Nathan <-- redeacted --> writes: > >Many probably, but as I've tried to make clear in my response to Mark, I > >believe Hitler is a fundamentally different case. > > I can't argue much with that, but I still tend to agree with Mark that time > and distance can and do often blur the sharp edges of our memories. I have > no love for Hitler; he and his murdered a quarter of my family. Yet I feel > (as has already been mentioned) that Pol Pot, Stalin, and Mao have done > just as bad or worse in their day. I'd still suggest that, because of the ways those who were murdered were selected, Hitler's genocide was fundmentally different from what was practiced by Stalin, Mao and Pol. Again, it's just not the *numbers* who were killed. > I've often thought that we ought to get > just as exercised over them as we do over Hitler, and I'm convinced that > the reason we don't is because Cambodians and Chinese aren't white, and > Westerners view Russians as less civilized than the rest of the white race. > But that's a discussion for another mailing list, not PIPER-L. I agree, on both points. :) > >Not much, I imagine, but that was *specifically* because the "big government" > >of the Federation had raised the revenues to support an overwhelming military > >force that was a very effective deterrent. > > My only response to that is that I think you're reading something in that > isn't there. And again, there's no way to prove it one way or the other. > I don't think this is what Beam had in mind at all. If you mean he hadn't thought through the redistributive economics implications of Federation firepower, I'd agree. I suspect Beam was pretty much your typical conservative: when he saw "welfare" he bemoaned "big government" but when saw "defense" he didn't see much government at all. . . . The fact is though that *both* are "big government." It's just a matter of which hands the tax revenues are being redistributed to. > I think it's implicit in Piper's work that between the > _Cosmic Computer_ and _Space Viking_ there is a really, really bad time had > by all (except, no doubt, by the feudal lords). Of course. My point is that much of that "really, really bad time" was due to the short-sighted actions of many of those "self-reliant" men Beam was writing about--only he *portrayed* it as occurring despite their "best efforts" otherwise. . . . The reason things always "fail" is because the "solutions" are always provided by "great men" like Bish Ware on Fenris or Carlos von Schlichten on Uller or Lucas Trask on Tanith. When the "great men" pass on, the "rabble" continues the downward spiral. That's a very, very paternalistic view of the world. > If it was so bad living under a feudal lord, why didn't they revolt? Here's how it works. At first, when Angus begins to "turn sour," he's still a pretty decent guy. The thing is some of his underlings get to be worse thugs first, and Angus's sin is that he doesn't notice this and remove them. From the former Traskon ranch-hand's perspective, he's stuck trying to pay the bills and eke out a living working for some thug of an overseer. Last month, when his buddy from Traskon punched out his own thuggish boss, he ended up dead or in jail and ol' Angus never heard about it. That makes our ranch-hand just a little hesitant to punch out his own boss. Multiply that across thousands of interactions and relationships and slowly the system corrodes. (This had probably been happening among the urban population on Fenris for *years* before conditions got bad enough for Kivelson and the Hunters to get their own shorts in a knot.) The problem is that because it takes one of those "self-reliant" men to solve the problems, our ranch-hand has very little choice--until things get really bad and one of the "self-reliant" men comes along with his army and pitches ol' Angus off his throne. The problem is, in doing so, our ranch-hand's wife ends up a widow in the process. . . . And then, when the "enlightened" new boss comes along, does he set up any procedures to give our ranch-hand's daughter redress against a thuggish overseer? No, he doesn't because he knows *he'll* take care of her. He (and by extension, Beam) doesn't believe she's *capable* of taking care of herself. Thus, when Bish Ware goes back to Terra, when Conn Maxwell dies of old age, when Lucas Trask is killed in a battle, our ranch-hand's daughter is left to the authoritarian whims of whomever succeeds them. . . . > I still don't really buy this dichotomy you are building up. I > don't see how you can make a case that this is any different from the way > things are and have been right here on Earth since the day Ugh picked up a > club and hit Argh over the head with it to get his woman or his food away > from him. If nothing else, Piper accurately depicted the way things are. No, I don't think so. We live in a society that doesn't have to rely upon "self-reliant" men to "tuck us in at night" and make everything all right in the end . . . no matter how much Perot-ites and Colin Powell supporters wish it were otherwise. Indeed, this wasn't even the society that Beam lived in. He probably was horrified at Truman's removal of MacArthur, but nevertheless, neither American *nor* Korean civilization crumbled as a result. > But then, I'd sure rather read a book about the leaders and the people who > go out and wrestle the damnthing or grab the panther by the tail than to > read one about Joe Random and his wife Jane and their 2 adorable kids who > sit and watch TV all night to get their kicks :) Oh, by all means me too! Again, I'm not criticizing Beam's storytelling. It's his politics I'm less than impressed with. > >A lot of folks "respected" Deng when he rolled the tanks through Tiannamen > >Square. . . . > > Not me. I have no respect at all for the Chinese Communists except for the > respect one accords a poisonous snake. I merely meant to draw a parallel with your comment that many of Beam's "self-reliant" men may not have been "loved" but were certainly "respected." It doesn't take much of a leap to see those students with their makeshift Lady Liberty being crushed under the tank treads of the People's Army as being a lot like the "rabble" in the Fenris Hunters' Co-operative, in the streets of Paul XXII's Asgard, or the "geeks" on Uller. . . . > >Yes, but a lot of the "appeal" of Beam's work is his "political philosophy," > >not just his artistic license. My point is merely that his philosophy looks > >(and sounds) a lot better from the top of the heap than it does from the > >bottom. . . . > > Well, don't most? :) Show me one that doesn't, including democracy. Yes, I'd offer democracy. Not a Wilhelmine German democracy or a revolutionary French democracy or a post-Soviet Russian democracy, but *any* democracy that's managed to survive for a couple of generations. > "There's something wrong with democracy. If there weren't, it couldn't be > overthrown by people like Makann, attacking it from within by democratic > procedures. I don't think it's fundamentally unworkable. I think it just > has a few of what engineers call bugs. It's not safe to run a defective > machine till you learn the defects and remedy them." What can I say? Beam was mistaken. Can you think of any *real* (as opposed to fictional) democracy that had been around longer than a generation or two that was "overthrown by people . . . attacking it from within by democratic procedures?" > And of course, you're aware that Piper was a monarchist... My point exactly. An anachronism that made for great fiction but lousy politics. David Johnson Net: -- redeacted -- Rockville, Maryland, North America Web: http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~david -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "When a man tells you something you don't understand, don't tell him he's crazy. Ask him what he means." -Capt. Otto Harkaman (H. Beam Piper) *Space Viking*