Centerfield

Pournelle Grumble: Against Freedom

During the Cold War, a competition between a coalition headed by a great democracy and a coalition headed by a big oligarchy, Jerry Pournelle's heart was on the other side in a real way. He was a very conservative science fiction writer and computer columnist. Mind you, he didn't want the Commies to win. No, his foolishness was of a different kind. He was against freedom.

He always labeled his writings as coming from Chaos Manor, which I think is a pretty good metaphor for how he thought. He thought of himself as being upper class, and always facing perpetual battle for order. He, I think, wished he lived in a state that valued order over freedom. When he read classics, his heart was with the Spartans, an unfree oligarchic state, like the Soviets, Chinese, and Eastern Europe of the time. I'm reminded that I want to do this grumble by reading about an ancient war in which...a coalition headed by a great democracy and a coalition headed by a big oligarchy were at war. Sound familiar?

His novels featured a world in which the US and Soviets got together to oppress the world together, with the excuse of preventing nuclear war. Nevermind that no CoDominium was needed to prevent nuclear war in real life. Nevermind that in the real US, voters would've tossed any politians suggesting such an idea maybe even BEFORE the next election; he was pretty lonely in that idea. Alot of rights and R&D were put under strict control in his novels.

The real US armed forces of today already have enough technological improvement over the military we see in action in a star-spanning power in his books to be able to whip that one with one hand tied behind its smaller-numbered back. It doesn't have so many missiles, and, well, the missile automation and doctrine are from the 70s.....

In his books, only conservatives are able to think of moderate policies. We see alot of ex-cons settling new planets; in his books, ex-cons can never create anything constructive, only threaten. I guess in his world, one of my favorite pizza places would be impossible, run by an ex-con who said he'd learned a lesson; he'd certainly learned self-discipline. And the Secret Service, at least, seemed to agree, because it was also one of their favorite pizza places, too.

Eventually, the CoDominium breaks up in some way, and, of course that results in nuclear war (?why?). In the books, A planet settled by conservatives called Sparta takes control with the aid of the former US/USSR space fleet, and imposes a monarchy on the human race (nevermind that the REAL Sparta distrusted monarchy).

Their excuse for repressing humanity is that they're preventing big wars like the one that took Earth, nevermind that they've destroyed several planetary populations to save them; I'm just not getting it, anymore than I get that the British monarchy had to have control of North America.

In the best book in the series, The Mote In God's Eye, coauthored by Larry Niven, we see the Empire worrying intensely about competition from outies, planets outside the Empire. We see a democratic rebel planet population entirely destroyed. And they're right - it'd only take a couple of democratic planets maybe fifty years to develop enough technology to end the Empire.

In that book, we see a system of a Parliament and Emperor presiding over an imperial hierarchy. The Emperor, though seemingly living under some kind of constitution, clearly has alot more power than, say, any British King since the Glorious Revolution.

Lest you think that's just fiction, and not how he feels, not so long ago, he 'fessed up to wishing our democracy would be hacked, on the occasion of a court proceeding going against a border vigilante. He was smart enough to take that post down, though.

This is the grumble I should've written instead of my 300 review grumble. I was projecting Pournelle's views onto rather more people. It is, I think, fair to put Victor Davis Hanson in the Sparta-loving during the Cold War pot, but there's no evidence that it is or was a popular view.