Ephemera: Lego Serenity

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Browncoat fans are really intense; check out this picture:





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W: Reading about Writing

Here we have from John Gardner’s book, “The Art of Fiction”, an interesting point about fiction in the English language. He is explaining deconstruction, but he unwittingly makes a profound observation.

…At any rate, behind the deconstructionists’ dazzling cloud of language lie certain more or less indisputable facts: that language carries values with it, sometimes values we do not recognize as we speak and would not subscribe to if we noticed their presence in what we say; and that art (music, painting, literature, etc.) is language. That language carries values is obvious. Again and again this book speaks of the writer as “he,” though many of the best writers I have read or have taught in writing classes are female. English, like most languages, is covertly male chauvinist. It is also, as the novelist Harold Brodkey points out, covertly Christian. Nearly all our most resonant words and images carry a trace of Neoplatonic Christianity. Even so innocent a word as “friend” has overtones. In feudal times it meant one’s lord and protector; in Anglo-Saxon times it meant the opposite of “fiend.” We can of course read a book about friends without ever consciously invoking the undercurrents of the word; but where the friendship grows intense, in this story we’re reading, we are almost sure to encounter images of light or warmth, flower or garden imagery, hunger, sacrifice, blood, and so on. The very form of the story, its orderly beginning, middle, and end, is likely to hint at a Christian metaphysic.

A fable: Historia: Mythos: Recent History of Tyranny in the United States

Part 2a, Concerning the uses of the Cold War & international conflict in advancing the interests of the monkey collective.

Again we have the following from Tom Baugh’s book, “Starving the Monkeys: An Entrepreneurial Horror” (continuing from the quote in my 01/26/2010 entry):

Today, some modern economists claim that tornados[sic] are beneficial in that they stimulate jobs in the recovery. I disagree, as undoing the damage done merely represents the rollback of some previous -∆Q. But, if those same modern economists are to be believed, then their ideas would also argue that the recovery from a thermonuclear war would also be equally beneficial. Think of all the jobs that would be created if all those A Country cities and neighborhoods were rebuilt from scratch. After all, the ore and the aggregate and the limestone still lies there intact, untouched by the evil neutron. And by the time this rebuilding has been completed, the effects of the short-term fission products will have faded into meaninglessness.

But this line of reasoning requires boldness, and reliance upon the individual, and the relinquishing of fear. The monkey collective must not allow this sort of thought.

And so, the response of the collective throughout those early decades of the Cold War was to deride the thinkers, military and civilians, as war-mongers and naive. The best representation of this derision was in a cleverly spun film by Stanley Kubrick [“Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”].

This movie, which was required viewing at the Naval Academy, accurately reflects the ethic of the monkey collective. Fear and prejudice and weakness are lauded by the collective as virtuous. Individual effort and achievement are derided as naive and hopeless. Patriotism to the ideal of liberty is presented as outdated and foolish, while only compliance to the collective and weakness is considered strength. Films such as this don’t propagandize the collective any more than politicians deceive the collective as they rob us blind.

Instead, politician and film-maker and reporter alike merely respond to their respective markets. The collective demands that the politicians steal from the individual on its behalf. And so they do. Similarly, the collective demands that the film-maker and the reporter deride the individual, and make him more susceptible to the theft. And so they do. In all the many ways in our world that the collective steals from us and derides our most hallowed institutions, they do so at the command of the monkey electorate and market.

But a nuclear-tipped Cold War wasn’t enough to promote fear and compliance. After all, the Soviets might collapse some day, they reasoned. Or the LeMays or Pattons or Al Grays or Rickovers that hadn’t yet been ferreted out might just be too good at their work. Accordingly, Biff and Muffy, the suited representatives of the collective, needed a replacement or two waiting in the wings.

So, after it appeared that the Cold War was firing up to full heat, the monkey collective decided on the dick move of their time. To create another festering sore of resentment, in 1948, the worldwide monkey collective relocated a band of those hapless Jew survivors into Palestine. And created both the state of Israel and a myth of a destruction of the state of Palestine, a nation which never actually existed but fills the role of victim nicely. In this example, the collective managed to instantly create victims on both sides. If you oppose Israel, you must be a holocaust denier. Conversely, if you favor Israel, you must hate Allah and property rights. No one wins but the collective that feeds on the conflict. And which requires your sacrifice to feed it.

From the point of view of the Palestinian, you can see why they would be upset. Imagine if a whole bunch of homeless people were transported into my old drywall neighborhood in Forsyth County. In so doing, perhaps I and all my neighbors and our families were deported to, say, Utah. As a reaction to this injustice, we would imagine a sort of national unity that didn’t exist at all before the deportation. Maybe we would demand a Forsythian state and refuse to admit the legitimacy of the homeless community. We might even form the Forsythian Liberation Organization. I would also be highly motivated to go back to my old neighborhood and have it out with the homeless. They, in turn, would then be motivated to form some security organizations like the Hossad. Biff and Muffy, who started this mess because they thought it would be nice to help the homeless, would be equally happy to sell both sides weapons. Or collect our votes.

On the other hand, a group of our oil-rich relatives, perhaps in Texas, might decide to cash in, too. Now, assume that our relatives in Texas practice a religion with a central tenet of hospitality to the displaced. Following their own principles, our relatives might be inclined to promote a Forsythian state in the middle of the Texas desert. And then fund our business startups[sic], at zero interest, also in keeping with their religious tenets.

But, our Texas relatives might find their individual purpose served better to keep us riled up. And recruit us to go blow up their political enemies in the name of Forsyth, even if these enemies had absolutely nothing to do with the original conflict in question.

The victims on both sides of this conflict are being sold a bill of goods. It was easy enough to con a bunch of holocaust survivors into hopping a boat to the promised land. After starving in a death camp for a few years while my former neighbors turned a blind eye, I would understandably be a little wary of moving back in next door to them. I would also probably turn a blind eye to their understandable fear of defying the then-prevalent authority. If some slick marketing came my way about moving to the Biblically-assured Promised Land I might be inclined to go along.

From an outsider’s perspective I would be a little surprised that the boat was heading southeast instead of west, though, given that America is the Promised Land for all peoples. This is supposed to be the place that producers of all stripes come to make their way in the world. Had the forces of nice wanted to really give all those Jews a home, the answer to that question was almost obvious. Buy a goodly-sized farm in Kansas, and hand those craftsmen and merchants hammers and paper. And create New Jerusalem right here in the middle of the continent. Of course you would also have had to slap some sense into their Marxist elitists, but I don’t see that as a downside.

This reasonable approach would have left the Palestinians to run the hotels to host the New Jerusalemites on their lucrative pilgrimages to the Old Jerusalem historical sites. After all, Jew, Christians and Moslems lived in relative harmony in that area for centuries prior to 1948. So, in that climate, why wouldn’t the Palestinians welcome their long-ago brothers with open arms today? But then there wouldn’t be all that discontent, now would there? Instead, we have to ask some Kansas farmer kid to go fight a string of wars for reasons for which he is woefully unprepared to even comprehend.

