Characters express opinions which are not necessarily those of the author but sometimes are. I have just had that by now familiar experience of thinking that Don Bell had said something derogatory about the name of the Social Justice Party, then rereading dialogues in "Rambles With A Gamblin' Man" and not finding the derogatory remark. Maybe someone else will find it or it will come to light.
The following story, "Sunjammer," contains two characters' opinions that might be said to balance each other.
Sam Storrs:
"There isn't a government of any importance on Earth these days that isn't based on some version of 'social justice.' So of course independent thinking, conscientiousness, ordinary competence have gone by the board." (p. 191)
Social justice is incompatible with independent thinking, conscientiousness and competence? We know that there are people who think like this so it is an authentic opinion.
Edward West:
"That's another thing I don't like about the Republic. They can brag as much as they want about free enterprise, but it still amounts to the rawest, most cold-blooded kind of capitalism. Maybe the welfare states on Earth have gotten stuffy and overbureaucratized - nevertheless, we don't let the devil take the hindmost!" (p. 195)
A Brit thinking "gotten"? Well, this is the future. But a nineteenth century Englishman says it in "Time Patrol."
Poul Anderson's attitude to the asterites is generally positive so it is good to read another perspective. People always compare societies, in this case, the Republic versus the welfare states. Why compare? Assess each in its own terms. Both address survival but in very different environments.
Tomorrow: a coach trip to Southport Flower Show.
23 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I interpret "social justice" gov'ts to mean what we call welfare states these days. Such regimes are characterized by being more or less heavy handedly bureaucratic, cumbersome, risk averse, and notoriously resistant to reform and oversight. I don't have much sympathy for "social justice."
Ad astra! Sean
I don't have much sympathy for social injustice.
Kaor, Paul!
What some call "social injustice" others might call trivial, unimportant, or not unjust at all.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Our world is full of injustice.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Because all humans are innately flawed, imperfect, corruptible, and often stupid. Tolerable states/societies can only be achieved slowly, painfully, and will always be precarious and imperfect.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Human beings are not innately flawed, imperfect, corruptible and often stupid. A society transcending present conflicts CAN be achieved in ways that I have outlined. Technology CAN make economic competition redundant and that potentiality has immense implications for social organization and attitudes. Every human brain and organism has enormous untapped potentials.
One reason why I continue to engage in such exchanges is that I am genuinely curious as to how long we can repeat the same statements. I now know the answer: literally indefinitely. By now, you must know how I will respond to any further pronouncements about human imperfection and imperfectability - so you do not need to read that response yet again.
Hunter gatherers would have thought that herding and growing were impossible; slave owners that a free and equal society was impossible; feudal landlords that a society based on mercantilism and finance was impossible; handicraft workers that industrial mass production was impossible. You think that human beings cannot use automation, AI and nanotechnology to free themselves from alienated labour. However, society CAN, not necessarily WILL, continue to transform itself.
I have no problem with the statement: (i) Sean thinks that Paul's views are obviously false. I have very big problems with the unqualified statement: (ii) Paul's views are obviously false. I do not think that you recognize any difference in meaning between (i) and (ii). I have tried to make this point in different words several times.
Are we indeed going to continue this exchange of by now entirely predictable statements indefinitely?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Because I believe it is a glaringly obvious fact that human beings are simply not what you insist we are. Superficial things like "technological changes" are not going to change us. We are vastly more technologically advanced than our ancestors 1000 years, and we are not noticeably more peaceful and strife prone than our forebears.
Btw, slavery is making a comeback in countries like Libya. I've seen reports that the going rate for a black male of prime age is $400 US. You need the right kind of ideas/beliefs for there to be some hope of social advances. It was a WESTERN civilization deeply imbued by Christianity which finally did something to globally stamp out slavery (only temporarily, it seems).
I believe in being realistic about human beings, and to have no illusions about how much can be achieved by mere technological changes.
I have also been saying things Anderson himself would not disagree with, as he made plain both in many of his stories and in private correspondence. So, my objections to your views might reflect what Anderson would possibly have said. And I believe that to be legitimate.
Ad astra! Sean
Correction: "...noticeably more peaceful and less strife prone..."
Sean
Sean,
I am talking about what human beings clearly can become, not just about what they are now. We are not static but dynamic, part of a process. This is realistic, not an illusion.
