Almeida flies Yvonne home by helicopter:
"The ride was balm. Only a murmur of blades and wind, the gentlest quiver through seat and flesh, broke stillness." (p. 53)
The wind always plays along in Poul Anderson's texts. Yvonne is enjoying a metaphorical quiet after the storm so this wind merely murmurs. During the journey, she becomes unsettled when Almeida challenges her liberal intellectual world-view. Consequently (?), on arrival:
""A cold wind streaked by, ruffling hair and slacks, sheathing her face." (p. 56)
While they are still airborne, Anderson places them in their cosmic context by listing some visible stars and constellations:
Deneb
Vega
Pegasus
the Great Bear
Draco
Polaris
Almeida's profile joins our list of objects:
"...seen against the Milky Way..." (p. 53)
Almeida:
"'I think [America] can better be trusted than anyone else -'" (p. 56)
How many people think that their country can be trusted better than any other? But this time it happens to be true? They all say that as well. I happen to think that the world needs something more than just one of the current super powers gaining more power than any of the others. Do I think that my view is right? Of course I do. Otherwise, it would not be my point of view. Does my thinking that my view is right prove that it is right? Of course not! How many people need to grasp this distinction?
The BBC TV series, Doctor Who, primarily aimed at school children, was also watched by University students. When a stereotypical militarist, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, said (paraphrasing), "And, of course, the only country that all other countries could trust not to misuse military intelligence in its own interests was Great Britain!," University students laughed. Was that script written very cleverly as nationalist propaganda for one age group but as satire for another?
20 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I believe the world was fortunate that first the British Empire and then the US were the major guarantors of whatever peace and order the world has had since 1914.
You keep hoping for something "better," whatever that might be. The best that might have a chance of arising would be something like the "Anglosphere": an alliance of English speaking nations powerful enough to enforce the peace. Then that might evolve into something like the Solar Commonwealth in the Technic stories.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Whatever that might be? Something better than the present chaos is easily imaginable. An Anglosphere is certainly unacceptable to most of the people of the world. We need a Terrasphere. There are people throughout the world who want something better. I hope that the people of Egypt and surrounding countries will make an Arab Summer. There is certainly enough dissatisfaction to generate more action.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
The last thing we should expect is anything ideal! And what you hope for re Egypt is highly unlikely. Egypt will most likely continue to have military dictators and fanatical Muslims will continue to preach jihad and hatred of all non-Muslims. To say nothing of aggressive powers like Russia and China also stirring up chaos.
So, yes, an "Anglosphere" is preferable!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
An Anglosphere will just be opposed forever more. We need an active coming together at an international level, not just a talking shop like the UN. Are Russia and China the only aggressive powers? This one-sidedness is part of the problem.
Paul.
We should not expect an ideal. We should certainly work for something much better than we have at present.
Kaor, Paul!
Except you are overlooking the cultural and hence political influence of English, spread first by the British Empire and then the US. India alone has millions of people learning English because they prefer it to any of the local languages. And South Sudan recently adopted English as its official language, instead of any of its tribal languages.
All merely human institutions are going to be kludges, the kind of active coming together on an international level that you desire is not going to happen. At best some kind of alliance led by one of the powers will impose its will on the world.
Yes, I'm "one sided," because I believe my country, the US, is by far the most preferable of the great powers. And I believe Western civilization is the best now existing.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We do not know what is not going to happen.
But the US is capable of aggression and is arming the Israelis right now.
Paul.
I wouldn't want so much an 'Anglosphere' as a 'Democracysphere'. Something that would now include most of Europe, plus countries like South Korea, Japan, Taiwan.
Sean: Your vision of what Russia might have become if the effects of the reforms of 1906 had not been aborted, would be included.
Kaor, Paul and Jim!
Paul: All nations, without exception, can be, has been, or/and will be aggressive. The only reason the curious co-Principality of Andorra has never been aggressive is because, stuck as it is between France and Spain, it can't nurse expansionist ambitions.
Jim: But what are some of the most prominent ideas to spread from Great Britain? Ideas about precisely that, what I prefer to call ideas about the desirability of the state, any state, having only limited powers and that the base it stands on should be as wide as possible. Such ideas would be part of what such an Anglosphere offers. So it would not necessarily be impossible for some Asian and European nations to join such an alliance.
That quote from Adalbert Parr's ORIENTATION MANUAL in the first story of Anderson/Dickson's EARTHMAN'S BURDEN was eerily prescient of such ideas about the Anglosphere!