While the earlier post-armistice duplicity stirred up dissent on only one side, this improved model creates dissatisfaction on both sides. This new model was so effective at manufacturing deep political compliance of the victims and their allies that it was worth repeating, but with one slight tweak. The problem here is that the forces of nice are too easy to identify as the source of the conflict itself. After all, those homeless people didn’t just swim the Chattahoochie and truck us away by themselves. They had some help, and the help doesn’t like getting blamed.

Enter the peace-keeping mission.

The beauty of the peace-keeping mission as a political compliance tool is that the guilty parties can remain comfortably out of sight. Conflict is a universal constant of human existence, usually between one party which has something and another that wants it without having earned it. With this natural force at play, this mission also doesn’t require any startup costs. Once conflict sprouts, tender care and rhetorical watering can ensure that it can blossom into a full scale crisis. At that point, the forces of niceness can spring into action to oppose whatever side seems to be winning at the moment. This approach is guaranteed to win the hearts of female voters of either gender, as it provokes their boo-boo kissing nature.

Unfortunately, the fact that this approach is unreliable in identifying the oppressing party is of no consequence for the purpose of eliciting political compliance. After all, the emerging victor may actually be applying the pipe to the knee of some jerk who deserved the treatment. All that is needed is a victim to aid, ethical considerations or judgment having no impact.

And so on--You get the idea.

A fable: Historia: Mythos: Recent History of Tyranny in the United States

Part 2a, Concerning the uses of the Cold War in advancing the interests of the monkey collective.

Again we have the following from Tom Baugh’s book, “Starving the Monkeys: An Entrepreneurial Horror” (continuing from the quote in my 01/21/2010 entry):

Each side in this war had their own stable of native nuclear physicists, such as the Americans Lawrence, Serber, Seaborg, and Oppenheimer. Likewise, the Soviets had Kurchatov and numerous names we will never know, who spent much of their energy studying stolen plans from the Manhattan Project. Alone, neither the Americans not the Soviets had the political will to pursue nuclear weapons without Hitler as a threat to both. Their mutual salvation came as a result of Hitler’s own racist policies.

The practice-war Germans had enjoyed the services of men such as Fritz Haber, the son of Lebanese Jews and the father of modern chemical warfare. Haber is also famous as the inventor of the Haber process, in which ammonia is created literally from thin air. Ammonia from any source can be used as a fertilizer directly. But, more typically Haber’s ammonia is converted into and combined with nitric acid from the German Ostwald process to make ammonium nitrate, the most important agricultural fertilizer of the modern world. The chemists of the early 1900s begat the physicists of the mid-1900s. While Germany enjoyed the former in the practice war, it would deny itself the latter in the main event. From across Europe, brilliant Jews fled Hitler, the vast majority heading west to Britain and America. This flight best documented by Richard Rhodes [in his book “The Making of the Atomic Bomb”].

In this scholarly book, Rhodes details the history of the atomic bomb. Unwittingly, he also demonstrates the power of individual minds to starve an enemy of its produce. As researched by Rhodes, Hungary alone traded seven players to the Manhattan Project and related endeavors. Theodor von Karman became famous for his work with fluid dynamics. George de Hevesy invented new methods in radio-biochemistry. Michael Polanyi found correlations between knowledge, science, economics, and the subconscious mind. Hmmm.

Their fellow Hungarian Leo Szilard invented many concepts surrounding the use of fission for weapons and energy. Szilard’s patents would later become absorbed by the government as they were too important to allow mere profit. Eugene Wigner developed important theories of nuclear reactions. John von Neumann contributed a mathematical insight to the propagation of shock waves both inside and outside of atomic bombs. To implement the required calculations for these theories, he is credited with a great deal of the early work in computer science. The last of these seven Hungarians, Edward Teller, is widely known, along with the Polish Jew Stanislaw Ulam, as the father of the thermonuclear bomb.

Mussolini contributed Enrico Fermi, the scientist that would oversee construction of the first nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago, whose wife was a Jew. Germany would contribute Hans Bethe among others too numerous to list here.

Austria effectively discovered fission in absentia in Kungalv, Sweden, when Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch, both Austrian Jews fleeing the Nazis, went for a Christmas walk in 1938. During this walk, Lise interpreted the experimental results of her former German chemist partner, Otto Hahn, who missed identifying fission by the barest of margins. Had he not been stripped of Lise’s help, Otto Hahn would have given the Nazis the first key to the atomic bomb. Had Germany not been stripped of the best minds of Europe, the rest might have contributed to making a more peaceful Hitler-free Germany the world’s first nuclear power.

The most famous of all of Hitler’s refugees was of course Albert Einstein. Despite his popularity in common understanding, his sole contribution to the atomic bomb was his famous letter to President Roosevelt. In that letter Einstein urged the President to fund a nuclear program before the Germans got there first. That letter, a copy of which is on display at the Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, would be contribution enough.

The development of the atomic bomb in America was then a direct effect of the racist policies of the Nazis. This development is also the clearest historical example of how a small group of people denied their enemy the produce of their minds. Had Hitler successfully placated the Jews, he could have used their talents to conquer or pacify the world under a single government.

As it turned out, for a time America was the sole nuclear superpower. This status had been handed to it in part by Hitler’s refugees and in part by a steamer-trunk-full of nuclear secrets brought by British scientists sent to America to protect them from the Nazis. Had this hole card been played correctly, the Cold War would have never happened.

Patton, and others, advised attacking the Soviets directly, and thus forcing them back into their own borders after the war. With the nuclear hole card, the threat of such an attack would have been sufficient. Limited to their own borders, the Soviets would have been forced to survive on their own meager resources rather than having the rich resources, intellectual and physical, of Eastern Europe to plunder. So weakened, the Soviets would have collapsed within a decade. And in their collapse, they would have spawned a more peaceful and prosperous Russian to continue the progress started by Peter the Great before being interrupted by the cancer of Communism.

However, the forces of nice, the monkey collective, needs conflict to feed it. And so, this collective chose to allow the Soviets to occupy half of Europe, damning generations of innocent Europeans, and Soviet citizens themselves, to their rule. The Soviet collectives, after all, more closely resembled the progressives in power in America at that time and at all times since. Progressives who were, and remain, supported by the American electorate.

More brutal than the Germans, the Soviets would eventually murder many times more people that the Nazis, most of them their own citizens. But at least Biff and Muffy would have a worthy adversary to frighten Americans into compliance and service. To help the Soviets, and to prevent their premature collapse, the Americans would continue the wartime policy of shipping grain to the Soviet Union throughout most of the Cold War. And thus ensuring that their enemy wouldn’t starve while enslaving their population to make all those bombs and missiles. And Hitler’s Panther and Tiger became the models for the Soviet tanks of the Cold War and the American M1 Abrahms [sic] of today. And his V-1 became the Tomahawk, and his V-2 became the Apollo and the Trident and the Minuteman.

