John C. Wright's Blog, page 174
October 22, 2010
A Dream, or, the Unfinished Novella
For those of you who are students of abnormal psychology curious about what professional obscure midlist science fiction writers dream about:
Last night I dreamt I saw a silver ship soar down from upper space, and skim along the very upper reaches of an endless bank of fog. It was passing between the columns and towers of immense skyscrapers whose upper reaches were crowed with constellations; and I realized this was not a fogbank, but a system of storm clouds. Between the gaps in the swirled cloud, I saw, like stars, the lights and rain-washed buildings, rank upon rank descending into bottomless gloom, and I realized that the skyscrapers to either side of the moving ship were not skyscrapers, but the upper reaches of superskyscrapers. This was the planet Trantor, and a city that covered the globe from pole to pole was beneath the clouds.
I remember that the skyscrapers were ancient, weathered, cracked like yellow marble, and the monuments of winged triumph upon the cornices were green and gray with patinas of age. There was something very eerie about thousand-year-old towers half a mile high. The lights were all out: the towers of Trantor were dark and silent, because the Empire was dwindling.
Spy Smasher! Where are you now?
Let us return to a moment of yesteryear, when children were taught that Nazis were Bad Guys, and they were fought by valiant comic book heroes like SPY SMASHER!
For those of you not up on your Morse Code, the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth nicely taps out the letter “V” — which stands for Victory, and the antiaircraft spotlights in the background of the opening credits make that same “V” against the dark skies of lowering war! Projectionist! Give the salute and roll the tape!
October 13, 2010
The Problem of Evil in Spooky Stories
“It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway?”
Those are words spoken by a superstitious old woman to Jonathan Harker in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula (1897). Fearing for the outsider’s safety, she gives him a crucifix. “I did not know what to do,” Harker writes, “for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in such a state of mind.”
But later, overcome with terror in the bowels of the Count’s Transylvanian castle, he has reason to be most grateful:
Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck! For it is a comfort and a strength to me whenever I touch it. It is odd that a thing which I have been taught to regard with disfavour and as idolatrous should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of help. Is it that there is something in the essence of the thing itself, or that it is a medium, a tangible help, in conveying memories of sympathy and comfort? Some time, if it may be, I must examine this matter and try to make up my mind about it. In the meantime I must find out all I can about Count Dracula. . . .
Over a century later, Stephenie Meyer managed to write four bestselling books concerning vampires (later translated into a quartet of popular movies) without the word crucifix appearing even a single time in her hundreds of thousands of words.
My comment: Fan that I am BUFFY and ANGEL and of much of Joss Whedon’s work, I have always been disappointed and offended at how weak, silly, inept or arbitrary the supernatural Powers of Light have been portrayed in the seasons I watched. (A confession: I gave up watching BUFFY when Spike became Buffy’s BFF. At that point, I realized that Mr. Whedon was just interested in jerking my chain, and no longer interested in telling me a witty, gripping and entertaining tale of vampire-slaying derring-do.)
I seem to recall that when Cordelia went to Heaven, she was simply bored by it, and wanted out. On the other hand, when Buffy returned from Heaven, she could not revert to normal life, because Earth seemed like Hell compared to that enervating bliss. So here in the same show are two opposing views of the Power that opposes Hell, demons and vampirism, and in the first case, it is as bad as anything Achilles laments, and in the second, it is no better than what the Buddha seeks.
The Council of Watchers in BUFFY (which I am secretly convinced is one and the same as the Council of Watchers in HIGHLANDER, and is probably run by Methos and Vandal Savage together) is the nominal good guys, but they are portrayed as ruthless, bureaucratic, and unworthy of anyone’s trust or loyalty.
In a similar vein, the angels or angelic hosts as portrayed in other spooky stories, such as the SANDMAN by Neil Gaiman, or the Alan Moore run on SWAMP THING, or even the angel in SPAWN (who is a bounty-hunter) are portrayed as being about as admirable as the Watchers of BUFFY: namely, either indifferent or harmful to human affairs, and not someone you can turn to for help, and certainly someone you would never turn to in prayer.
(I might also mention Phillip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy has the same type of evil or unappealing portrayal of Heaven, but that was deliberately written as an anti-Narnia and ant-Christian diatribe, so any similarities between these stories and his are not to their credit. Whether deliberately or not, these other tales reflect the same world-view, not unchristian, but antichristian.)
In none of the stories I just mentioned, even stories where the image of Our Lord in His suffering nailed to a cross is what drives back vampires, is any mentioned made of the Christ. Is is always an Old Testament sort of God ruling Heaven, or no one at all is in charge.
So why in Heaven’s name is Heaven always so bland, unappealing, or evil in these spooky stories?
