War In Poul Anderson's Technic History

"Margin of Profit"

Fighting pirates. Could have become a war.

"A Sun Invisible"

Invasion of a planetary system.

The Man Who Counts

War on Diomedes.

"Hiding Place"

Action against pirates.

Mirkheim

The Babur War. First civil war in the Polesotechnic League.

"The Star Plunder"

A slave revolt.

"Sargasso of Lost Starships"

Imperial annexation of Ansa just completed, then a conflict in the Black Nebula.

The People Of The Wind

The war between the Terran Empire and the Domain of Ythri.

Ensign Flandry

Not a war but a battle near Starkad.

The Rebel Worlds

The McCormac Rebellion in the Terran Empire.

"Outpost of Empire"

War against the Empire on Freehold.

The Day Of Their Return

A war of religion narrowly averted.

"Tiger by the Tail"

Flandry foments war in the Scothani Empire.

"The Game of Glory"

Annexation of Brae.

"A Message in Secret"

Conflict on Altai.

"Hunters of the Sky Cave"

The Ardazhiro occupy Vixen while Terrans and Merseians fight elsewhere.

The Game Of Empire

The Magnusson Rebellion.

"A Tragedy of Errors"

Interstellar conflicts after the Empire.

To War Or Not To War

Poul Anderson's Seven Conquests (New York, 1970) is a collection of short stories about war:

"...human conflict leading to institutionalized violence."

-Foreword, p. 9.

In "Kings Who Die," war, too dangerous on Earth, is waged in space.

In "Wildcat," nuclear war destroys all life on Earth.

(Thus, these two stories agree about something.)

In "Cold Victory," a "civil war" involves three planets, Earth, Mars and Venus, because it is a conflict within the Solar Union.

(What we can do with words!)

In "Inside Straight," the war is between two extra-solar planets colonized by human beings.

(Our first step outside the Solar System in this collection.)

In "Details," well-meaning extra-solar intervention on twentieth century Earth causes more wars than it prevents.

(Thus, this story is about wars that are all too familiar to us.)

"License" is about war in the sense that it is about a society that has to cope with the fact that war is too dangerous to wage on Earth and cannot be moved into space.

"Strange Bedfellows" is about a human conflict but not one that leads to institutionalized violence. Also, the author's introduction to this story seems to have no bearing on the story so is there some mistake here?

Civilization And Savagery

"License."

We still have not exhausted the riches of p. 160. Nor will we, certainly not in a single attempt. After spelling out how bad civilization has been and still is for human beings, Rheinbogen (I can't get used to that name and have to check the spelling each time) adds:

"'And yet nowadays we haven't any choice, we can't go back.'" (p. 160)

This remarks takes us in opposite directions simultaneously. On the one hand, it is not only impossible but also undesirable to return to the:

"'...impoverished, frightened, hard-working, short life...'" (ibid.)

- of a savage. On the other hand, it is possible to think about going forward:

"'Civilization does have fantastically wonderful potentialities, if only we can realize them.'" (ibid.)

And psychodynamic research is for this purpose.

But lastly (maybe), what do we make of Rheinbogen's claim that most people as they are now could not live happily in a world with neither war nor crime? Are we happier for hearing about Ukraine and crimes of violence on the TV news? My answer is that we are certainly not.

The Primitive And The Civilized

"License."

The previous post presents two very short lists of benefits of civilization:

power

gadgets

medical science

potentialities

Why not just one list of four? Because I am summarizing an extremely condensed text in which the first list appears right at the top of p. 160 and the second near the bottom. It is no easy task to respond adequately to the entire text although the attempt is rewarding. 

According to our expository psychodynamicist, civilization is:

"'...a certain level of technology and a certain type of social organization.'" (p. 160)

The technology is agriculture and construction. The social organization is division of labour leading to class division. And there is an important point that we have not yet touched upon.