By letting the Soviet sore fester, the collective fanned it to strength so that it might form a credible threat. For decades, as strategic experts warned of this threat and continued to warn of its growing menace, the collective stayed their hand. General Curtis LeMay, the Patton of strategic air forces, developed the means to win that war, and promoted the industrial base to fulfill his vision. Hyman Rickover, the driving force of the navel nuclear program, followed suit.

But the collective would fight them each step of the way. Even so, as late as 1960 the Soviets were still far enough behind that a first strike still seemed practical, as documented in the famous book by Herman Kahn [entitled “On Thermonuclear War”].

Kahn was a renowned military strategist and theorist employed by the RAND Corporation think-tank. The first third of this scholarly book is available as a teaser on the web, and clearly describes the tradeoffs that were still available in the early 1960s. As late as then, it still was not too late to destroy the threat that faced us, although the cost would be high. But not so high as the cost we now face from radical terrorists as we implicitly arm them, having groomed them from birth for the task.

Interestingly, Kahn placed his hopes for survival and recovery from nuclear war on the individual skill and spirit of the survivors. He drew a clear distinction between the collectivists of what he called A Country and the individualists of what he called the B Country.

In Kahn’s model, A Country consists of the urbanized areas, including the suburban areas that serve the cities. Meanwhile, B Country consists of the rural areas that remain. Today, we would refer to B Country as the “flyover.”

In Kahn’s day, roughly half of the productive capacity, human and material, resided in each of these areas. Both of these halves of the nation cooperated to mutual benefit like gigantic renditions of Og and Pok [Read earlier in Tom’s book to understand the context.]. In this trade, the rural areas supplied raw materials, such as food and ore and transportation while the urban areas supplied designs and finished goods. A Country ate the food supplied by B Country and smelted steel from the ore. Conversely, B Country used the tractors and mining equipment provided by A Country. Both benefitted.

Kahn also presented evidence of a doubling of the economic output of the nation roughly every ten years. He also ominously pointed out that, in a crisis, B Country could survive without A Country. But A Country could not survive without B Country. In other words, remove designs and the ideas and the newest models of tractor, and B Country can still limp along. Remove the food, and A Country dies. Unconditionally.

Now consider that a thermonuclear war, at the worst case envisioned by experts of the time, would completely destroy A Country in the form of damaged buildings and leveled factories. But, the only real effect on B Country would be the short-term poisoning of the land by short-lived fission products. And even these effects could be mitigated by simple prophylactic measures that blocked their effects on people. The implication of all of these assertions, backed by scientific fact, was clear.

A 1960 thermonuclear war, even if considered as a worst-case surprise attack on the United States by a fully effective Soviet Union, could be survived.

If the people of A Country had been evacuated first to B Country, all of their intellectual ability would survive intact, making recovery much more simple. And the decade-doubling of the economy would restore the nation to its pre-war status within ten years.

In the meantime, the half-destroyed United States of 1960 would still have been the most powerful economy on the planet. And with most of its population intact.

I'll finish the rest of this quote in tomorrow's entry in this blog.

W: Reading about writing

I'm taking it slow with John Gardner's book, "The Art of Fiction", to fully try to remember all the different principles that he explains in it.


In the following quote, John Gardner describes how a reader experiences a well written piece of fiction and how a good writer of fiction should facilitate this:

If we carefully inspect our experience as we read, we discover that the importance of physical detail is that it creates for us a kind of dream, a rich and vivid play in the mind. We read a few words at the beginning of the book or the particular story, and suddenly we find ourselves seeing not words on a page but a train moving through Russia, an old Italian crying, or a farmhouse battered by rain. We read on—dream on—not passively but actively, worrying about the choices the characters have to make, listening in panic for some sound behind the fictional door, exulting in characters’ successes, bemoaning their failures. In great fiction, the dream engages us heart and soul; we not only respond to imaginary things—sights, sounds, smells—as though they were real, we respond to fictional problems as though they were real: We sympathize, think, and judge. We act out, vicariously, the trials of the characters and learn from the failures and successes of particular modes of action, particular attitudes, opinions, assertions, and beliefs exactly as we learn from life. Thus the value of great fiction, we begin to suspect, is not just that it entertains us or distracts us from our troubles, not just that it helps us to know what we believe, reinforces those qualities that are noblest in us, leads us to feel uneasy about our faults and limitations.

This is not the place to pursue that suspicion—that is, the place to work out in detail the argument that the ultimate value of fiction is its morality, though the subject is one we must return to—but it is a good place to note a few technical implications of the fact that, whatever the genre may be, fiction does its work by creating a dream in the reader’s mind. We may observe, first, that if the effect of the dream is to be powerful, the dream must probably be vivid and continuous—vivid because if we are not quite clear about what it is that we’re dreaming, who and where the characters are, what it is they’re doing or trying to do and why, our emotions and judgment must be confused, dissipated, or blocked; and continuous because a repeatedly interrupted flow of action must necessarily have less force than an action directly carried through from its beginning to its conclusion. There may be exceptions to this general rule—we will consider the possibility later—but insofar as the general rule is persuasive it suggests that one of the chief mistakes a writer can make is to allow or force the reader’s mind to be distracted, even momentarily, from the fictional dream.

To be able to write like this is to live the dream because you can share your vision with your readers. It is because of this dream--only a dream--that our social prison doesn't care too much if one aspires to write or read because it is only a dream. If I became a great writer, it would be because I had no other choice; as long as I don't achieve anything or do anything, and as long as my writing doesn't get too radical, the monkey collective can ignore my desire to think for myself. Once I am able to influence others, the sea of poison that is our social collective will rise up and extinguish me. So I will just harmlessly pound away at the keyboard until it is over.

Theology: (The prince of the sciences): Credenda & Personal Observations

In examining a number of scriptures concerning suffering, I have a number of questions which I will post here in this blog and if I come to any answers to these questions before I die or the Internet gets banned, I will edit this entry to add the answers.

First question: Why did Jesus, when He was on earth, go about healing people only to tell them later that they must suffer for the kingdom?

The apostles, especially Paul, mention in many places how we must as Christians be ready to suffer for the cause and to identify with Christ in our sufferings. So, for my next question:
Why must so many of our Christian brothers and sisters around the world live miserable lives?

Third question: Why are American evangelical Christians so enamored with wanting to make sure that those suffering pain should continue to suffer without recourse to those remedies out there that might provide relief from pain?

And an unrelated question: Why do American Christians no longer desire the responsibility of Liberty, and make themselves tools of the overweening State?

Don't you think there is something wrong mentally with someone who rejoices that they got to suffer?

Anyway, I am not a very good Christian, because I don't like suffering and I want to think for myself. Maybe the Russian religious view is more correct than we want to admit; we should embrace suffering so that Christ will respect us (since He suffered the most).

But just asking these questions will get me branded as an infidel; oh well!

