I recently re-read PKD's "The Man in the High Castle", and found this a very interesting part. A person is contemplating the reasons and goals of the Nazi nation (the book is set in a world where the German and Japanese won WWII), and it reminds me of other current governments.





Am i racially kin to this man? Baynes wondered. So closely so that for all intents and purposes it is the same? Then it is in me, too, the psychotic streak. A psychotic world we live in. The madmen are in power. How long have we known this? Faced this? And-how many of us do know it? Not Lotze. Perhaps if you know you are insane then you are not insane. Or are becoming sane, finally. Waking up. I suppose only a few are aware of all this. Isolated persons here and there. But the broad masses...what do they think? All these hundreds of thousands in the city, here. Do they imagine that they live in a sane world? Or do they guess, glimpse, the truth...? But, he thought, what does it mean, insane? A legal definition. What do I mean? I feel it, see it, but what is it? He thought, it is something they do, something they are. It is their unconsciousnes. Their lack of knowledge about others. Their not being aware of what they do to others, the destruction they have caused and are causing. No, he thought. That isn't it. I don't know; I sense it, intuit it. But -they are purposelessly cruel...is that it? No, God, he thought. I can't find it, make it clear. Do they ignore parts of reality? Yes. But it is more. It is their plans. Yes, their plans. The conquering of the planets. Something frenzied and demented, as was their conquering of Africa, and before that, Europe and Asia.

Their view; it is cosmic. Not a man here, a child there, but an abstraction: race, land. Volk. Land. Blut. Ehre. Not of honourable men but of Ehre itself., honour; the abstract is real, the actual is invisible to them. Die Güte, but not good men, this good man. It is their sense of space and time. They see through the here, the now, into the vast black deep beyond, the unchanging. And that is fatal to life. Because eventually there will be no life; there was once only the dust particles in space, the hot hydrogen gases, nothing more, and it will come again. This is an interval, ein Augenblick. The cosmic process is hurrying on, crushing life back into the granite and methane; the wheel turns for all life. It is all temporary. And these-these madmen-respond to the granite, the dust, the longing of the inanimate; they want to aid Natur.

And, he thought, I know why. They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history. They identify with God's powers and believe they are godlike. That is their basic madness. They are overcome by some archetype; their egos have expanded psychotically so that they cannot tell where they begin and the godhead leaves off. It is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate-confusion between him who worships and that which is worshipped. Man has not eaten God; God has eaten man. What they do not comprehend is man's helplessness. I am weak, small, of no consequence to the universe. It does not notice me; I live on unseen. But why is that bad? Isn't it better that way? Whom the Gods notice they destroy. Be small...and you will escape the jealousy of the great.

Yes its interesting. what year was the book written?

A little tricky to grasp at first, but does it basically mean that the belief of superiority between the leaders is due to the inflation of the ego?

The book was published in 1962. This piece of text idd deals about that Derf, among other things. It doesn't actually pin-point a reason or idea imho, the man thinking is just thinking it over. But it offers an interesting perspective, and it's quite analogue with today like i said.

You must mean with todays dictators like Saddam?

Well, not really, Saddam is freaky, but he's not (or better: has not had the chance) profiled himself as some world-changing-for-the-"good maniac. He was "just" locally megalomaniac.

I see what you mean, so really we can apply this more to the USA then. ie, USA and its mighty Democracy and ancient Rome with its mighty empire, and Hitler with his mighty... errrr everything?

Yes, to the empires that were/are dominating the world out of a singulary belief that theirs is the right (and only belief). God-given, too. Blabla.

We've just got the biggest guns. Bombs. Missiles. Whatever. And superior economic strength. And natural resources. And guns. Lots of guns. Plus we own the internet.

Damn euro scum.

lol, obviously you have those (the weapons etc.), but the mad ideas of democraciziing (if that is a word) the middle east, pre-emptive strikes, etc. are very, very much inspired by a belief of being "chosen" somehow on part of the establishment (thus government). I mean, how blind for the world can someone get if they don't believe that what they are doing is "right"? The worst things in history were done by ppl and groups who truly believed they were doing the "right" thing, goes to show.

mm, read a good book recently, about the changes and fluctuations of modern western politics, both in the US and Europe. I'll post the name of the book and author when i can be bothered to pick it up and check it.

P.S. the asians will own the internet soon after all, the US doesn't have THAT many inhabitants. Relatively speaking, of course.

Yup, China is the new world power. Try to learn to live with it, they got more people, more recources, more guns, more fighters planes and only a little less technology.

Err...a little less? They let a bioweapon (SARS) escape and kill off a small chunk of the world. Besides, I don't believe they can compete with us militarily. They have more, but we have significantly better, IMO.

Anyway...by 'owning' the internet, I didn't mean the number of users. We own the central infrastructure. I believe all the root name servers are US based, for instance... so if we got mad, we could force DNS name resolution to stop working. blah...nuclear destruction is still cooler.

They let SARS slip because they didn't want the world to know it existed. I think their technology gap, still big, can easily be bridged. A few years of resession in the west and continued Chinese growth should be enough.
And the US economy's recovery isn't as solid as it seems.

Quiet you! I just got my job. I actually got offered a lateral promotion (ie, better job, same pay). Not sure if I'm gonna take it, though...err.

anyway, I disagree. I don't think China can compete with us technologically, even if we have a recession. I don't believe their social and political structure encourages innovation enough.

How is the other job better? Less hours, better hours, less tedious work? Just curious.

On topic: You're right about China and technology. They will prolly one day evolve out of the pseudo-democratic they're in now, as they've doing very slowly for a long time now, but that's still far off. However, in general i think they are pretty strong, they have numbers. And lots of them lol.

Besides, the US shouldn't overestimate their own infrastructure either. The illiteracy ratings are downright shocking. Also, I had an american acquintance of mine tell stories of him trying to help his 16-yr old nephew to study, only to found out he couldn't read most of the txts (in public school that). And that he had to teach teenagers that worked for him as a cashier to give change back, they couldn't do basic math. He's convinced that this will be the biggest problem of the US in the coming years. It's almost close to a mate of mine who went to thailand for his last highschool year in an exchange project, and they made him english teacher after a few weeks cos everyone sucked so hard at it hahaha. Thailand ownz.

I already have a hard-core plan btw: i'm gonna go to the US or something, and just be me, and i'll impress women with my supposed intelligence.

"yeah, I speak 5 languages, now jump me, biatch"
*biatch jumps me*

oh yes, i can see it all in front of me...

I remember something from a major power failure, some months ago or something. The conclusion of that incident was that the power and electricity network in the USA was way way outdated.

Just to point out that it's not all that good in america.

Btw: i have internet at my gf's place now, woohoo!!