Michael B. Duff (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} michaelduff) wrote,@ 2003-12-23 01:27:00 |
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The Man in the High Castle
I am halfway through the Philip K. Dick's book, The Man in the High Castle. One of the most compelling "Hitler wins the war" stories ever written, and perhaps the best Philip K. Dick I've ever read.
It focuses on the lives of people in occupied San Francisco, part of a Western United States that was given to the Japanese.
It's one of the most amazing insights into the minds of conquered people that I've ever seen. It covers all the tiny cultural shifts that occur when people live under dictatorship. Not at the bloody ideological conflict stage, but at the stage of resignation and defeat.
PKD is showing how the victory of the Axis powers has changed the way people think. The racism, the fear. Not the overt fear of a recently conquered people, but the everyday fear that comes when a simple misplaced word can get you reported to the secret police.
Imagine a world where Americans are forced to act Japanese, where the rigid rules of station and politeness are backed by the threat of Imperial power. Everywhere, power and fear leave their mark on how people behave.
Thought patterns change in the minds of the conquered, until racism, socialism, and authoritarianism become the starting point for all philosophy, even in the realm of "subversive" literature.
The novel is a work of fiction about a work of fiction. A postmodern set of infinite mirrors. The characters within this alternate history are obsessed with a novel themselves, a novel that speculates what the world would be like if the Allies had won the war.
A lesser author would have made the novel within the novel be our true current history, but this fictionalized account is used to show how in a world where the Nazis won, even the "rebellious" literature would start from Nazi premises.
That's the battleground we're fighting on, the battle for premises. God, I sound so Objectivist when I talk like this, but that's the real long-term effect of wars. Human beings are fundamentally impressed by force. 90% of human philosophy is an attempt to rationalize and explain military victories.
Defeat a nation in war and the intellectuals of that nation will spend the next 50 years inventing a philosophy explaining how you did it. War is seen as the ultimate proof of rogress. Establish military superiority over a people, and in 50 years, the people you conquered will have convinced themselves that you are gods.
Look at the way ancient scholars praised the Roman Empire. Look at the way Americans romanticized fascism in the 30s and 40s. The most telling line in this novel comes from a passage in the forbidden book:
Interrupting, Joe said, 'You know what he's done, don't you? He's taken the best about Nazism, the socialist part, the Todt Organization and the economic advances we got through Speer, and who's he giving the credit to? The New Deal. And he's left out the bad part, the SS part, the racial extermination and segregation. It's a utopia! You imagine if the Allies had won, the New Deal would have been able to revive the economy and make those socialist welfare improvements, like he says? Hell no; he's talking about a form of state syndicalism, the corporate state, like we developed under the Duce. He's saying, You would have had all the good and none of - '
'Let me read,' she said fiercely.
These people are so thoroughly conquered that even their rebellion fantasies support the premises of the enemy. That's how you win wars. That's how you win once and for all. Conquer people with force, and they will change their own minds, in the course of rationalizing your victory.
It's easy to do when you can overwhelm them. Conquer, subjugate, censor and control. Clamp down on the news and the literature long enough and you can accelerate the process. But victories are rarely that complete.
Militarily, the United States defeated Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, but the victory was not absolute. We did not subjugate these people. We did not prove our superiority in a way that human animals could understand. Human beings don't surrender their prejudices easily. And from the 1st to the 21st century, the quickest way to change a man's mind is to put your boot at his throat.
We never had a decisive victory over Communism. We defeated Nazism, i.e. racism, as a philosophical force. It's been discredited to the point where no mainstream intellectual would base a philosophy on it.
But we never truly defeated Communism or Socialism. Not in the way it matters, not decisively by force. That's why Communism and Socialism have survived so long. The Cold War is seen as a long stalemate. The systems collapsed from within, so the question of their viability has not been truly "settled" in a way that human hindbrains can accept.
If we had conquered Russia militarily, if we had subjugated the people and truly imposed our way of life, I think Marxism would be as ludicrous to modern ears as Nazism is today.
This will sound monstrous to some and ludicrously obvious to others, but beyond technology and reason, the way we think is determined by who wins wars.
So what does this mean for our conflict with the Arab world?
America lacks the will to impose itself thoroughly on the Arab world. So even if we win, their philosophies will survive. Islamic fanaticism will remain credible through anything short of a full crusade.
And once again, I am not advocating this kind of imperialism; I'm saying it's the only thing that works.
The alternative is an inconclusive kind of slow rot. Communism and Socialism have failed by every reasonable measure of human progress, but their philosophical premises are alive and well, throughout Europe and the Americas.
Capitalism is still in competition with Socialism and Communism, because a capitalist nation has not thoroughly subjugated a communist land yet.
Philosophical wars are settled on battlefields. We as humans cannot accept a philosophy as true until it bears fruit in war. Call that my working thesis right now.
Military victory is the quickest, most enduring way to change the minds of the common people, and without a clear military victory to end them, philosophies linger on and on.
I started to write this in praise of my country's conduct during the war on terror and got side-tracked. Just a small point here. If America really was the terrifying imperial power that our critics make us out to be, the citizens of Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia would be afraid of us. Genuinely afraid. They would speak with great gentleness and deference, out of fear of our power.
That's the way things are done in PKD's conquered America. In a true fascist state, your actions, your language, even your thoughts are influenced by fear of your conquerers. Now consider the articles being written in Saudi Arabia, Europe, America, and in Free Iraq. If we really were the monsters they say we are, they would be too scared to write about it.
