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Ro'Mallinson wrote: Zander, I'll clarify again that the "absolute power" I was describing was the tablet, not the Art. Yes, I stipulate that we should be careful when using the Art and educate our young in values before giving them the skillset to write Ages; I was specifically equating the tablet with the concept of "absolute power", albeit over a single species. The "sheer ontological scope" I describe is an attempted reductio ad absurdum (reduction to the absurd) of the Creation school of thought, not my description of the Art. There is no such implicit message in my argument for me to come to terms with; we've been having two separate debates on this thread, you'll notice, and you've accidentally conflated them.
Not accidentally. My point is that the argument that applies to one form of "absolute power" must perforce be applied to any and all other forms of "absolute power." If the Tablet cannot be used, because it represents absolute power over a species, then how can you possibly justify using the Art, which confers absolute power over a world? If one must be avoided, then so must the other. This is something we like to slide over, because using the Art is fun, but it does follow logically from the point you have been making regarding the Tablet. If you truly believe that absolute power cannot be allowed to remain in the hands of a fallible human, then you cannot advocate the use of the Art.
Personally, I wouldn't touch the Tablet with a ten-foot pole even if I believed in it, but I certainly would use the Art. Which means I cannot in conscience believe that absolute power can never be entrusted to a human.
Ro'Mallinson wrote: Now remember, while the D'Ni had regulation, their downfall was completely tangential to it: the two madmen who committed genocide of the entire citizenry of the cavern and its Ages was not based on any superiority complex over an inferior race. During the D'Ni empire, there's every indication of successful resistance to that kind of lording-over in Age-writing, although we do admonish them for their civil problems, namely for their caste system.
This is another point that I think some of us tend to pass over, and thank you for making it for me. Pride did not cause the Fall, though it certainly went before it as in the proverb. But the motivations that caused it were indeed partly grounded in a superiority complex: Veovis opposed contact with the surface dwellers because they were "inferior," hated Ti'ana because (I believe) she threatened that comforting assumption, and came to hate D'ni because they punished him for, as he saw it, trying to protect them from the outside influence.
I'm not sure what indications you see of resistance among the D'ni to what you've called hegemonic thinking. Certainly there were none in the history of D'ni and its Ages as presented to us by Yeesha. Some of the kings whose histories the DRC translated may have made gestures in that direction, but they remained kings, and their influence did not last.
Ro'Mallinson wrote: Now, think of science: while individual people can at some times become tempted to falsify reports to make their grants go through, or slip in false evidence to make their careers, there's an intricate system of confirmation, fact-checking, and diversification of process. It's not an all-or-nothing system whereby it's a free-for-all or we should remain in the dark ages. There's nothing wrong with having an intricate regulation system to prevent injustice or fraud. Nor does regulation over a process imply a "thee and me" elitism.
Doesn't it? Who imposes and enforces the regulations? Who monitors them? Regulation implies hierarchy by its very nature, implies a division between the regulators and the regulated. By definition the regulated can't be trusted to make their own rules and abide by them (or they wouldn't have to be regulated), but the regulators apparently can. And I have yet to see a system of regulation that is in any way effective at preventing injustice and fraud. Limiting, maybe; preventing, no.
Ro'Mallinson wrote: While Yeesha didn't use the same exact words as I'm using, I think I've interpreted her meaning pretty well. When she described finding "smallness" and "leastness", I'm not convinced she was advocating that for everyone: she was describing her journey down into the cavern, and her emotional turmoil before and after meeting the Bahro. Burdens were her description of herself and her father, and yes, I admit, the extent to which she emphasized those burdens makes it sound like she was pushing the idea of her being a mesiah-like martyr, and for the extent of this imagery in her voice I still take her with a grain of salt. I think you'll find that more of us than you give credit for taste that salt, and that is the source of the tension in Myst 5: one begins to struggle with whom to trust, as Yeesha's messages begin to trouble us as to her character; she seems to have a bit of Achenar in her, in fact. Nevertheless, even if she's become too emotional and too judgemental (which I personally think is the case), her heart was still in the right place, and so we trust not her hands with this weapon, but her voice to cast it away. As for us, the entire purpose of her Uru project was for regular people to both learn this new account of D'Ni histor and culture, and form a new understanding of how a civilisation can rot if it does not have values that prevent this kind of social stratification and injustice.
Ultimately, you pooh-pooh the concept of humility beyond its definition: it is not to place oneself last, but to remember not to place oneself first.
I'm not the only one to question Yeesha's motives, or her sanity, or even the most extreme sceptic. She is certainly extremely judgmental and emotional, and those two qualities are explosive when mixed. When she talked about "leastness" and "solace in smallness" and "darkness" she was in fact talking about the D'ni when they left Garternay, and it's clear that she believes this was an ideal that they aimed for and from which they fell away when they began to use the power of the Art again. But the thing about "leastness" is that it implies "greaterness." The thing about smallness is that it implies bigness. And the thing about darkness is you fall over a lot.
Humility is a relative term that only applies in a hierarchy where inequality is the rule. It only makes sense if the alternative is "pride" in the sense in which Yeesha used the word. It is meaningless outside the context of "first" and "last." It has nothing to do with equality. Humility does not look you in the eye; it bows its head and waits to be commanded. And when Yeesha talks about "leastness," that is--unmistakably, I would have thought--what she means.
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