Judgment Day will come for ALL of us.....

W: Reading about Writing

I just started reading John Gardner's book:


ISBN978-0-679-73403-1

Social Philosophy: Individual vs. The State: A Few Thoughts 01b

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.


(George Orwell)

A fable: Historia: Mythos: Recent History of Tyranny in the United States

Part 1, Concerning the uses of warfare in advancing the interests of the monkey collective.

Again, from Tom Baugh’s book, “Starving the Monkeys: An Entrepreneurial Horror”

So, about seven score years ago, our forefathers had to enlist a social cause that a) no longer served the interest of the forces of nice that had created it in the first place, and b) was in danger of burning itself out naturally. To that end, the forces of nice hired a genocidal ethnic-cleansing socially-retarded smooth-talking intellectual President from Illinois with a psychotic wife. The collective imbued in him messianic properties that resonate to this day, and gave him a mandate to murder and burn a good chunk of the nation that happened to have other plans for liberty. The collective then set him to his task with urgency, before the essential social crisis evaporated all by itself. More on that topic soon enough.

Scroll forward about a half-century for the next major blow against liberty. The social order and institutions refined during our private war of ethnic-cleansing came into their own when the collective decided to mingle in a spat between two opposing groups of our closest friends. That particular war introduced us to the lovely idea of forcing national service onto our children at the point of a gun or a gallows. And of fighting one set of friends who happened to live farther away than another set of friends, creating artificial demons in the process. Demons who would soon become real in response.

In this triumph of the collective, we splattered a good portion of our most valuable resources, blood and treasure, over the fields of Europe and the bottom of the North Atlantic. Demons alone weren’t enough to sell the sacrifice of these two resources. The blood, unwillingly provided by the lower classes, was demanded by a national draft imposed by the ethnic-cleansing veterans on their own grandchildren. Meanwhile, the treasure was eagerly sold for destruction by the proto-Muffy and proto-Biff, safely away from the hazards of war. Prosperity in that war was determined by how fast the largest could churn out the most unreliable war material. And in its destruction at the hands of the ill-trained conscripts, create a rising demand for more. Perhaps there were even academy grads hired for the purpose of extolling the virtues of the latest useless truck or gun.

At that war’s end, as the blood and treasure became exhausted, the collective devised a means to ensure that the all-valuable irritations could never heal. An armistice, neither victory not defeat for either side, ensured that friends would continue to hate, but never reconcile.

An armistice is an entirely different vehicle than an instrument of surrender.

The West decided to stop fighting because it was just too darn expensive to keep pushing farmers armed with substandard Muffy-brand weapons against Germans armed with super-reliable machine guns and chemicals. Adding to the inequity in machines was the fact that the Germans were under the command of small-unit leaders such as Lieutenant Erwin Rommel. And led by men such as Heinz Guderian watching the action thoughtfully as a signals officer from a command post. Watching and learning and thinking.

A one-sided war was exactly what was required by the collective to paint the German mind as demonic and sacrifice as valiant. Inferior material and inferior ideas fit exactly with the collective ethic of the noble self-sacrifice, so long as the sacrifice was made by someone else.

The leadership in that war didn’t have to be so one-sided, but was a direct result of the triumph of collective mores over the individual. The Americans had deliberately disenfranchised the tactically superior Southern generalship and erased them, and by extension their Revolutionary War roots, from the American warrior ethic. These small unit leadership methods, applied on the scale of armies by Washington and Stonewall Jackson, served well the rebels in the late-1700s and the rebels in the mid-1800s.

But these same effective methods were forbidden to the ill-trained and involuntary conscripts of the early-1900s, and led directly to their slaughter, a triumph of the collective over the mind.

At the same time, the collective compounded this error by cheapening the industrial base that had more or less single-handedly won the war for the North. Into the meat grinder the North had thrown steel until the grinder clogged on it. The lesson? More steel, less thought. A lesson that fell apart when it met a foe that had both.

The Germans had studied any victory regardless of its heritage, and chose to make the best weapons possible despite the potential profit margin of cheap. And so, despite the innate heroism of the American, he was hopelessly outgunned and outled in his overwhelming number. And his generals prodded him into human wave tactics that would make a modern Chinese general proud.

The armistice sleight-of-hand which followed encouraged the Germans to agree to abandon their superior weapons as a show of good faith, an early example of the perils of unilateral disarmament. After this voluntary disarmament, the western allies decided to immediately impose non-existent terms of surrender on a nation that had never officially surrendered. And, given their prowess on the battlefield against a numerically superior enemy, probably wouldn’t have needed to.

But a fraudulent victory was not enough. Immediately after the end of that war, the collective seized most of the German chemical patents in American courts at the behest of the monkey elite. These stolen patents included those of the lucrative pharmaceutical and dye industries, and denied their rightful owners the fruit of these ideas. For the Germans, a nation which lacked agricultural or other significant natural resources of any kind, their ideas and their innovations were their national export. In other times, this piracy would have been sufficient to incite a war as the monkeys seized these goods of the mind infinitely more valuable than any mere shipboard cargo. But this festering resentment would ensure that the commercial forces of Germany would later move in lockstep with the Nazis in World War II.

The treachery of the monkey collective in that armistice would not be limited to the field of commerce. In their youth, the German Lieutenants and Captains had been oppressed by the terms of a fake surrender. But in their maturity, these Generals would march with the Nazis alongside their commercial brethren. And in the march the Privates and Corporals would become Sergeants and Fuehrers. All of these formidable forces were driven by their perception of the thieves and cowards of the west and the uncivilized barbarians of the east. And of traitors in their own midst who conspired with their oppressors. Thus came industrialized slaughter, and absolutely no credible opposition in this country to the draft, the due of a veteran generation payable to its own young.

The Americans, in that war against defiance, would ride into suicidal human wave battle atop the monkey-tank of the day, named after the genocidal ethnic-cleansing general hero of the industrialized North. The Sherman, a high-riding mobile target reminiscent of child’s crayon-drawing, was no match for the German Panther or Tiger. Even the slightly more modern Pershing, named for the human-wave hero of the practice war, was no match one-on-one with the German models.

Only in the hands of a Patton would the feeble American equipment make a decent showing. Patton became a political pariah who dared to study the works of both Rommel and Stonewall Jackson. The Pattons of that war enabled the individual American soldier to survive contact with the enemy beyond the point at which the Germans or the Japanese would simply have run out of ammunition. The Pattons of that war made Presidents of men who despised men like him, and who knew only how to help the enemy exhaust that ammunition.

The Germans, of course, made a crucial strategic blunder that cost them the war, and more importantly for the modern entrepreneur, the post-war propaganda. Incensed by the onerous terms of the post-armistice, the Germans identified merchant Jews with their western enemies who had cheated their way into a false victory.