I am halfway through the Philip K. Dick's book, The Man in the High Castle. One of the most compelling "Hitler wins the war" stories ever written, and perhaps the best Philip K. Dick I've ever read.
It focuses on the lives of people in occupied San Francisco, part of a Western United States that was given to the Japanese.
It's one of the most amazing insights into the minds of conquered people that I've ever seen. It covers all the tiny cultural shifts that occur when people live under dictatorship. Not at the bloody ideological conflict stage, but at the stage of resignation and defeat.
PKD is showing how the victory of the Axis powers has changed the way people think. The racism, the fear. Not the overt fear of a recently conquered people, but the everyday fear that comes when a simple misplaced word can get you reported to the secret police.
Imagine a world where Americans are forced to act Japanese, where the rigid rules of station and politeness are backed by the threat of Imperial power. Everywhere, power and fear leave their mark on how people behave.
Thought patterns change in the minds of the conquered, until racism, socialism, and authoritarianism become the starting point for all philosophy, even in the realm of "subversive" literature.
The novel is a work of fiction about a work of fiction. A postmodern set of infinite mirrors. The characters within this alternate history are obsessed with a novel themselves, a novel that speculates what the world would be like if the Allies had won the war.
A lesser author would have made the novel within the novel be our true current history, but this fictionalized account is used to show how in a world where the Nazis won, even the "rebellious" literature would start from Nazi premises.
That's the battleground we're fighting on, the battle for premises. God, I sound so Objectivist when I talk like this, but that's the real long-term effect of wars. Human beings are fundamentally impressed by force. 90% of human philosophy is an attempt to rationalize and explain military victories.
Defeat a nation in war and the intellectuals of that nation will spend the next 50 years inventing a philosophy explaining how you did it. War is seen as the ultimate proof of rogress. Establish military superiority over a people, and in 50 years, the people you conquered will have convinced themselves that you are gods.
Look at the way ancient scholars praised the Roman Empire. Look at the way Americans romanticized fascism in the 30s and 40s. The most telling line in this novel comes from a passage in the forbidden book:
Interrupting, Joe said, 'You know what he's done, don't you? He's taken the best about Nazism, the socialist part, the Todt Organization and the economic advances we got through Speer, and who's he giving the credit to? The New Deal. And he's left out the bad part, the SS part, the racial extermination and segregation. It's a utopia! You imagine if the Allies had won, the New Deal would have been able to revive the economy and make those socialist welfare improvements, like he says? Hell no; he's talking about a form of state syndicalism, the corporate state, like we developed under the Duce. He's saying, You would have had all the good and none of - '
'Let me read,' she said fiercely.
These people are so thoroughly conquered that even their rebellion fantasies support the premises of the enemy. That's how you win wars. That's how you win once and for all. Conquer people with force, and they will change their own minds, in the course of rationalizing your victory.
It's easy to do when you can overwhelm them. Conquer, subjugate, censor and control. Clamp down on the news and the literature long enough and you can accelerate the process. But victories are rarely that complete.
Militarily, the United States defeated Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, but the victory was not absolute. We did not subjugate these people. We did not prove our superiority in a way that human animals could understand. Human beings don't surrender their prejudices easily. And from the 1st to the 21st century, the quickest way to change a man's mind is to put your boot at his throat.
We never had a decisive victory over Communism. We defeated Nazism, i.e. racism, as a philosophical force. It's been discredited to the point where no mainstream intellectual would base a philosophy on it.
But we never truly defeated Communism or Socialism. Not in the way it matters, not decisively by force. That's why Communism and Socialism have survived so long. The Cold War is seen as a long stalemate. The systems collapsed from within, so the question of their viability has not been truly "settled" in a way that human hindbrains can accept.
If we had conquered Russia militarily, if we had subjugated the people and truly imposed our way of life, I think Marxism would be as ludicrous to modern ears as Nazism is today.
This will sound monstrous to some and ludicrously obvious to others, but beyond technology and reason, the way we think is determined by who wins wars.
So what does this mean for our conflict with the Arab world?
America lacks the will to impose itself thoroughly on the Arab world. So even if we win, their philosophies will survive. Islamic fanaticism will remain credible through anything short of a full crusade.
And once again, I am not advocating this kind of imperialism; I'm saying it's the only thing that works.
The alternative is an inconclusive kind of slow rot. Communism and Socialism have failed by every reasonable measure of human progress, but their philosophical premises are alive and well, throughout Europe and the Americas.
Capitalism is still in competition with Socialism and Communism, because a capitalist nation has not thoroughly subjugated a communist land yet.
Philosophical wars are settled on battlefields. We as humans cannot accept a philosophy as true until it bears fruit in war. Call that my working thesis right now.
Military victory is the quickest, most enduring way to change the minds of the common people, and without a clear military victory to end them, philosophies linger on and on.
I started to write this in praise of my country's conduct during the war on terror and got side-tracked. Just a small point here. If America really was the terrifying imperial power that our critics make us out to be, the citizens of Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia would be afraid of us. Genuinely afraid. They would speak with great gentleness and deference, out of fear of our power.
That's the way things are done in PKD's conquered America. In a true fascist state, your actions, your language, even your thoughts are influenced by fear of your conquerers. Now consider the articles being written in Saudi Arabia, Europe, America, and in Free Iraq. If we really were the monsters they say we are, they would be too scared to write about it.
