The Gwydiona have gained social peace at the expense of periodic insanity - including a short annual period of violence. Is it the message of some American sf that any apparent utopia must always have its dark side? I am not generalizing from a single instance. There are other examples. I believe that mankind can disprove such a message in practice but not that we inevitably will. In fact, right now, we are heading towards dystopia - but there are always different possible ways forward.
Alan Moore argued in Miracleman that the logical outcome of the superhero idea was a utopia and he showed this working in practice - although with some ambiguity. His successor, Neil Gaiman, is showing a Golden Age followed by a Silver Age, then a Dark Age. This story, still unfolding, is potentially harrowing.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I believe mankind to be fallen race, which means I do not believe Utopia is possible. And all attempts at setting up a perfect "Final Society" failed bloodily. It's hard enough for a nation or society to not be too terribly bad without also mixing in Utopian fantasies!
So I would not be surprised if the ostensibly idyllic surface of Gwydion conceals dark Secrets.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Human development still has a long way to go.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I don't believe it will ever be Utopianly perfect!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
From your premise that we are Fallen, it follows that society can never be utopian.
From my premises that nothing anywhere is unchanging and that human beings are differentiated as a species by the fact that they have cooperatively manipulated and transformed their environment and have changed themselves (indeed have brought themselves into existence as linguistic beings) in the process, it follows that society could become utopian.
Paul.
Well, I also don't believe that "utopia" is possible; not because humans are "fallen", in a theological sense, but because humans are the product of an evolutionary history.
Remember that evolution just selects for qualities that make it more likely that DNA will successfully make copies of itself.
It's not an accident that 10% of Asia is descended from Ganghis Khan/Temujin.
We're all his children -- or children of people pretty much like him.
And to quote him on what is best:
"The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp in your arms their wives and daughters."
Kaor, Paul!
And I agree more with Stirling than with you. You cannot deny that thru out all known history humans have been prone to violence, error, folly. Nor do I think that will ever change, not if humans are going to STAY HUMAN.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I don't have to deny anything. There are two sides to every coin. Human beings are differentiated by the fact that they have changed their environment and themselves in the process. There is nothing unchanging anywhere in us or in the world. Sure, genes are more basic than consciousness but matter on Earth has evolved from inanimate to vegetable to animal to human. If rational beings in the future are very different from us, then you might say that they are no longer HUMAN but they will still be rational beings and our descendants.
That quote from Genghis Khan is (i) part of what humanity has been and still is, (ii) dreadful, (iii) something that can be transcended, (iv) something that many of us have already transcended.
Paul.
Paul: we've changed our environment but we haven't changed our DNA much. And our consciousness is itself a product of our genes, its contours and possibilities determined by the DNA, and its limits set by those same genes.
Basically you could take an infant from 30,000 years ago and rear them in the 2020's, and they' fit right in.
And vice versa.
Human beings, -in essentio-, don't change -- or they do so so slowly that it's not noticeable in historic terms.
As regards modern humanity, I read that French explorers in South America found a lost or abandoned child in a jungle so they adopted her and took her back home where she attended University and became an anthropologist and a practising Catholic, completely different from the tribal life she would otherwise have lived.
I am coming to see why there are so many problems in society with such a contrast between ideas about how things could be and how they are.
Paul: that's what I said. The Amazonian child became French.
But the lives are not 'completely different'. There are certain differences; there are also continuities.
Eg., both the tribe she was born in and the French university she attends will have intrigues for power. They'll just use different terminologies and techniques.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Intrigues for power and status are eternal!
Ad astra! Sean
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