These intellectual Jews, feeling the 1920’s equivalent of white guilt, perhaps “Jew guilt”, over their parents’ and grandparents’ mercantile success, affected strongly Marxist views to assuage this guilt. But to their German peers, this affectation placed them in the camp of the barbarian Communists to the east. The Jew in Germany soon found himself labeled as an Eastern Communist or a Western Capitalist with equal disdain and precision. Finding no safe corner of political opinion in which to hide, the smart ones tried to flee this encirclement while their less-clever brethren ignored the danger.

In 1939 Guderian pointed the way through to victory in Belgium, having learned his lessons in the command post of the previous war watching the needless slaughter of static war. But behind him, the rot in the Fatherland was already taking hold.

In the practice war, the Jews had been allies in their war against the West, serving in war industry and at the front alike. But now, rather than gainfully employing these millions the Germans were besot with the task of feeding them in inefficient labor camps. And later, burdened with wasting valuable ammunition, railway traffic and industrial produce in killing them rather than the enemy.

Once the Germans began to face the human wave, agricultural, and industrial might of an entire continent, even their superior weapons and tactics were overwhelmed in their smaller number. The Germans were then left in a position in which the internment and labor camps were simply too expensive to feed. So the starving Germans, having their industry destroyed by relentless bombing and no labor to tend their meager fields, turned a deaf ear to rumors of atrocities out of raw animal survival. The triumph of the collective was almost complete as it ground through the individual as all collectives must ultimately do.

Had the Germans avoided the destruction of their Jewish resources, they might have well won the war and taken their vengeance from the duplicity of the armistice. Freed from the burden of killing Polish and Hungarian Jews, they could have solidified their industrial might atop the fields of Poland and the minds of Budapest. From that vantage they could have swiftly taken Ukraine, starving the Russians into defeat a few years later. But then, we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to experience guilt imposed on Americans for over six decades, and the power the collective derives from this. Our world today is shaped indelibly by Hitler, who was arguably the product of an unbroken chain of the monkey collective stretching back to the Annapolis and Boston slave markets.

Hitler can be seen as a symptom of practice war subterfuge rather than the cause of evil. Without other hands beside him, he would have amounted to nothing but a street-corner rant. But instead, he shaped our modern world. As proof, consider the Cold War, the dark fantasy of the war merchant and the political oppressor alike. Without nuclear weapons, the agrarian Soviet Union would have been little more than a footnote on the page of history.

Social Philosophy: Individualism vs. the Collective

I have finally read enough history to re-evaluate my list of heroes (under the about me section of this blog) and several have been de-listed. (See if you can tell which two were eliminated.)

Ephemera: Working on current Traveller Campaign

I am doing some creative work on my Traveller the game blog, just not anything that will pay. But this game does stir my creative juices and there is a market for quality written materials for the Traveller RPG in it's many forms.

A Fable -Part2- Theology (The Prince of Sciences): The History of Organized Religion: Tongue In Cheek??

And now the shaman gets to start imposing rules. Many of these happen to line up nicely with the king’s needs, but don’t decide to kill anyone on your own.

“Don’t steal stuff.” Again, not bad. Pretty much a necessity for civilization.

“Obey the king, because God says to.” Neat. That one is worth every dime, goat, perfume, oil and priestess the king will pay the shaman from now on.

“Don’t want anything your neighbor has.” On the surface, this one was already covered by the stealing thing. But, we can twist this around to keep those individualists in line. Everyone should just be impossibly happy with what circumstances you were born in or assigned to, and not try to improve your station by learning and things like that.

“Don’t work on Tuesdays.” Everyone has to do something on Tuesdays, but at least this way you get to be guilty of something.

“Come tell me when you do bad stuff and I will ask God to forgive you.” Motherlode. Look what the shaman could twist those tiny minds into doing when he got you to rat out your neighbor’s cough. Getting that information allowed him to tell said neighbor that God told him about the cough, and thus win the neighbor’s compliance. Imagine what can be done with the flood of information this little rule will unleash.

“God hates knowledge.” We can’t let any of those pesky ideas lead to some embarrassing questions for the shaman or the king. You might even make up some stories about how everyone would be all happy-pants right now if some dumbass smart guy didn’t start thinking about stuff long ago. Maybe you could even work in a “hate women” angle while you are at it, if you can show how his primary babe lured him into eating a grape or something.

“The devil makes you do it.” This one lets you off the hook for bad stuff from time to time, but only if you show up and tell all. While we are at it, let’s claim this devil guy is the one that puts thoughts in our heads to learn stuff, especially that dumbass smart guy and his stupid conniving wench. That one is great as it a) shows you the devil IS real or else you wouldn’t be having all those ideas, and b) stop thinking, damn you! Really.

You can also add some great ideas that really do make sense, as these keep the populace alive longer:

“Don’t eat dead people.”

“Don’t have sex with dead people.”

“Don’t have sex with people who eat dead people.”

And a whole bunch of other sex-related rules. Those shamans are horny little one-track-minded bastards, come to think of it. Anyway. Add a few more genuinely beneficial ideas:

“Wash your hands.”

“Don’t let people with pus make food for you.”

Also, mix in some rules to prevent the idiots from doing stuff that people with sense could do just fine:

“Don’t have sex with women that charge for sex.” She can do your laundry, watch your kids, slap you around for a while, wash your car, bring you burgers, etc., all for money. Or, she can demand diamonds and other shiny stuff all the time, but just not money for doing that one thing. If you do want to have sex with her, make sure she gives it away for free to anyone that wanders by rather than her running it as an entertainment industry. Otherwise, she might take pains to protect the inventory.

“Only have sex with people with whom you have reached particular contractual arrangements, which must be approved by your local shaman representative, even if such contracts are decades old.” There’s that sex thing again, but this time contractual arrangements are OK so long the shamans approve in public rituals.

“Don’t smoke that.” More later.

“Don’t drink that.” More later, too.

“Don’t eat that pig or catfish or shrimp.” The shaman could have easily added “unless you make sure it’s cooked thoroughly first.” But, that would have required some individual thinking and responsibility, and that is a can of worms best left closed.

“Don’t judge anybody.” Even the idiot who clearly screwed up every opportunity he had been given. Judgment is just more of that pesky thinking, and you might start judging the king or the shaman if you do. Besides, that’s their bag.

“Trim the penises of little boys.” Hmmm. Maybe that one is only for idiots. Or else it is good as a reminder of what the shaman might do to you if you start using your penis outside of your shaman-approved contracts.

To protect the shaman’s interest, he needed a catch-all rule:

“Stone anyone who gets out of line.” This one pretty much puts the end to that rampant individualism and thought.

With a related:

“If you don’t make your children or your wife or husband follow these rules, you get stoned.”

And the Mother of All Rules:

“Give me ten percent of everything you get.”

The kings should have seen that one coming. Instantly, despite the fact that the king demands more, the shaman becomes the richest guy in the valley. Sure, the shaman has to hire a few malcontents as priests, perhaps even The Chosen Ones that helped launch this new sensation. He also has to put up some special huts to hold court. But other than these things, the shaman really doesn’t have a lot to do with his cash.

