Eve Davison to Philippe Rochefort on the pacifist planet, Esperance:
"'This world was settled by people who believed in peace,' she said. Her tone mourned rather than accused." (IV, p. 487)
"'- the star named Pax, the planet named Esperance are being geared for war. It hurts.'" (p. 488)
Daniel Holm in phone conference on Avalon:
"Anger crackled through clearly enough. Two of the three holographs on the com board before him seemed about to climb out of their screens and into his office. No doubt he gave their originals the same impression." (V, p. 490)
There is disagreement about defense spending, of course.
Mourning on Esperance and anger on Avalon: Poul Anderson presents the full gamut of human responses to the prospect of war. The story is slanted so that Daniel Holm's war preparations are fully justified, of course. It is a good story.
34 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And real world military preparations are necessary in the here and now, because the US confronts brutal, savage, and barbaric enemies.
Ad astra! Sean
Including itself, surely?
Kaor, Paul!
False equivalence. Unlike Maoist China the US is not mercilessly grinding to extinction, the Tibetans and Uighurs, nationalities comprising millions of people. Unlike the Russia of the ex-Chekist Putin, the US is not waging war against another nation in flagrant violation of the norms set by the Geneva and Hague conventions. And, unlike the holy Muslim ghazis who massacred over 30,000 Christians in Nigeria alone over the past decade, the US is not slaughtering anyone like that.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The US is not funding any slaughter or violating any conventions?
This is all a one-sided argument. The US is part and parcel, still the most powerful part, of a global power structure. Many people around the world oppose that structure.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
One sided because it's true sided! Whatever half way tolerable order the world has is because of the US and its power. If there was no US the savages I listed would have a much freer hand!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
No. The people of the world are waiting to come into their own.
Is the US not funding slaughter and violating conventions?
Paul.
Sean,
We do not discuss. You flatly state...
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
What I say so "flatly" is nothing but sober truth, based on the hard facts of what the world is really like. I have even suggested how an Anglosphere/United Commonwealths could be the beginning of something better, an alliance of civilized nations evolving into a Terran or World Federation. All I've ever seen in response is hopeless, futile, Utopian unrealism.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Everyone believes that his opinion is sober truth. Your attitude to your opinions is no different from anyone else's. My opinions have changed so that what I thought was sober truth I no longer think is sober truth.
I have given lots of arguments and evidence that my hopes for a possible future are not hopeless, futile, Utopian unrealism. Nothing is achieved by repeating this. We can continue to disagree, of course, but it should not be on this basis - just stating as if it were an indisputable fact that the other person is wrong.
Surely the US is in fact supporting and funding slaughter that violates conventions?
Paul.
Sean,
BTW, perhaps we can clear up one point. I acknowledge that I have not convinced you. If the entire discussion boils down to the question of whether I have convinced you, then I acknowledge that I have not. Nor am I going to. Some views, once set, remain forever unchangeable. I reply because I want to demonstrate that I can formulate a reply, not because I am even trying to convince the other side in this particular exchange. Anyone else who reads these exchanges (!) will have their own thoughts on the matter and some of them will not be saying that one side is completely right and the other side completely wrong but will be saying something else entirely. Human thought in general will move beyond irreconcilable antitheses. Future society will be different. I do not know what it will be like.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree we have opposing, irreconcilable POV.
I have not seen any evidence supporting your hopes and speculations for the future.
I have seen bungling by the US, as in "Josip's" chaotic, badly planned, incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan leading to people's deaths. I have not seen the kind of malevolence I listed above from Muslims, Chinese, or Russians by the US.
I disagree with your last comment above. Because I absolutely expect human beings to continue having irreconcilable disagreements in the future as we see now.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I have seen evidence that technology and society change and can change further in the future.
I meant that thought will move beyond our present irreconcilable antitheses. I make no predictions about anything else.
You and I clearly see different things when we look out into the world! I ask whether the US is funding any slaughter and you don't see it.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course merely technological changes will affect human societies. But not all of those "social" changes are going to be beneficial. Nor will they remove our innate flaws/imperfections.
Your comment about "thought" is vague.
Until you can cite specific examples of deliberate malice by the US as regards "slaughter," I reject your animadversions against it. And the atrocities I listed by Muslims, Chinese, and Russians have not stopped, but are continuing.
