[spidey120872]

Does anyone have Tehol Beddict's speech on the assumption of value from Chapter 17 of MT transcribed? It goes from page 636-637 in my Mass Market paperback. I really don't want to type the whole thing out! Thanks!

[Kanese S's]

Despite the fact that you could just do what I'm doing right now, I will type it out:


As they walked, Tehol spoke '... the assumption is the foundation stone of Letherii society, perhaps all societies the world over. The notion of inequity, my friends. For from inequity derives the concept of value, whether measured by money or the countless other means of gauging human worth. Simply put, there resides in all of us the un-challenged belief that the poor and the starving are in some way deserving of their fate. In other words, there will always be poor people. A truism to grant structure to the continual task of comparison, the establishment through observation of not our mutual similarities, but our essential differences.

'I know what you're thinking, to which I have no choice but to challenge you both. Like this. Imagine walking down this street, doling out coins by the thousands. Until everyone here is in possession of vast wealth. A solution? No, you say, because among these suddenly rich folk there will be perhaps a majority who will prove wasteful, profligate, and foolish, and before long they will be poor once again. Besides, if wealth were distributed in such a fashion, the coins themselves would lose all value - they would cease being useful. And without such utility, the entire social structure we love so dearly would collapse.

'Ah, but to that I say, so what? There are other ways of measuring self-worth. To which you both heatedly reply: with no value applicable to labour, all sense of worth vanishes! And in answer to that I simply smile and shake my head. Labour and its product become the negotiable commodities. But wait, you object, then value sneaks in after all! Because a man who makes bricks cannot be equated with, say, a man who paints portraits. Material is inherently value-laden, on the basis of our need to assert comparison - but ah, was I not challenging the very assumption that one must proceed with such intricate structures of value?

'And so you ask, what's your point, Tehol? To which I reply with a shrug. Did I say my discourse was a valuable means of using this time? I did not. No, you assumed it was. Thus proving my point!"

[spidey120872]

[quote name='Kanese S's' timestamp='1342124078' post='978240']


Wow, thank you very much. You didn't have to do that. I appreciate it.

[Dolmen 2.0]

Love that speech. One of SE's most direct criticisms of our world. Tehol had to be the most perceptive characters in the series. Great stuff Kanese.

[Studious Lock]

Amazing, have rep KS.

[HiddenOne]

spidey120872, on 13 July 2012 - 06:28 AM, said:

Wow, thank you very much. You didn't have to do that. I appreciate it.

We pay our debts in blood ... and rep!

[Sindriss]

Ye, that speach is so potent. And has the perfect ending lol, I myself do that all the time and it made me laugh a great deal

[Archeokat]

Awesome speech. Does anyone else think sometimes that there is a Tehol Beddict at the centre of the global market, just pulling strings?

[Studious Lock]

D, on 20 July 2012 - 09:57 AM, said:

Awesome speech. Does anyone else think sometimes that there is a Tehol Beddict at the centre of the global market, just pulling strings?

No, or we would be far more fucked than we are at the moment

[JheckHunter]

I have to be completely honest and say while I enjoyed Midnight Tides immensely I did not enjoy this speech or the many critiques of the Letheri which apparently were meant to be a diss on Western Civilization of the last couple of hundred years. I personally found it to be the type of propgaganda that people that went to public schools and then elite liberal universities have driven into there skulls over the years. Not to say that Letheri did not do many things that were totally wrong but Erickson should have been more clear that any system of government dreamed up by human being in the end will have many problems. It is because human beings are inherently flawed creatures. It wouldn't have bugged me as much if he didn't seem to be indicating that the collective is the way to go which has never ever been proven over the coarse of human events. As a matter of fact imo its pretty obvious that history is driven by the efforts of particularly astounding individual achievement. This also coming from a writer who is probably a millionaire operating under the type of system he is criticizing. Its tough being more conservative minded person reading fantasy sometimes because I found a lot of the stuff that was supposed to be profound as nothing more then re-heated liberal propaganda of today.

[HoosierDaddy]

"Reheated liberal propaganda of today."

What's so wrong with the originally heated propaganda of yesterday? Tehol not good enough to be better than the likes of Roosevelt?

[worry]

Can we ban anyone who uses "elite" as a pejorative?

[Kruppe's snacky cakes]

Wikipedia seems to agree that the word has negative connotations. Of course, I'm making a value judgment that "disproportionate" usually is used to describe an undesirable situation.

In any case, if we're relating Tehol's speech to the real world, at least part of it can be interpreted as a critique of over-monetization. Since monetization is the Keynesian way of providing "trickle down" benefits to an economy's participants, I don't think this part of his speech, at least, can be accurately construed as liberal propaganda.


Elite

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about a sociological term. For other uses, see Elite (disambiguation).

An elite in political and sociological theory, is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth or political power.