The king, on the other hand, is busy building roads to march on, and feeding the masses so they can dig ore and bang out bronze swords. And buying off his allies and foes alike with money he took by force from the productive. The king gets more, but the shaman keeps more of what he gets.

Now, the shaman isn’t stupid enough to just say it like that. No, the words sound like:

“Give God ten percent of everything you get. He said I can hold it for Him.”

As if God doesn’t own it all, anyway. But even that isn’t good enough. So he adds:

“Oh, and make it the best ten percent, too. He doesn’t want to think you are holding out on Him.”

So much for Tithing, and the genetic miracles that brings. Prosperity gets in the way of all that desperation and the attendant obedience anyway.

Related is:

“Give stuff to poor people.” Without any judgment calls about whether they deserve it or are just a bum, of course. This one is really neat in that it kind of sidesteps the original selling point for the ten percent. It also promotes the interest of all those people that listen to the shaman and outnumber you. You don’t expect the shaman to be dipping into his till for those waifs, do you? That’s your problem, not his. Besides, he and his boys are too busy listening to the juicy gossip.

For a while, this one was:

“Let the widows and orphans root around in the fields after the harvest so they can pick up what’s left and help trample that leftover stuff into mulch.” But that sounded too much like work and fair exchange of value. Worse, if the widow has her kids out working they might pick up some skills and a work ethic. Here come those damnable thoughts again! Stop it!

The shamans eventually transformed the way in which men viewed their relationship with God. After a sufficient number of individualists, who saw themselves in direct connection with Him, had been butchered or intimidated into silence, nothing stood in the way of the shamans inserting themselves between God and His creatures. What had previously been an exploration of God’s creation became labeled as Occult, or Witchcraft, or Paganism, or Satanism. Or, any number of easily named and capitalized heresies, suitable for burning or stoning.

After a sufficiently long reign of terror, a shaman of sufficient authority need only point at an individualist and name him or her as one of these. And then lean back, smiling righteously upon them, as the swarm attacked in their religious zeal, certain that God smiled upon them as well. Over time, the fear of such retribution silenced dissent or discussion. Celebrations of God’s bounty, such as out tribe’s annual berry fight, would have served as sufficient evidence for ritualistic execution of the proponents or attendees.

The battle was considered won when the only theological choice available in the landscape of ideas was simple. One side of this simple choice was adherence to and promotion of silly rituals that could only demean the awe of an Infinite Creator. The other side of the choice was atheism or other evil-sounding labels. The third possibility, that of the most simple relationship of man as an individual creation of his God, was stamped out where ever it happened to spring up.

Eventually, some of those shamans became a little too big for their britches. In some cases, some barbarian king had enough of them and decided to whack them and start his own shaman subsidiary. In other cases, the shamans took over the kingdom and went into the barbarian business.

The most successful shaman racket of all time grew larger than a whole bunch of kings. One day, some shamans got together and decided to resolve their differences. To do so, they lumped all of their compliance rituals into one big mash, which might seem a little inconvenient at first. But, this turned out to have a couple of great advantages.

First, the ritual mush became so confusing that the guy on the street had no idea what the hell was going on with God, to put it bluntly. The common man was left with no choice but to either listen to what the regional shamans told him to do, or to think for himself and get stoned.

Second, all those gossip chambers now had the potential for revealing some really good stuff that had real political power. Imagine if some minor functionary in one kingdom blurted out some tidbit that meant some other kingdom was about to get invaded. Then, just like the whole “I had a dream” thing that got it all started, the shamans could use that information as some kind of “God told me this” type of kingdom-vs-kingdom scam for hire. Or, the shamans could get together and decide whether or not to tip off the invade, and possibly sell that information to the highest bidder. Or, they might just let some jerk king they didn’t like get invaded. Or get wiped out while invading someone else. Lots of ways that one could turn out, all of them great for the shaman pocketbook.

On the flip side, this organized shaman glaze had a major flaw. Just as this mondo-shaman thing was getting touched off, the top shamans realized they had a problem. With all those little believer cults out there, each with their own scam going on, someone had to come up with a great common story or else the whole thing could blow apart in no time. All it would take to rattle apart is for one of those lower-level guys to decide that their version of shamanism should predominate.

For a while, things seemed to stagnate. And then, one day a shaman showed up that had been visiting another cult trying to get them into the fold. This other cult was notoriously known as the predominate dick-snippers, they not liking anyone named Richard, and had refused to join up. The snippers, as it turned out, had their own thing going like gang-busters.

The shaman reported that the snippers seemed, in a way, to value individuality, despite their shaman tradition being the one that whole “knowledge is bad” thing. More oddly, the whole collective of them sometimes acted like an [sic] single personality. These qualities allowed the snippers to infiltrate most of the barbarian Kingdoms and assist them with handling a lot of the administrative and media needs all around. Unfortunately for them, a few centuries previously their host barbarian king had decided they had grown a little too powerful and decided to disperse them around. It turned out that this dispersion had happened a couple of times before, too.

You get the idea...Clever conceit...Anyway...FWIW... }

A Fable -Part1- Theology (The Prince of Sciences): The History of Organized Religion: Tongue In Cheek??

{

The following is from the book, “Starving the Monkeys” by Tom Baugh:

And so, the most successful barbarian kings soon realized that it was essential to cut the bond between a man and God. This division would leave the man with no authority to which to turn but the king himself. Enter the spiritualist, or shaman, or prophet, or reverend, or saint, or pontiff or any number of names which served the purpose of isolating men from God.

The purpose of a spiritualist was, by inserting himself as a prophet or interpreter of God’s vision, to divert man’s loyalty and attention away from God. Thus each man’s own individual self interest would be diverted toward the spiritualist and, by proxy, the king. This goal of redirected loyalty was achieved by ensuring that the spiritualist’s loyalties to the king was [sic] paid in wealth and power to the extent that they achieved the cementing of that king’s power. The barbarian king thus secured his power by the idea planted in men’s minds that he was due his power as if stemming from God Himself. A judo master would have been proud of this spiritual and intellectual redirection of man’s attention.

But this was a process best taken slow.

At first, the spiritualist might present himself as a wise man that had studied the nature of God more fully than each man might have time to do on his own. Much as a purported mind-reader only needs a few tidbits about his mark to make educated guesses that might seem phenomenally insightful. This technique, known as “cold reading”, is fun when done at a party or out on a date. But, if twisted to manipulate the minds of the unwary to redirect power and loyalty, this trick can be a dangerous weapon.

Now, not everyone will fall for this ruse. But the spiritualist only needs a few committed marks to begin to accumulate real power. Merely by resonating with key issues important to the individual, a shaman can easily appear to speak for God. And these issues can be easily detected by forming a model of that individual’s quality of life matrix factors.

“God told me in a dream last night that you are suffering,” the shaman might say. Most people are, at least in some way. And those more likely to fall under the spiritualist’s influence are probably suffering the most.

