"'Rats' nests of tribes, peoples, classes, religions, godknowswhats, scourings of wars, migrations, revolutions, conversions, history - much too much history, much too little of it ours.'" (p. 411)
Thus speaks an Imperial Governor ("Executive"). The natives are "rats' nests" and "scourings." He acknowledges his ignorance: "godknowswhats." It is a problem for him that their history differs from his. One of the cities that he governs is "'Aswarm with fanatics.'" (p. 412) I am confident both that there is a line to be drawn between fanatics and other anti-Governance campaigners and that the Executive and I would draw that line in a different place.
It does not have to be like that. Today our Muslim neighbors celebrate Eid. Brightly garbed visitors from other cities fill the street. Two families give us plates of curry, rice, cakes and bread that make our evening meal.
In Preston ("Priest Town") twenty miles away:
21 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I've only reached Chapter 34 in my rereading of STARFARER, but I am not confident that all "diversity" will be admirable or so worthy of praise. Nor do I think you are quite doing justice to that Jensuist governor, who seems to speak from weary, hard won experience.
I am also reasonably sure that the only reason we don't see Muslims, Hindus, or Sikhs rioting and killing each other is because none of them are dominant in the UK. You overlooked the long, bloody history Muslims and Hindus have with each other in India. While the British Raj endured in India it kept them from massacring each other--which is exactly what happened in 1947-48 as the Raj ended. And has happened since them in repeated Hindu/Muslim pogroms.
So I would show more sympathy for that Jensuist Executive, whose job was to keep the peace in his jurisdiction and preventing those "Rats' nests of tribes, peoples, classes, religions,..." etc., from killing each other.
Ad astra! Sean
Yugoslavia was peaceful… until the hand of power was removed. Then people got to show what they really thought of the neighbors. Cf. Syria, Rwanda, Darfur. Or you might try along a Uighur about it, if you can find one outside a Chinese concentration camp.
Human beings are inherently tribal, and tribes form in opposition to each other: there is no “us” without a “them”.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Exactly! Often enough the best we can hope for ia some "imperial" ruler keeping the peace.
I'm not entirely satisfied, but I've made great progress in the article I'm writing about your book DAGGERS IN DARKNESS. Fair warning, I'm somewhat critical of Luz!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Sometimes at least an empire fostered divisions as a divide and rule tactic.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That happened more often during the EXPANSIONIST phase of an empire. Aggressive powers will often seek to strife and divisions within the domains of their rivals. Which is what I think China and Russia has been trying to do with the US. By playing on our divisions.
Ad astra! Sean
You can't foster something that isn't there to begin with.
Division is inherent in being human.
Take away one "basis" of division, and people will find another, even if it's only football clubs or chariot-racing teams; then they'll pile everything else they can into the same split with happy indifference to logic.
This is because the cause of division isn't any "basis" that people give to their feuds; it's humanity itself.
The so-called "basis" is just the symbolic marker, the excuse.
Chase it out the door, and it'll climb back in through the window. Futility, a complete waste of effort.
Sean: criticize away! 8-). She's a character, not a sketch of an ideal human being, whatever the hell that would be.
Sporting competitiveness can be entirely amicable, though. Both sides accept the rules and the referee's decisions.
The staff cricket team of a school I taught in played friendly games against several local teams. Just one team argued every umpire's decision - and was not invited to play again.
But eventually rules break down, if we’re talking about people”s primary identities.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: Many thanks! I did wonder if sometimes you felt protective of the characters in your stories. That criticism of them would feel like your children were being attacked.
Paul: But the rules regulating sports and games can break down, and when that happens you will often get violence, even murderous violence. A classic example being the rivalries between he Blue and Green chariot teams in Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. The battles they fought makes English football hooligans look tame! And they could be a threat to gov't itself whenever the factions united. Which is what happened in 532 when the Blues and Greens united to nearly topple Justinian I when they proclaimed a new Emperor.
Even chess players can get violent! One of my chess books quotes examples from English criminal law of how chess players can quarrel and kill one another.
