abundance will mean boredom and ennui for everyone. Generations brought up in a different society will live differently.
I believe my hopes are possible and can be realized.
Paul.
BTW, understanding what someone is saying is one thing. Agreeing with it is another! If it is thought that someone is disagreeing only because he does not understand, then the issues will never be clarified.
Kaor, Paul!
Some people, even those well off, like to hurt and prey on others because they can and because it's fun to them. And that kind of twistedness can appear in anyone, at any time, anywhere. So we will continue to need courts, police, and prisons, etc
Very well, if/when Elon Musk manages to begin an interplanetary era in the Solar System, I hope some people who think as you do can find some place to set up their experiment in an ideal society. I would not object as long as they don't bother, threaten, or attack anyone else. And I believe they will fail.
I find Stirling's arguments far more convincing.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
What will there be to prey for...? The few who want to hurt others will receive mental treatment.
We have to build a better society on Earth. This society is destroying itself. All sorts of groups bother, threaten and attack each other. I find my arguments more convincing. Have you read the opening chapters of A PEOPLE'S HISTORY...? You will not agree, of course, but you will see that there is an informed alternative.
Paul.
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