Another of Trembicki's many good points: the Equals directing council members are fanatics, disregarding any facts contradicting their preconceptions. For example, they think that an appeal to the President against Marcus of Military Security is pointless because they stereotype the former as a feeble bungler and the latter as an omnipresent demon. They cite public support for MS while ignoring the many signs of public opposition, including for a start their own organization. So they conclude, or rather preconceive, that an insurrection is the only solution.
So what is the way to change society fundamentally? Campaign against particular injustices while arguing that all the injustices are interconnected and inherent in a particular social system. When a lot of people are dissatisfied and also perceive the connections, then there is a mass movement for radical change, not just a clique organizing a coup. But most of the time, there are only the particular struggles. People who really want social change spend most of their lives campaigning on particular issues like, in real life right now, against library closures or, in this novel, trying to persuade the President to restrain MS and depose Marcus.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I am frankly skeptical of the value of "mass protests." I have strong doubts such things do any good or will do more than superficially or temporarily change things.
Sean
Sean,
There can be at least superficial and temporary change. In Britain, mass opposition overthrew the Poll Tax and drove Margaret Thatcher out of office. By resisting them with numbers, we have prevented fascist organizations from growing as much as they have in other European countries. I have seen an old people's home closed, emptied of residents and boarded up, then re-opened and the residents moved back in because the local authority trade union branch continued to campaign on the issue. I have seen a school closed by the local authority, occupied by pupils, parents and volunteer teachers for a year, then re-opened when the political composition of the City Council changed after an election.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Political action of this kind can cause fairly superficial changes, I agree. But they don't, and cannot fundamentally CHANGE a society. For that you would need a drastic change of BELIEF, faith, philosophy, etc. The kind of transformation brought, for example, by Christianity. Which has been an example used by Anderson himself.
As for some of the examples you listed, I'm sure you realize that things like reopening the home for the elderly was possible only by reallocating funds for that purpose from other uses. A worthy deed, but it came with trade offs, fewer tax funds for other things, some of them also worthy. And so on.
Sean
Sean,
I think that changes of economic relationships change society. Thus, urban merchants challenged feudal lords.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But I don't think they INTENDED to challenge feudal barons. Switching from a largely agricultural to a mercantile and then industrial economy was a complex, long drawn process. I would put more stress on how the rise of more powerful centralized gov'ts undermined feudalism.
Sean
Sean,
Oh no, intention need not be involved. Merely to find a new source of wealth is to challenge existing powers that be. Centralized government in turn was surely based on the new economic system.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I can see that, greater created by economic and technological innovations gave ambitious gov'ts the means or sources of wealth needed for increased centralization.
And I frankly regret that. I believe plain old liberty is more secure when gov'ts are not too powerful. So I'm inclined to look more kindly on decentralized systems, including feudalism.
Sean
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