[ninjascience]

I'm in the first quater of RG and it is just me or is there far more politcal/social commentary in RG and MT than the other preceding books? I'd like to start a thread of book quotes that could apply to modern day social and political commentary. I wish I had started this in MT but that will have to wait for the re-read. We could probably spin way off topic going into each quote and how it applies to our times, so let's just keep it to the quotes and how YOU see it applies.

from RG Chapter 2, from Karos Invictad

Quote

He is possessed of certainty. He holds to a secure vision of the world, a man with the correct answers - that the prerequisite questions were themselves the correct ones goes without saying. A citizen with certainty, Yahvana, can be swayed, turned, can be made into a most diligent ally. All one needs to do is find what threatens them the most. Ignite their fear, burn to cinders the foundations of their certainty, then offer an equally certain alternate way of thinking, of seeing the world They will reach across, no matter how the the gulf, and grasp and hold on to you with all their strength. No the certain are not our enemies. ... ... our greatest enemies are those wo are without certainty. The ones with questions, the ones who regard our tidy answers with unquenchable skepticism. Those questions assail us, undermine us. They ... agitate. Understand, these dangerous citizens understand that nothing is simple; their stance is the very opposite of naivety.

To me this speaks strongly of the certainty (and naivety) of the Tea Party, and conversely the weakness of the Progressives, who never seem willing to believe 100% in anything. The smartest part of the quote for me is: "that the prerequisite questions were themselves the correct ones goes without saying" I often feel that way about the people I politically disagree with, but have never been able to think it, much less say it, in such succinct terms.

[HoosierDaddy]

It's a further extrapolation on this in Midnight Tides:

Quote

"I advised you not to look to for hope from your leaders, for they shall feed you naught but lies. Yet hope exists. Seek for it, Brys Beddict in the one that stands at your side, from the stranger upon the other side of the street. Be brave enough to endeavour to cross that street. Look neither skyward nor upon the ground. Hope exists and its voice is compassion, and honest doubt."

464, Bantam MMPB.

[Tattersail_]

ninjascience, on 17 September 2010 - 06:00 AM, said:

Quote

He is possessed of certainty. He holds to a secure vision of the world, a man with the correct answers - that the prerequisite questions were themselves the correct ones goes without saying. A citizen with certainty, Yahvana, can be swayed, turned, can be made into a most diligent ally. All one needs to do is find what threatens them the most. Ignite their fear, burn to cinders the foundations of their certainty, then offer an equally certain alternate way of thinking, of seeing the world They will reach across, no matter how the the gulf, and grasp and hold on to you with all their strength. No the certain are not our enemies. ... ... our greatest enemies are those wo are without certainty. The ones with questions, the ones who regard our tidy answers with unquenchable skepticism. Those questions assail us, undermine us. They ... agitate. Understand, these dangerous citizens understand that nothing is simple; their stance is the very opposite of naivety.

I didn't understand you Tea Party explanation. My interpretation of this is more of a question. What type of people in todays society are the certain ones? I can see the sceptical ones, the ones that have to disagree with everything you say no matter what it is, "red is a colour", "no it is not it is an aspect of light and you interpret it like a colour but if you reflect it through this that and the other it can become blue. so Red is blue actually"

bad example I know but my question is, who are the certain people in modern society?

Can you think of a real life person that acts like Karos Invictad?

I would love to know a person like Tehol in real life, that would be amazing!

[Tattersail_]

I understand what he is saying but do not know who he is talking about basically. Is he actually referencing someone here?

[Eispeis]

The most obvious I found in RG was about a year ago when I was writing my thesis on how the Bush administration suspended habeas corpus and redefined torture and prisoner of war status. I thought this excerpt brilliantly described how I saw the situation. Actually considered putting it in as an introduction to my thesis.

On p 172 of the Bantam Books (probably UK version), it's an introduction to either a chapter or a new book, I don't remember

Quote

The affliction was too insipid, too much a product of our surrendering mindful regard and diligence. The meanings of words lost their precision - and no-one bothered taking to task those who cynically abused those words to serve their own ambitions, their own evasion of personal responsibility. Lies went unchallenged, lawful pursuit became a sham, vulnerable to graft, and justice itself became a commodity, mutable on imbalance. Truth was lost, a chimera reshaped to match agenda, prejudices, thus consigning the entire political process to a mummer's charade of false indignation, hypocritical posturing and a pervasive contempt for the commonry.

