"'And the war will purify us,' Garver said." (p. 167)
Does anyone really say that?
Falkayn reflects that war will give government new powers over free enterprise and that Garver, who is the Solar Commonwealth Minister of Security:
"...loathes us because we've never either joined or toadied to the coalition of cartels. politicians, and bureaucrats. To him, we represent Chaos." (pp.167-168)
We recently quoted a Coordination Service field agent complaining that the Nomads go everywhere and do anything with no regard for any consequences. See here. He ended by calling the Nomads a pain whereas a more elegant term would have been capitalized "Chaos."
Chaos is an ambiguous key concept. Some Anderson heroes fight against "Chaos" whereas others are accused of perpetrating it by their bureaucratic opponents.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I would agree with Falkayn and Old Nick in their detestation of people like Garver and the centralizing, autocratic state they would set up. There are all too many people like that in the real world, like the Democrats in the US!
Ad astra! Sean
" "'And the war will purify us,' Garver said." (p. 167)
Does anyone really say that? "
My understanding is that attitude was fairly common in pre-ww1 Germany, and to a lesser extent existed in other countries at the time. To the extent that it had existed in the US I think it was killed by the Civil War.
Kaor, Jim! I am not so sure. The grandiose talk among some Americans, circa 1917-1919, about the war to end wars falls into that category of bombast.
Ad astra! Sean
Bombast that is adjacent to but somewhat different from the attitude in pre ww1 Germany.
If I have it correct the German attitude was that warfare was needed to maintain essential human virtues.
The "War to end Wars" implies warfare is an evil best ended permanently. I know you don't think that possible, but they are different attitudes toward war.
Kaor, Jim!
We do agree, at least, on how there are different attitudes for regarding wars.
Not quite so sure the Germans regarded wars as you described it, pre-WW I. My impression was they believed wars should be fought and won as quickly as possible. Long wars are far more costly and comes with higher chances of being lost!
Ad astra! Sean
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