posted
So I was rereading the Ender books, now on Xenocide I am doing a lot of thinking about the structure of Path, so I bring to you all my ponders to think about or answer whathaveyou.
Path has a class system, which is used to keep the rich-rich and the poor-poor, but in a futeristic setting on an alternate planet, governed by space-Congress, how can this even be allowed?!
The lower class of path isn't even allowed to be educated more than they needed to do simple tasks! They are meger laborers.
No information is provided about middle class, but I assume this may be teachers since it seems all of Qing-jao's teachers were all mostly single subject teachers, leading me to believe they are only highly educated in their area of expertise. (guestimate obviously )
The high class, being governement officials, monks, and of course the "God-Spoken" all of these seem highly educated in all areas and all seem to have a function in the government of Path and/or Starway-Congress.
And of course Starway-Congress is above high class.
In a futuristic society how can the barbaric class system make a return expecially under a universal government? ----------------------------------
Who's the real bad guy? Starway-Congress or Han Fei-tzu or some other force?!
Starway-Congress was going to Lusitania, however due to Demosthenes papers there was a truth released that the fleet sent there had the Little Doctor on board thus causing much government distress everywhere and almost caused a revolt. BUT Han Fei-tzu LIED (to who I don't know) about the Little Doctor and persuaded the government people otherwise, only because Starway-Congress had the Mandate of Heaven!
The Mandate of Heaven.....where to begin there, this is a non-existent thing, it's an excuse used by the people under-rule to overthrough their government... So if Han Fei-tzu disaproves of what Congress is doing then they lose the Mandate of Heaven so does this mean Han Fei-tzu approves the possible destruction of Lusitania? --------------------------------
I also don't believe Path has anything to do with the cure for the Beanie Babies for many reasons that I will present in this arguement
Path seems to be a planet infected with OCD having high-intellectuals - The Godspoken. (some people on the forum believes this is related to Beans cure from what I read) It's neccisary to take a long step back and watch the patterns, Usually the source of OCD is from the parents of the child, so families with the godspoken "gene" seems to be a norm, however Xenocide does say that some people from non-godspoken families does occasionally pop-up, meaning the OCD is most likely pure genetic mishap blown out of propurtion by Path's currupt culture....
But what about the high intelligence of the Godspoken?! Why not assume everyone has the potential to be really smart if they are educated, don't forget that environment is a pretty big factor in intelligence and most the people on Path are lower class and recieve no education. So assume a low class person developes OCD so they pressumed GodSpoken... so they kid is taken to the temple and tested, and wow they are! So they are immedietly moved from lower class to high class and then they are educated..
Education and Environment that's why people in the future seem really smart, education is way better (for most) and the Enviroment is probably improved too.... being around other smartish people rubs off on you --------------------------------
NOW DISCUSS AND DEBATE! Lets make this interesting, tell me how I am wrong, or what you think about my thoughts, and whatever else you are going to do with these words ^-^
Posts: 461 | Registered: Nov 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Rawrain: In a futuristic society how can the barbaric class system make a return expecially under a universal government?
I think you're making the false assumption that individualism/humanism correlates directly with time. Allow me to point out that although cultures in different eras have had wildly different values, the class structure has been very pervasive even to the present. In fact, it appears from our observations of behavior in species related to humans, there is some degree of predisposition in many primates, including us, to categorize people into social tiers.
The reasons things have trended towards humanism and individualism in recent centuries are nuanced and complex, and there is no reason to believe that the future inevitably holds progressively less class-based society. Marx argues that we will tend towards more egalitarian social systems via socialism and ultimately communism (lowercase s and c, respectively), but the real-life process seems to be more like 1) Corrupt government overthrown by proletariat 2) new government established promises to properly represent the people 3) the people submit blindly to their new government, confident that a government "of the people" can do no wrong, and finally 4) government uses this blind trust to exploit its citizenry and redefine "the people."
Now, I don't want to get this discussion on a tangent on big-government vs. little-government or communism/socialism, so bear with me while I make a few claims that could be interpreted to be advancements of a political agenda, but which I assure you are meant only as observations relevant to the point the OP makes about Path. I do not wish to affiliate with any party agenda in this post (but if you must know, I registered Republican so I could vote for more moderate candidates in the primaries, but voted Democrat in the recent election). I am not making a prognosis, but rather justifying the plausibility of the detailed world OSC created for Xenocide.
Culture changes due to events and environments, which are not always predictable given the passage of time. A devastating and pointless war can make the people more pacifistic, as seen in the Vietnam era, the Revolutionary War ere, the World War I aftermath, etc. A horrible economic crisis may lead helpless individuals to turn to the government for help, as seen in the Great Depression and the present. An idealist revolutionary political system can gradually yield to more pragmatic forces once the novelty of those ideals wear out. A government that may believe it is doing what is best for its people may make concessions that slowly approach authoritarianism. And in the meantime, you will certainly get power-hungry officials who actively seek out ways to increase their own authority.
