Human and Ythrian institutions operate in parallel on Avalon. The President of the Parliament of Man tells Daniel Holm:
"'Oh, the war faction won't bring in quite the majority of Parliament that it did of the Khruath.'" (p. 104)
Nevertheless, however:
"'You'll get your emergency powers, the virtual suspension of civilian government you've been demanding.'" (ibid.)
Holm has not joined a choth but believes in defending his planet.
What will happen if Parliament and Khruath disagree? We do not see that happen. On the contrary, we are told that later government becomes irrelevant to all Avalonians. See Information On Avalon.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And that "irrelevancy" of gov't, the State, is something I totally disbelieve in, because nothing in real history, real human beings, real life, makes me believe the State will, can, or should disappear. It's precisely the existence of the State that makes complex, advanced societies possible. The State, with its monopoly of violence, is what controls the all too human inclination to be quarrelsome, criminally violent, aggressively competitive, etc. And I recall Stirling commenting on how, in his later years, Anderson came to agree human beings are not going to change and embrace libertarianism.
Again, too much stress on Ythrians.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: humans can live without government. The problem is that they can't live -peacefully- without government. Before the invention of the State, the skeletal evidence indicates that the standard way for an adult male to die was by violence from other humans; females died by violence at about half that rate, but that was still a substantial cause of death.
The "Old Adam" is always ready to come back, as the Balkans showed in the 1990's.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! You expressed more briefly what I was trying to say. You reminded me of a fascinating book I read: FOSSIL MEN, by Kermit Pattison. He discussed how the anthropologists he traveled with discovered evidence that the hominins/humans who lived millions of years ago were not only violent killers but also cannibals.
The Old Adam lurks in all of us.
Ad astra! Sean
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