post-Xmas EWF

From: Peter Larsen <plarsen_at_mail.utexas.edu>
Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 10:02:02 -0600

        Trying to catch up on holiday mail. Hope you all had a nice mid-winter holiday of your choice.

Peter Metcalfe says:

>> >The Dragons didn't stab the EWF in the back, the Dragonewts did.
>
>> OK, so what was the Dragonewt's beef?
>
>The Inhuman King decided that his secrets weren't being used
>appropriately.

        This suggests to me that the Dragonewts (or the Inhuman King) decided that the EWF was no longer doing what they started out to do. Alternatively, I suppose that the IK could have decided that humans (or the EWF) just couldn't do the draconic thing right, but that's not a very dramatic situation.

>> >What a odd thing to say. Is every gloranthan who acts according
>> >to scripture cynical? If not, then why must the actions of the
>> >EWF [in conquering Dara Happa] and everybody involved in it be
>> so >interpreted in that manner?
>
>>Sigh. They don't _have_ to be, but they _can_ be.
>
>Excuse me, but you did claim that it "seemed likely" that
>the EWF rulers were into "rule for its own sake" when they
>conquered Dara Happa.

        As far as the invasion of Dara Happa went, I only claim that the invasion says nothing about the moral fidelity of the rulers of the EWF. They could have been entirely "pure" in their motives (seems unlikely to me), entirely "cynical" in their motives (seems unlikely to you) or some sort of mix of the two, with plenty of other factors thrown in.

>>The EWF's success against Dara Happa is not proof that they were
>>wholeheartedly following the draconic path.
>
>I never said it was. What I did point was that Dara Happa
>had always been necessary to the goals of the EWF. Given
>this, the conquest of Dara Happa cannot be taken as proof
>that the EWF ruling class was cynical.

        It doesn't prove their sincerity, either.

>>The Soviet Union's military and political successes and
>>failures from 1940-1980 tell us little about whether the USSR's
>>leadership were devout Communists or not.
>
>But given that its doctrine called for the complete triumph
>of the working class everywhere, we can't describe their
>actions in spreading revolution all over the globe as being
>"rule for its own sake".

        Sure we can, or, at least, it's a possible scenario. Just because a movement's doctrine calls for something doesn't mean that the leadership (and rank and file) pursue that goal only from devotion to the doctrine. Finding scriptural support for something you wanted to do anyway is not exactly unheard of in the RW....

>>As I said in my last message, I believe that a variety of factors
>>contributed to the EWF's decline. I'm unclear why you reject the
>>"moral rot/cynical user" element in the mix.
>
>I am rejecting your proposition that the entire (or even a majority
>of the) ruling class of the EWF was cynical. I do not see why
>"moral rot" should somehow be held to be a significant contributor
>to its fall, given the highly subjective nature of the criterion
>such that all empires can be said to be corrupt.

        Sure, all empires can be said to be corrupt, but most empires exist to exist -- their purpose is maintaining and increasing their power. The EWF (or the proto-EWF), on the other hand, existed for spiritual goals. The EWF's efforts toward ruling, behaving like a reguar empire, distracted it from its real purpose -- the spiritual attainment of its people. Running an empire is a major entanglement with the transient world, right? So moral corruption or loss of righteousness or whatever is an appropriate charge for the EWF.

        I agree with Keith Nellist that the upper class of the EWF probably showed thr same range of attitudes (sincerity, cynicism, lunacy, etc) as any Gloranthan empire. I also like his idea that a major problem for the EWF was its most sincere members concentrated on their mystic attainment, leaving the government in the hands of people less interested in spiritual things. Whether these "left-overs" were cynical in the full sense of the word, is kind of moot: the EWF as a whole would have been increaingly in the hands of people less inclined toward spiritual development and, one assumes, increasingly distracted from its real purpose. "Cynical" is probably a bad term; how about "worldly," then?

Peter Larsen


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