It is particularly interesting to have this applied to Chinese culture on Path. The Mandate of Heaven is a concept that has pervaded Chinese ideology for millennia, and basically asserts that government has the right to rule as long as it does so justly and in the interest of the good of the state. Failing to satisfactorily provide what is expected leads to the ousting of the current dynasty and the institution of another. This even has echos in the People's Republic of China, whose government earns the submission of the people as long as it maintains its economic growth. Presumably, the spell would be broken if an economic crisis struck China hard, and the government would suffer many reforms. Applying this to Xenocide, Starways Congress presumably draws the trust of Chinese citizens with the peace it maintains and the universality or its reach, in addition to its provision of instant communication with the rest of humanity. Because the government had not clearly failed at this task yet, the people of Path, like Han Fei-Tzu, were trusting of the government, satisfied with the way things were.
When a government has the blind trust of its people, a social class system will inevitably emerge, with those making and keeping the promises coming out on top, and those willing to make sacrifices to make those promises a reality doing the menial low-class work. With the people of Path, the "godspoken" were convinced by Starways Congress that they were divinely enabled to make intelligent decisions and were therefore fit for the decision-making roles the Congress asked of them when it needed advice. Likewise, the godspoken convinced the people that their superior intellect would give them a stable and harmonious (an important concept in Chinese culture) life, even if it meant they people themselves couldn't get in on the decision-making process. As long as it remained stable and satisfactory, the lower classes would be fine with their positions, whether it is the godspoken submitting to Starways Congress or the peasants of Path submitting to the godspoken.
The reason we have had more humanism and individualism recently is because centuries of ineffectual or tyrannical authoritarianism in Western society had bred a preference for one to make his own decisions, rather than do whatever a lord asked. The feudal contract in the Middle Ages was much like the trust-system I described above: the lords would protect the vassals as they worked for them, but as kings became more powerful, barbarian invasions became less frequent, and warfare became cheaper, this was not as compelling for the peasants. A series of events including the Crusades, the Plague, and a cooling climate led to an increase in nationalism, where kings would use a national identity to assert power, and individualism, where people would question the motives of government. With nobles, kings, and bankers proving Machiavelli right ever more, we got philosophers developing ideologies that redefined the responsibilities of the government and the people. America's independence is an excellent example of where people adopted individualism (to the point of giving the government almost no power whatsoever at first, when our constitution was the Articles of Confederation) in response to a previous government's self-serving ways. This sentiment became dominant in Western culture precisely because European governments had forgotten or simply willfully overlooked the contract-with-the-people arrangement that defined Chinese dynasties.
Let us also note that civilizations that were progressive for their time have fallen and given way to more class-based societies, such as when the Abbasid Caliphate, which was one of the most tolerant and scholarly societies of its time, turned into the increasingly ineffectual Ottoman Empire and eventually the sorry state the Middle East is in today. Russia's unspectacular decentralized feudalism became hellish as serfdom increased after the Mongol invasions. It all depended on the state of the contract with the people; how trusting citizens were of their government and how much the government could get away with in the interest of its people. On Path, the state of the contract had people very faithful that their government (i.e. the godspoken and Starways Congress) would look out for their best interests, even though the latter was able to work in its best interests at the actual, if invisible, expense of the Path people.
Obviously, I hope we in the real world never to regress to the state where the government can abuse the people in its own interests in the way we see in Xenocide, nor do I want to be so distrustful of the government that we have anarchy. Hypothetically speaking, however, I am willing to buy the idea that 3000 years in the future a universal government could exploit the trust of the people, as long as the people feel that the system works.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
You're reading into a rather small portion to what I said then blowing it out off proportion /:
A class system is a given, it's going to happen regardless, but the problem for Path is how dramatic the difference is between the classes, not the fact that they are there.
Posts: 461 | Registered: Nov 2010
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posted
Think of starways congress as a much larger america, and the colonies are states. The large central government rarely interferes with individual states since any law they pass will apply to all states and not just the one that brought it up.
Take into account that the Chinese people have been accustomed to a very powerful central government, in Path's case this is the God-Spoken; that Path isn't officially one of the hundred worlds and so doesn't want to bring a possible global social problem to a debate in front of the congress that will decide if they ever become a fully fledged colony; and that Congress itself gave the God-Spoken OCD and so they too would not want to bring attention to the matter and you can see how not only this kind of extreme class system comes into existence, but also remains.
Also, I don't think the class system is extreme as you think. Yao Ming never mentioned being hungry, but mainly lacking a formal education. But her lack of a formal education is seen in almost every country on earth today. The poor get bad to mediocre education while the rich receive very good education--at least compared to the poor. Also some may argue that this isn't a problem. Having incredibly smart people run the government seems to be an improvement to most governments today.
And he wasn't blowing it out of proportion. your original point was "In a futuristic society how can the barbaric class system make a return especially under a universal government?" leads you on to think how could a class system like that continue to exist with the approval of starways congress?
Posts: 11 | Registered: Nov 2010
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posted
BUMP!!!!!!!!!! As for the whole government thing you 2 say. My idea is that 3000 years in the future+ some more and there is actually a negative impact on people because of Starway.... There is always going to be a social class even if it isn't used for making people stay in their place, but Path's method is relatively barbaric because of how divided it is between the classes.
They aren't looking forward they are looking back.
Posts: 461 | Registered: Nov 2010
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