If the shaman encounters narrowed-eyes at this point, he knows to excuse himself and beat a hasty retreat to the next mark, having only wasted about twenty seconds. Even so, he has gained valuable information about who to deal with later.

But if he sees the faintest glimmer of hope in the eyes, he digs deeper. “In this dream, a loved one, maybe a wife, … or a child, … or a parent, … “ he pauses imperceptibly, waiting for recognition. Upon seeing a glimmer of response, or better, outright agreement, he knows which way to turn. If not, “… there was an animal, and it was starving, … “ and so on until he hits pay-dirt.

If not, he can blame himself, such as, “Sometimes God sends me to a neighbor of the afflicted to keep me humble. Which one of your neighbors is suffering? I know God wants you to help them, even if you don’t have the means yourself.” This last one is pure gold, and can lead to a wealth of information about gender, age, affliction, and so on, which makes a far greater impact when he approaches the neighbor later.

Sometimes, to break the ice, the shaman needs a miracle. This could be any number of science-based tricks, well-known to alchemists and pre-teen boys before the advent of public school. But simpler tricks work as well. During a drought or a famine, our shaman might run around for a while asking the tribesmen to pray for rain or plenty, and eventually rain or plenty will happen.

But until it does rain or the crops bear fruit, he can start planting the seed that someone is to blame. His best choice for blame is someone who booted him out the door during an earlier visit, “God is telling me that some in His flock are not believing enough.”

The shaman waits for recognition, and then continues, “I visited Ungh the other day, and he didn’t seem to believe. He thinks that man can solve his own problems. I don’t think he really believes in God’s power. What do you think?” There is a great chance that the shaman is not the only boot recipient that Ungh had lost patience with, self-reliant individualist that he is, so this is a great row to plow. If the mark offers another name, that works too. The more the merrier.

With a list of names, now it’s time to get a crowd together. So much the better if he has the barbarian king’s ear to keep the heat away. Ungh, and the others like him, probably aren’t helping the king sleep well anyway, so this is an easy sell.

And out of this crowd of faithful, our shaman probably has a few that really believe.

I mean REALLY believe.

Believe in their souls that they are specially chosen by God for something important.

Because they not only WANT to. They NEED to.

Because their miserable, pitiful lives up unto that point have just been a total waste of genetic material.

The only thing that has kept some of these righteous from putting an axe to their own head is that it would require some insight and hard work. And it would probably hurt.

But insight and hard work have eluded them, of course, by their own choices. But the lack of these led them to circumstances in their own lives to put them squarely in the shaman’s grasp.

The shaman needs at least three willing assistants. In any nefarious deed, one might get cold feet, two might discuss it and get cold feet. But, in a sea of at least three collectivists, no one wants to be the one to speak first. We will call these three The Chosen Ones.

So the shaman starts the soft sell.

“So many good people are suffering, and God doesn’t want us to suffer.”

“God just wants us to worship Him, and understand His Glory.”

“God told me to teach Ungh and the others. But I have failed Him.”

“I prayed heavily about this, and asked for God’s forgiveness. He told me, in His Wisdom that He had already sent me angels in the form of men.”

“The time is near. The angels were already among us, and I have already met them, but I knew them not.”

“The angels have come to deliver God’s wrath.”

Rattle off enough of this nonsense, and even the dimmest of ruffian bulbs, aspiring for angel-hood, will eventually get the message. If not, he can even volunteer some of these morons on-to-one.

“God told me that you are one of His angels, and that, as a test of both our faiths, you would at first be unwilling.”

All he has to do now is pick a time. Some astronomical event, like a full moon, or better, a comet or an eclipse, works great. And so, as the appointed time approaches, he begins to rile the faithful.

“The time nears. God has chosen us to display our faith that He will deliver us on (the next full moon, whatever). We must gather together to pray for Ungh at his hut. If our faith is strong enough, he will fall to his knees with us,” he requests, reasonably enough. “I have also been instructed that we must build a fire with wood from the seven oaks to represent the seven prophets,” he adds, or some similar simple compliance nonsense.

Note, by the way, if it happens to rain or the harvest is bountiful or the herd returns, or whatever, before the appointed hour, the shaman still has a way out.

“God wanted to make sure we would all be willing. Once He saw the strength of our faith, He delivered us, but warns us to not be asleep when He knocks again.”

And in so doing gets to bank that fervor for the next calamity while taking credit for the deliverance.

Eventually, though, the deliverance does not come. And so the plan springs into action.

A crowd, glistening with uplifted faces, forms in front of Ungh’s hut. At the shaman’s urging, they begin a bonfire with the seven oaks, or the three calves, or that shrub or this oil, so that God will see their obedience. Ungh comes out to see what the hell is going on.

“Ungh, will you repent and follow God’s will?”

If Ungh caves, again the shaman has a victory, since the faithful now have had a demonstration of their imagined power. If so, the lot moves down the list a week or so later to the next victim, all entries cleared in advance by the king. Eventually either the rain returns, or someone on the list fails to repent. Unfortunately for Ungh, it’s him.

“Ungh, so many are suffering, and all God wants is for us, all of us, to bow to His will.”

Ungh is in a no-win situation here, and notices that the king’s men, quick to grab him for the slightest disobedience, are strangely absent from the mob. He also lacks a pintle-mounted .50-cal.

The shaman then turns to the crowd, and with a dramatic flourish instructs them:

“Fall to your knees and pray that he will repent.”

The crowd complies, no one wanting to be seen as siding with Ungh, and in their act of the simplest shared compliance, the die is cast. And established the shaman to all who see this act as their leader. [sic]

“Ungh, will you repent and follow God’s will?” he repeats. No answer from the stunned and incredulous Ungh. It couldn’t have been scripted better.

“Children, God has told me that from this multitude will rise avenging angels to strike down the disbeliever. Angels, rise and advance!” he shouts, lifting his arms and staff to the heavens.

Now, at least The Chosen Ones, and perhaps the few plants of the king, rise and approach Ungh, prepared stones in hand. Collective action being what it is, and having already demonstrated their willingness to obey by the simple act of falling to pray, one or more of the others will rise, too. Seeing their neighbor rise beside them, and caught up in advance. The contagion spreads like wildfire.

The Chosen Ones, closing on the startled Ungh, or better, chasing him as he runs, throw their stones. The rest, not asking why those chosen already had stones in their hands, look around for something to throw. In this act of following the tide they take themselves further down the path of collective obedience.

Stones, branches, axes, it doesn’t matter. Eventually, they surround the pummeled body, the shaman at the center.

“Children, you have witnessed a miracle.”

At this point, none dare to speak out to question this nonsense.

“Fall to your knees and join me in prayer.”

Even if repulsed by what they have just done, everyone complies.

“God forgive us for not trusting You. Forgive us for taking so long to understand Your will. Forgive us for doubting our king who You sent to lead us, and who tends to our needs as Your servant.”

