Nations

Before studying the Ythrian concept of "choth," we can learn something about ourselves by rereading the Ythrian Hloch's attempt to explain the human concept of "nation." This has to be read in full:

"Their Commonwealth had been formed out of numerous nations. A few more came into being and membership afterward. To explain the concept "nation" is stiffly upwind. As a snatching at the task - Within a sharply defined territory dwell a large number of humans who, in a subtle sense which goes beyond private property or shared range, identify their souls with this land and with each other. Law and mutual obligation are maintained less by usage and pride than by physical violence or the threat thereof on the part of that institution called the government. It is as if a single group could permanently cry Oherran against the entire rest of society, bring death and devastation wherever it chose, and claimed this as an exclusive right. Compliance and assistance are said to be honorable, resistance dishonorable, especially when one nation is at war with another - for each of these entities has powers which are limited not by justice, decency, or prudence, but only by its own strength."

-Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1978), pp. 33-34. (Two emphases mine. See below.)

The BBC TV News has been on while I have been writing this post.

Anderson/Hloch italicized "nations" in the first sentence. I have italicized "said to be" and "by its own strength." I have done this partly by way of comment and partly to emphasize that, fictitiously, this passage is written by an Ythrian who is merely reporting or recording Terran sayings and practices. Clearly, Hloch thinks that powers might be limited by justice, decency or prudence rather than by strength alone.

To comment on the current news would be to become immediately embroiled in present conflicts and disagreements whereas merely to quote Hloch is to maintain that distance which is provided by science fiction. But Anderson's text from 1978 is very relevant here and now.

Hloch has three more comments on "nations." First, Avalonian human beings maintain a very limited form of government but that is because:

"It is merely their way." (p. 34)

Secondly, it is impossible to understand the Terran Empire without understanding "nation."

Thirdly:

"To curb these inordinate prerogatives of a few, whose quarrels and mismanagement threatened to lay waste their native planet, the Commonwealth was finally established, as a nation of nations." (ibid.)

Comments

"...a nation of nations." Not (yet) an end to nations.

Compare the struggles to establish and maintain a UN world government in Anderson's earlier Psychotechnic History.

Hloch's concluding remark above returns us sharply to the question: What are we going to do next?

Sf is relevant.