Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[Mannahnin]

I thought about it during the last session of our class in History and Moral Philosophy. H. & M. P. was different from other courses in that everybody had to take it but nobody had to pass it — and Mr. Dubois never seemed to care whether he got through to us or not. He would just point at you with the stump of his left arm (he never bothered with names) and snap a question. Then the argument would start.

But on the last day he seemed to be trying to find out what we had learned. One girl told him bluntly: "My mother says that violence never settles anything."

"So?" Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. "I’m sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that. Why doesn’t your mother tell them so? Or why don’t you?"

They had tangled before — since you couldn’t flunk the course, it wasn’t necessary to keep Mr. Dubois buttered up. She said shrilly, "You’re making fun of me! Everybody knows that Carthage was destroyed!"

"You seemed to be unaware of it," he said grimly. "Since you do know it, wouldn’t you say that violence had settled their destinies rather thoroughly? However, I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea — a practice I shall always follow. Anyone who clings to the historically untrue — and thoroughly immoral — doctrine that ‘violence never settles anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst."

@Mannahnin - An example of why I wanted a non-ironic film version of "Starship Troopers."

I love that book and it was really important to me as an adolescent in particular. (Military brat, it was my first Heinlein- I think I was 10 or 11, same age I first got D&D).

In retrospect I see Heinlein palm the ball here a little bit. I think some people have used the expression with the word "settles", but the standard (as far as I can remember/tell) form uses the word "solves". Which doesn't fit Mr. Dubois' point so well.

Violence does seem to be a necessary resolution of last resort in some cases (see WW2 for our classic largely uncontroversial example) , but it doesn't necessarily "solve" problems, so much as obviate them or kick them down the road. And sometimes introduce new ones in the process. Heinlein was worried about the Soviets being an existential threat and wanted the US to maintain sufficient armed force to deter attack, but most of the violence of the Cold War was probably counterproductive even outside the moral issues. Wastes of blood and treasure and harmful to one's own nation, whether it be the US in Vietnam or the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Anyway, probably shading too much into politics.

 

[Ryujin]

I love that book and it was really important to me as an adolescent in particular. (Military brat, it was my first Heinlein- I think I was 10 or 11, same age I first got D&D).

In retrospect I see Heinlein palm the ball here a little bit. I think some people have used the expression with the word "settles", but the standard (as far as I can remember/tell) form uses the word "solves". Which doesn't fit Mr. Dubois' point so well.

Violence does seem to be a necessary resolution of last resort in some cases (see WW2 for our classic largely uncontroversial example) , but it doesn't necessarily "solve" problems, so much as obviate them or kick them down the road. And sometimes introduce new ones in the process. Heinlein was worried about the Soviets being an existential threat and wanted the US to maintain sufficient armed force to deter attack, but most of the violence of the Cold War was probably counterproductive even outside the moral issues. Wastes of blood and treasure and harmful to one's own nation, whether it be the US in Vietnam or the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Anyway, probably shading too much into politics.

To paraphrase Heinlein, "I wrote 'Stranger in a Strange Land' and they called me a communist. I wrote 'Starship Troopers' and they called me a fascist. I was just writing stories."

 

[payn]

To paraphrase Heinlein, "I wrote 'Stranger in a Strange Land' and they called me a communist. I wrote 'Starship Troopers' and they called me a fascist. I was just writing stories."

Total cop out.

 

[el-remmen]

It has been hard to come to accept that no one’s opinion regarding just about anything is remotely interesting. Including my own. But it’s true.

 

[TiQuinn]

Total cop out.

Yeah, I don’t know who writes a book like Farnham’s Freehold and claims they were just writing stories. No, dude, you were working through some issues.

 

[Ryujin]

Yeah, I don’t know who writes a book like Farnham’s Freehold and claims they were just writing stories. No, dude, you were working through some issues.

SciFi has a history of amplifying a single societal issue, in order to examine it.

 

[TiQuinn]

SciFi has a history of amplifying a single societal issue, in order to examine it.

What about when you amplify multiple problematic, unrelated issues all at once and you never get past the problematic stage? You just let it rest at an extremely cringey state?

 

[kermit4karate]

It has been hard to come to accept that no one’s opinion regarding just about anything is remotely interesting. Including my own. But it’s true.

Average is the norm among individuals of the same species, and yet all of us think we're such precious, unique little snowflake star babies. What would the world ever do without ME??

 

[Ryujin]

What about when you amplify multiple problematic, unrelated issues all at once and you never get past the problematic stage? You just let it rest at an extremely cringey state?

It's not necessarily about resolving the issues. It's more about recognizing and analyzing them. You don't have to fix them in order to shine a light on them.

 

[payn]

Yeah, I don’t know who writes a book like Farnham’s Freehold and claims they were just writing stories. No, dude, you were working through some issues.

Yeah, Heinlein often tried to write about complex ideas in thought intriguing ways. Problem is he was very clumsy with the topics and never really explored them in anything but the most basic levels. a common theme throughout many of his 'just writing stories" career.