Poul Anderson spells out Conan's world view for us. I imagine that this is consistent with the character as presented by Robert E. Howard. Conan cares nothing for fine distinctions between Stygian commoners on the one hand and their "'...overbearing nobles and fanatical priests...'" (p. 119) on the other.
"In his world view, apart from fierce immediate loyalties, the hand of every man was against every other man. At best there was truce, for practical reasons and always fragile. That did not mean that individuals could not share work, trade, enjoyment, liking, respect. He had been sorry to kill certain men in the past, though he lost no sleep afterward. Strife was the natural order of things." (pp. 119-120)
If there is ever any "Judgment" of human actions, then everyone will have to be judged in accordance with the perspectives and values that had made sense to him. Conan's experience teaches him that every man's hand is against every other and that strife is natural but how does he conduct himself within that world view? He is loyal and honourable. Dominic Flandry's mentor, Max Abrams, said that virtues amount to loyalty. See The Wisdom Of Max Abrams. For Flandry's loyalties, see Loyalty.
Conan should heed class conflicts. He might find allies among commoners against nobles and priests. A heroic fantasy novel by Poul Anderson raises such issues.
46 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I doubt it, what you said about "class conflicts." Most ordinary people won't care much who governs as long as whoever might be the "nobles" in a particular state are not too terribly incompetent. The "nobles" of the US and the UK are the office holders in the major political parties. To say nothing of how so many people don't even bother to vote!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
There is overt class conflict in Britain right now. Many people (wrongly) don't vote because they perceive it as making no difference. When a vote visibly does matter, like with the Scottish Independence Referendum, voters turn out in big numbers.
Paul.
Daris asks what harm these poor toilers have ever done to anyone and makes the point that:
"The common Stygians are the first victims of their own overbearing nobles and fanatical priests." (XII, p. 119)
These are potential allies of Conan and the Taians.
Note the failure of the international socialist movement to halt either World War -- the labor parties all voted for war, or were completely marginalized if they didn't.
At seventh and last, people usually put ethnicity, language and religion first.
Unfortunately, yes. We have to work on that "usually," though.
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly, if something really matters to most people, such as the threatened breakup of the UK, then they will take more interest in politics. Happily, the Scottish secessionists were defeated!
A0s Stirling said, most people will care far more about their tribe, their country, not abstract, empty socialist slogans. Rightly so!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
You think it was right that World War I was not prevented?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
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Of course, it would have been better if WW I had been prevented! Kaiser Wilhelm himself tried hard to defuse the Sarajevo crisis. In fact, Stirling once discussed how some officials who favored war deliberately kept dispatches from reaching the Kaiser that he would have used to help prevent a war. And encouraged him to go to that naval review in Kiel so Wilhelm would not be in Berlin.
Ad astra! Sean
But, if more people had accepted those "socialist slogans," then the slogans would not have been empty or abstract and would have inspired populations to overthrow their rulers instead of going abroad to kill each other. Any slogan is abstract until it is enacted.
Kaor, Paul!
But this is just sheer nonsense, why should most people want to overthrow their rulers in 1914? Setting aside the habitual loyalty most people give to long established, not too terribly bad regimes, there was prosperity and a seemingly stable peace in Europe in June of 1914. Iow, no good reason for the kind of violent political upheavals you advocate. Political chaos of that kind is more likely to encourage wars!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
This is sheer sense. The governments of imperialist powers that wanted to wage what became a world war in order to divide the world between them and to exploit colonies needed to be overthrown.
But I need not, at this stage of the argument, have mentioned overthrowing governments. It would have sufficed to say that the international socialist movement should have stuck to its principals and opposed and sabotaged all preparations for war.
Paul.
That would have helped people at home far better than sending them out to kill and be killed.
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree, and I dismiss boring cant about "imperialist powers." All nations, without exception, if they were strong enough, were aggressive/warlike at one time or another. Including regimes calling themselves socialist, such as the USSR or Maoist China. Because that is what human beings are like: prone to strife, conflict, and clashing hopes and ambitions.
Nor do I care about the so called "international socialist movement," because socialism as you wish it existed has never in fact existed.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Boring cant! Some countries dominate others economically or militarily. That is imperialism.
We are not prone to strife and conflict. There are many circumstances in which we are not aggressive or warlike.
When all human beings were hunters and gatherers, it was then true that neither feudalism nor free market economics had ever in fact existed. But they did come into existence.