[worry]

[Studious Lock]

JheckHunter, on 03 August 2012 - 03:22 AM, said:

I have to be completely honest and say while I enjoyed Midnight Tides immensely I did not enjoy this speech or the many critiques of the Letheri which apparently were meant to be a diss on Western Civilization of the last couple of hundred years. I personally found it to be the type of propgaganda that people that went to public schools and then elite liberal universities have driven into there skulls over the years. Not to say that Letheri did not do many things that were totally wrong but Erickson should have been more clear that any system of government dreamed up by human being in the end will have many problems. It is because human beings are inherently flawed creatures. It wouldn't have bugged me as much if he didn't seem to be indicating that the collective is the way to go which has never ever been proven over the coarse of human events. As a matter of fact imo its pretty obvious that history is driven by the efforts of particularly astounding individual achievement. This also coming from a writer who is probably a millionaire operating under the type of system he is criticizing. Its tough being more conservative minded person reading fantasy sometimes because I found a lot of the stuff that was supposed to be profound as nothing more then re-heated liberal propaganda of today.

Ok, to start with, the books deal with many systems of government and pretty much slag them all off (possibly an englishism, deal with it) because as you say, all systems are flawed. The way I look at Erikson, hes not giving us answers, hes giving us questions. So I would stop looking for a political standpoint and just make your own mind up at the end.

On top of this, Erikson, a millionaire? LOL. I bet he makes a living out of this now (at least i hope so) but you have to be FUCKING famous to get millions out of writing today.

Right, final point. You say history is driven by individuals, I agree to a certain extent (although democracy has had its victories). However, there is no evidence saying individuals get it right. Lets start positively. Alexander the GREAT destroyed cities to make the world a "better place" (because his main area of operations is looking classy as hell right now *cough* middle east *cough*). Caesar, wanted everyone to be like rome, which had good points and bad points but i will admit generally did the western world a good turn.

THEN the next really big guy (Genghis), and kind of the ultimate big guy worked his way across the world, slowly destroying everyone and removing entire peoples from the face of the earth. Yes, individuals are awesome. That comes from a Genghis Khan fan (just to let you know).

This post has been edited by Studious Lock: 03 August 2012 - 10:57 PM

[Kanese S's]

JheckHunter, on 03 August 2012 - 03:22 AM, said:

I have to be completely honest and say while I enjoyed Midnight Tides immensely I did not enjoy this speech or the many critiques of the Letheri which apparently were meant to be a diss on Western Civilization of the last couple of hundred years. I personally found it to be the type of propgaganda that people that went to public schools and then elite liberal universities have driven into there skulls over the years. Not to say that Letheri did not do many things that were totally wrong but Erickson should have been more clear that any system of government dreamed up by human being in the end will have many problems. It is because human beings are inherently flawed creatures. It wouldn't have bugged me as much if he didn't seem to be indicating that the collective is the way to go which has never ever been proven over the coarse of human events. As a matter of fact imo its pretty obvious that history is driven by the efforts of particularly astounding individual achievement. This also coming from a writer who is probably a millionaire operating under the type of system he is criticizing. Its tough being more conservative minded person reading fantasy sometimes because I found a lot of the stuff that was supposed to be profound as nothing more then re-heated liberal propaganda of today.

[Tehol's Trousers]

Kanese S, on 04 August 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

JheckHunter, on 03 August 2012 - 03:22 AM, said:

I have to be completely honest and say while I enjoyed Midnight Tides immensely I did not enjoy this speech or the many critiques of the Letheri which apparently were meant to be a diss on Western Civilization of the last couple of hundred years. I personally found it to be the type of propgaganda that people that went to public schools and then elite liberal universities have driven into there skulls over the years. Not to say that Letheri did not do many things that were totally wrong but Erickson should have been more clear that any system of government dreamed up by human being in the end will have many problems. It is because human beings are inherently flawed creatures. It wouldn't have bugged me as much if he didn't seem to be indicating that the collective is the way to go which has never ever been proven over the coarse of human events. As a matter of fact imo its pretty obvious that history is driven by the efforts of particularly astounding individual achievement. This also coming from a writer who is probably a millionaire operating under the type of system he is criticizing. Its tough being more conservative minded person reading fantasy sometimes because I found a lot of the stuff that was supposed to be profound as nothing more then re-heated liberal propaganda of today.

Red-Flagging Tehol's critical analysis of Letherii values (which seem to me to be a satirical metaphor for capitalist values) as 're-heated liberal propaganda' seems to me to miss the point entirely. Tehol seems to me to be a nihilistic iconoclast with a moral compass rather than a 'liberal', and he's certainly not suggesting a welfare state in place of monetary valuation. He's simply bringing to light the absurdity inherent in valuation. Erikson spares no-one in this series and raising hackles regarding a certain type of criticism speaks only to a pre-existing bias on your part.
I would hazard to guess that Karsa, Kallor, and Purake give you a Ayn Randian stiffy as you scoff at Tehol and Trull. Your pre-conceptions are maybe compromising a fuller appreciation of the work.
for the record, Karsa is my fav character by far, and I can't wait for the Toblakai Trilogy
Tehol is a socratic gadfly, and this speech was a classic example. I think SE's intention was to leave the reader in a state of aporia regarding pre-existing assumptions about the validity of a certain type of valuation. I may be wrong.
This is my first post, and I've been reading the series in a solipsistic vaccum with no one to bounce ideas off (half-way thru 'Toll the Hounds'), so i might be suffering from a lack of external insight, so if my observations are clumsy or inappropriate I apologize.

This post has been edited by Tehol's Trousers: 09 August 2012 - 04:30 AM