All over my black kettle.
First of all, check out Princess Bridermen. Classy.
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In Orson Scott Card's latest little review column he makes some no-so-subtle points about the wars between Carthage and Rome. Must first impulse was to cry 'hey, so what makes you think rome (the victor) is America?' But after rereading it I realised that he never claims which side is which for any modern comparison, but that he is noting they way nation's mindsets affect war. And, to be fair, I have seen many America/Rome comparisons that refer to the over extended empire and decadence mixed with assumed moral authority, which only goes to show that avoiding the mistakes in history can be hard to find because one person's mistake was often someone else's victory.
Card talks about the way that the Roman didn't give up. They should have lost the first war but they didn't stop. Carthage paid a surrender fee and Rome thought that meant they were subservient. When Carthage didn't act that way it lead to the second war. And the final war was about Rome crushing these people who had been so annoying. Card talks about Rome not ceasing the fighting until Carthage no longer existed in fairly positive terms. Take the final paragraph: "We may think we don't want to be Rome -- after all, we're not in the empire business, and these days we obviously get bored with wars, even wars we're winning. But it's good to remember that it was the city that didn't take its wars all that seriously, the city that was willing to surrender, that eventually was destroyed. Just a thought."
There's something about the attitude that doesn't sit well with me. He is correct, after all. Even after WWI, getting one side to pay for surrender doesn't actually show victory and can lead to another war later on. But it assumes that one side cannot be reasoned with, or that to win you must be unreasonable. So it's a pessimistic view of the world that I want to see otehrwise. I want to see the countries targetted by the US in the War on Terror as people, with an admitted fanatic element. Surely we can find some way to show them that, even though no-one really wins in a war between two Carthages, both sides come out alive.
But the cynical side of me says that Card has got it right, people are stupid after all, and the only way to truly end conflict is to become the heartless aggressive violent type who can crush all the other heartless aggressive violent type. Which reminds me of that recent letters-to-the-editor scuffle over one of New Zealand's WWII hero who dressed as a german soldier.
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In Orson Scott Card's latest little review column he makes some no-so-subtle points about the wars between Carthage and Rome. Must first impulse was to cry 'hey, so what makes you think rome (the victor) is America?' But after rereading it I realised that he never claims which side is which for any modern comparison, but that he is noting they way nation's mindsets affect war. And, to be fair, I have seen many America/Rome comparisons that refer to the over extended empire and decadence mixed with assumed moral authority, which only goes to show that avoiding the mistakes in history can be hard to find because one person's mistake was often someone else's victory.
Card talks about the way that the Roman didn't give up. They should have lost the first war but they didn't stop. Carthage paid a surrender fee and Rome thought that meant they were subservient. When Carthage didn't act that way it lead to the second war. And the final war was about Rome crushing these people who had been so annoying. Card talks about Rome not ceasing the fighting until Carthage no longer existed in fairly positive terms. Take the final paragraph: "We may think we don't want to be Rome -- after all, we're not in the empire business, and these days we obviously get bored with wars, even wars we're winning. But it's good to remember that it was the city that didn't take its wars all that seriously, the city that was willing to surrender, that eventually was destroyed. Just a thought."
There's something about the attitude that doesn't sit well with me. He is correct, after all. Even after WWI, getting one side to pay for surrender doesn't actually show victory and can lead to another war later on. But it assumes that one side cannot be reasoned with, or that to win you must be unreasonable. So it's a pessimistic view of the world that I want to see otehrwise. I want to see the countries targetted by the US in the War on Terror as people, with an admitted fanatic element. Surely we can find some way to show them that, even though no-one really wins in a war between two Carthages, both sides come out alive.
But the cynical side of me says that Card has got it right, people are stupid after all, and the only way to truly end conflict is to become the heartless aggressive violent type who can crush all the other heartless aggressive violent type. Which reminds me of that recent letters-to-the-editor scuffle over one of New Zealand's WWII hero who dressed as a german soldier.