Edit: I even showed the quote to my professor who commented that it was powerful and beautifully written. I find the quote balls out awesome

This post has been edited by Eispeis: 17 September 2010 - 10:01 AM

[Sinisdar Toste]

i'd say that those in modern society who are possessed of certainty are the tea partiers and their fundamentalist ilk. they refuse to listen to logic and reason, they're so certain of their convictions

the letherii society always did seem a pretty straightforward allegory for the united states, its economic system and especially in RG, the culture of fear therein.

This post has been edited by Sinisdar Toste: 17 September 2010 - 05:37 PM

[ninjascience]

Tattersail, on 17 September 2010 - 09:04 AM, said:

I didn't understand you Tea Party explanation. My interpretation of this is more of a question. What type of people in todays society are the certain ones? I can see the sceptical ones, the ones that have to disagree with everything you say no matter what it is, "red is a colour", "no it is not it is an aspect of light and you interpret it like a colour but if you reflect it through this that and the other it can become blue. so Red is blue actually"

bad example I know but my question is, who are the certain people in modern society?

Can you think of a real life person that acts like Karos Invictad?

I would love to know a person like Tehol in real life, that would be amazing!

Tattersail, on 17 September 2010 - 09:05 AM, said:

I understand what he is saying but do not know who he is talking about basically. Is he actually referencing someone here?

I'm not sure I understand that last question. My comment wasn't about anybody here, but about the Tea Party (the latest name for the far-right in this country).

@Eispeis
I really like that quote. I often feel like the way most people approach politics these days has little bearing on truth. Talking heads on news programs of all political persuasions say whatever they feel and pass it off as truth. The only people challenging what they are saying are other talking heads with different views, leaving independent minded viewers with little sense of what the actual facts are, or even worse, that neither side is right.

I was watching Left/Right pundit debates on a major news show the other day. One of them said their movement was mainstream, the other disagreed and the program host, the supposedly objective party, just nodded and didn't backup or refute the claims of either side.

[Braden]

ninjascience, on 17 September 2010 - 05:51 PM, said:

Tattersail, on 17 September 2010 - 09:04 AM, said:

I didn't understand you Tea Party explanation. My interpretation of this is more of a question. What type of people in todays society are the certain ones? I can see the sceptical ones, the ones that have to disagree with everything you say no matter what it is, "red is a colour", "no it is not it is an aspect of light and you interpret it like a colour but if you reflect it through this that and the other it can become blue. so Red is blue actually"

bad example I know but my question is, who are the certain people in modern society?

Can you think of a real life person that acts like Karos Invictad?

I would love to know a person like Tehol in real life, that would be amazing!

Tattersail, on 17 September 2010 - 09:05 AM, said:

I understand what he is saying but do not know who he is talking about basically. Is he actually referencing someone here?

I'm not sure I understand that last question. My comment wasn't about anybody here, but about the Tea Party (the latest name for the far-right in this country).

@Eispeis
I really like that quote. I often feel like the way most people approach politics these days has little bearing on truth. Talking heads on news programs of all political persuasions say whatever they feel and pass it off as truth. The only people challenging what they are saying are other talking heads with different views, leaving independent minded viewers with little sense of what the actual facts are, or even worse, that neither side is right.

I was watching Left/Right pundit debates on a major news show the other day. One of them said their movement was mainstream, the other disagreed and the program host, the supposedly objective party, just nodded and didn't backup or refute the claims of either side.

That'll be where some confusion lies...I don't think the Tea Party etc have been reported much if anything in the UK for example.

[Silk]

The main point of confusion here is, until it was mentioned that the Tea party reference was to the New Right and not in reference to the original Tea Partiers (Bostonites).

The New School Tea Party was mentioned in the UK news around the same time as the Pastor that was going to burn the Koran (and was only infrequently mentioned).

[Braden]

Oh you Americans and your quaint “Far Right”…



…not like you get anything like that happening here in Europe!







…oh, hang on….

