That fanciful back cover blurb reads:
Angels Above, Devils Below...
Since the first human stood upright the stars have been a source of wonderment and inspiration. All our heavens have been placed in...the heavens, our hells in the depths of the earth. Angels above, devils below. Mankind between.
But perhaps heaven isn't so heavenly. Perhaps those who live there are as self-interested and violence-prone as any earthbound mortal. And even if they're not, we will be there soon.
Cause enough for
CONFLICT
A Tom Doherty Associates Book
Who wrote this? By defining a theme and explaining the title, it serves the purpose of Poul Anderson's own Introductions to several of his other collections.
The casual assumption that any earthbound mortal is violence-prone is a tired cliche. An extraterrestrial who was given the impression that my excursions into town are punctuated by routine acts of violence against other pedestrians and of rage against the drivers of motor vehicles or that I would return home to find that my property had been vandalized by my neighbours would have been seriously misinformed.
Most of the stories collected here are about intra-species conflicts.
I had set out to post about a passage in "Kings Who Die" but was distracted when I found this image of the back cover of my edition of Conflicts. Normal service will be resumed shortly.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
"The casual assumption that any earthbound mortal is violence prone" is not a mere cliche, it is a self-evident fact. It's the existence of the State, with its monopoly of violence, and ability to punish those who break, which enables you to be able to be confident most you meet will not endanger you. No State and we get the war of all against all, of needing to be armed to the teeth every time we leave our homes.
It would be more accurate to say we are all potentially likely to be violent.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It is not self-evident that each of us is prone to violence. Many are never violent. Some are violent in some circumstances but not in others. Circumstances can be changed so that there are less causes of violence. Anyone who was violent in any and every circumstances (a very small minority) would indeed have to be restrained for everyone else's protection.
You have said "No state and we get the war of all against all..." many times before and I have replied to it many times before. Of course abolishing all coercive state functions at a stroke would cause chaos but that is only part of the story and we should each remember what has been said before - not agree, of course, but at least remember and therefore reply accordingly.
We are not all potentially likely to be violent. Many people will never be. We are all potentially likely to be non-violent if we are placed in conditions where there is no earthly reason for violence. A concentration camp guard (usually) loves his mother and could have been brought up to regard concentration camps as an abhorrent part of a barbaric past.
It would be more accurate to say that this disagreement has surely been played out by now.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree: we are all of us potentially likely to be violent. I personally know what it's like to have the desire to be violent, and it takes a deliberate act of will not to be violent. And many, many people will not be so self-controlled. Of course many are not violent, because the existence of the State makes that unnecessary for them to be violent, or to be armed, to protect against violence. I don't believe in your circumstances/causes, because what can cause violence is innate to all of us.
No, you have never convincingly refuted why we will always continue to need the State for peace to be preserved.
Again, I disagree, anyone can become violent, because of that potentiality we all have. Plus, human beings are geniuses where it comes to cooking up rationalizations/excuses justifying doing the vilest of things. I don't share your confidence about confidence concentration camps will forever disappear.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I disagree but I see no point in going through this again and again.
I do not claim to have convincingly refuted the perpetual need for a state to YOUR satisfaction. Clearly that is impossible. You ask the impossible. I do claim to have presented arguments that you ignore in that you make no reference to them so that I have to repeat them yet again and this becomes pointless.
There will be no need to keep the peace when there is no longer any need to compete, struggle or fight for abundant wealth that will be held in common by all and distributed equally.
Anyone (or almost anyone) can become violent if provoked or deprived enough but we can create conditions in which no one is any longer provoked or deprived.
Again you still seem to think that we are trying to agree. I am not trying to get you to agree. But I am showing that I can always reply - which becomes repetitive.
We can certainly have a society without concentration camps and without the kind of authorities which, for their own divide-and-rule ends, encourage and condone the hostility to foreigners that leads to concentration camps.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
We have to go thru these arguments when you advocate for ideas I firmly believe to be false.
I have not ignored your arguments for why you think the State can or will disappear. It's my belief you have not refuted the reasons why Anderson, Stirling, and I believe the State is going to be permanently necessary.
Not true, we all of us have the potentiality, active or not, to be competitive and aggressive. Nor do I believe in impossibilities like that common ownership/equal distribution of wealth. All such attempts has boiled down, in actuality, to autocratic one-party bureaucratic regimes incompetently trying to manage everything from the top down. I see zero reason to expect future attempts to end differently.
Disagree, we don't need "rational" reasons to be provoked to violence. Any excuse will do, as can be seen from a cursory knowledge of history. Incorrect, the very poor very seldom take recourse to violence, unless they become criminals. For most the struggle to simply get by takes up most of their energies.
Disagree, because of how flawed and imperfect we all are, the potentiality for future concentration camps remains. Again, disagree, because you continue to disagree sovereign nations have every right to set the terms and conditions for allowing foreigners in. People who believe in that are not going to retreat from what is a matter of principle, and will continue to oppose errors you believe in.
Ad astra! Sean
Disagree. We are not trying to agree.
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