Whether you like it or not the US remains the single most powerful defender of whatever hope the world has for some kind of liberty.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We do not have any innate (in the sense of permanently, eternally unchangeable) characteristics. Everything that has come into existence can and will go out of existence.
My comment about thought is perfectly clear. People look back at earlier disagreements from different perspectives.
Of course I can cite current continuing examples of slaughter supported and funded by the US. I think that you need to access a wider range of news media.
Whether you like it or not, the US defends its own economic and strategic interests, not some kind of liberty.
Paul.
(This is an interesting exercise. You really do not know what I am referring to.)
It's good to be strong; strong enough to deter attack, at the very least.
Paul: yes, all characteristics can be changed.
But -genetic- characteristics cannot be -quickly- or -easily- changed.
Absent genetic engineering, it takes long, long, long periods of time.
That's what evolution is. It's important to realize the time-scales.
Dogs are different from wolves; that's the product of 20,000 years of selective breeding.
Kaor, Paul!
Disagree, we do have innate flaws due to mankind being Fallen.
Also, even if that was not the case, the kind of implausible changes you hope for would take many thousands of years to come about via evolution. Unless you want to try genetic engineering. Which comes with high risks!
My view is humans thousands of years from now will have their own quarrels and conflicts.
You still have not provided any specific examples of slaughter funded by the US as vicious as the examples perpetrated by Muslims, Chinese, and Russians. Until you do I'll dismiss your animadversions against the US.
Of the US looks after its interests! There's nothing wrong with that. I would expect any self-respecting nation to do that, such as the UK.
Whether you like it or not the US is still the single most powerful defender of any kind of liberty or half way tolerable world order we have.
Bluntly, I don't trust leftist "sources." I've seen too many lies from leftists, as they defended or tried to defend too many monsters and tyrants. I've not forgotten how Lincoln Steffens, as long ago as 1919, bleated "I have seen the future, and it works" (after visiting Russia). I have zero use for defenders of monsters like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc., etc.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I do not agree that we are Fallen. We have risen and can rise further.
You do not understand that I am arguing first that people as they are now act very differently in different conditions and secondly that, with technology and social reorganization, we can radically change social conditions. This requires neither further evolution nor genetic engineering.
Many people around the world would be astonished that you have not realized that I am referring to US-backed Israeli slaughter of Palestinian men, women and children: over 50,000 dead by early April. These are not civilian deaths unfortunately caused while attacking military targets. It has been said in Israel that there is no difference between Palestinian combatants and civilians. The IDF defends settler violence in the West Bank. I know that you disagree with all this but you should have realized what I meant. Consult other news media, not just "leftist" sources.
Whether you like it or not, the US has defended its interests by backing tyrants, not defending liberty.
Bluntly, I distrust your rightist "sources."
I have replied in kind although I dislike phrases like "Whether you like it or not...," "Bluntly..." etc.
Paul.
Paul: the Hamas-controlled health authorities in Gaza don't distinguish between civilian and military casualties.
It's about 60%-40% according to what I've been able to gather. That's an unusually low civilian death toll for fighting in a built-up and densely populated area. In those circumstances, it's often 90% to 10%.
And Hamas deliberately attempts to maximize civilian casualties among their own population by locating military targets in schools, hospitals, etc. They've come right out and admitted that.
So the consequences are strictly on them, and are absolutely their responsibility.
As I've mentioned before, there are no rules against killing civilians, only against -targeting- civilians.
War is not law enforcement.
If there are civilians between you and your objective, you're fully entitled to blast right through them.
So sad, too bad, c'est la guerre.
I am still opposed to the whole Great Powers involvement in the Middle East because of oil. Backing one side (whichever side) against the other exacerbates conflicts indefinitely.
Can you give me a source for Hamas admitting maximizing civilian casualties? I will see what responses I get to it from some people on our side of the argument.
I would want either not to fight a war in the first place or to fight it in a completely different way. I would want not to blast through civilians but to engage in a propaganda war pointing out the rights and wrongs of the issues involved. Not easy but a lot less harmful and destructive than blasting through flesh and blood.
Well, here are a few quotes:
Hamas senior leader Ismail Haniyeh, commenting on the loss of civilian life in Gaza on October 26, 2023:
“The blood of the women, children and elderly […] we are the ones who need this blood, so it awakens within us the revolutionary spirit.”
In an exchange with Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, after three of his sons and four of his grandchildren were killed in an airstrike in northern Gaza, Sinwar told him that their deaths, along with the deaths of other Gazans, would “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.”
