Friday 27 January 2023

A Release

In Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, "Gypsy" comes as a release. Until then, despite a few interesting details about life in the future, the history has been dominated by conflicts between individuals and groups with different visions for the future of mankind:

Fourre versus Reinach in war-torn Europe;

the UN versus nationalists, militarists and Venus separatists;

Humanists versus psychotechnicians;

counterrevolutionaries versus Humanists;

Planetary Engineers versus psychotechnicians;

a Planetary Engineer who is also a Rostomily Brother against Western Reformists -

- culminating in the Second Dark Ages.

Suddenly, instead, we read about human beings on an extra-solar planet which they have reached by hyperdrive and where there are no conflicts. There can be a story without any conflicts. A potential personal conflict is averted as the narrator's wife conceals her feelings about leaving Harbor.

26 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Well, the narrator of "Gypsy" more and more came to realize he was feeling an INTERNAL confict between what he at first said he wanted and what Thorkild actually desired.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Yes. Conflict or contradiction in a wider sense (probably) cannot be eliminated.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

The potentiality for conflicts of all kinds, including wars, is innate in all human beings.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

As is the potential for peace. We can choose different ways.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And conflicts and wars will continue. It is UNREALISTIC to think otherwise.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Nothing continues forever. Things change.

Paul.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Our species has differentiated itself by changing its environment with hands and brain and changing itself in the process, becoming linguistic, capable of abstract thought and self-reflection. Our essence is change, not anything unchanging.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I don't believe any of this touches on or will remove the issue under debate: our innate potentiality for being quarrelsome, violent, prone to conflicts, etc. These are things that can only be managed, not solved.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

But nothing is innate. Everything changes. Many human interactions are without violence and this can be extended.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

When I recall how two year old toddlers fighting over a lollipop in a sandbox already knows how to quarrel, I don't believe that. That propensity for violence and conflict is innate.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Well, each child can be given a lollipop. We can certainly help young children to mature out of squabbles like that. Think of how mature, civilized adults interact and imagine upbringings and social conditions that will encourage such interactions. It can be done - not while this planet remains divided into armed nation-states ruled by people like Putin (not just him) but how long can that division persist before it destroys us all in any case? It is doing that right now. We need more people thinking outside the box in every country.

Paul.

S.M. Stirling said...

Paul: nation-states are a specific manifestation of a proclivity that's innate, as Sean said.

If toddlers aren't fighting over lollipops, they'll occasionally fight over something else.

Or just fight: I've seen that too.

Young cats play at chasing, pouncing and cat-fighting. Same-same for humans.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Of course toddlers need to be TRAINED, but that will not remove their innate propensity for violence and conflicts. As adults they will simply fight or compete over other things.

No, the best our "social conditions" can do is channel and manage our innate propensity for violence and conflicts, including conflicts between nations.

Again, I agree with Anderson (and Stirling), not you.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

But it is technologically and humanly possible to create conditions in which there is nothing left to fight about. We do not fight for air now. The same could apply to everything else.

Paul.

S.M. Stirling said...

Paul: no, it -isn't- possible to create conditions in which there is nothing to fight about.

Eg., people fight over soccer teams. Why? Because they don't have anything more immediate to fight about, and tribalism and rivalry -are- inherent.

If they don't have to fight for material things they'll fight for their "team" about something else.

Power can never be in generous supply, because it's a 'positional good', like being beautiful; by definition, if one person or group has more, others have less.

S.M. Stirling said...

Paul: a nice example is Swift's land in GULLIVER'S TRAVELS divided between "big-enders" and "little-enders.

Where they fight bitter wars over which end of a boiled egg to open at breakfast.

This is pretty much literally true, though it was intended as a satire on European religious rivalries of the time.

And the chiefs of the Big End Tribe and the Little End Tribe will cheerfully use the rivalry to increase their own power.

As I've said, trying to -eliminate- this sort of thing is like trying to outrun your own sweat.

It has to be -managed-, since it can't be -eliminated-.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

People who fight about football are alienated by their experience of work and life. This can be expressed through alcohol and violence.

I think that, longer term, very different social conditions and social relationships will produce very different people but this, if true, will have to develop and cannot be forced.

Apes became men by their actions. Men can become better men or maybe something that we would call a new species (Danellians etc).

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I simply don't believe that innate human propensity for being violent and competitive will be or can be removed from human beings. Not if you still want them to BE human.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

But many human beings spend their entire lives without violence.

Paul.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Our pre-human ancestors were innately incapable of abstract thought.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

ONLY because the STATE exists that protects them from violence.

Not quite so sure about your last comment above. If we can go by Anderson's "The Little Monster," it's possible early hominins like the Pithecanthropines were were groping their way to mastering abstract thought.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

I meant pre-human animals were not capable of abstract thought.

In a peaceful neighbourhood, the state protects us from violence from outside but the fact that the neighbourhood itself exists without violence shows that such peacefulness could be extended more widely. There will be food riots if there are food shortages but there need not be food shortages.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I agree with your first comment.

But disagree with the second comment. That "peacefulness" is possible ONLY because of the State's existence and willingness to crack down on those who break the peace. And can be "extended" only as far as it rules. And I know darn well every "neighborhood" has its share of domestic strife, petty crime, and that major crimes can happen at any time. And there need not be food riots if the State does its job RIGHT.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

All these things exist in society as it is now but society will not always be as it is now.

Paul.

S.M. Stirling said...

Paul: apes didn't become men.

Their -descendants- became men, millions of years later, because their actions(*) exerted selective pressure on their offspring.

(*) responding to a dry period by gradually spending more time in open country, for example.

And this is -unintentional- actions.

They weren't trying to become men, they were trying to find a meal and a mate and dodge the hyenas and leopards.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

OK. Apes, then their descendants, then men.

Certainly not trying to become men! Eat, mate, dodge predators: life and unintentional becoming.