Like the Bible and Shakespeare, Poul Anderson's works cover every issue. We can discuss what Anderson's characters or, less often, what Anderson himself thinks about an issue. His two main values are freedom and diversity. David Falkayn wanted only elbow room when he colonized Avalon. This is one character's opinion but it is safe to say that it is also a view that the author shared.
Sometimes we can quote a passage and use it to hang our own opinions on - as with the Bible and Shakespeare - but everyone can do this. What do we think of "traditions"?
"Tradition determined what constituted a choth, though this was a tradition that slowly changed itself, as every living usage must." (p. 496)
There is no unchanging tradition. A received tradition can be conserved, reinterpreted, reformed or rejected. However, conservatives conserve their idea of the tradition in changed circumstances. Thus, on two counts, the tradition is no longer what it had been. To reinterpret is to reject conservative interpretations. Reinterpretation can be reform under a different name. To reform is, obviously, to change. To reject is to be influenced by whatever is rejected. Catholic free thinkers are different from Protestant free thinkers! Atheism is not one thing. Jains, who have always believed in uncreated, beginningless matter and transmigrating souls are different from Europeans who have gone through the process of rejecting Biblical monotheism.
Revolutionaries have traditions. They look for precedents in historical revolutions.
"The King is dead. Long live the King!" expresses social continuity. "The office of King is abolished. Long live the Republic!" also expresses continuity of an ordered society.
Apparently, Ythrian choths have corresponded to every kind of human social organization and more.
22 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Anglo-American conservatives, descending from the thought of Edmund Burke and John Adams, among others, believe in conserving what is true, what has been shown by hard experience to work, the need for consensus and persuasion before any "reform" might work, and in the need to have no illusions about human beings.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
They believe in conserving what they believe to be true. Is the world working right now? Surely it needs a big shake-up? Which will require a lot of people seeing the need for specific changes, of course - not me or anyone else becoming dictator.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, in many ways Western civilization, for all its flaws, is better than anything else that exists.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Your civilization is better? Others think that theirs is. But "...better than anything else that exists..." is a very low bar. We are certainly capable of building something much better. And casting off supremacism would be a first step.
The flaws of the West are monstrous things.
Paul.
One of the most positive things a culture can have is the attitude that "Those heathen barbarian foreigners might know something worth learning". Western civilization doesn't *always* display that attitude, but much that is best about it comes from the times it does.
Kaor, Paul and Jim!
Paul: Not "Your" civilization, our civilization, because you are also a child of that Western civilization you seem to dislike so much.
The future might see some better things, but not if people cling to Utopian impossibilities.
The flaws of the West are monstrous? Certainly, but so are the flaws of everybody else. And it was only Western civilization, shaped by Christianity and our Classical heritage, which developed a true science, developed ideas and institutions setting limits on the powers of the State, or managed to abolish slavery. Nobody else, with the semi-exception of Confucian China, even started to come close to that!
So, yes, superior!
Jim: I agree! One esp. crucial example I've thought being how some forgotten genius in India invented our system of Hindu/Arabic numbers possibly around AD 700. The new numbers spread slowly westwards thru Persia and Mesopotamia. The earliest known European knowledge of them was in the County of Barcelona, around AD 900, via Andalusia. I was esp. interested to find out a French monk and scholar, Gerbert of Aurillac, was apparently the earliest prominent European to use these numbers. Btw, Gerbert was elected Pope as Sylvester II in 999.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
A much better world for everyone through the social use of advanced technology is not a Utopian impossibility. It is the only hope for the future. Any other use is increasingly destructive like what is being done to the environment and in war zones right now.
Who said anything about disliking Western civilization? Criticizing it is certainly necessary. This partisan claim that our way is superior is not the way forward.
I am hardly going to denigrate science. It gives us real knowledge of the world unlike religious dogmas.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
It is not clear what you mean by the "social use of advanced technology." Only humans can make use of technology, either wisely or badly. I fully expect both to continue being what will be seen.
I did not get the impression of simple criticism of Western civilization from you--my impression was one of hostility to the West. And I will continue to be "partisan," as a necessary corrective to unjust attacks on the West by far too many.
I will continue to believe the Catholic view of the world and human beings will make for the best use of science.
Last, I should have mentioned how the West has vastly surpassed the rest of the world in literature and the arts, again with the semi-exception of Confucian China.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Only humans? Are humans not society? Societies of human beings are perfectly capable of discussing and deciding how to use technology, whether to continue stockpiling instruments of destruction and genocide or to improve living conditions for everyone. You stop understanding when I talk about human society deciding to use its own humanly created technology for the common good.
Hostility to the West? Hostility to an economic system that continues to generate both wealth and poverty and all the consequent social tensions and conflicts. What you call unjust attacks on the West I call legitimate critiques of this now global system.
Surpassed everyone else in literature and arts? I don't know how you judge that.
