-Whitehead, quoted at the beginning of After Doomsday, 2.
"'Give you military your heads, and you'd build bases in the fourth dimension to protect us against an invasion from the future.'
"'We are always being invaded by the future...'"
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 437-662 AT V, p. 490.
"'I pressed the lever over to its extreme position. The night came like the turning out of a lamp, and in another moment came tomorrow.'"
-HG Wells, The Time Machine (London, 1973), 4, p. 24.
We quote the Time Traveller entering "tomorrow," the terrain of sf, because Wells preceded so many of us into that dangerous and invasive future.
Breakfast post before bus to Morecambe Bay to visit Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop. I will probably return this evening with something to relate.
38 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
If no forethought is taken for the future then an actual invasion gets more and more likely. As Flavius Vegetius wrote: "If you want peace prepare for war."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Yeah. You're likely to deter an attack, and if it comes anyway you're ready.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Correct, which is why I dismiss pacifism as the hopeless futility it is.
Another thought I should have mentioned is that it is not wise for an aggressive, ambitious, would be Great Power to so badly enrage a real Great Power that it gets mercilessly smacked down. The idiot theocracy in Iran getting that smacking down being a current example of that.
Ad astra! Sean
That "idiot theocracy" exists because the US backed the Shah. The "real Great Power" cannot wash its hands of responsibility.
The Iranian people are oppressed by the Ayatollahs, by US sanctions and now by US and Israeli bombardment.
Kaor, Paul!
Disagree, because you totally ignored the bloody and violent history of that idiot theocracy. From its very beginning the theocracy has done its malignant best to harm the US, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Americans. The Ayatollahs deserve that smacking down.
Disagree, re the Shah. Mohammed Pahlavi was eventually overthrown because he tried too hard and too rapidly to modernize Iran, becoming in fact a radical during the last 13 years of his reign. It was during those 13 years that he really alienated support for the monarchy, giving an opening for those idiot Ayatollahs for grabbing power.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Disagree. (Can we stop saying that?)
I do not ignore the bloody and violent history of that idiot theocracy. It is no good raging against them when they are the outcome of the coup which overthrew the Prime Minister who nationalized oil and which installed the brutal Shah. The US and Britain cannot wash their hands of that.
The people of Iran do not deserve the Ayatollahs, sanctions or bombardment. I am concerned about them, not about taking sides between the Ayatollahs and Trump.
Disagree. The Shah was overthrown because he was a dictator who ruled through a brutal secret police. His rule led to that of the Ayatollahs who are certainly not the only "idiots" involved here! We can concentrate all our condemnatory language on just one side of this conflict but that merely confuses the issues. Can't you see any other idiots in this?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I will "rage" against enemies who have openly longed for decades to destroy my country. My concern is for my country, not the jihadist crazies, thugs, goons, and brutes of the theocracy. There are actually Iranians happily cheering the bombing of the Ayatollahs, hoping they will soon be overthrown.
Your knowledge of Iranian history is inadequate. Compared to almost all other rulers within Islam, the Shah was no worse than most and better than some. I repeat, his mistake was trying to modernize Iran too fast, too radically. And, when push came to shove in 1978-79, he didn't have the heart to be as ruthless as would be necessary to stay in power.
MIGA! Sean
Sean,
My concern is for the human race. There are actually Iranians responding in every conceivable way as people tend to do. I agree with those Iranians who want the Ayatollahs overthrown but disagree with any that think that the bombing of their country is the way to do it.
The Shah was no worse...? A hopeless defence. He ruled with a secret police and his people wanted him overthrown. That is more than enough to condemn him and the clandestine forces that put him into power.
Paul.
Iranians and others would stop hating the US if it stopped interfering in their affairs like by backing that coup and, of course, arming and supporting Israel.
Kaor, Paul!
Refused, my country comes first. You stubbornly overlook how the Ayatollahs has been waging war on the US covertly thru terrorist proxies--they are reaping what they have sown.
Refused, what you said about the Shah. I stand by what I said, practically all other rulers within Islam were just as bad or worse.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Refused: this is no way to conduct a discussion.
I do not stubbornly overlook anything. I disagree with you about it. The US is reaping what it has sown. Would terrorist proxies act against the US if it had not done anything to provoke all this in the first place?
Clearly there is virulent hatred on both sides: an entirely negative emotion.
Others were just as bad or worse? How does that defend the Shah?
Paul.
Humanity comes first.