Distinguish between what people say they are and what they are. The USSR and Maoist China were not socialist but state capitalist. Their bureaucrats extracted wealth from labour and accumulated capital in order to compete militarily against the US. Extraction of wealth and external competition are the two features of what we call capitalism. Socialism, which did not exist in the USSR or China, would have been workers' control of production for need, not profit.
(We keep saying these things.)
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course! That's what I said, all nations which could be were warlike or aggressive at one time or another.
We are prone to strife and conflict. That is an empirical fact which cannot be denied. The peaceful interludes you keep insisting on were possible because the State exists in the background, cowing those who would otherwise not be peaceful.
I disagree, what you said about "state capitalism," which was nothing like true capitalism. It was the USSR/Maoists incompetently trying to run economies from the top down for those military purposes. I also disbelieve in dreamy theories of "workers control of production."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That's what you said? I am losing the thread.
We are not prone to strife and conflict. It is not the State in the background that cows me into refraining from attacking my perfectly friendly and inoffensive neighbour! I have no reason to attack him. Many social relationships are like that. More can be. We can do something about it.
State capitalism shared with your "true capitalism" exploitation of labour and external competition but the accumulators of capital were state bureaucrats, not private companies. That is why we called it "state capitalism." Trying to run economies from the top down for military purposes was state capitalism.
"Dreamy theories" is simply abuse. Workers have the collective power to withdraw their labour, then to occupy workplaces and to plan to organize them in cooperation with others to produce what society needs instead of what capitalists can sell for a profit, e.g., medical equipment instead of weapons. A far better world is almost within our grasp.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I did not have people like you in mind re "cowing." Internal peace is maintained by the State, which does cow people who are not like you: the violent, disorderly, depravedly indifferent, criminals, etc. You cannot deny such people exist. And all of us are potentially capable of lapsing into such faults. Meaning we are imperfect.
Disagree, workers who go on strike have no right to occupy other people's property or prevent the owners from hiring new workers willing to work there for agreed on terms.
The kind of set up you hope for will immediately become like the system you dislike, because it has to if it's to even function at all. That is, some workers will work on shop floors, others will become managers. Nor can you even "cooperate" on what needs to be produced in goods and services without the information provided by demand and the costs of buying resources of all kinds that will be needed.
I continue to regard socialism as unworkable and futile.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But there are many like me and there can be more depending on conditions. "Criminals" means law-breakers and present laws exist to maintain massive inequalities in property ownership. Of course some are motivated to steal in such conditions. Most of us will become violent and disorderly only in conditions that can be prevented from coming into existence.
Strikers have every right to occupy workplaces and put them to better use. The fact that we spend our working lives in buildings that are someone else's property is precisely one of the social divisions that has to be overcome.
Automation will do away with lives spent on shop floors. People in managerial roles can be elected and made accountable. Trained and experienced workers are capable of planning production so that social needs are met: that everyone is housed, clothed, fed, has access to education and health care etc. Information can be open to all with modern technology.
I continue to regard socialism as the only way forward out of present wars and chaos.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then we cannot agree, because I don't believe in your "conditions." Also, bad people don't need "...massive inequalities in property ownership" to be robbers or murderers. Any excuse will do for committing crimes.
Disagree, I deny strikers have any right to occupy other people's property or to prevent it from being used. The US has laws forbidding strikers from hindering lawful access or egress from businesses being struck.
Iow, it comes down to the old error of socialism, bungling politicians and bureaucrats trying to run an economy. Because that is what you are going to get by having managers becoming politicians and turning administrators into civil servants. So called "Trained and experienced workers" cannot know what to produce in goods and services unless provided with the needed data via demand and supply. Without that you are only going to get what we have seen in every real-world socialist system: shoddy goods, or over supply of things like shoes of only one or two sizes one year or almost no shoes at all the next year, and so on and on and on ad nauseam. Think of the notorious lines of shoppers lining up outside shops during the USSR or pre-Deng China precisely because of a desperate desire to find/buy what might be available!
And this automation you keep talking about is likely to end with the mass unemployment we see in Anderson's "Quixote and the Windmill," with all the problems that caused.
I continue to dismiss socialism as futile, unworkable, unjust and likely to cause more wars and chaos.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We have wars and chaos now.
Automation will be a great liberation of creative potential not for everyone initially of course but for more people than you think. Not everyone is just going to stagnate. We are active, dynamic human beings or we would not have achieved what we have done so far.
