"'No nation on this world could even reach my people unaided - let alone fight them - but why should you think of fighting? I've told you a thousand times, Isklip, the dwellers in the Milky Way are dangerous to none, helpful to all. They have so much wealth, they're hard put to it to find a use for most of it. Gladly would they spend large amounts to help all the peoples on this world become civilized again.'" (p. 120)
"Ah, greater marvels than the poets have imagined for Elf Land! Entire cities built in a single tower half a mile high. The sky made to glow so that there is no true darkness after sunset. Food not grown in the earth, but manufactured in alchemical laboratories. The lowest peasant owning a score of machines which serve him more subtly and humbly than might a thousand slaves - owning an aerial carriage which can fly him around his world in less than a day - owning a crystal window on which theatrical images appear, to beguile his abundant leisure. Argosies between suns, stuffed with the wealth of a thousand planets; yet every ship unarmed and unescorted, for their are no pirates and this realm has long ago come to such good terms with the other starfaring nations that war has also ceased.'" (pp. 126-127)
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
My reaction to what looks like a Utopian fantasy, as quoted from "The Longest Voyage," is to be wary and skeptical. I would remember the old adage that if something is too good to be true, that's very likely the case, too good to be true!
I've said over and over that people don't need rational reasons to have conflicts and wars. I have in mind things like pride, ambition, lust for power, ideological fanaticism of any kind being more than enough to bring on conflicts and wars. Or plain old barbarian raids and invasions.
I suspect decades of being stranded on a backward planet ended up with Val Nira nostalgically idealizing/exaggerating what he thought he remembered.
Ad astra! Sean
Jonathan Swift nailed it in GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, in the kingdom convulsed by the civil war between "Big Enders" and "Little Enders".
They're fighting about which end of a boiled egg to break open when you're eating one.
Would people kill each other over that? Yup, you betcha.
Hell, they kill each other over football teams -- or in ancient Byzantium, over which chariot-racing team was best.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! I should have remembered that example from GULLIVER'S TRAVELS of the Lilliputians fighting each other over Lilliputian disagreements. People can and will fight violently over similarly trivial things now!
And I remembered reading of how graphically Procopius described the battles between the chariot racing factions in his histories. And, of course, when the Blues and Greens of Constantinople united to nearly succeed in overthrowing Justinian I in 532.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
There can be lust for power only in a society where there are relationships of power.
Paul.
In a society where there is already conflict and alienation, many people will focus on and fight over trivia because it is easier to do this than to address the real problems.
Those whose job it is to maintain the status quo at all costs want the majority to remain divided and weak.
Well fed people do not food riot. People brought up to be well-informed, broad-minded and tolerant do not harbour irrational prejudices. Immigrants are not scapegoated for social deprivations if there are no social deprivations - which there need not be.
Conflicts have causes which can be addressed and eliminated. They do not just happen.
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree. All human societies, without a single exception, have "relationships of power." It is impossible to have a society without such "relationships," hierarchies of command and authority. And such things has been traced back to the most primitive hunter/gatherer societies. And that means there will be competition by both men and women for those positions of command.
No, the real problem is how flawed and imperfect, both as a species and as individuals, all humans are. Dreamy, unrealistic Utopianism will not eliminate that. And I support those who want to maintain status quos which are not too terribly bad. I have no patience for Utopian fantasies!
Disagree, well fed people can and do fight and riot for any reason at all, for mostly bad excuses. Or succumb to the kind of despair we see see in Anderson's "Quixote and the Windmill." And there are always going to be "social deprivations," because human beings are capable of being infinitely dissatisfied.
Conflicts happen because we are all permanently imperfect.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Disagree. Immense wealth held in common will eliminate economic coercion and will therefore also eliminate any need for state coercion. We must look forward, not backward. This is realistic, not unrealistic.
Well fed people do not riot for food. In a society where there are already conflicts and alienations, many people do focus on and fight about trivia because it is easier to do this than to address the real problems.
With our technology, intelligence and ingenuity, we can aim to build something far better than "...not too terribly bad." Many things are terribly bad right now. Our rulers prefer to wage war than to address the climate crisis.
People who think that paid work is their only meaningful activity will often despair if deprived of that work but people brought up in a completely different society with other kinds of meaningful activity will not think like that.
There do not always have to be deprivations of material, social or psychological necessities. Infinitely dissatisfied?
Conflicts happen because of causes which can be identified and eliminated. If enough people believe in "...permanently imperfect...," then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We have evolved from animality to humanity and have developed from primitive to technologically civilized. If we do not destroy ourselves (currently a very real possibility), then we have an indefinite future in which to develop further.
Paul.
"Jonathan Swift nailed it in GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, in the kingdom convulsed by the civil war between "Big Enders" and "Little Enders"."
Because of an argument in computer design about whether to have the most significant bit at the start or the end of a binary number, started to seem silly to some people, the two ways of doing it got called bigendian and litteendian. ;)
Paul: to date, -all- human societies have relationships of power.
Once can be coincidence, twice can be happenstance, the third time you're seeing a pattern, as the saying goes.
Jim: yup, Swift nailed it.
Kaor, Paul!
Then we are going to have to disagree. I don't believe what you hope for is realistic. And if not realistic then neither is it desirable. I find Swift's biting satires far more plausible!
Ad astra! Sean
I think things like Swift's satire makes people a bit more aware of the silliness, so sometimes they can manage to laugh at themselves and stop the fight before it comes to bloodshed. Unfortunately only sometimes.
Kaor, Jim!
You wish, I wish! But I am not convinced that has been the case. Humans to day remain as stubborn, bullheaded, irrational, quarrelsome, violent, etc., today as they were in Swift's time. But you halfway agree with me, I think.
Ad astra! Sean
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