OK. I must respond to this challenge. In SM Stirling's Theater Of Spies, our amiable villain, Horst, asks whether, at the end of his 1916 - which we call 1916 (B) but both versions involve a Great War - anyone still believes in international working class solidarity. According to Horst, the war has proved that what matters is blood shared and shed together.
War proves many things to many men. At least a minority did continue to believe in international solidarity and, if a majority had practiced it, then there would have been no war so let's try to do better next time or the time after that. Although I would like to argue with Horst over his black bread, pungent sausage, liver paste and schnapps, I would prefer to argue with Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn over his idea of a modest snack - and Van Rijn would agree with me that war is bad for (his kind of) business and also for the soul.
8 comments:
1916 was "peak nationalism" year... 8-). And the war has a different ending in this one.
Events and ideas (or ideologies, which are systems of ideas) have a complex set of feedback relationships.
Eg., in 1914 anti-revisionist Marxism, what became Leninism, was not a very important system of thought anywhere outside Russia and not all that important there. A set of political developments vastly increased its weight in the post-1918 world. If those events had fallen out otherwise (no November Revolution) other tendencies might well have become dominant.
This operated in non-obvious ways as well. Marxism of the type predominant in Russia had an extreme commitment to the nurture side of the nature-nurture argument, because Marx's ideas had crystallized in an era when the "blank slate" theory -- that humans were largely a product of their environmental influences -- was very much predominant, especially among 'advanced' thinkers. This strain of thought was so entrenched that later in the Soviet Union genetics itself was officially suppressed because of its implications in that regard. Hence Lysenkoism, and the rather backward state of the biological sciences in the Soviet Union.
By the end of the 19th century, Darwinist and Social Darwinist thought had become predominant among those who considered themselves modern, progressive, scientific thinkers. Hence the vogue of eugenics, which swept the board from right to left except for some types of religious conservative (Catholics especially) and old-fashioned Marxists.
Hence the triumph of a Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy in the new Soviet Union had a very important part in shoving eugenic ideas out of the center of discourse from the late 1920's on and their relegation to certain movements which were consciously and vehemently anti-Marxist. They'd probably have remained much more influential without that.
I think that each of us is a unique and complex organism-environment interaction.
Further, that such interaction is what Hegelian dialectic describes.
Kaor, Paul!
But I agree with Horst, and not with those dreaming about "international solidarity." Because practically all humans will simply not care about strangers they have no connections or attachments to.
Also, I question the justice and rightness of calling Horst von Duckler (my keyboard has no umlaut key!) a villain. I thought him a very likable man who was simply being a patriotic solder devoted to Germany.
Sean
Sean,
Horst is the "villain" in the conventional sense of the hero(ine)'s opponent.
Paul.
Paul: yup.
He has personal reasons to hate Luz.
She doesn't hate him, though she wants him dead; she respects his abilities, but he's on the other side and too dangerous to live so he 'needs to go'.
In a meta- sense, you could say that Germany's the villain in this setting in the conventional sense of the word: they started the war, essentially kicking the table over and pulling a gun because they didn't like the way the Game of Nations was going;.
But that's way above Horst's pay-grade; and in any case the decision is irrevocable, once Germany has "rolled the iron dice" (a German military term of the time). It's 'rule or ruin', and as a patriot he wants the best for his country and people.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: granted, "villain" doesn't have to mean someone is evil and vicious, merely the opponent of the hero/heroine.
Mr. Stirling: I agree Germany could be considered the "villain" of the Black Chamber timeline, because of not being willing to accept the rules of the Game of Nations.
I agree with what you said about Horst, a decent man of great abilities doing his considerable best for his country. Frankly, I hope he survives this alternate WW I!
Sean
Post a Comment