We need to envisage a society that goes way beyond current laws protecting the property of millionaires and billionaires from the masses whose labour by hand and brain creates wealth.
Paul.
There have been no real-world socialist systems. Those have been state capitalist systems.
People are capable of meeting and communicating, knowing what they need and planning how to produce it. Information will be identified and shared. How is this futile, unworkable or unjust? They will not just produce goods in a vacuum, hoping to get it right. That is the old market system.
It is your immutable assumption that nothing will ever fundamentally change that is completely wrong. Things have already fundamentally changed. Otherwise we would not be here, able to discuss this.
You are going to continue dismissing what you think is "socialism," whatever is said.
Paul: human beings are instinctually tribalist. Nationalism is just tribalism writ large.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course we have wars and chaos now, because that is simply what human beings are like--quarrelsome and prone to strife and conflict.
All socialist regimes were/are exactly that: misnamedly called "state capitalist." Every such system were/are run from the top by politicians and bureaucrats. With secret police thrown in using fear and coercion to force socialism to somehow pretend to "work."
People are going to meet and communicate--and often disagree on every conceivable issue. You are not going to get unanimity. Iow, politics as usual, messy and untidy, with inglorious compromises the best you can hope for.
I believe in facing up to what people are like, not as we wish them to be. And dismissing futilities like socialism.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We are not quarrelsome and prone to strife and conflict. Wars and chaos result from a competitive economic system which we need to replace with cooperation for need.
Socialism is cooperation for need. State capitalism is bureaucratic accumulation for military competition. They are opposites. State capitalism is run from the top by politicians and bureaucrats with secret police using fear and coercion to enforce the ideology and propaganda that bureaucratic accumulation is really its opposite, cooperation for need. Cooperation, when it replaces competition, will satisfy human, material and social needs far more effectively than the present inequality, conflict and chaos. Cooperation is already the basis of humanity, language, child-rearing and everything that we find good in life.
Cooperation does not require unanimity. We need difference without division and unity without uniformity. Unsatisfactory compromises are necessary only when underlying conflicts of material interests remain.
I am facing up to what people are like, not how I want them to be. Socialism is not a futility but by now it is clear that you will continue to dismiss it as such, whatever is said.
Paul.
Sean,
Surely we have said everything that we are going to say by now? You seem to want to close off any exchange on a "Socialism is futile" note which always provokes a reply.
This cannot possibly end with either of us suddenly realizing and acknowledging that he has been mistaken all along. Too much psychological identification with a particular world view is involved. It obviously means/matters a lot or it would not have gone on for so long but all that it generates is a great deal of repetition. The apparent attempt to resolve the issue by argumentation alone is futile.
We have to be able to stand back from the first level prosecution of an argument and move toward a second level understanding of what is going on psychologically and politically. Diametrically opposed political views and allegiances clash in the legislatures and on the streets and, in the most extreme cases, under arms, not primarily in blog comboxes.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But you keep repeating what I believe to be false or mistaken ideas. Am I supposed to just keep quiet, esp. when your ideas contradict those of Anderson, who also rejected socialism?
Socialism is not cooperation for need--because every time it's been tried all we have seen were politicians and bureaucrats incompetently trying to run an economy. That should tell you your theories are not being confirmed by facts.
Humans are also competitive as well as cooperative. And that includes competing for status and power.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
So we should just keep repeating the same argument forever?
Socialism has been tried twice: in the Paris Commune and Russia from 1917 to about 1927. In both those cases, it was destroyed. Your other examples are bureaucracies claiming to be socialist. My theories about what can be done in the future are not disconfirmed by what has happened in the past. The past shows us things changing. A lot.
I have replied about "status and power" ad nauseam! We can go on forever about this if we want to. You are still at the first order argument stage, just prosecuting the argument, not standing back and seeing what is going on in terms of psychological attachment to world views.
Paul.
Imagine a feudal baron looking at a sacked and burning town where his men have slaughtered all the merchants and money lenders, saying, "This PROVES that capitalism never works! It has never worked yet and it never will."
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree about the Commune, a gang of fanatics unlawfully seizing power in Paris and arrogantly claiming the right to rule France. The Provisional Gov't was right to crush them, rebels who got what they deserved.