Bingo.

“And forgive Ungh, and let his blood wash away our sins.”

“And teach us to trust Your will. And to be swift as Your angels. Amen.”

“Children, please rise.” They obey.

“And cast the disbeliever upon the fire, that his spirit may rise to God for judgment,” he orders, laying the groundwork for associating ritualistic burning and blood sacrifice as necessary conditions for life. The next time, they won’t have to bother killing their victim first, they can just tie him, or her, to the fire and light it up. Kind of like upping the spiritual ante.

A mob boss might require a blood crime for membership. Similarly, each man and woman and child present, even if they didn’t cast a single stone, share the guilt and shame for what they have done. Or, what they failed to stop.

And now they MUST believe in the righteousness of what they have done. To maintain this internal lie they must convince everyone they meet to believe as well. They must pass this belief onto their children, so strongly that they pass it onto theirs, and so on. Because if they don’t, they would come hand-to-face with the blood on their own hands. And being sheep in a collective flock, it was that avoidance of responsibility that led to their rapt attention to the shaman who walked up to them in front of their huts. And it was their longing to belong to the collective that led to their enlistment in the mob that murdered Ungh.

And so the spiritualist contagion gains a permanent foothold. The rain, or whatever precipitating crisis was at hand, no longer matters. If the rain come, the shaman was right. If not, they move to the next victim until it does. The important thing now is that they believe.

Because now they must.

Technos: Electric Auto: My new favorite car

ORP: LeGuin: The Dispossessed, part n+1 & final.

In this novel, even when the writer describes the main character’s self-doubt, the words become almost poetic:

He had no answer. He had no right to all the grace and bounty of this world, earned and maintained by the work, the devotion, the faithfulness of its people. Paradise is for those who make Paradise. He did not belong. He was a frontiersman, one of a breed who had denied their past, their history. The settlers of Anarres had turned their backs on the Old World and its past, opted for the future only. But as surely as the future becomes the past, the past becomes the future. To deny is not to achieve. The Odonians who left Urras had been wrong, wrong in their desperate courage, to deny their history, to forgo the possibility of return. The explorer who will not come back or send back his ships to tell his tale is not an explorer, only an adventurer; and his sons are born to exile.
He had come to love Urras, but what good was his yearning love? He was not part of it. Nor was he part of the world of his birth.

____________________________________________________

Here is a political thought from the book which could be applied to our culture:

…to subjects of governments founded on the inequity of power, to individuals who were inevitably exploited by and exploiters of others, because they had consented to be elements in the State-Machine.

And here is another political thought from later in the book which rings true:

The individual cannot bargain with the State. The State recognizes no coinage but power: and it issues the coins itself.

__________________________________________________


At the end of the novel, Shevek escapes the university and seeks the underground and then participates in a peaceful rally against the warmongering establishment of the nation A-Io. The rally is gunned down by helicopter gunships; Shevek escapes with his life and is smuggled to the Terran Embassy. He finishes his Grand Unified Field Theory and publishes to all the nations of Urras, to Anarres, and to the Hainish and Terrans. He returns to Anarres aboard the ship from Earth (Terra) and this is where the novel ends. It ends with the hope of the Idea.

Just before Shevek boards the landing ship (and accompanied by a Hainish human), he makes a visit to the main ship’s garden deck. Here is an interesting description (I especially like the last sentence in this passage I am quoting.):

Very late on the following ship night, Shevek was in the *Davenant’s garden. The lights were out, there, and it was illuminated only by starlight. The air was quite cold. A night-blooming flower from some unimaginable world had opened among the dark leaves and was sending out its perfume with patient, unavailing sweetness to attract some unimaginable moth trillions of miles away, in a garden on a world circling another star. The sunlights differ, but there is only one darkness.

All good things must come to an end, so with this novel. Here are the last few lines of the book; I think the writer does a good job evoking the spirit of homecoming:

Alone, Shevek turned back to the observation port, and saw the blinding curve of sunrise over the Temae, just coming into sight.
“I will lie down to sleep on Anarres tonight,” he thought. “I will lie down beside **Takver. I wish I’d brought the picture, the baby sheep, to give to †Pilun.”
But he had not brought anything. His hands were empty, as they had always been.

*The ship from Earth.
**Shevek’s partner (wife).
†Shevek’s youngest daughter.

ORP: LeGuin: The Dispossessed, part n

I finally got back to rereading Ursula K. LeGuin’s novel, The Dispossessed, and I thought I would share a few more passages. I have to say that I really admire how good a writer Ms. LeGuin is, and if the few quotes I leave in this blog don’t seem to impress you, then I say: read this novel.

In discussion with his host from the Ieu Eun University of the nation A-Io of the planet Urras, Shevek (remember from the habitable planet Anarres which is a satellite or moon of the main world Urras) explains his motivation in coming to the homeworld:

“You see, I know very little. We learn about Urras, but mostly about *Odo’s times. Before that was eight and one half thousand years! And then since the Settlement of Anarres is a century and a half; since the last ship brought the last Settlers—ignorance. We ignore you; you ignore us. You are our history. We are perhaps your future. I want to learn, not to ignore. It is the reason I came. We must know each other. We are not primitive men. Our morality is no longer tribal, it cannot be. Such ignorance is a wrong, from which wrong will arise. So I come to learn.”

After saying this, Shevek’s hosts claim the same motivation, but then they stumble over how Shevek can represent his government when he comes from a society that has no formal government:

“I come,” he said carefully, “as a syndic of the Syndicate of Initiative, the group that talks with Urras on the radio these last two years. But I am not, you know, an ambassador from any authority, any institution. I hope you did not ask me as that.”
“No,” Oiie said. “We asked you—Shevek the physicist. With the approval of our government and the Council of World Goverrnments, of course. But you are here as the private guest of Ieu Eun University.”
“Good.”
“But we haven’t been sure whether or not you came with the approval of—“ He hesitated.
Shevek grinned. “Of my government?”
“We know that nominally there’s no government on Anarres. However, obviously there’s administration. And we gather that the group that sent you, your Syndicate, is a kind of faction; perhaps a revolutionary faction.”
“Everybody on Anarres is a revolutionary, Oiie… The network of administration and management is called PDC, Production and Distribution Coordination. They are a coordinating system for all syndicates, federatives, and individuals who do productive work. They do not govern persons; they administer production. They have no authority either to support me or to prevent me. They can only tell us the public opinion of us—where we stand in the social conscience. That’s what you want to know? Well, my friends and I are mostly disapproved of. Most people on Anarres don’t want to learn about Urras. They fear it and want nothing to do with the propertarians. I am sorry if I am rude! It is the same here, with some people, is it not? The contempt, the fear, the tribalism. Well, so I came to begin to change that.”
“Entirely on your own initiative,” said Oiie.
“It is the only initiative I acknowledge,” Shevek said, smiling, in dead earnest.

*Odo is the political philosopher who founded the movement that lead to settlement of Anarres.