avoid it;
resolve it;
conduct it more effectively!
It is necessary to know, not assume, which lesson someone else has learned. Lord Hauksberg assumes that there is a peace party within the Merseian Roidhunate (!) whereas any human Dennitzan who assumes that every Merseian Dennitzan is a Roidhunate sixth columnist would be equally off his trolley. Same species; different conditions.
Five Wars against Men tamed the kzinti until Speaker accepted a human female as an ally. Avalonian Ythrians, sharing a planet with human beings, should be able to advise other Ythrians on basic human psychology while at the same time acknowledging the "different conditions" of Avalon and Empire.
It is possible to be serious about avoiding conflict without conceding anything to a potential aggressor. Reverend Wilfrid, a Zen monk who travels by train, reflected that maybe a drunk football fan whose team has just lost a match has a right not to be confronted with the fact of organized religion if he doesn't want to be! Wilfrid can cover his shaved head with a hat and his monastic garb with an overcoat and thus can do his best not to provoke aggression - but that in no way excuses the aggression if it comes anyway.
8 comments:
Most forms of communication require a meeting of minds. Aggression requires only determination -- it's unilateral.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: And even Lord Hauksberg conceded there were hardliners within the Roidhunate. His error lay in thinking there was an influential party on Merseia as anxious for peace as he was.
Mr. Stirling: And we certainly see that in the long half war Merseia insisted on waging agains the Empire.
Happy New Year! Sean
Hauksberg’s greater fault is “projection” — projecting himself unto others, assuming an identity of motivation that may not be there. This is particularly difficult across cultural barriers.
Note in YEAR OF THE RANSOM, the conquistador who finds out about time travel immediately thinks of using weapons from the future... to crush heresy and reclaim the Holy Land from the infidel.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Hauksberg's great fault lay in wishful thinking and projection? I agree. Faults which I think we are all tempted to succumb to!
Yes, but what struck me about Don Luis Castelar was how ABLE and quick witted a consquistador he was. Recall how quickly he grasped the possibilities of time traveling AND the need to do some research about the centuries since his time. IIRC, he forced Tamara to translate and read to him from an encyclopedia she had. And, after the Patrol finally managed to catch Castelar, there was some argument about what to do with him--with some wanting to offer him a JOB with the Patrol. Even Manse Everard was undecided for a time.
Happy New Year! Sean
The distribution of capacity doesn't vary much over time(*). Motivation, on the other hand...
(*) it's probably higher now than previously because malnutrition, which stunts mental as well as physical development, is much less common.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Very interesting, what you said about how ability, or capacity, is higher now than in former times because of a good deal less malnutrition. Unfortunately, that increased ability will not always be used wisely.
And one point I remember from the Time Patrol stories is that most recruits had to come from about AD 1600 onwards, because prior to that most people, no matter how intelligent, simply would not be able to grasp time traveling and its implications. Which made exceptions, like Pummairam of Tyre and Don Luis Castelar, all the more precious as possible Patrol agents.
Happy New Year! Sean
I think most educated people from Hellenistic and Roman times would grasp the concept of time travel about as readily as pre-industrial Westerners.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I felt compelled to go by what I read in the Patrol stories. That said, I can see well educated Greco-Romans (some of them, anyway) being able to grasp the concept of time travel and its implications. We see King Kashtiliash and the Babylonian woman who became the wife of the Nantucketer doctor doing that in your Nantucket books
Happy New Year! Sean
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