Abrams And Flandry On Starkad

I hope that readers of this blog will also look at the two new linked Poul Anderson-related blogs? The new blogs began by copying selected posts already published on this, the original, Poul Anderson Appreciation Blog but they will shortly start to publish new posts.

Regarding "Poul Anderson's Cosmic Environments," when I began to reread and copy posts on this theme from over two years ago, I was genuinely surprised and pleased to find so much information already there. If I have forgotten, I imagine that others have. I find it helpful to have "Merseia," "Avalon" etc listed together instead of having to scroll back through twenty seven months to find them - and I was thinking of posting about Wayland, forgetting that I had already done so.

Since I am rereading Ensign Flandry, I expect that some data about Starkad will appear on PACE. Meanwhile, there are other aspects of the novel. The mentor-cadet, father-son, relationship between Max Abrams and Dominic Flandry is excellent and it is unfortunate that it could not be continued - but Flandry's career had to advance. He has other superiors in later installments.

Abrams to Flandry:

"'They rammed you through your education. You were supposed to learn what civilization is about, but there wasn't really time, they get so damned few cadets with promise these days. So here you are, nineteen years old, loaded to the hatches with technical information and condemned to make for yourself every philosophical mistake recorded in history. I'd like you to read some books I pack around in micro. Ancient stuff mostly, a smidgin of Aristotle, Machiaveli, Jefferson, Clausewitz, Jouvenel, Michaelis.'"
- Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 50.

It is interesting to learn that Abrams has such a sound theoretical basis for his Intelligence activities and that it starts with Classical Greece. If I were to tutor the young Flandry, then I would advise him to read widely and would suggest certain authors, not the same list as Abrams', but also not "...a smidgin of..." anything. That sounds too prescriptive. If Flandry is to understand the relevance of Machiaveli, then he must grasp the essence of Machiavelli's thought and, to assure himself that he has done this, he cannot rely on extracts chosen by anyone else.

Abrams is talking about political understanding. In fact, in some passage that I cannot find right now, he tells Flandry that he is forgetting the political element of his training. Casting the net wider than politics, I would add that anyone educated in either Western or Technic civilization should be able to make an informed judgment as to the truth or falsity of the historical claims of Christianity. How can any of us commit either to Christianity or to an alternative world view except on the basis of information and understanding? Abrams is Jewish and Flandry later funds research to find evidence for a divine incarnation elsewhere in the galaxy, so we need first to be clear as to whether there is indeed evidence for a divine incarnation on Earth.

Abrams again:

"'...you most definitely can't have a peace that isn't founded on a hard common interest, that doesn't pay off for everybody concerned.'" (p. 49)

In practice, "...everybody concerned..." means not every human (or non-human) being affected by a decision but every group economically or militarily strong enough to oppose a decision that they dislike. Thus, as Anderson shows in the history of the Polesotechnic League, oppression, deprivation and injustice are perpetuated until, at least in some cases, the recipients do arm themselves.

I would really enjoy some political discussions with Max Abrams.