Paul: the Iranian monarchy is a lot more popular now -- the Ayatollahs make the Shah look like a benign ruler.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Exactly, altho I was surprised to see exiled Iranians waving portraits of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. As you said the vicious Ayatollahs makes his father look like a well-meaning benevolent despot.
And where the Tarnation is the new Supreme Leader? Is Khameni fils dead, comatose, or hiding? Bad or good rulers can't govern effectively if they are never seen.
Ad astra! Sean
By no stretch of the imagination does that Shah with his Savak secret police and torture prisons look benevolent.
Kaor, Paul!
Disagree. Despotism/tyranny has always been the rule within Islam. Next, you persist in overlooking how some rulers are worse than others. The fact remains the Shah did not fight to stay in powers as viciously as the Ayatollahs do, who massacred approximately 32,000 Iranians during the January uprisings.
If you are going to condemn the Shah then you should also condemn Lenin, who had his own secret police, the Cheka, and killed and starved millions during his dictatorship (and founded the gulags).
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I utterly reject this "If you are going to condemn X, then you should also condemn Y" line of argument which comes up all the time when people are being one-sided. We should consider each case in its own terms. I certainly condemn the Shah with his Savak and torture prisons. I do not accept that Lenin deliberately starved millions although I am certainly getting the message that he behaved ruthlessly and that the Russian Revolution (democratic workers' councils seizing state power) was doomed almost from the word go. Unfortunately.
I do not persist in overlooking anything! Please stop saying that. You definitely seem to be "overlooking" how bad the Shah was. Saying rightly that the Ayatallahs are bad has nothing to do with how bad the Shah was.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
My point is this: if you condemn the Shah as a despot, then all despots should be condemned, including Lenin, who was no less a tyrant.
And some despots/"despots" are still better than others.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course all despots should be condemned. IF I condemn the Shah as a despot...? He was. You are still trying to apologize or cover up for him because he was a US ally.
Who is a "despot," not just a despot? Some are not better than others. The Shah was not a "better" one with his SAVAK and torture prisons.
Paul.
Paul: he never gunned down 30-40,000 people in the streets in a couple of weeks.
Fanatics are always worse than people motivated by power or greed.
They don't get tired and they consider themselves righteous.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: Or deliberately starve millions of bothersome "kulaks" as Lenin did in the Volga Famine.
Fanatics like the Jacobins, Bolsheviks, and the Ayatollahs are always worse than merely greedy or power-hungry rulers.
Paul: I had Louis XVI and Nicholas II in mind as "despots" who were not in the least tyrannical but were maligned by those who supplanted them.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We do not have to choose between fanatics and those greedy for wealth or power. We can overthrow the lot. To say that the former are worse and to leave it at that is to excuse the latter!
I do not think that Lenin deliberately starved anyone but I have accepted evidence that he acted extremely ruthlessly. It suits your political purposes to condemn Lenin because he is identified with attempts to improve society and those attempts I agree with and support although I should not have to add that I do not agree with fanatical slaughter of political opponents or with many other recorded atrocities just as you do not approve of the burning of heretics.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
All I had in mind (and I think Stirling as well) was that merely greedy/power hungry leaders are preferable to fanatics. Nor do I believe that all who govern will someday be all of them permanently good.
Lenin wanted to break peasant resistance to Soviet rule so starving the "kulaks" was the means chosen to do that. It "suits my purpose" because Lenin was a catastrophe for Russia. There was never any need for his brutal "reforms," late Tsarist Russia was making great advances in beneficial ways, as Stirling and I have tried to explain.
Ad astra! Sean
Paul: actually, that's the only choice we have. To aquire power, you have to be driven by the need for power. You may -imagine- you're doing it for idealistic reasons, but that's the reality.
Sean,
But it doesn't matter which is preferable. We can do without both.
I do not understand this focus on Lenin UNLESS it is to discredit any attempt to revolutionize society. I believe that society is now in urgent need of revolutionary transformation as I have tried to explain.
Paul.
(I keep up my side of this argument purely to make the point that this side of the argument exists and can be argued for, not any longer for any other reason.)
Sean,
You really do seem to think that there is a simple identity between disagreeing with you on an issue and being in the wrong on that issue! If we cannot both see that life is not that simple, then we cannot really start a conversation.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson himself replied to your comment about Lenin in that quote you took from THE SHIELD OF TIME. It was only his driving will and ruthless determination which enabled the Bolsheviks to seize and keep power. Without Lenin the Bolsheviks would have been only another minor sect amounting to nothing of importance. IOW, Lenin behaved exactly as Stirling described, "To acquire power, you have to be driven by the need for power."