Again, no, what you said about the early USSR. Even the monstrous Lenin had to retreat from socialism with his New Economic Policy, making Deng style concessions permitting free enterprise to function in the economy. Because socialism was mucking up everything. What happened after 1927 was Stalin reverting to socialist orthodoxy.
I disagree with what you said about the human drive to seek power and status, which are also largely those of Srirling. I believe our views are realistic descriptions of how many, many, many humans behave and think. Views which are going to remain true no matter what you say about a "first order argument."
Except the more intelligent feudal barons did not think like that, understanding the benefits of trade and commerce.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The Commune was not a gang of fanatics but the urban proletariat. Yes, what I said about the USSR. Democratically elected workers' councils seized power and began to implement policies in the interests of the populace, including, e.g., communal kitchens. Russian backwardness, isolation, civil war and wars of intervention physically destroyed the working class. People chopped up factory buildings for firewood or retreated into the country. Stalinism was not socialist orthodoxy but bureaucratic dictatorship. The stages were: a Bolshevik-led workers' democracy; an unwilling Bolshevik dictatorship industrializing in order to restore workers' democracy; a willing bureaucratic dictatorship industrializing in order to increase exploitation, therefore needing to smash any remnants of workers' democracy and to kill Old Bolsheviks. I have been through this in more detail twice before in comboxes.
I have replied in detail on power and status several times. I believe my views are realistic descriptions of how people behave and think and of how they can change in possible (very different) future conditions.
You have not understood what I meant about "first order argument" but have merely continued the argument. I will expand on this.
Of course feudal barons did not think as I suggested! Sometimes I think you miss subtleties in arguments. I was parodying the view that, because socialism has not worked yet, it can never possibly work at any time in the future. A future socialist Russia will not be plagued by the problems of 1917 and after.
Paul.
Sean,
I really would prefer a genuine discussion rather an endless repetition of statements and counterstatements: yes, no; yes, no.
Professor Ninian Smart told us in a lecture that he had conversed with a man who was entirely committed to a specific political philosophy. Smart voiced a couple of criticisms of that philosophy. Then Smart told us, "He didn't seem to hear me." The man's mind was so embedded in and enclosed by his philosophy that he did not really hear/notice/attend to/respond to/discuss any contrary views. The contrary views made no impact. He automatically shrugged them off/disregarded them/dismissed them/almost instantly forgot them, just continued to say what he himself had been saying in the first place. This was an automatic, scarcely conscious, response, a built-in defence mechanism. Dialogue, learning and a genuine exchange of views were impossible.
I do not level this criticism just against people who disagree with me! We all have to examine to what extent we are like the man described by Smart. One thing I can say is that the views that I hold now are diametrically opposed to the ones that I was indoctrinated in and it has taken a lot of experience, reading and thought to move me from one view to another. Also, I retain some disagreements with the groups of people that I am now broadly in agreement with so I am not just reacting in defence of a single set of ideas that I have always held.
Genuine learning is welcome. I get that from conversations with people like Andrea who knows a great deal more about modern history and current world affairs than I do.
Paul.
...rather THAN an endless...
Kaor, Paul!
I still disagree, re the Commune, everything I read about it confirms my contempt for it. Even Marx criticized the Communards, saying they could have gotten concessions from the Third Republic if they had not rebelled against it!
What Stalin did was orthodox socialism. What is socialism? A command economy in which politicians and bureaucrats try to run a planned economy. One of the fatal flaws of socialism is the impossibility of trying to plan for everything, no matter how many reams of useless statistics the bureaucrats amass. All real economies are made from millions of decisions, small and large. And no number of politicians, commissars, or bureaucrats can possibly accurately how many shoes can be made, how many hammers, or how much wheat to grow. With free enterprise you don't need any so cumbersome, burdensome or top heavy
I don't care about those Soviets you praise so much. Setting aside their illegality, they never amounted to much after Lenin had no further use for them, crushing their remnants in 1922 during the Kronstadt revolt against his dictatorship. Nor do I care about those Old Bolsheviks, what with all the blood they had on their hands!
Stirling and I have read your arguments about the human craving for power and status--and we don't agree with them. Your error lies in refusing to accept humans are not what you would like them to be: flawed, imperfect, prone to violence and conflict.
Noted, what you said about feudal barons, which made me think of Kipling's poem "Cold Iron," esp. the first stanzas.