You will continue to believe... The best use of science will be to clean up the environmental mess that is still being generated and to maintain an ecology that feeds and sustains everyone.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
All humans are individuals, as well as members of various kinds of collectivities. Nor are all of us going to be capable of how best to use technology. And these discussions will also be debates marked by intense disagreements over ends, means, goals.
And no other system of economics, except free enterprise, has created the unparalleled wealth we see. The injustices you mentioned, real or not, spring from our innate faults and weaknesses.
It was the West which produced Dante, Chaucer, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Racine, Melville, Twain, Kipling, ad many other poets and writers of genius. It was the West which produced artists of towering genius like Titian, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Velazquez, and too many others to list. Or great musicians like Bach, Beethoven, Strauss, and too many others to list.
No other civilization even comes close, albeit China produced many great poets.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Disagreements, of course, but no longer conflicts of material interests.
Free enterprise has created unparalleled wealth but will have made itself redundant when wealth has become abundant.
This glorifying of the West is absurd. It is the West where these things happened. It is humanity as a whole that has achieved everything that has been achieved. There has always been intercultural interaction.
Free enterprise will have made itself redundant when wealth has become so abundant that economic (not other kinds of) competition is no longer necessary, indeed will have become counterproductive, and natural human cooperation can take its rightful place in maintaining a natural and social environment in which each individual can develop freely without being held back by physical deprivation, discrimination or oppression.
Paul.
Sean,
You say, "Free enterprise," and I reply. This continues.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I do not share your confidence--humans will continue to argue and fight.
I am still skeptical about whether a post-scarcity economy is even possible.
It was not humanity as a whole which achieved the tremendous advances made by the West. I will never agree to the unjust bad mouthing of the West I've been seeing for decades.
Nor do I agree with the hopes you have for the future, for reasons you already know.
Ad astra! Sean
Seam,
Human beings will not continue to argue or fight in any conditions or circumstances. Conditions are possible in which it never occurs to anyone to resort to violence.
People around the world have received bad treatment at the hands of Westerners and of course want that to be acknowledged.
Of course technology will get to the stage of producing more than everyone needs. It might be at that stage already if not for all the misuses of technology: weapons for defense against weapons.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I do not share your optimism. Conditions will remain possible leading people to fight, due to irreconcilable disagreements or outbreaks of anger.
Peoples around the world have been badly treated by themselves or almost everybody else--like the Chinese Maoists crushing the Tibetans and Uighurs right now.
No matter how advanced technology becomes, with its resulting prosperity, I firmly believe people will still quarrel and fight. I do not believe your hopes are realistic.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But why will people fight? There are many circumstances now in which they do not fight. There is nothing impossible about those circumstances being reproduced everywhere.
Precisely because the West has been dominant, it has to acknowledge the leading role that it has had in colonialism and imperialism.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Trying to catch up a bit, before doing other things.
Because people don't need rational reasons to quarrel and fight--any reason, excuse, or cause will do. And that "peace" you keep mentioning is because of the existence of the State, with its monopoly of violence, waiting to crack down on anyone who becomes violent.
And every civilization or nation which had the power to do so have been as colonialistic or imperialistic as the West. And were not unique to the West.
So tough on the whiners!
Ad astra! Sean
Ad astra
Sean,
People do not become violent for no reason whatever or on any excuse. We do not see a stranger on the street and find an excuse to attack him. We usually each go about our own business. We do not have to be restrained by the existence of the state because usually we do not even think about it.
States exist to protect private property, to prevent theft from shops and to defend themselves against each other. I have done my best to explain how these conditions can be changed in future.
Who said these problems were unique to the West? The West has been dominant so has to acknowledge its responsibility.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No, people can and have quarreled or fought for any reason or excuse. You are simply projecting what you would prefer to see on others. It is the existence of the State which allows most of us to go about our daily business without first needing to be armed to the teeth.
I do not believe in your "conditions." All I'm seeing is Utopian speculation.
And I hope Western civilization remains dominant! And that a Western oriented Anglosphere/United Commonwealths unifies the world. That would be vastly better than either rule by China (as in David Wingrove's CHUNG KUO series or a new Muslim caliphate rising to power.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
No, people do not fight for any reason or excuse. No, I am describing people as I see them.
We need the State now but not necessarily in changed conditions in the future.
No civilization remains dominant. Look how much the world has changed throughout recorded history. Britain was ruled from Italy. An Anglosphere cannot unify the world. The very word, "Anglosphere," would alienate how many people?
We are not obliged to choose between Anglosphere, China and a Caliphate. The human race can do far better than any of those. "There are only two or three alternatives and our alternative is the least bad" is a false argument. Whether good or bad, the future will be different from what any of us imagine.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then we are going to have to agree to disagree. I believe Western civilization is the best option we have now--and I don't believe any of the other likely possibilities are better. Far worse in fact!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But we are clearly not trying to agree.
The best option we have now? We are (hopefully) looking into an indefinite future and an abundant economy that develops every individual will be far better than the current Western war machine and arms economy.
Paul.
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