The Queen of Air and Darkness
The Queen of Air and Darkness is concerned with whether Might makes Right. Though I’m not normally that tuned in to politics, lately it seems that everything I read triggers reflection on something in current events. Take this passage, for instance, in which Merlyn and Sir Kay consider war. It’s very difficult not to think (while breaking into a cold sweat) about the war in Iraq. Sir Kay, King Arthur’s half-brother, begins:
“By the way. You remember that argument we were having about aggression? Well, I have thought of a good reason for starting a war.”
Merlyn froze.
“I would like to hear it.”
“A good reason for starting a war is simply to have a good reason! For instance, there might be a king who had discovered a new way of life for human beings — you know, something which would be good for them. It might even be the only way of saving them from destruction. Well, if the human beings were too wicked or too stupid to accept his way, he might have to force it on them, in their own interests, by the sword.”
The magician clenched his fists, twisted his gown into screws, and began to shake all over.
“Very interesting,” he said in a trembling voice. “Very interesting. There was just such a man when I was young — an Austrian who invented a new way of life and convinced himself that he was the chap to make it work. He tried to impose his reformation by the sword, and plunged the civilized world into misery and chaos. But the thing which this fellow had overlooked, my friend, was that he had had a predecessor in the reformation business, called Jesus Christ. Perhaps we may assume that Jesus knew as much as the Austrian did about saving people. But the odd thing is that Jesus did not turn the disciples into storm troopers, burn down the Temple at Jerusalem, and fix the blame on Pontius Pilate. On the contrary, he made it clear that the business of the philosopher was to make ideas available, and not to impose them on people.”
Merlyn isn’t concerned in this passage with whether the proposed way of life is a good one or not, but with whether force is a legitimate way of presenting people with “something which would be good for them.” I know the war in Iraq is more complex than this; I know there are more layers to it than imposing a western democracy on a middle eastern nation. But this layer is certainly there.
I have to say that much of the rhetoric about universal health care, universal preschool, salary caps for multimillionares, mandatory this and that, have the same false ring. “Give us your money and we’ll do what’s best for you” has the same false ring, whether it’s televangelists or politicians saying the words. The ideas aren’t imposed by military force. But they can be imposed by economic, or legal, or political force. It seems to me that any time everyone is forced to fall into lock step with one idea by some institutional power, you basically have a state of war, whether it’s military or not.
So… What would a society look like that “makes ideas available without imposing them on people”?
