"'...remember that they succeeded by revolutionary overthrow of the legitimate heirs. Never mind what abuses they claim to be correcting; only recall that they are Merseian-sponsored revolutionaries.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Outpost of Empire" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-72 AT p. 13.
There are three issues there:
abuses;
Merseian-sponsored;
revolutionaries.
Abuses should be "minded" and corrected, sometimes by revolution but never with Merseian sponsorship!
A hostile foreign power can try to control or influence a justice campaign for subversion and destabilization purposes but also defenders of a status quo may try to discredit justice campaigners by calling them agents of a foreign power. Also, some justice campaigners who are not agents of a foreign power may nevertheless entertain dangerous illusions about the intentions of such a power.
CS Lewis, incarnated as a character in one of his own novels, reflected:
"I suppose everyone knows this fear of getting 'drawn in' - the moment at which a man realises that what had seemed mere speculations are on the point of landing him in the Communist Party or the Christian Church..."
-CS Lewis, Perelandra IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 145-348 AT p. 150.
When I first read Perelandra, in my teens, I was shocked that Lewis bracketed the Communist Party and the Christian Church together like that. I started to learn something when I had left school!
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But you missed Ridenour's qualifier: "claimed." That is, a faction on Aruli overthrew the legitimate "Bearers of the Horns" under the excuse of rectifying ALLEGED abuses. How many, many weary times I have seen in real world events a regime being overthrown and replaced by far WORSE successors. And they all claimed to be "rectifying" abuses by their predecessors. So, I suspect this "justice movement" on Aruli was merely an instrument of Merseia for getting into power Bearers of the Horns who would be obedient puppets of the Roidhunate.
And what C.S. Lewis was trying to say that a religion, philosophy, or ideology proposing very different answers to the ultimate questions can win CONVERTS. Communism used to have believers as zealous as any Christian.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I should have added to my previous comment that Poul Anderson himself, in THERMONUCLEAR WARFARE, compared the zealous Communists he had known in the 1950's to devout Christians. And argued that Communism too was a proselytizing religion. So the idea was not limited to C.S. Lewis.
Sean
"rectifying ALLEGED abuses"
I think the "far WORSE successors" are likely to use any real abuses in their propaganda. There will almost always be some legitimate complaints to use, as well as to embellish with falsehoods.
Kaor, Jim!
Of course, I agree! You reminded me of how that monster, Lenin, used analogous abuses, fiascoes, bumblings, etc., as propaganda against the Tsarist regime in Russia. The best propaganda mixes a little truth with the lies and distortions.
Ad astra! Sean
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