If an interstellar spaceship is unable to return to Earth, then someone on board must take charge to ensure survival. To whom do I refer?
In Tau Zero, the Leonora Christine is cut off from humanity because it accelerates outward indefinitely so the constable, Charles Reymont, takes charge.
In After Doomsday, the Benjamin Franklin is cut from humanity because humanity has been exterminated so the engineer, Carl Donnan, takes charge.
Similar situations, similar heroes. Men who see what needs to be done and also see who they can organize to get it done:
"'...stop asking them what they think we ought to do. Tell them what we're going to do.'" (3, p. 32)
Preferably, a group of people would be able to decide for themselves what to do but Donnan has to take charge in a situation where that is the exact opposite of the case.
"'Organize [those who '...have more self-control than average...'] into an anti-riot guard.'" (ibid.)
I do not like anti-riot guards at the best of times but Donnan is facing an emergency and the disintegration of a crew with one faction chanting "'Kill the swine! Kill the swine!'" (p. 30) at precisely the time when every single human life has become even more precious than it already was.
21 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
No, in chaotic emergency situations any attempt to "democratically" decide what to do via a committee is more likely than not to end up with nothing being done that works. Sometimes all that can be done is one man to seize power.
Carl Donnan would not have needed to do that seizing if the captain of the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN had not killed himself and his executive officer had not shown himself unable to take over command.
Humans being what they are, we are always going to need police forces, and one of their jobs will be to put down riots.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We are not always going to be as we are and we are not always going to need police forces. Riots happen in conditions that can be prevented. Food for all: no food riots. Racial equality: no race riots.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then we can't agree, because I don't believe human beings will somehow no longer be as flawed, imperfect, quarrelsome, competitive, violent, strife prone, etc., as we see them in the real world. What you hope for is hopeless unrealism.
No, riots are bad things and needs to be put down. And many riots are caused by trivia like football hooligans brawling about their favorite teams. Or partisans of the Blues and Greens chariot racing teams in the Constantinople of the Eastern Empire.
Ad astra! Sean
In haste. Will well fed, well treated, well educated people with full equality riot about nothing or about their philosophical disagreements?
Sports fans are violent because they are alienated. Comfortable, happy people do not riot.
Kaor, Paul!
No, many human beings are still going to be aggressive, power and status seeking, or partisans not matter how well fed they might be. In fact, more so than starving proletarians, because of having the strength and energy needed to be riotous and partisan!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
You keep merely stating that but I keep describing different conditions in which behaviour would be different. There are many situations in which large groups of people do not think of being riotous and those situations can be extended.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Because there can be no guarantee those peaceful situations will last--and it's very likely they will not.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We might just possibly be getting somewhere here. If it is agreed that there can be peaceful situations in which no one has any motivation to become violent, then the next step is to discuss how those situations can be prolonged. And they can be: nanotech; new cultures and expectations; people growing up in a completely changed social environment where the priorities are entirely different. People are capable of all this. It is not guaranteed especially not if the environment continues to be destroyed, if populations continue to tolerate governments that think wars are a good idea, in fact just business as usual, if vested interests continue to oppose any real change and succeed in doing so, if there is continued ideological resistance to the idea that we can live differently...
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
First, let me clear up a possible misunderstanding: there can be no guarantee that peaceful people of one generation will have children/grandchildren who share their views. I fully expect some will be competitive, ambitious, and aggressive. That is why I can't believe in what you hope for. Also, the technological advances you speculated about will become practical precisely because of the types of forceful, ambitious, competitive traits you dislike in people.
Wars are tolerated not just because of gov'ts, but because their peoples so often support them. And not always for bad reasons.
I can think of why so many don't want to live "differently" in the ways you seem to prefer. Convinced Catholics want to live as Catholics, ditto for evangelical Protestants, Hindus, Muslims, atheist secularists, Britons, Americans, Japanese, etc. The fact is that you are not going to get everyone to agree with you.
