The Shield Of Time, PART THREE.
"She had been taught very little - hardly anything, she realized now that she examined it - about the upper hierarchy of the Patrol.
"Maybe none existed. Maybe by Guion's era humanity had outgrown the necessity." (pp. 131-132)
Right on. She assumes a "hierarchy." I am certain that, with advanced education and communications technology, mankind can transcend any need for hierarchies. Do not generalize from people as they are now. Envisage a future generation in a culture where everyone is fully informed and regularly participates in collective decision-making. Do not ask me the details. I cannot explain how current technology works.
We know that the Patrol has a "Middle Command" and we assume that it is human.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
This blog piece of yours inspires many thoughts in me, most of them critical, I fear!
From top to down, the Time Patrol was organized somewhat like this list below:
Danellians, the final authority and makers of policy.
Middle Hierarchy.
Unattached senior agents.
Agents permanently assigned to a place, time, milieu.
Agents specializing in anthropology and history.
Agents doing scientific work only.
Support and administrative/clerical staff.
I am skeptical "hierarchies" were gone by Guion's time. Remember, he was not a Danellian, but an ordinary human, albeit from the far future. Nothing I recall about him makes me think the people of his era had no hierarchy.
I am puzzled by this hostility you seem to have for "hierarchies." To me, such things are merely examples of the old principle called "division of labor." And I am not convinced that a deus ex machina called "education" will ever change people from what they REALLY are: flawed, imperfect, prone to folly, error, wickedness. I don't believe at that everyone in a hypothetical future society will be perfectly educated, benevolent, wise, reasonable, etc. Nor do
Nor do I believe in the fantasy of perfectly "educated" people engaging en masse in collective decision making. The mere idea billions of people can collectively decide what needs to be done is unconvincing (to avoid harsher words!). That is a recipe for chaos, indecisiveness, paralysis. I would expect nothing to get DONE. And, even if a majority agrees on something, what if a minority opposes that policy so strongly that the minority refuses to accept that decision at all?
No, hierarchies were invented by men as a means of enabling, level by level, of getting things DONE, however imperfectly.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
You look on people as they are now. I look on them as active social organisms who have changed their environment and changed themselves in the process and can transform themselves further. Darwinism meets Buddhism. No ineradicable "original sin."
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And this is where I'm going to have to disagree with you. I do not in the least believe, short of the Second Coming, that mere human beings will ever be universally benevolent and wise. And some of the things done or ordered by the Danellians makes me doubt THEY were all the kind of people you would like.
I am a conservative, which means I am skeptical and distrustful of Utopian dreams. I believe it's hard enough merely for peoples and their societies and states to simply not be TOO bad, never mind expecting an impossible perfection of them.
Ad astra! Sean
"Original Sin" is merely a metaphor for "human nature", and human nature is determined by our evolutionary history, which produced our minds as well as our bodies.
There has not been one single human culture without hierarchies, though of course they differ in complexity and kind.
I therefore deduce that hierarchy is not cultural, except in its expression. The phenomenon itself is biological, encoded in our genes, part of the operating code.
Hence only alterations in the code -- evolution or genetic engineering -- can alter it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, altho I also believe in Original Sin for theological reasons as well.
I get so IMPATIENT with impossible Utopian fantasies about either the withering away of the state or societies with no classes or hierarchies!
If it would take either evolution or genetic engineering to eliminate the drive or need for hierarchies, the resulting creatures would no longer even be human, IMO. Which would defeat Paul's hopes.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: you actually can have a society without the State -- the State is an invention.
But all such societies have certain shared characteristics: blood feuds and a very high level of interpersonal violence, for example.
I deduce from that that if you abolish the State, you bring back blood feuds and high levels of violent death.
Traditions and institutions are solutions to forgotten problems -- but the fact that the problem has been forgotten doesn't mean it has gone away.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, even tho the Icelandic Commonwealth tried, for a time, to be an exception to that general rule. But the increasingly bitter feuds and vendettas of the Sturlung Age brought about so much chaos that the Icelanders were eventually grateful to accept Norwegian rule in the 13th century. At least the King would impose peace on Iceland!
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I forgot to respond to this: "Traditions and institutions are solutions to forgotten problems--but the that the problem has been forgotten doesn't mean it has gone away." I was reminded of an essay by Chesterton in which he criticized impatient "reformers" who wanted to demolish "walls and fences." His argument was that we should first find out why those walls and fences had been built and what the consequences of removing them would be (e.g., would the old problems come back?).
And I agree with you and Chesterton!
Ad astra! Sean
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