I do not believe in the rightness of that allegedly "...urgent need of revolutionary transformation" of society via seizure of power by revolutionaries. All we have ever seen from such attempts, politically, has been fanaticism, brutal tyranny, and bloody failure.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
How was that a reply to my comment about Lenin? Lenin and others gave a lead. That always has to happen. But what happened in 1917 was that democratic workers' councils deposed the Provisional Government, pulled Russia out of the war and began to change society but unfortunately were overwhelmed by Russian isolation, backwardness, civil war and armies of intervention which destroyed the industrial basis of workers' democracy so that all that was left was a state bureaucracy that became a dictatorship. We have been through all this before.
I do not support a group of revolutionaries seizing control of existing power structures. We have had enough discussion of how a revolutionary transformation differs from a mere coup which was all that happened in China and many other places.
Paul.
Paul: it's the Law of Unintended Consequences.
You can't be sure what consequenes your actions will produce -- and revolutions have a bad record of haring off into the stratosphere with catastrophic results.
The French Revolution ended with Napoleon and a generation of mass warfare that barely escaped him imposing a universal dictatorship; the Russian Revolution ended with Stalin and collapse; the Chinese one with Mao and 60 million dead from a deliberate famine.
The American Revolution was a rare exception, and even there it would probably be better if there had been a compromise... early Dominion status, for example, in which case people of British descent would probably run about 3/4 of the planet by now.
In other words, when changing society... be cautious. Very, very cautious. If a system is working -at all-, it's probably better than any realistic alternative.
The late Bourbons were infinitely better than the Terror and Napoleon, for example.
They were ineffectual and fairly stupid, but overall genuinely well-meaning. The system had 'worn' so that its parts integrated without excessive friction.
Robespierre and Napoleon were -not- well-meaning; a murderous fanatic, and a very, very able man of an overwhelming lust for power willing to slaughter millions to be Absolute Monarch of Everything.
Putting them in charge of a powerful nation was a disaster. The most incompetent Bourbon was paradise by comparison.
I agree caution. Many lessons can and should be learned. Current radicals are nowhere near coming to power in any case. "If a system is working at all..." The present global economic and political system is working very badly indeed: destroying the environment; war after war, despite all the lessons of the twentieth century and earlier history. I am on the side of those who oppose the way things are run at present. Anyone of good will has to be looking for ways forward, not backward to pre-World War I imperial carve-ups which is all that our present day rulers can envisage.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: Absolutely, what you said about how hideous were the French, Leninist, and Maoist revolutions! Louis XVI and Nicholas II were vastly preferable to monsters and megalomaniacs like Robespierre, Napoleon, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc.
I think the major defect of France's Old Regime was letting the Estates General fall into disuse after 1614. An Estates General which remained an active institution would have many useful functions: a forum allowing the French elites to let off steam and argue with the Kings and their ministers on how better to govern France. It would also keep the Crown in closer contact with those elites.
Your mention of Napoleon reminded me of Anderson's story "When Free Men Shall Stand, set in a timeline when Bonaparte avoided making crucial mistakes and founded a lasting French Empire which conquered Europe and most of N America.
I agree, it would have been better if the Anglo/Americans of the 1760's/1770's had fumbled their way to a compromise like the 13 Colonies becoming an early Dominion a la Canada in 1867. We see something like that in Anderson/Dickson's Hoka stories, where mention was made of the US acceding to the British Commonwealth. That led to the Commonwealth becoming the United Commonwealths, and unifying Earth into a world state.
Paul: Unrealistic, hoping wars and empire building will no longer Be What Human Beings Do. That is going to continue till somebody becomes top dog. The realistic alternatives we have is unification by the US/West, a jihadist caliphate, or, more likely, Maoist China. The last two being utterly horrific!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We need to overthrow all of them. They are destroying the Earth with heat pollution and escalating wars.
Paul.
Well, the Chinese government is not going to be overthrown anytime soon -- it's managed to mobilize national feeling, and that's the most powerful political emotion.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Then that "We," whoever they are, will be the top dogs.
Mr. Stirling: Exactly! However much some Chinese secretly detest the brutal Maoists, their tribe, their nation, China, is what matters to them.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
By "We," I mean everyone, the populations that these regimes claim to serve and represent.
Paul.
Paul: but you don't represent them either.
On, no, I certainly do not! When the masses, e.g., in China, are moving to change the world, my input into their struggle will be precisely zero.
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