You can get more with a Google search.
Paul, nobody ever won a war with propaganda.
Sure. My aim is not to win a war but to change the world away from wars and that requires winning over a lot of people on "both sides" of current conflicts.
Thank you for the quotations. Although opposed to the IDF bombardment of the Gaza ghetto, I am certainly not a political supporter of Hamas.
Kaor, Paul!
Then only a clarifying of opposing views re the Fall is possible.
I do understand what you mean by "different conditions." I simply don't believe that will somehow change human beings. You are only hoping that will happen.
Stirling has responded to the false, malicious, or one sided accusations made against Israel as regards civilian casualties in the war Hamas started. I would recommend going to the COMMENTARY magazine website, which has pub. many articles (with facts, figures, cited sources) refuting/correcting all the charges made against Israel.
Of course the US has sometimes backed unsavory leaders in its struggles against the USSR. Because sometimes that was necessary. I recall how FDR, during WW II, responded to an adviser who complained a Central American ally was a "son of a bitch." The President replied, "Sure, but he's our son of a bitch." Anderson himself agreed that kind of thing was often necessary.
Only hard headed realism, an acceptance that often all you can do is choose the lesser evil, is going to work.
Ad asta! Sean
Sean,
You don't understand "different conditions"? This looks to me like willful misunderstanding.
Condition (i): I am penniless and hungry so I am tempted to steal food.
Condition (ii): I am always well-fed so it never occurs to me to steal food.
I am not just hoping that (ii) will happen.
Sean, Hamas did not start all this conflict. The conflict goes back to 1948. Accusations against Israel are informed and are not false, malicious or one sided. I feel that your approach to these issues is very one sided. Gaza has been flattened. Children have lost limbs and been traumatized.
Of course the US has sometimes backed unsavoury leaders! My point exactly. The USSR was always weaker and never a threat to the US.
Hard headed realism means that you are just one of two sides in a power struggle. Many people out here reject that power struggle but you don't see us if you only think in terms of two sides.
I do not claim to agree with Poul Anderson on these issues.
Paul.
You need to either stop using the word "Fallen" now and then or say something to back it up.
Kaor, Paul!
I do understand what you mean by "conditions." I simply don't agree that material "poverty" (which is often only relative) is the major cause of all our conflicts. People can and often do fight and compete over things other than food. Such as defending/fighting for causes they believe in (like a faith or a nation). Or they compete for status, office, power.
Disagree, what you said about the Hamas terrorists and Israel. To say nothing of how Hamas has often lied about the casualties in this war. Hamas has been the direct cause of many of these casualties because its goons hide behind non-combatants in hospitals and schools. Hamas is guilty of their deaths and injuries.
Incorrect, the USSR was a threat to the US, which its Marxist-Leninist ideology caused it to regard as the prime obstacle to spreading global socialism. And, until the death of Brezhnev, it was far more eager to amass nuclear weapons than the US. And its general staff gave serious and intensive thought to how to fight and win a war against the US and its allies (including the UK). It was only the caution of the Politburo which prevented the USSR from pushing its luck too far.
People who think as you do about "power struggles" don't rule the world. Nor do I ever expect them to, because they would have to compete and struggle for office and power themselves.
All I have to do is look around to see how imperfect we all are, including me! Since you want something more I'll quote this bit from page of Fr. John Hardon's POCKET CATHOLIC DICTIONARY (Image/Doubleday: 1980, 1985): "FALLEN NATURE. Human nature since the fall of Adam. It is a nature that lacks the right balance it had originally. It is a wounded but not perverted nature. Since the fall, man has a built in bias away from what is morally good and toward what is wrong. He is weakened in his ability to know the truth and to want the truly good. With the help of grace, however, he can overcome these natural tendencies and become sanctified in the process."
Ad astra! Sean
Drat, I meant page 144 of Fr. Hardon's book.
Sean
Sean,
Disagree. Incorrect. Israel is slaughtering Palestinians and cannot wash its hands by blaming Hamas. Is there really any point in going on with all this?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Not true, as I and others have tried to explain. You are supporting the wrong side and a bad cause.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
True, as many can explain. By opposing the bombardment of Gaza and the settler violence in the West Bank, I am opposing a bad cause and am not, by doing that, supporting Hamas politically.
I would prefer not to engage in a "Not true," "True" exchange but I don't think tat we can go any further with this.
Paul.
think that
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