I have not read The Cassini Division. Are these MacLeod’s views? That is, in context, is it written to present the speaker’s philosophy as good or evil? MacLeod himself, I believe, is something of a socialist, which would make these views rather odd in his own mouth.
His views are … eclectic. He has self described as a Libertarian Trotskyist. Don’t ask me how that works. I think it would be an exaggeration to say these are MacLeod’s views.
They are presented as a very distorted reading of philosophy and politics shaped by the founders’ horrible pre-revolution life:
The true knowledge…the phrase is an English translation of a Korean expression meaning ‘modern enlightenment’. Its originators, a group of Japanese and Korean ‘contract employees’ (inaccurate Korean translation, this time, of the English term ‘bonded labourers’) had acquired their modern enlightenment from battered, ancient editions of the works of Stirner, Nietzshe, Marx, Engels, Dietzgen, Darwin, and Spencer, which made up the entire philosophical content of their labour-camp library. (Twentieth century philosophy and science had been excluded by their employers as decadent or subversive – I forget which.) With staggering diligence, they had taken these words – which they ironically treated as the last word in modern thought – and synthesized from them, and from their own bitter experiences, the first socialist philosophy based on totally pessimistic and cynical conclusions about human nature.
They are also, however, the views of the one of the largest political entities in the solar system, indicating that whatever else, they work (in that fictional universe). They’re also the views of the main character. She’s designed pretty explicitly to be something of a Rorschach test, entirely ambiguous between a monster and the saviour of the human race.
ROT13: Fur (nggrzcgf gb?) pbzzvgf trabpvqr ntnvafg n cbfguhzna pvivyvmngvba yvivat va bar bs gur tnf tvnagf. Guvf cbfguhzna pvivyvmngvba unf znqr fbzr ntterffvir zbirf ntnvafg uhznavgl, ohg gur erprag barf unir orra ragveryl bs gur sbez bs vasbezngvba jnesner nggnpxf—gnxvat bire pbzchgref.
I have not read The Cassini Division. Are these MacLeod’s views? That is, in context, is it written to present the speaker’s philosophy as good or evil? MacLeod himself, I believe, is something of a socialist, which would make these views rather odd in his own mouth.
His views are … eclectic. He has self described as a Libertarian Trotskyist. Don’t ask me how that works. I think it would be an exaggeration to say these are MacLeod’s views.
They are presented as a very distorted reading of philosophy and politics shaped by the founders’ horrible pre-revolution life:
They are also, however, the views of the one of the largest political entities in the solar system, indicating that whatever else, they work (in that fictional universe). They’re also the views of the main character. She’s designed pretty explicitly to be something of a Rorschach test, entirely ambiguous between a monster and the saviour of the human race.
ROT13: Fur (nggrzcgf gb?) pbzzvgf trabpvqr ntnvafg n cbfguhzna pvivyvmngvba yvivat va bar bs gur tnf tvnagf. Guvf cbfguhzna pvivyvmngvba unf znqr fbzr ntterffvir zbirf ntnvafg uhznavgl, ohg gur erprag barf unir orra ragveryl bs gur sbez bs vasbezngvba jnesner nggnpxf—gnxvat bire pbzchgref.