Ad astra! Sean
Swift satirized this in the battles of the "Big Enders" and "Little Enders" who waged wars over which end of a boiled egg to open at breakfast.
This was aimed at the theological disputes of 18th-century Europe... but when Europeans stopped killing each other over points of theology, it wasn't because they'd become more peaceful, it was because they were killing each other over something else.
A French minister, when asked why he favored lifting legal disabilities on Jews and Protestants, said:
"So long as men first worship is for the State, let them have what other and lesser Gods they will."
The problems with Muslims these days in the West is precisely that some of them -don't- worship the State first and foremost. If they did, it wouldn't be a problem what they did in a mosque on Friday.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Exactly! The Peace of Westphalia did not make Europeans more peaceful. They simply quarreled and fought over other issues.
And I don't worship the State first and foremost. I don't believe it is good for the State to become ever more centralized, top heavy, and demanding. And it is not right to use the State to "legalize" barbarities like abortion. Or to force us to pretend to believe Bruce Jenner is a woman!
Ad astra! Sean
Gratillonius said to a colleague, "I serve Mithras. You serve Christ. We both serve Rome." This was not worship of the State but a pragmatic inclusiveness. However, the Christian was violently intolerant of Gratillonius's "witchcraft."
If someone believes something that contradicts one’s most basic, values-and-identity convictions, it’s human nature to regard them as an enemy and a threat. Often they really are a threat; throw in aspirations to power and sure as the sun rises, blood will flow.
It’s often said that democracy is a peaceful means of settling differences. In fact, it’s a way of settling minor differences between people who agree so thoroughly on basics they’re not even conscious of how profound their consensus is.
Remove that, raise the stakes so existential questions are in the balance, and watch peace fly out the window.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Take note of what Stirling said. While I don't agree with how INTENSELY that particular Christian regarded Mithraism, I can see where he was coming from. And other Christians, like Corentinus, were more sensible and nuanced. They did not agree with Mithraism, say, but they could and did discuss points of disagreement calmly and rationally.
Mr. Stirling: Too true, what you said. I am so angry at the folly and bungling of "Josip" and his Democrats that my fear is we are approaching what you described in the US.
Ad astra! Sean
The combination of consistent election result denial plus the physical attack on the Capitol was perhaps the greatest threat yet?
Kaor, Paul!
Not at all! Because the MASS of the Republican Party does not deny "Josip" won. I have more in mind the fanaticism of the left wing dominating the Democrats. Everything from their coddling of the BLM riots, "defunding" attacks on police forces, using sympathizers in Facebeook and Google to harass, silence, and purge political opponents, etc. And, of course, I'm OUTRAGED at the chaos the left has made of the southern border of the US, letting in over a MILLION illegals, including lots of Covid infected persons, swarm into the country.
I could go on and on and on about the stupidity and folly of "Josip" and his Democrats!
Ads astra! Sean
Paul: no, those are symptoms, not causes.
Nobody will accept repeated existential defeat just because of votes.
For people to accept the outcome of elections, they have to have nothing really fundamental at stake. The stylized dance of democratic, electoral politics requires a high degree of consensus, so that people don't feel threatened "where they live" if the other side wins.
If something genuinely fundamental -is- at stake, if they feel that conceeding defeat will see what they love and value destroyed, they'll kick over the table and pull a gun if they see any hope at all of winning that way...
...and the human mind is so constructed that it will overestimate its chances.
Everyone thinks their own viewpoint is good and reasonable.
But it's the -other side's- opinion of such things that determines whether blood flows, because it only takes one to make a fight.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, the PARTIAL listing I gave of the injuries and provocations the left has been inflicting on their opponents simply won't be tolerated forever. Not if doing so means letting he left "transform" and destroy everything that people most love and cherish. I only hope it's no worse than the Democrats losing big in the mid terms next year, AND accepting that defeat.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: the first is possible, the second unlikely.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
You are right, I was being too optimistic! Even if the Democrats are shattered next year and in 2024, I doubt the fanatics of the left will accept defeat. They will continue their "civil war by other means."
Ad astra! Sean
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