L. F. Richardson is to this story what John K. Hord is to Poul Anderson's Technic History and Oswald Spengler is to James Blish's Cities In Flight.
Rostock claims that he has:
"'...carried Richardson's work a good deal further and more rigorously. I say to you now only that civilized societies must have a certain rate of immolations.'" (p. 32)
- hence this story's title:
"'Today the machine age has developed its own sacrificial kings. We are the chosen of the race, the best it can offer. None gainsays us. We may have what we choose, pleasure, luxury, women, adulation - only not the simple pleasures of wife and child and hope, for we must die that the people may live.'" (p. 33)
Diaz will wind up defeating Rostock militarily instead of joining forces with him but surely this Richardsonian theory warrants further investigation?
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
We have contentions/struggles between tribes and nations because their natural tendency is to expand as far as possible--until they bump up against someone who can block them.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It is not the natural tendency of France to expand into Spain or Germany. Other factors are involved in international conflicts and those factors can be addressed.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Historically, that is not true. France and Spain once fought many wars and they both tried to grab pieces of each other, moderated by prudent assessments of how much they could grab. And component kingdoms of pre-unified Spain, such as Navarre and Aragon, used to be feudal overlords of big parts of southern/Mediterranean coast France. That too was a fertile cause of wars.
And ever since at least Francis I's time the policy of French rulers down to Napoleon III was to annex as much as Germany as possible and/or to keep the German states weak and divided. As late as the Versailles Peace Conference (1919) the French were demanding that big chunks of Germany be ceded to France. Nor do I believe those factors involved in international conflicts can always be successfully managed or "addressed."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
France and Spain do not fight wars now. What has happened in history does not have to keep happening.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm more skeptical, I would not be surprised at all if France/Spain someday did fight wars with each other. Or France and Germany. Fighting wars IWHBD.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Well, yes. They might well fight wars if world society stays as it is or even retrogresses which it seems to be doing.
Paul.
Of course, it will stay the same because human beings are naturally prone to being quarrelsome and bellicose.
Ad astra! Sean
They are not.
Disagree.
Sean
Likewise.
"Naturally quarrelsome and bellicose"? Absurd. Society would be far worse than it already is if that were true. Just look at all the polite, considerate, friendly and neighbourly people all around you. Stop denigrating your own species.
Paul.
Sean,
If something is "natural," then it must be the way God intended and created it? Unless it results from the mythical "Fall," in which case it is not natural but a perversion of our nature?
Paul.
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