We simply can't agree.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But we only need peaceful coexistence. There is no need to try to bring it about that all Catholics become Hindus or vice versa. And there is no need to be aggressive if society is organized in such a way that everyone can get what they need without being aggressive. Of course conflict HAS been a large part of how we got to where we are now. There is no need to deny that.
Paul.
"if vested interests continue to oppose any real change and succeed in doing so"
See the opponents of the Gracchi brothers.
What might Rome have been like with some such reform?
Kaor, Paul and Jim!
Paul: My absolute belief remains that no matter how prosperous a society might be there are always going to be some who are dissatisfied, and prone to being competitive, aggressive, or violent. And that was Anderson's view, as we see in GENESIS.
Let me cite an all too contemporary example of people refusing to get along with those who disagree with them. The US Supreme Court's decision in the "Dobbs" case reversing, rightly, "Roe vs. Wade," and returning to the States the authority properly belonging to them of whether or not abortion should be "legal," infuriated the most fanatical supporters of what can only be called murder of the unborn. These pro-abortionists have shown themselves unwilling to co-exist with those who disagree with them. And there are many other similar issues!
Jim: I doubt the later Roman Republic was salvageable. The fate of the Gracchi brothers shows how too many opposed them for their ideas to work. The rivalry between Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla shows how the Republic was collapsing into an era of civil wars.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Conditions now are not conditions as they can be.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I remain skeptical those "conditions" will change in the future to be as wholly satisfactory as you hope will be the case.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Imagine that you are at a dinner party with several close friends. Any of you has the physical ability at any time to stab one of the others with his dinner knife. You have the "free will" to do this although that alone would be a totally inadequate explanation if one of you ever did it. In fact, it does not occur to anyone to do such a thing. If it were suggested as a hypothetical possibility, then it would be dismissed as unthinkable and abhorrent. It is possible to imagine a population whose material and social conditions are such that no one ever thinks of attacking an acquaintance or a stranger. Each individual would express his beliefs by practising them and sometimes in reasoned discourse but never by physical violence. "How could killing anyone disprove his beliefs?" they would ask. They would be appalled when they read histories of intolerance and persecution. Growing up in a peaceful society, they would have no experience of violence and nothing would ever provoke them to act violently. This is just as possible (not inevitable) a future society as many others. Why there should be anything permanently unchangeable in human behaviour in any conditions is beyond me. Everything that exists, from an atom to a human brain, exists in certain conditions, changes as its conditions change and eventually goes out of existence, i.e., is transformed into something else.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Your scenario about the dinner party would indeed be abhorrent to the small group of persons involved. But I can imagine mystery writers playing with that idea, which is what I think Agatha Christie did in TEN LITTLE INDIANS.
But, we still can't agree about the larger point you made, not when it comes to millions or billions of people. You don't even need a majority of people to be violent, aggressive, competitive, fanatical, etc., for that to affect any and all nations. Nothing I've seen in real history and life makes me think what you hope for is even possible.
The best we can hope for is for a reasonably tolerable state to exist which manages to keep internal peace without being excessively harsh doing so. To say nothing of the problem posed by outside enemies!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But we are not talking about history or current life. We are talking about future possibilities, including one where the whole Earth is peaceful and there are no longer outside enemies!
Why should a minority be violent, aggressive, competitive or fanatical when everyone has been brought up in a society that is the opposite of all that? Any very small minority would be easily restrained, confined and offered psychological help. When asked to imagine a fundamentally different society, you continue to imagine a perpetuation of past and current societies. And, of course, this becomes repetitive.
If all that is being said is that there are massive obstacles to the construction of the kind of society that I am talking about, then that is undeniable. This very disagreement is an example of that.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Because I don't believe what you hope for is possible. Correct, what you said about past and current kinds of societies, which I expect to exist in the future--because that is exactly what human beings are like!
We are not going to agree. Best to agree to disagree.
Ad astra! Sean
Let's not go through this again.
After all that, I can still say that the way people have been and are is not necessarily the way they will always be. There are conditions in which people do live without conflict and those conditions can be extended. If it is replied that there are obstacles to bringing this about, that is not disputed.
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