Post by Aedh on Nov 23, 2008 8:24:10 GMT -5
So you think a high school where everyone's--basically--shagging everyone else is the product of a depraved mind? Read on if you dare ... but this isn't recommended for people with highly impressionable imaginations. And there's a ton of links.
All you need for Alder Island is a set of local administrators that have adopted the attitude of the judges quoted here, and people above them--and around them--who just don't want to be bothered.
I don't approve of any of this, I should make it clear. I'm writing a story which contains elements of possible futures, but things are somewhat transmogrified and shaped so as to make them presentable and readable in a story form.
In the story I'm writing, no one is in the right ... though a few people may manage to claw their way out of the morass--or at least get their head above it for a look-see. Those charas, in fact--who get a glimpse of their situation--would be far more miserable then the others who simply stay so submerged in the muck that they don't even realise that it is muck.
That is not to say I'm proposing moral equivalency. I'm not ... I'm not saying there is no right and wrong. I am saying that--by the time we get to this society--those people left who are even conscious of right and wrong either won't care, or will have written off the distinction as a rather quaint, antique concept ... much the way we think of sorcery, alchemy, and witchcraft today. And I'm also saying that this is the direction we're headed in, when the question about something so often is not whether something is right or wrong, but what's in it for me, or how does it help my favourite cause?
A sense of right and wrong is a formidable thing to have. Upon it, togther with reliable defense and food supplies, you can build a civilisation, which will collapse if it is removed. Indeed, right now in Asia, a group of people armed with a powerful (if perverse) sense of right and wrong, their wits, and a few black-market weapons, are fighting the world's sole superpower to a standstill ... not on the battlefield, to be sure, but in the courts of world opinion and in the media, and ultimately in the halls of Congress.
Anyone over a certain age will remember that in the Vietnam War, the side that lost the ground battles won the war anyway--because it understood that the real battle was over principles. The strategy is easily understood by anyone who's ever played poker ... there are two ways to win. One is to draw a stonger hand than your opponent; but even with a weak hand, you still win if you make him fold. The lesson of Vietnam was studied around the world as a brilliant way to play a weak hand against the West, and against the United States particularly. Hang on long enough to make Americans tired of seeing your unpleasant, jerk-water country on their evening news every night, and they will fold and leave you to your own devices, insulated from any danger of their caring about you by your name becoming a nasty byword.
In the time of this story--the early twenty-second century--America, Britain, and Europe folded in the previous century. People got tired of hearing about the Middle East, and about morals, ethics, and values, all ultimately derived from the beliefs of a bunch of dead white males whom nobody cared about. Their wants were simple: they wanted hope and security. They wanted employment, or at any rate steady subsistence cheques; they wanted a continuous stream of fresh entertainment and media buzz; they wanted health care; they wanted comfort and reassurance; and they wanted freedom from having to think too much about where it was all leading and who would ultimately foot the bill. And they were willing to vote for whoever looked and sounded the most convincing about delivering them.
Unsettling? Dark? Cynical? Pessimistic? Very likely. Fantasy? Well ... let's hope so. I for one would love nothing better than a glance at AD 2116 through a crystal ball, to reveal that I was entirely wrong. As it is, only time will tell.
All you need for Alder Island is a set of local administrators that have adopted the attitude of the judges quoted here, and people above them--and around them--who just don't want to be bothered.
I don't approve of any of this, I should make it clear. I'm writing a story which contains elements of possible futures, but things are somewhat transmogrified and shaped so as to make them presentable and readable in a story form.
In the story I'm writing, no one is in the right ... though a few people may manage to claw their way out of the morass--or at least get their head above it for a look-see. Those charas, in fact--who get a glimpse of their situation--would be far more miserable then the others who simply stay so submerged in the muck that they don't even realise that it is muck.
That is not to say I'm proposing moral equivalency. I'm not ... I'm not saying there is no right and wrong. I am saying that--by the time we get to this society--those people left who are even conscious of right and wrong either won't care, or will have written off the distinction as a rather quaint, antique concept ... much the way we think of sorcery, alchemy, and witchcraft today. And I'm also saying that this is the direction we're headed in, when the question about something so often is not whether something is right or wrong, but what's in it for me, or how does it help my favourite cause?
A sense of right and wrong is a formidable thing to have. Upon it, togther with reliable defense and food supplies, you can build a civilisation, which will collapse if it is removed. Indeed, right now in Asia, a group of people armed with a powerful (if perverse) sense of right and wrong, their wits, and a few black-market weapons, are fighting the world's sole superpower to a standstill ... not on the battlefield, to be sure, but in the courts of world opinion and in the media, and ultimately in the halls of Congress.
Anyone over a certain age will remember that in the Vietnam War, the side that lost the ground battles won the war anyway--because it understood that the real battle was over principles. The strategy is easily understood by anyone who's ever played poker ... there are two ways to win. One is to draw a stonger hand than your opponent; but even with a weak hand, you still win if you make him fold. The lesson of Vietnam was studied around the world as a brilliant way to play a weak hand against the West, and against the United States particularly. Hang on long enough to make Americans tired of seeing your unpleasant, jerk-water country on their evening news every night, and they will fold and leave you to your own devices, insulated from any danger of their caring about you by your name becoming a nasty byword.
In the time of this story--the early twenty-second century--America, Britain, and Europe folded in the previous century. People got tired of hearing about the Middle East, and about morals, ethics, and values, all ultimately derived from the beliefs of a bunch of dead white males whom nobody cared about. Their wants were simple: they wanted hope and security. They wanted employment, or at any rate steady subsistence cheques; they wanted a continuous stream of fresh entertainment and media buzz; they wanted health care; they wanted comfort and reassurance; and they wanted freedom from having to think too much about where it was all leading and who would ultimately foot the bill. And they were willing to vote for whoever looked and sounded the most convincing about delivering them.
Unsettling? Dark? Cynical? Pessimistic? Very likely. Fantasy? Well ... let's hope so. I for one would love nothing better than a glance at AD 2116 through a crystal ball, to reveal that I was entirely wrong. As it is, only time will tell.