October 12, 2010
Determining the Physical Consequences of Indeterminism
“So, Mr Wright, does your notion of “free will” have any physical consequences or not? Or do you want to permit indeterminacy?”I permit what I call ‘Indeterminacy’, but this may or may not be what you have in mind when you use the word, so, to avoid ambiguity, let me impose upon my patient reader by answering at length. If this answer sounds the same as things I have said before in answer to this question, keep in mind that I am merely a clockwork man like Tik-Tok of Oz, who must answer this question the exact same way whenever someone asks it, and, despite how weary my readers are with this topic, I cannot stop myself anymore than a clockwork can stop itself.
Read more
October 9, 2010
No exceptions, No Excuses, No Escape
If only George Orwell had portrayed the futuristic tyrants of England with music and laughter, costumes and gaiety, as the Big Brothers sings the songs of fond childhood memories about the omniscience of the police cameras, and how there is no escape, the parody could not have been believed. The chains binding the beloved magical car of my youthful daydreams to the ground is like a blasphemy to me.
I find this remarkably more chilling than a stern or officious warning, for the same reason that being beheaded by Jack Ketch is somehow worse if he wears, instead of his traditional black hood, a painted clown suit.
October 8, 2010
Who goes Nazi?
By Dorothy Thompson
It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times–in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.
It is preposterous to think that they are divided by any racial characteristics. Germans may be more susceptible to Nazism than most people, but I doubt it. Jews are barred out, but it is an arbitrary ruling. I know lots of Jews who are born Nazis and many others who would heil Hitler tomorrow morning if given a chance. There are Jews who have repudiated their own ancestors in order to become “Honorary Aryans and Nazis”; there are full-blooded Jews who have enthusiastically entered Hitler’s secret service. Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind.
Parable of the Chessmen
“In the column labeled ‘meaning’, I would then make an entry saying, perhaps, “King’s Pawn to King Four”. Now, I agree that this requires some sort of translation, which is not itself a physical object. In other words, I must know chess to make even this simple translation. But I need not know a whole lot of chess. Just knowing how the pieces move would be sufficient. And it does not seem to me a matter of faith to say that there is such a translation. If I move the atoms in a particular way, there is a corresponding chess move which the wooden pieces represent; I cannot see this as controversial.”
Far from being non-controversial, this is exactly the point of controversy. You are, without noticing it, brushing past not just a point, but the main point in contention, for you assume that an abstract statement which refers to no physical properties whatsoever is the same as or is translatable into a statements of physics, that is, a statement designed to refer to nothing but physical properties. You are saying A is not A.
To make this more clear, let me bring three statements to your attention, a physical, a concrete, and an abstract.
Physical: “Cylindrical object made of boxwood lacquered in gold hue standing three inches high, weighing 3 ounces, with a one inch diameter on a leather base is moved in one second from a location four inches north by northwest.”
Concrete: “Pawn made of boxwood lacquered in gold (in this game, the gold chessmen are considered the ‘black’ instead of the white, because the opposing chessmen are silver) standing three inches high is moved from its starting position four inches on a chessboard north by northwest, moving from King’s Pawn Two to King’ Pawn Four.”
Abstract: “Pawn to King’s Four.”
October 7, 2010
Wright's Writing Corner: Good Good Guys
This week is an in-depth look at the characters mentioned in last week’s post on writing about good characters.
http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/173669.html
Examined are Nausicaa, Kenshin, Monkey D. Luffy, Harry Dresden.
Scolding an Atheist
I once was an atheist, and I have great respect for the tribe, since my branch of the tribe at least was willing to examine evidence and submit their belief to the correction of reason or the influence of proof. Consequently, I have less respect than most Christians for make-believe atheists, people who believe atheism out of blind faith, or for emotional reasons, and who pretend to be submissive to reason as I once was, and am.
Here is one such. I hope I will be pardoned for acting as a public scold, but I sense this is one of those times when a little bit of refreshingly blunt talk might cut through the mental fog, even at the risk of seeming rude or uncharitable.
October 6, 2010
Belloc on Bibliolatry
The following is a quote from Hilaire Belloc’s magisterial magnum opis, Survivals and New Arrivals. He is discussing the attack against the Catholic Church on the grounds that the Church does not teach a literal interpretation of the books of the Bible.
The decision of the Church to stand by the Jewish Scriptures was not maintained without difficulty. The documents were alien to that glorious civilization of the Mediterranean which the Church penetrated and transformed. Their diction was, in its ears, uncouth and irrational. The deeds they recounted (with approval) sounded barbaric and often absurd: taken as moral examples, some were found repulsive, others puerile: and the whole was of another and (to Greek and Roman) lesser and more degraded world. We have remaining echoes of the reaction against them including the fury of those heretics who ascribed them to the Devil; and even after they had been flooding Christian study for nearly four hundred years you may find such an ardent follower of them as St. Augustine confessing that they had disgusted his cultivated taste and that their alien style had presented for him an abject contrast to the noble tradition of classical letters.
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