Ythrians, more mobile because winged, do not need cities. Their few sedentary centers for, e.g., industrial purposes are small and mostly populated by wing-clipped slaves now being replaced by automated machinery whereas the Terran Empire is simultaneously reviving slavery. Philippe Rochefort wonders whether mankind is more moral than Ythrians, then:
"He straightened in his chair. Man is my race."
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT Chapter IV, p. 487.
Not good enough, Philippe! In this island, some people used to say, "King and country, right or wrong, sir!" But surely "Man" or "King and country" can go so wrong that we have to oppose them? In Flandry's time, Imperial forces commit atrocities in Sector Alpha Crucis and forcibly annex Brae.
Rochefort says that, since human beings lead Technic civilization, he himself has to be called a human supremacist. But he does not have to be called that. That mankind currently leads Technic civilization is an empirical fact. A supremacist would say further that mankind must permanently subordinate all other races which is an entirely different proposition.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But it was not the desire of Manuel Argos and the Empire he founded to set up a racist system with humans dominating all other species in the Empire as inferiors. THAT was the road taken by Merseia.
Sean
Sean,
So I think that Philippe was wrong to call himself a human supremacist. This confuses the issue.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But think of how often most of us, including myself, tend to use careless and imprecise terms rather loosely in every day life. Most of us, most of the time, use context and body language to deduce what is actually meant. Carefully defining terms and explaining nuances would be done for formally written essays.
Here's an example of what I mean, from Chapter 9 of ENSIGN FLANDRY, as Commander Abrams tried to explain to Lord Hauksberg why Merseia was so dangerous to the Empire: "The race, not the nation, counts with them. Which makes them a hell of a lot more dangerous than simple imperialists like us, who only want to be top dogs and ADMIT OTHER SPECIES HAVE AN EQUAL RIGHT TO EXIST" [my emphasis, SMB]. Some might jump to the conclusion that when Abrams used "top dogs" he meant racial supremacism. But that was plainly NOT what he meant.
Sean
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