Rheinbogen the psychodynamicist claims that it is a matter of record that surviving primitive peoples have been decenter than civilized peoples. Wars, if they had them, were games, not slaughters, and they had very little theft, murder, rape, sadism or insanity. By contrast, being civilized fills us with:

"'...tensions and hatreds...'" (p. 161)

- and, as a result:

"'From petty chicanery and backyard malice, up to world war and the Almighty State, civilized man has to hurt his neighbor.'" (ibid.) 

This is a mixed bag. Individuals cheat and backbite. Economic systems, which take on a life of their own, generated administrators who became rulers and bodies of armed men to guard granaries. From these humble beginnings - small acorns - grew states that have waged wars. 

But there is hope. Here I pass from quoting to commenting. The benefits of advanced technology can be utilized to end causes of tension and hatred. Then we can become like the primitives.

Civilization And Freedom

See:

Psychodynamics

Bernal's "Devil" Is Anderson's "Protean Enemy"

The psychodynamicist says that most people hate civilization and could not live happily in a world with neither war nor crime.

The Un-man reflects that we rebel again both civilization and freedom.

These are not quite the same proposition. The psychodynamicist says that people hate the restrictions of civilization because they want to regain a primordial freedom to run, chase, kill, rejoice, feast and then sleep when full. If some people do rebel against freedom as such, then presumably those people do want to be restricted in some way - because they perceive restriction as safe, secure, predictable or whatever?

But what do we think of either proposition? The psychodynamicist goes into more detail about civilization. Trekking through a wild area, he enjoys fresh air, open spaces, a blue jay against green spruce, a brook belling over mossy stones and a thrush singing and wonders why men stopped hunting. Marie suggests that farming made food more secure and certain but he (psychodynamicist/gangster/her kidnapper/Rheinbogen) replies that this was the case only in bad hunting areas where, of course, farming began. He then concedes that there are some advantages to the civilization that has developed from the agricultural surplus:

"'The power, the gadgets...'"

-"License," p. 160.

But that is somewhat half-hearted. Technology is more than gadgets. We have learned about the universe. We read printed books, watch films and discuss them on the Internet. We have vastly expanded the range of our consciousness and understanding. Would we prefer to chase a mastodon? Right at the end, Rheinbogen thinks that he himself needs to hunt to satisfy his instincts but then reflects that research is a hunt, that Newton, Darwin and Einstein neither killed nor stole because they hunted bigger game and that he can do the same as a psychodynamicist.

Before that, he does rightly identify the deadly aspects that civilization has had:

crowding;

confinement to a single place;

anonymity;

being bossed, herded and cut off from nature;

subordinating everything else to a single job.

But he also acknowledges good results like medical science and:

"'...potentialities, if only we can realize them.'" (ibid.)

And we can now realizes potentialities like automation that can end drudgery.

Beyond Governments

I said last night that we would start into Poul Anderson's story, "High Treason," but I now think that issues in Seven Conquests still warrant further discussion.

In "License," the narrator says:

"'Consider, as merely one example, German history after the Thirty Years' War.'" (p. 161)

- but does not elaborate with the result that I am none the wiser!

What he is talking about more generally is the issue of a global authority to oversee or regulate the activities of national governments. In this story, there is a Peace Authority which, he says:

"'...is possible only because we've found a better outlet than war, at least a less harmful one, for the evil in man.'" (pp. 161-162)

When challenged on the word, "evil," he concedes that hatred of civilization might be a better description. We will have to return to this. Meanwhile, the Peace Authority will not let armed South Africans go beyond their own borders to attack whites. (Apartheid lasted from 1948 until 1994. "License" was published in 1957.)

In "Strange Bedfellows," Sevigny, taking evidence of sabotage on the Moon to the World Safety Corps on Earth, must evade corrupted agents of the US Federal Police. Corps men are peace officers of the Commonwealth which addresses only international matters, which sabotage on the Moon is, but first Sevigny must contact the Corps to make his case.