Exactly! Tsarist Russia embarked on a far more hopeful path in 1906. It was horribly tragic that it was aborted just as it was succeeding.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We do not need to be always aggressive. I do not understand the failure to understand that the most basic fact is change. Everything that exists has already undergone the greatest possible change, from non-existence to existence. The idea that, as things have been, they will always be is definitely wrong. Of course, everything could possibly change to what I would regard as worse. But it will not stay the same.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But "change" often happens because humans can be aggressive, competitive, ambitious in ways other than the simply warlike. "Changes" will not come from people being passive and inert, they come from men willing to push the boundaries. I don't expect that to change.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course SOME change comes from aggression, competition and ambition!
I am NOT advocating passivity or inertia!
No wonder we cannot agree if the issues have become as confused as that.
I am indeed talking about pushing boundaries and going beyond them: creativity; activity; encouraging invention and original thinking; thinking outside the box, not always inside it; finding new ways to do things etc.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I agree with "changes" of that kind, because they fit in with how humans actually behave. E.g., something as simple as tallow candles were probably invented as long ago as the Old Stone Age, as a means of providing more illumination than just a campfire. But I would not be surprised if the inventor faced resistance from grumblers who insisted that what was good enough for Grandpa (a campfire) was good enough for them!
But technological/scientific changes will not, I firmly believe, somehow include humans changing themselves into almost the reverse of what they are. That is where we differ.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Scientific/technological changes do change our perspectives but do not in themselves bring about a fundamental psychological transformation but we ourselves are capable of taking further initiatives and this will be even more true when the benefits of technology are finally deployed to liberate all of humanity from physical deprivation and drudgery. Some will not adjust well but others will. And subsequent generations will grow up in a different social environment with different assumptions, expectations, values, life-styles, the works.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I do not believe one bit that the mere abolition of "deprivation and drudgery" will somehow change humans so that they will no longer be so prone to being quarrelsome, strife prone, ambitious, power and status seeking. Iow, I believe in the Fallen nature of mankind and that is simply not going to change no matter how hard some wish it would.
In GENESIS we see Anderson examining a possible society where everything you hope for, economically and socially, had seemingly been achieved. But even after many generations we still see violent factionalism breaking out. My belief remains Anderson was far more realistic!
No, humans are going to remain a kludged up mess and wise statesmen will accept that is what we are and work for what will actually have a chance of succeeding than for Utopian impossibilities.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Liberation will not "somehow change" people but will open up possibilities for further development and some will act on those possibilities. We have risen, not fallen. I believe that this is true no matter how hard some wish otherwise.
I admire and appreciate Anderson but do not always agree with him. There is no motivation for violent factionalism when people no longer have to compete or fight for what they need and want. We do not now fight for the air that we breathe but (some of us) would fight for the last oxygen cylinder in a space station. I am making concrete points here, not just expressing vague abstractions or aspirations.
I am not advising statesmen who manage societies but talking about what we can make of our societies which are nothing but the relationships between us. The statesmen, as long as we need people in such roles, adjust to change.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then we can't agree. Over and over I've tried to point out humans don't need rational reasons for being quarrelsome, ambitious, power and status seeking, etc. Anything and any excuse will do, no matter how absurd. Which is also what we see in GENESIS.
We belong to a Fallen race, any "rises" we have can only be in the scientific/technological sense, and cannot remove our Fallen nature. Only by keeping that in mind will make tolerable societies/states possible.
The most successful statesmen are hard headed realists who work with the grain of human nature, not against it.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We see many instances of human beings living peacefully, not finding excuses to quarrel. These instances can be extended.
We do not belong to a Fallen race. We have risen from animality.
Human nature is change. I am not advising statesmen.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Except you are overlooking how easily quarrels and violence can break out, at any time by anyone. And of course the State exists in the background to crack down on such things.
Then we are going to have to agree to disagree, about mankind not being Fallen.
I believe only scientific/technological changes are possible.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Quarrels and violence cannot break out easily at any time between anyone. That is an absurd exaggeration. There are many situations in which people walking to different churches on Sunday morning do not suddenly attack and kill each other.
Of course we disagree about the Fall! But you will not get me to accept it simply by repeating it, especially since it flies in the face of all the evidence for our evolutionary origin.
Social changes and also massive changes in our understanding and in our responses to the world as we understand it have already happened.
Paul.
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