Very great technological changes are not "mere." This is a false distinction. Everything is connected and interactive. Technology makes possible qualitatively different social relationships.
We are not more peaceful now because we still have economic competition maintained by armed nation-states. This system is warlike, not peaceful.
I disagree with Anderson on some issues.
All of this is more mere repetition, which I want to avoid.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then we are at an impasse. I don't share your faith in technology, and I am going to always believe in the obvious fact human beings are innately flawed. And innately prone to being aggressive/warlike.
Repetition is going to be inevitable in a blog like this if you are going to insist on ideas Anderson rejected.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Those are not obvious facts. We are innately dynamic and changeable. I have shown that aggression and war occur in certain social conditions but not in others. We do not have to repeat word for word what we have said before.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No, they are obvious facts. And, as Stirling has explained, that "dynamism" you keep talking about is not infinite and has real limits. Nor do I agree at all with that stuff about "conditions" and your denial that humans have an innate tendency to be aggressive/warlike.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But a fact is not a "first principle"! I am just trying to clarify terminology here.
I do not deny any facts, I draw different conclusions from them. From violence in the past and present, it does not follow that there must always be violence in the future. Non sequitur.
If and when we overcome the limitations imposed by an outmoded economic system and utilize advanced technology for the common good, then there will be no limits to the dynamism that I keep talking about.
Conditions are what we live in. My neighbour and I each have enough food so we do not try to steal food from each other. That is one of the "conditions" that you do not believe in.
I deny that we are inherently warlike. Nonsense. We would make war on each other all the time if that were the case.
But I am trying to get us away from merely stating that we disagree with each other. Of course you disagree. Merely stating that gets us nowhere any more. Either we discuss in more detail the many reasons, arguments and examples that I have given over a long period of time or we stop merely stating that we disagree. Pointless.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I do have a first "principle" about mankind, but you would deny that we are as we are because of Original Sin and the loss of sanctifying grace thru the sin of a first man, so I t thought it pointless to mention that.
Theoretically, it does not necessarily follow the human race will be as violent and strife prone in the future as we are now and in the past. But it's far more likely than not that will be the case.
I disagree free enterprise economics is outmoded, it works whenever it's been given a chance, and nothing else has come even close to its successes. It's futilities like socialism which is discredited and outmoded.
Free enterprise is dynamic, because it tolerates "creative destruction." All we have ever gotten from socialism is poverty, stagnation, stasis, the very opposite of dynamism.
You and your neighbor are able to live in peace of the existence of the State, as long as it's willing and able to crack down on those who are not willing to be peaceful. No State and we get Haiti, complete with gang bosses roasting people alive.
We don't need to make war on each other because the State exists. No State and the best we could hope for is, when leaving our homes, be armed to the teeth and be on watch for feudists and bandits waiting to attack us.
Ad astra! Sean
Correction, next to last paragraph: "...live in peace because of the existence..."
Sean
Sean!
Free enterprise will be redundant when wealth is abundant!
I have replied about "socialism" and the State endlessly before! You merely repeat the statements that I have replied to!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
You are offering only an unproven assertion, set in the remote future. My belief remains that "abundant wealth" will only continue to be possible of free enterprise.
I will accept only accurate definitions of "socialism," based on real world facts and history, not disproven theories.
You have not responded to why the State is necessary, as explained by me above.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I am not offering only an unproven assertion, set in a remote future. I am pointing out the potentialities of already existing technologies for the near future. Potentialities, not proven prophecies. Those are impossible. No one can prove what will happen but we can point out alternative possibilities. I frequently acknowledge the all too real possibilities of disaster and destruction.
My belief remains that, when advanced technology, which has to be controlled democratically, not privately or bureaucratically, produces everything that we need and more, then economic competition will become as redundant as hunting and gathering are now. But we have said all this before.
We have got to get away from disputing the meaning of a word! People who call themselves "socialists" tell you what they mean by that word and you tell them that that is not what the word means! There are regimes that call themselves "socialist" that are not what many people including me mean by "socialist" just as there are organizations that call themselves "Christian" that are not what you mean by "Christian." Workers began to exercise control in the Commune and in Russia but those early starts were defeated. The Commune was drowned in blood. But hopefully we have an indefinite future ahead of us. And we have said all this before.