In Anderson's "Un-Man," the UN is becoming a world government but must overcome strong opposition, including that from within national governments. Thus, a UN agent, an "Un-man," is on the run from US Security men, "S-men." (The UN Lunar Guard is a forerunner of the later Solar Union's Solar Guard.)

There is always more to be said here.

CONFLICT

After Conquests/Seven Conquests, we (might as well) turn to Conflict (not Conflicts!), a similarly themed Poul Anderson collection. Having recently reread:

"Time Lag"

"The Alien Enemy"

"Kings Who Die"

"Details"

- we are left with:

"High Treason"

"The Pugilist"

"I Tell you, It's True"

"A Man To My Wounding"

"Among Thieves"

"The Turning Point"

Sometimes the title of a short story evokes an inchoate memory not of any plot details but only of emotional tone and not necessarily a favourable memory. However, this is irrelevant. We have demonstrated that a Poul Anderson story reread analytically repays our analysis with a wealth of entirely forgotten details and nuances so we will start with "High Treason" the next time that we return to this blog although, since I now approach the end of a period of recuperation from a cold, I will be publishing considerably less than ten so or so posts per day! Other aspects of daily life in twenty-first century Lancaster will resume. Into the future.

Psychodynamics

"License."

A psychodynamicist's analysis:

men evolved to hunt;

they are adapted for it biologically and psychologically;

their eyes are most sensitive to the colour of sunlight through leaves;

their feet are adapted to walk on yielding surfaces and are flattened by pavements;

they want to run freely and to sleep after a full meal;

they want the excitement of a chase and a kill, followed by a feast;

they need both tribal intimacy and opportunities for solitude;

they do not want crowding, confinement or subordination of life to a routine job;

psychodynamics showed that most men subconsciously but intensely hate civilization;

hatred must be vented;

soldiers could vent it;

but war has become too destructive and must be prevented;

the destruction, chaos and suffering of the Smashup vented a lot of anger;

now, crime has been legalized and regulated as a safety valve;

imprisonment has been abolished and outlawry instituted;

most people could not live happily in a world with neither war nor crime so they are allowed regulated crime.

The narrator, who makes this analysis, accepts a kidnapping job but would he have accepted a murder job? These also are regulated and legal.

(My task here has been to summarize this analysis, not to agree with it.)

Different Kinds Of Happy Endings

At The End Of "Strange Bedfellows"

There had been no question of Sevigny and Maura staying together. He helps her to make her escape and covers her tracks. Then, he will:

help the authorities to round up (some of) the bad guys;

enjoy a well-earned rest in a Canadian forest preserve;

happily return to his work in the Lunar air mines.

In this case, the happy ending is preservation of a beneficial and desirable status quo.

But what of cases where the status quo is undesirable or at best a stopgap?

"'It can't go on this way forever. The present system is frankly meant as a stopgap.'"

-"License," p. 159.

At The End Of "License"

Rheinbogen will:

stop his summer job as a gangster;

work as a psychodynamicist in one of Dulac's industries;

thus, stay in touch with Dulac's daughter, Marie;

research psychodynamics to find a longer term solution for society.

In this case, the happy ending is going beyond the status quo, first personally, then globally.

Breakfast And The End

"Strange Bedfellows."

Sevigny, with every hand - seemingly - against him, avoids recapture by hiding with Maura, the woman who had been used to distract him earlier. No one will look for him there. As in "License," we had wondered whether the heroine, for want of a better word, would play any role later in the narrative and she does. The ending is abrupt. After all his travails, Maura proposes to make breakfast for herself and Sevigny, then - scene change - he is reunited with his boss, the Buffalo, and everything works out ok. Andersonian endings are usually - not always - optimistic. (Always in novels, I think.)

One part of one panel in a comic strip by Alan Moore contains a parody of a comic strip script:

Pages 1-7: guys fight in space.

Pages 8-13: everything works out ok.

A summary of many stories but the author has to fill in the details!