Showing posts with label Barbarism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barbarism. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Sunday, August 03, 2014
H. Beam Piper On Savages
H. Beam Piper on neo-barbarism excerpted from his novel SPACE VIKING (Copyright 1963, by Ace Books, Inc.)
“Yes, for one thing, we don’t have the Neobarbarians,” somebody said. “And if they ever came out here, we’d blow them to Em-See-Square in nothing flat. Might be a good thing if they did, too; it would stop us squabbling among ourselves.”
Harkaman looked at him in surprise. “Just who do think the Neobarbarians are, anyhow?” he asked. “Some race of invading nomads, Atilla’s Huns in spaceships?”
“Well, isn’t that who they are?’ Gorram asked.
“Nifflheim, no! There aren’t a dozen and a half planets in the Old federation that still have hyperdrive, and they’re all civilized. ... These are homemade barbarians. Workers and peasants who revolted to seize and divide the wealth and then found they’d smashed the means of production and killed of the all the technical brains. Survivors on planets hit during the Interstellar Wars, from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Centuries, who lost the machinery of civilization. Followers of political leader on local-dictatorship planets. Companies of mercenaries thrown out of employment and living by pillage. Religious fanatics following self-anointed prophets.”
[...]
“You’ve seen decivilized planets. How does it happen?”
“I know how it’s happened on a good many: War. Destruction of cities and industries. Survivors among ruins, too busy keeping their own bodies alive to try to keep civilization alive. Then they lose all knowledge of how to be civilized.”
“That’s catastrophic decivilization. There is also decivilization by erosion, and while it’s going on, nobody notices it. Everybody is proud of their civilization, their wealth and culture. But trade is falling off; fewer ships come in each year. So there is boastful talk about planetary self-sufficiency; who needs off-planet trade anyhow? Everybody seems to have money, but the government is always broke. Deficit spending–and always more vital social services for which the government has to spend money. The most vital one, of course, is buying votes to keep the government in power. And it gets harder for the government to get anything done.
“The soldiers are sloppier at drill, and their uniforms and weapons aren’t taken care of. The non-coms are insolent. And more and more parts of the city are dangerous at night, and then even in daytime. And it’s been years since a new building went up, and the old ones aren’t being repaired anymore.”
[...]
“Our grandchildren, if any will probably be raiding Murduk.”
“You think it’ll be like that?”
“Don’t you? You were there you saw what was happening. The barbarians are rising; they have a leader, and they’re uniting. Every society rests on a barbarian base. The people who don’t understand civilization, and wouldn’t like it if they did. The hitchikers. The people who create nothing, and who don’t appreciate what others have created for them, and who think civilization is something that just exists and that all they need to do is enjoy what they understand of it–luxuries, a high living standard, and easy work for high pay. Responsibilities? Phooey! What do they have a government for?
Trask nodded.
“And now, the hitchhikers think they know more about the car than the people who designed it, so they’re going to grab the controls. Zaspar Makann says they can, and he’s the Leader.” He poured a drink from a decanter that had been looted on Pushan; there was a planet where a republic had been overthrown in favor of a dictatorship four centuries ago, and the planetary dictatorship had fissioned into a dozen regional dictatorships, and now they were down to the peasant-village and handicraft-industry level. “I don’t understand it, though. I was reading about Hitler on the way home. I wouldn’t be surprised if Zaspar Makann had been reading about Hitler, too. He’s using all Hitler’s tricks. But Hitler come to power in a country which had been impoverished by a military defeat. Marduk hasn’t fought a war in almost two generations, and that one was a farce.”
“It wasn’t the war that put Hitler into power. It was the fact that the ruling class of his nation, the people who kept things running, were discredited. The masses, the homemade barbarians, didn’t have anybody to take their responsibilities for them. What they have on Marduk is a ruling class that has been discrediting itself. A ruling class that’s ashamed of its privileges and shirks its duties. A ruling class that has begun to believe that the masses are just as good as they are, which they manifestly are not. And a ruling class that won’t use force to maintain its position. And they have a democracy, and they are letting the enemies of democracy shelter themselves behind democratic safeguards.”
“Yes, for one thing, we don’t have the Neobarbarians,” somebody said. “And if they ever came out here, we’d blow them to Em-See-Square in nothing flat. Might be a good thing if they did, too; it would stop us squabbling among ourselves.”
Harkaman looked at him in surprise. “Just who do think the Neobarbarians are, anyhow?” he asked. “Some race of invading nomads, Atilla’s Huns in spaceships?”
“Well, isn’t that who they are?’ Gorram asked.