[ninjascience]

reminds me of being in Germany when the David Koresh compound was under siege.

One of my german friends said: "You Americans, you'll follow any crazy person."

[HedgeWalker]

Sinisdar Toste, on 17 September 2010 - 05:36 PM, said:

i'd say that those in modern society who are possessed of certainty are the tea partiers and their fundamentalist ilk. they refuse to listen to logic and reason, they're so certain of their convictions

the letherii society always did seem a pretty straightforward allegory for the united states, its economic system and especially in RG, the culture of fear therein.

I took a similar understanding from Lether - seemed like the culture of Greed-is-good leading to a system that relies on constant growth of wealth, assuming that wealth equates to power. The concept of "Anyone can become rich" results in the oppression of poor into indentured slavery, bribery and corruption become the norm as all the 'anyones' realise that Wealth = Power. It's a small step to utilising fear and violence to maintain a status quo that situate's a very small number of elite rich folks pedalling a 'Dream' that Any-one can become one of them...

Hard not to draw a comparison with the current world economy: corporate dominance fed by a totalitarian control of the mass media ensuring that the intellects of the masses remain feeble, whilst ensuring that those who make it into higher 'education' are thoroughly indoctrinated into methodology of money=power These few are so completely in debt when they complete their education as to be ensured of having to 'work' to pay of the debt...By the time that debt is paid, almost certainly new debt has arrived (mortgage/car - both of which are probably needed to service the 'work')....and the leviathan that is "The Banking System", that cannot function without debt, has another indentured slave....

......Wait a minute....This isn't the meeting at the Docks is it? Damn it!

I need a lie down.

<message ends>

[Braden]

Garden Rake, on 23 September 2010 - 10:00 AM, said:

Sinisdar Toste, on 17 September 2010 - 05:36 PM, said:

i'd say that those in modern society who are possessed of certainty are the tea partiers and their fundamentalist ilk. they refuse to listen to logic and reason, they're so certain of their convictions

the letherii society always did seem a pretty straightforward allegory for the united states, its economic system and especially in RG, the culture of fear therein.

I took a similar understanding from Lether - seemed like the culture of Greed-is-good leading to a system that relies on constant growth of wealth, assuming that wealth equates to power. The concept of "Anyone can become rich" results in the oppression of poor into indentured slavery, bribery and corruption become the norm as all the 'anyones' realise that Wealth = Power. It's a small step to utilising fear and violence to maintain a status quo that situate's a very small number of elite rich folks pedalling a 'Dream' that Any-one can become one of them...

Hard not to draw a comparison with the current world economy: corporate dominance fed by a totalitarian control of the mass media ensuring that the intellects of the masses remain feeble, whilst ensuring that those who make it into higher 'education' are thoroughly indoctrinated into methodology of money=power These few are so completely in debt when they complete their education as to be ensured of having to 'work' to pay of the debt...By the time that debt is paid, almost certainly new debt has arrived (mortgage/car - both of which are probably needed to service the 'work')....and the leviathan that is "The Banking System", that cannot function without debt, has another indentured slave....

......Wait a minute....This isn't the meeting at the Docks is it? Damn it!

I need a lie down.

<message ends>

+1 Rep for that...its just so scarily true!

[excession]

Lether is an allegory for the United States - a culture wherein money is the ultimate goal and the ultimate prize; debt reaps its own rewards - unemployment and a lack of credit is driving Americans into similar levels of desperation to those seen throughout the Third World. Thus, all the indebted tribes that have been overrun by the Letheri (Fent, Tarthenal, etc) are allegorical to the Third World (Africa, Latin America, Asia), and Lether, initially bloated by its own excesses, picks a fight with the wrong people (a people who, interestingly enough, use tactics involving small squads and terror), smashes their homelands and is in turn conquered. However, in true American style, it absorbs its conquerors through wealth and their desire of it. Tehol's efforts to bring down the economy involve the very things that have brought down the American economy - enormous, unpayable debt.

There is also the environmental concerns mentioned in both Midnight Tides and Reaper's Gale. I think this piece from Midnight Tides sums it up...

