The difference between how people perceive themselves and how they are perceived by others:
"'I'm only a local.'
"'You're a descendant of David Falkayn.'
"'That doesn't mean much.'
"'It does where I live.'" (III, p. 466)
And it means a lot to those of us who have read Anderson's History of Technic Civilization consecutively.
Human integration into Ythrian culture:
"'...I didn't think they used drugs much in Highsky either.'
"'They don't. Barring the sacred revels. Most of us keep to the Old Faith, you know.'" (VI, p. 502)
A threat for the future:
"'...the Roidhunate is far off and not very big. But it's growing at an alarming rate, and aggressive acquisitiveness is built into its ideology. The duty of an empire is to provide for the great-grandchildren.'" (III, p. 474)
Philippe Rochefort wonders whether their reproductive patterns determine the lives of intelligent organisms:
"But no, a Jerusalem Catholic can't believe that. Biological evolution inclines, it does not compel." (IV, p. 481)
We will see more of the Merseian Roidhunate and of Jerusalem Catholicism later in the Technic History.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The Roidhunate should have been strangled in its cradle! Well, no one could have predicted in "Day of Burning" what a danger Merseia would have been to the human race and its allies.
I agree with Rochefort, our evolution can only incline us to do certain things, it does not inevitably compels us to do them.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: the problem is that if you strangle anyone who -might- be a problem in the future in their cradle, you're going to empty a -lot- of cradles.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
True, which is why it would have been wrong to murder an infant Lenin merely for crimes he might have committed in the future.
Ad astra! Sean
At what point has a person (or organization) done enough bad that killing it is justified?
Killing an infant Hitler would be wrong. Shooting Hitler during or after the Beer Hall Putsch would likely have prevented a lot of grief.
Strangling the Rhoidunate early would be a different thing from letting the effects of the Valendaray supernova wreck Mersian civilization. Supporting anti-Rhoidun factions might have prevented a lot of bad.
Kaor, Jim!
A Russian analogue would be the July Days in 1917, during Lenin's first, failed, attempt at seizing power. That, and the revelation Lenin had been taking money from the Germans should have been seized on by either Prince George Lvov or his successor as PM, Kerensky, to shoot Lenin as the traitor he was. Without Lenin and his ruthlessness and cunning I don't think the Bolshies would have seized power.
Yes, after the Beer Hall Putsch, the Weimar gov't should have shot Hitler and a few other Nazis. Which is what Anderson suggested in a letter to me. Without the driving will and genius of Adolf National Socialism would have faded away to harmless irrelevance.
During/after the Time of Troubles there were struggles between rival Merseian nations, Vachs, and the disreputable Gethfennu over who would unify Merseia. There must have been factions among them who disliked the Merseians who defeated their rivals and founded the Roidhunate. Alas, they lost.
I'm guessing the Roidhunate was founded about a century before THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND. Or a little less than that. However far away and seemingly unimportant Merseia was, the Empire could have thrown its support to the most Terran friendly of those factions.
Ad astra! Sean
My understanding of the July Days is that the Bolsheviks held back workers who wanted to seize power in one city before the rest of the class was ready to move. I have seen this dramatized on TV as Lenin bottling out.
I accept the arguments in Lenin's STATE AND REVOLUTION which is unfinished because it was interrupted by the October Revolution.
Kaor, Paul!
Lenin was a traitor and a wannabe tyrant who should have been shot. Nor do I share this reverence for "workers." They are merely people who are just as corruptible and imperfect as all the rest of us.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Since 1848, most of the world's population have become "workers," people who are employed and receive a wage or salary. I have worked in this sense and I now count as a retired worker since I receive two pensions.
Workers are not only as finite and fallible as all the rest of us. They are most of the rest of us! Some theories of social change focus on the working class not because workers are perfect or incorruptible (!) but because they have become the majority (most of us) and because they have the collective power to take control of production and to redirect it from competition for profit to cooperation for need.
That at least is a theory. Whether it can be implemented is a practical question. I am certainly open to debate about this although, of course, our best attempts at debates become outright disagreements. But this where we and the world are at right now.
Paul.
...this IS where we and the world...
Kaor, Paul!
But the inference I get from so many leftists is that the only "workers" who matter are urban factory employees. Ignoring everybody else, such as white collar workers, professionals of all kinds, peasants, etc. And such leftists often ignore the often opposing interests of such groups.
Nor do I believe in your economic theories, which amounts to politicizing everything we see in an economy, which is about providing/producing goods and services of all kinds. I don't believe in the realism of, say, a bakery, somehow redirecting its activities from what it is supposed to do, producing and selling baked foods of all kinds at prices customers accept.
Workers who want to take part in politics should support whatever party they fancy, vote, or even run for office.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Some leftists have outmoded views and many people project those outmoded views onto them in any case. The present economic system is dynamic so it keeps changing the nature of work and thus the nature of workers. Just urban factory employees? Workers certainly include white collar workers and salaried professionals. Most of us are workers. Many leftists are teachers. If peasants own their own land and live by selling their produce, then they are not workers in this sense but how many of those are there any more? In any case, peasants certainly do work/labour (using this word as a verb, not a noun) and they can seek common cause with "workers" - or oppose them. In a country like Russia with few "workers" and many peasants, there were certainly conflicts but that is in the past, surely?
Workers do all the things politically that you suggest but much that we need cannot be provided by the present system which generates both wealth and poverty and scapegoats immigrants or anyone who is different.
I hardly wanted to get into the enormous topic of political economy. I was merely replying to the suggestion that workers are revered as if they were perfect and incorruptible.
I do not suggest that bakeries redirect their activities from what they are supposed to do. We often seem to be speaking at cross purposes.
Paul.
Post a Comment