Now download Dagny is a member of the Provisional Trust charged with emergency negotiations by the Lunar government. Trust members:
Selenarchs;
representatives of the cities and of major industries and professions;
Terrans who want to stay on the Moon -
- all want full independence and urgently request download Dagny to join them as a delegate at large. She speaks on their behalf to the Federation President.
On Earth, some defend Lunarian self-determination while others reply that:
"...nationalism wrought multimillions of deaths, over and over, with devastation from which the world has never quite recovered. Here we see the monster hatching anew. We must crush its head while we still can." (p. 500)
Nationalism is part of the protean enemy in Poul Anderson's first future history, the Psychotechnic History. In that series, there is no ambiguity. The UN is right to use any means to crush nationalism - but the Psychotechnic Institute definitely goes too far in trying to control society.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But, as we know, Poul Anderson eventually became DISSATISFIED with his Psychotechnic stories. And that was partly because his political views and beliefs had changed. Basically, he came to prefer supporting the AUTONOMY or independence of communities, societies, states, etc., resisting being absorbed into larger or more centralized socio/political forms of organization.
Sean
Nationalism in its modern form is a medieval development, but it's simply a different expression of ethnicity, or tribal identities, which is pretty much a universal constant of human experience -- the only serious rival as a focus and organizing principle of human collective existence is universalistic ideologies like religions, and even then they get caught up in more instinctual identities quite often.
(Hence the old Ulster joke about the guy who says he's an atheist, and is then asked if he's a Protestant or Catholic atheist.)
I think Poul eventually came to see that trying to get rid of this longing for a collective identity was futile, like trying to outrun your own sweat, but he was never entirely comfortable with it.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
VERY interesting comments, but I have no time just now to comment at length. Which I will do after I come home from work.
Sean
Hi all,
As a matter of fact, the terms "Protestant atheist" and "Catholic atheist" can have some significance! An English Protestant and an Irish Catholic who become atheists might have very different attitudes to their atheism derived from their different upbringings.
Paul.
I first heard that joke marching behind King Billy on his white horse on the 12th of July... 8-).
Dear Mr. Stirling,
While I certainly agrees nations have existed, one way or another, for thousands of years, I thought the current form of "nation" or "nationalism" dates from the Peace of Westphalia which ended the Thirty Years War. A peace of exhaustion in which the contracting powers, Catholic and Protestant, agreed they would no longer try to dominate each other.
I did not get the impression from Anderson's post-Psychotechnic stories that he was uncomfortable with the idea of people wanting to have some kind of collective identity. If anything, he APPROVED of "tribalism," when not carried too far. An idea we see very clearly expressed in "No Truce With Kings."
Sean
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