The old drainage trench had once been a stream, long before the huts were knocked down and the overlords began building their houses of stone. Rubble and foul silts formed the banks, crawling with vermin. But there in my chest some dark fire flamed in quiet rage as I walked the track seeking the lost voice, the voice of that freed watery flow, the pebbles beneath the streaming tongue. Oh I knew so well those smooth stones, the child’s treasure of comforting form and the way, when dried, a single drop of tear or rain could make the colour blossom once more the found recollection of its home – this child’s treasure and the child was me and the treasure was mine, and mine own child this very morning I discovered, kneeling smeared on the rotting bank playing with shards of broken pots that knew only shades of grey no matter how deep and how streaming these tears.

Before Trate
Nameless Fent

[chaosek]

The novel predates the tea party so it's not about them nuts. However you could argue it is critcal about most politics and western society in general (letherii just living for the money and stuff)

[nacht]

I think the fundmental problem address by the quote is that it gets bad when people tend to be "certain" about their beliefs, no matter the party affliation.

Quote

A citizen with certainty, Yahvana, can be swayed, turned, can be made into a most diligent ally.

Both Rush LImbaugh and Keith Olbermann are screwed up and bad for the world

[Phaedrus]

ninjascience, on 17 September 2010 - 06:00 AM, said:

I'm in the first quater of RG and it is just me or is there far more politcal/social commentary in RG and MT than the other preceding books? I'd like to start a thread of book quotes that could apply to modern day social and political commentary. I wish I had started this in MT but that will have to wait for the re-read. We could probably spin way off topic going into each quote and how it applies to our times, so let's just keep it to the quotes and how YOU see it applies.

from RG Chapter 2, from Karos Invictad

Quote

He is possessed of certainty. He holds to a secure vision of the world, a man with the correct answers - that the prerequisite questions were themselves the correct ones goes without saying. A citizen with certainty, Yahvana, can be swayed, turned, can be made into a most diligent ally. All one needs to do is find what threatens them the most. Ignite their fear, burn to cinders the foundations of their certainty, then offer an equally certain alternate way of thinking, of seeing the world They will reach across, no matter how the the gulf, and grasp and hold on to you with all their strength. No the certain are not our enemies. ... ... our greatest enemies are those wo are without certainty. The ones with questions, the ones who regard our tidy answers with unquenchable skepticism. Those questions assail us, undermine us. They ... agitate. Understand, these dangerous citizens understand that nothing is simple; their stance is the very opposite of naivety.

To me this speaks strongly of the certainty (and naivety) of the Tea Party, and conversely the weakness of the Progressives, who never seem willing to believe 100% in anything. The smartest part of the quote for me is: "that the prerequisite questions were themselves the correct ones goes without saying" I often feel that way about the people I politically disagree with, but have never been able to think it, much less say it, in such succinct terms.

I had assumed Invictad was talking about those who follow blindly- Yathvanar, vs those who question authority- Janath. People like Yathvanar make perfect allies because they are CERTAIN of their righteousness- they never once question WHY murdering citizens of their own culture is a "good" thing- they follow until the deed is done. Whereas people like Janath (And other intellectuals like her) need to be suppressed because they WILL question their beliefs right to the very core- they refuse to be spoonfed propaganda. A real life paralell might be somebody who fell into the 9/11 rhetoric that "justified" the Iraq war despite Iraq having nothing to do with the event, and furthermore leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

[Zenstrive]

Reading Any books post Memories of Ice, I felt like being trapped inside a philosophical classes or atheist forums if the books are not talking about The Malazan Army under Tavore, Ganoes Paran, or Tehol Beddict. Not that those people philosophize, but their philosophies are not as dense as those of the Letherii or the Edurs, and their respective gods. The Malazan Army stories are intertwined with actions, but the Letherii saga are less so, so the dense philosophies can be felt even more.

[Kanese S's]

Atheist forums? That's kind of an odd feeling to get, given the very active pantheon in the Malaz world.

[Zenstrive]

Kanese S, on 06 March 2012 - 06:54 AM, said:

Atheist forums? That's kind of an odd feeling to get, given the very active pantheon in the Malaz world.

Well, the notions that gods are useless, gods are shaped by followers, gods probably don't care, gods are this, gods are that....feels like reading atheist historian writings