“Nifflheim, no! There aren’t a dozen and a half planets in the Old federation that still have hyperdrive, and they’re all civilized. ... These are homemade barbarians. Workers and peasants who revolted to seize and divide the wealth and then found they’d smashed the means of production and killed of the all the technical brains. Survivors on planets hit during the Interstellar Wars, from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Centuries, who lost the machinery of civilization. Followers of political leader on local-dictatorship planets. Companies of mercenaries thrown out of employment and living by pillage. Religious fanatics following self-anointed prophets.”
[...]
“You’ve seen decivilized planets. How does it happen?”
“I know how it’s happened on a good many: War. Destruction of cities and industries. Survivors among ruins, too busy keeping their own bodies alive to try to keep civilization alive. Then they lose all knowledge of how to be civilized.”
“That’s catastrophic decivilization. There is also decivilization by erosion, and while it’s going on, nobody notices it. Everybody is proud of their civilization, their wealth and culture. But trade is falling off; fewer ships come in each year. So there is boastful talk about planetary self-sufficiency; who needs off-planet trade anyhow? Everybody seems to have money, but the government is always broke. Deficit spending–and always more vital social services for which the government has to spend money. The most vital one, of course, is buying votes to keep the government in power. And it gets harder for the government to get anything done.
“The soldiers are sloppier at drill, and their uniforms and weapons aren’t taken care of. The non-coms are insolent. And more and more parts of the city are dangerous at night, and then even in daytime. And it’s been years since a new building went up, and the old ones aren’t being repaired anymore.”
[...]
“Our grandchildren, if any will probably be raiding Murduk.”
“You think it’ll be like that?”
“Don’t you? You were there you saw what was happening. The barbarians are rising; they have a leader, and they’re uniting. Every society rests on a barbarian base. The people who don’t understand civilization, and wouldn’t like it if they did. The hitchikers. The people who create nothing, and who don’t appreciate what others have created for them, and who think civilization is something that just exists and that all they need to do is enjoy what they understand of it–luxuries, a high living standard, and easy work for high pay. Responsibilities? Phooey! What do they have a government for?
Trask nodded.
“And now, the hitchhikers think they know more about the car than the people who designed it, so they’re going to grab the controls. Zaspar Makann says they can, and he’s the Leader.” He poured a drink from a decanter that had been looted on Pushan; there was a planet where a republic had been overthrown in favor of a dictatorship four centuries ago, and the planetary dictatorship had fissioned into a dozen regional dictatorships, and now they were down to the peasant-village and handicraft-industry level. “I don’t understand it, though. I was reading about Hitler on the way home. I wouldn’t be surprised if Zaspar Makann had been reading about Hitler, too. He’s using all Hitler’s tricks. But Hitler come to power in a country which had been impoverished by a military defeat. Marduk hasn’t fought a war in almost two generations, and that one was a farce.”
“It wasn’t the war that put Hitler into power. It was the fact that the ruling class of his nation, the people who kept things running, were discredited. The masses, the homemade barbarians, didn’t have anybody to take their responsibilities for them. What they have on Marduk is a ruling class that has been discrediting itself. A ruling class that’s ashamed of its privileges and shirks its duties. A ruling class that has begun to believe that the masses are just as good as they are, which they manifestly are not. And a ruling class that won’t use force to maintain its position. And they have a democracy, and they are letting the enemies of democracy shelter themselves behind democratic safeguards.”
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Murder Thy Neighbor
I once wrote for a minor dead tree publication called THE RESISTER. I had a disagreement with the editor, I told him that we as real intellectuals did not have to dehumanize the members of The Left. My view at the time was that The Left had chosen to dehumanize themselves, and all we had to do as reporters was to observe them and accurately report our observations.
This is still true.
In a case in point my good friend Mark Urbin posted a link on his blog to a post on Talk Straight in order to illuminate this point.
Apparently some self styled intellectual over at the cesspit known as the Village Voice is openly calling for the murder and plunder of billionaires. All in the name of the workers, which in what passes for the mind of this individual also includes folks who claim to be artists.
Here's the screen shot of the page:
This member of the Nomenklatura feels that wealth, the product of actual thought and labor, belongs not to the persons who created it, but to the collective as a whole.
When the Nomenklatura want to grab something, they will simply proclaim that desired object was unearned by the rightful owner, or was otherwise stolen and grab it. And they will kill the rightful owner if they have to. Given sufficient time and motivation the Nomenklatura will, if they are consistently acting in accordance to their own theory, even attack the bums who are begging at the roadside for the loose change in their pockets. After all, they didn't earn that paltry sum of money either.
As Mark also pointed out when one scratches a self proclaimed liberal one will find the fascist underneath.
The fact of the matter is that the ideologies of Socialism, Fascism, et al, were nothing more than an attempt to give the appearance of legitimacy to old school savagery, which is basically the old stone age practice of beating up or killing people and taking their stuff.
Progressive is now a synonym for barbarian and murderer.
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