The Brothers are precocious. One of them is keen to become involved in an operation:
"He was still young enough to find this a glorious cloak-and-dagger adventure. Well, he'd learn, and the learning would be a little death within him." (X, p. 96)
"The logical end-product of scientific warfare was that all data became military secrets - a society without feedback or stability. That was what he fought against." (p. 97)
Don't just win wars but end them.
This is the theme of James Blish's Cities In Flight, Volume I, They Shall Have Stars: all scientific discoveries are kept secret so that science itself is stifled. Those who make discoveries that can benefit all of mankind must work against both current power blocs.
24 comments:
The problem with that is that human beings are -inherently- political; that is, it's genetic, not learned behavior. The way it's -conceptualized- is partly learned.
And as the great pioneering sociologist Max Weber pointed out, "the ultimately decisive means of political action is always violence".
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And that, along with theological reasons, is why I cannot believe in such Utopian hopes.
Ad astra! Sean
People are capable of gathering and interacting in many ways that do not involve coercion. This can be generalized.
Kaor, Paul!
And that won't and cannot be permanently and reliably generalized. Always, in the background, you are going to need the State, with its monopoly of the means of violence, ready to enforce that peace, when needed.
So I dismiss hopeless Utopian fantasies!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We often nowadays do not need the State to intervene and can work toward needing it less and less. This is not a Utopian fantasy.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I see no evidence of that at all. Still a Utopian fantasy.
Ad astra! Sean
Paul: there have always been coercive and non-coercive interactions between human beings. Why should this change? If something has always involved X and Y, the way to bet is that it always will.
No evidence that we often do not need the State to intervene in social interactions?
(I would find it easier to discuss if there were not simply an absolute denial of everything I say. I wind up responding in kind.)
It should change when we produce everything that is needed so that there is no longer any need to fight for anything.
From Sean M. Brooks:
Kaor, Paul!
Because all you have been doing is offering unsubstantiated hopes and speculations--and that's not good enough.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I have offered a lot more than that. There are many social conditions in which people do not become violent. It is realistic to discuss how those conditions can be extended. But this exchange becomes far too repetitive.
Paul.
Paul: the State intervenes in 100% of social interactions -- by deterrence. People know that some actions will be punished; therefore they usually avoid them.
You don't have to have a policeman in the room for people to remember that there are policemen and laws.
I grant that. However, much of the time, we interact peacefully without consciously reflecting that there are police and laws.
Paul: yes, because we've -internalized- their presence.
You don't think about gravity consciously much, do you?
But if you go somewhere where there -aren't- such things, life immediately becomes something quite different.
Kaor, Paul!
And what you wrote above is only possible because of what I said about the existence of the State in the "background," which Stirling clarified by pointing out the State interacts in 100% of all social interactions. The fact that many times we don't have to remember there are laws and police is because of that deterrence factor.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It is also because many of us are civilized social beings who simply do not think of becoming violent.
Paul.
Paul: it's only possible to be civilized as a social being if there's a State that enforces its monopoly of force. Otherwise, you're back with Otzi the Iceman; shot in the back with an arrow, and defense cuts on his forearms. Research on human remains indicates that prior to the State, violence was the commonest way for an adult male to die. And quite common for adult females.
In the absence of coercion, it only takes a minority who are willing/want to be violent to force -everyone- to be continuously ready to fight.
Kaor, Paul!
And what you said about "civilized social beings" is only possible because of the existence of the State. The chaos in Venezuela and Haiti going on right now should tell you how easily we can suffer the fate of Otzi the Iceman when the State collapses or loses all legitimacy. It only needs a minority of violent thugs to force everyone to be continuously ready to fight.
Ad astra! Sean
I am talking not about a return to barbarism or a collapse of any current state but an advance to a high tech society where the old reasons for fighting no longer exist. There will not be arrows. Any isolated individuals who became violent with their fists in argument would be physically restrained by the majority.
"Any isolated individuals who became violent with their fists in argument would be physically restrained by the majority."
How would that majority be different from a state?
Jim,
Well, it wouldn't. As long as it was necessary for a majority to restrain an anti-social minority, then the majority would still be exercising a state function: force; coercion. However, some people, including me, envisage a scenario where this state function would become less and less necessary and certainly would no longer take the form of a permanent body of armed and uniformed men set apart from the rest of society. I have tried to spell out very different social conditions like vast wealth held in common so that no one any longer has any motivation to "steal" from anyone else. Imagine the word, "steal," becoming redundant. We do not steal air now - but might do so if we were trapped in a space station with a limited number of oxygen cylinders. Everything that we do assumes a context and we can change the context. We cannot scapegoat immigrants for homelessness or unemployment if there is no homelessness or unemployment. We cannot wage war if humanity is no longer divided into armed nation states. It does not occur to me to lynch my neighbour although that might have occurred to me if I had been indoctrinated to see people who were different as a threat and if I also saw people who looked like me getting away with murder. Think about all the conditions that bring about violence and then think about changing those conditions. There are no food riots if there are no food shortages. There no members of oppressed or deprived minorities resorting to violence if no minorities are oppressed or deprived. Any individuals who imagined completely non-existent grievances would be so few and far between that they would easily be dealt with - and helped.
Paul.
are
Kaor, Paul!
Then only a clarifying of views is possible, because I don't believe at all in the plausibility of what you hope for. And certainly not in things like the "common ownership of everything."
Also, you are overlooking an obvious flaw in your hopes for how a "majority" could over a violent and criminal "minority": a gang of four could assault and overpower one or two law abiding persons and make their getaway. Innocent citizens could never be sure when or where they might be attacked.
Result: the State would still need a police force and courts for handling criminals. It's either that or a war of all against all as everybody is forced to be continuously on the alert for violence and attacks.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I don't know where this gang of four get their motivation from in the completely different social conditions that I envisage.
Paul.
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