I have replied repeatedly about the State. I have come to suspect that you forget what has been said. The earliest state was a body of armed men protecting granaries controlled by priests from the population whose work had filled the granaries. Police and security guards protect shops and warehouses so that we will have to pay for food, if we can afford it, instead of just taking it. Police prevent the second and third homes of the rich from being occupied by the homeless. Armed forces contend for raw materials, trade routes and markets because corporations in each country want their state to protect their interests against their competitors in other countries. They divide up our world between them instead of allowing us all to share it. I have spelt out conditions in which none these reasons for maintaining a state will continue to exist.
Of course all of this needs a lot more discussion but not endless repetition which I keep trying to break us out of. I get the impression that you cannot just leave it that we disagree but have to keep returning to it but surely it is clear by now that neither of us is going to be persuaded by going through all this again and again? It is even in exactly the same words.
I have taken as long as necessary to reply this morning before going out for a long walk but I hope not to return this evening to go through it all again - whereas fresh aspects of the issues and new perspectives would be very welcome.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then I have to say I don't believe in your "potentialities," because I don't believe one-bit human beings will behave as you would want them to.
Again, I reject all these fantasies about a "democratically" controlled economy because it still boils down to having the State clumsily and incompetently trying to run things from the top down. All we have ever seen from such attempts were one party despotisms, assisted by a secret-police, bungling everything from the top down.
Moreover, if you mean it by "democratic control," the voters might reject socialism and insist on private ownership of property and free enterprise economics. Would people who think as you do accept defeat???
Rejected, what you said about the Paris Commune. Just a fanatical sect insolently claiming the right to rule France. The Third Republic was right to crush those rebels.
It does not matter what you insist is the correct meaning of "socialism," because that definition has never been shown to exist in real life in real nations. All socialist regimes, without exception, have been/are one party bureaucratic despotisms using secret polices to incompetently run things from the top down. Only a correct understanding of words can help us.
No, I simply disagree with your definition of the State. The definition Anderson, Stirling and I believe in is far more accurate.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Rejected. I simply disagree.
Of course you don't believe. That is why we disagree!
All "socialist" regimes have not been socialist any more than all "Christian" organizations are what you call Christian.
Of course, if we lost an election, then we would have to keep campaigning to win a future election. There will be no need for private ownership of the means of production when wealth is abundant and free enterprise will then be redundant. Once an economic system works, it does not get changed at every election. The present system is causing wars and destroying the environment. It does not work for humanity.
It does matter what socialists mean. Telling people what their words mean is no way to conduct a conversation! We have to listen to each other before we can respond.
Rejected what you said about the Commune.
Democratic control means all of us running things from the bottom up, neither clumsily nor incompetently but with the full knowledge of what is needed and how to produce and distribute it.
No, I simply disagree with your definition of the State. But do you really think that we are still trying to convince each other?
You seem to be locked into repeating this disagreement literally forever. What is the point? Can we neither stand back and assess the whole issue nor say anything new? I ask this question every time but I don't think that you come to grips with it.
Paul.
Sean,
I am trying to draw this to some kind of conclusion if that is even possible. To some extent and on one level, I completely agree with you - although we are too diametrically opposed to recognize any agreement. IF social relationships, interactions and institutions do not undergo a fundamental change, then individual lives and psychologies will also remain unchanged. Most people will remain unable to participate in a different kind of democracy because they will not have been involved in an active process of building that different democracy. If you cannot imagine a changed society, then you continue to imagine an unchanged society, and that is why we usually talk right past each other.
Also, fundamental change can only be brought about by overcoming major problems and obstacles. It cannot just be decreed, e.g., by declaring that an until-now competitive society is suddenly, overnight, a cooperative society. Larger numbers have to be persuaded to enact change.
That does not bring us any closer to agreement but it is an attempt to understand the nature and extent of the disagreement.
(And, hopefully, whatever else we do, we will not just keep repeating disagreements as if they had not been said before.)
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then this discussion is terminated/ I am never going to believe socialism to be anything but a bloodily discredited farce.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Never say "never"!
Simply using that word," socialism," again as if it had a single, clear, unambiguous meaning!
My views have changed totally over a lifetime because of dissatisfaction and enquiry.
I think that that is a woefully inadequate response to many attempts to clarify issues and to address different aspects of complex problems. But, if that is all that we can say, then there is nothing more to be said.
Paul.
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