My view is Prof. Smart's remarks applies more to you, not me. Because you persist in clinging to a failed ideology. socialism, despite how it has failed everywhere it's been tried, bloodily. All we have ever seen from Marxist socialism has been tyranny, bungling bureaucracy, and poverty. No matter how many times you add 3+2, trying to get 6, all you are going to get is 5!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course you still disagree. Surely neither of us thinks that the other is suddenly going to agree? If we thought that that was the purpose, then we really would go on forever.
I will read your long comment and might well reply to some or all of it but surely some more general observations are in order at this sage? Very often it is clear that your intention is not to discuss but to "dismiss" - and as quickly as possible - whatever has just been said. I can always think of a reply to your dismissals but I have to question the value of continuing to do this indefinitely. This time I have at least mentioned some facts about material conditions in Russia which, I think, would never have been mentioned in your account. Wrangling about the consequences of those conditions for the actions of the parties involved of course continues and will not be settled by a single blog comment from me or from anyone else.
OK. I will read the rest of what you have written.
Paul.
...at this STAGE...
Socialism is not a command economy with politicians and bureaucrats. I have read Marx etc and am in a socialist organization. Please discuss what we mean by the word, not another meaning that has accrued to that same word. Surely you understand that words gain different meanings in use and for historical reasons?
"Communism" meant, and can still be used to mean, common ownership, not bureaucratic dictatorship.
"God" has come to be used by some mystics in an impersonal sense.
Words are subtle instruments, not sledgehammers.
"Contempt" is unhelpful. Can we remove that word from our vocabulary?
You don't care about murdered Old Bolsheviks? I care about everyone killed by Stalin, including former White Generals who served the Republic.
You have neither understood nor properly replied to what I have said about power and status. Power requires means of coercion, bodies of armed men, which need not always exist. They will not be needed when abundance has made conflict for material resources redundant. If a minority remain immature enough still to contend for "status," social recognition, then the majority can ignore them.
This has definitely now become repetitive.
Smart's remarks apply to many people! I offer them as an opportunity for self-reflection by everyone, not just as something to accuse each other of. I do not persist in clinging to a failed ideology. Socialism has been tried twice, not many times, and was destroyed both those times. An indefinite future (hopefully) lies ahead of us and it is inconceivable that, with the impact of advanced technology, socioeconomic relationships will remain unchanged having already been revolutionized so often before.
Bureaucrats cannot determine how many shoes should be made but the people wearing them can.
My purpose here is not to get you to agree but just to demonstrate yet again that this disagreement will never be settled by the way we are going about it. Can you not accept that the world is full of people who continue to disagree with you, with me and with each other? That is what we live with.
Free enterprise will be redundant when wealth is abundant. You are clinging to an outmoded ideology. This is an expression of opinion, not a dogmatic statement intended to close off discussion.
Old Bolsheviks had blood on their hands? The seizure of power was relatively bloodless. Support for the Provisional Government - like support for Kornilov's earlier attempted coup - crumbled and dissolved. People besieging the Winter Palace found that they could enter and leave the building with no resistance. John Reed found a draft document which read: "The Provisional Government calls on all classes - to support the Provisional Government." That futility had to be ended when class war was in the open in workplaces and on the streets. The Bolsheviks ended Russian involvement in the War and released White generals who merely promised not to oppose the new Republic, then organized Civil War. Should they have been shot in the first place? No. But I would have wanted to keep a closer eye on them in those circumstances.
Thank you, Sean. This has been quite comprehensive.
Adding 3 + 2? Come on... Your remarks are always slanted to the assumption that your view is self-evidently right. We never converse on a level playing field. We have to start by acknowledging that the other person has a point of view that has to be considered seriously. It should not be necessary to struggle to get to that point.
We talk past each other:
"All we have ever seen from Marxist socialism has been tyranny..." etc.
I have replied to this. People can call themselves "Marxist" or "socialist" just as they can call themselves "Christian" or anything else. Distinguish between what people say they are and what they are. If a national economy is run by a mix of large private firms with foreign investment and bureaucratically nationalized industries with a "Marxist" or "Socialist" government heavily dependent on loans from international banks, then it is not an economy run by committees of workers' delegates for the satisfaction of need as against the accumulation of profit. You are satisfying your ideological needs by blurring this distinction.
Finally, maybe, you will be able to make a reply to everything that I have written here but please do not think that the matter is settled merely by such replies. I don't. The issues over which we clash are being fought out on a world scale now. A new left party is being formed in Britain and will involve a lot of people but it remains to be seen what kind of path it will take.
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