Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote:
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
-Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (London, 1974), p. 168.
The following paragraphs are equally insightful and are not quoted here only because of their length. From my own experience, I agree with Solzhenitsyn. To answer his question: I am willing but unable to destroy that part of myself - but Zen is the practice of inner awareness, not violence.
The Service in James Blish's The Quincunx Of Time is described as an Event Police, not a Thought Police. The Service receives messages transmitted in the future and uses that information to cause future events. However, those who use the Dirac transmitter must never mention the date of anyone's death. The Event Police must not become an Assassins' Guild - but could the Time Patrol become that?
4 comments:
They WERE explicitly sent to make sure, by any means necessary, that the Mongol expedition never returned from the Americas to China. If Everard had been able to think of no way other than killing the Mongols.... And he DID kill all their horses.
Carl Farness HAD to speak the betrayal that enabled the deaths of his grandsons.
In short, yes, we have ready evidence the Time Patrol DOES send agents on occasion to assassinate.
Kaor, Paul!
And I disagree with Wanda Tamberly's views about hunting. I refuse to put animals on the same level as people (while also agreeing with Poul Anderson that unnecessary cruelty to animals should be avoided). Somewhere among my papers I have an article I copied from the NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA which gives the Catholic view of hunting. I'll have to find it and possibly quote some relevant portions. Briefly, hunting, per se, is not wrong if done for the right reasons and in moderation.
And Dave beat me to whatever I might have said about the more ethically questionable acts of the Time Patrol! (Smiles)
And the bit you quoted from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO is very relevant to the problems many of Poul Anderson's characters have to grapple with.
Sean
Everard was prepared to assassinate Lorenzo to prevent his marriage.
Hi, John!
Yes, I should have remembered that as well. I would only add that Manse Everard LIKED Lorenzo de Conti and tried by various non lethal means to remove him from being any longer a "nexus" on which time lines converged. Even when Manse eventually did kill Lorenzo, it was at least partly accidental, when he thought Wanda Tamberly was being endangered.
Sean
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