The Grand Illusion
Every so often I get a comment like that, more often lately in the books of “The Grand Illusion,” and I just want to shake my head. In fact, sometimes I do. I feel the same way when someone makes comments about just wanting to get rid of politicians and politics.
What many of these people fail to understand is that, like it or not, politics are responsible for all the achievements of the human race, and that the declines of past great civilizations largely resulted from the failure of politics.
Why do I say that?
Because individuals acting alone are limited in what they can do. Cooperative effort is what enables technology pretty much anywhere above late stone age, and cooperative effort requires social organization. Social organization falls apart without a political structure of some sort. While some theorists will claim that a market system trumps politics, even market systems need politics to function above the stone age.
Regardless of which is more important, there have never been any societies with a technology at or above the bronze age without some form of unified political and economic system.
Now, I understand the need for entertainment in fiction. If a fiction book doesn’t entertain a reader, it’s generally a failure. But just as non-stop action is totally unrealistic, as I pointed out in an earlier blog, so are societies without at least plausible economic and political structures.
You can’t maintain an autocratic kingdom or even high-tech society without enforcers of some sort, and a set of enforcers, whether a military-police structure or a secret police, requires organization and structure, which in any system involving human beings requires politics. Non-autocratic technological societies have differing structures and differing politics, but politics remain necessary.
I could ask the question of why at least some “action-oriented” readers readily accept the impossibility of non-stop action and reject the impossibility of societies without workable politics, but the answer is most likely that, because they don’t see or understand that politics can be as deadly, and often more deadly, than military or other action, they find direct violence and action more emotionally satisfying. That lack of understanding on a larger scale in society is why autocrats like Putin, Hitler, Mussolini, Orban, and more than a few others gained power through political means, rather than by direct military force.
Please don’t be discouraged by readers who bemoan the presence of politics in your books, LEM. The thoughtful doses of political philosophy are exactly what sets your writing apart from the average SF/Fantasy writer.
Plus I would note that many other ‘classic’ works of fantasy, from Lord of the Rings to The Wheel of Time, are chock full of politics, all of which help to not only drive the plot forward but provide the underlying context as to why the characters are acting the way they do. Feel free to encourage readers who want non-stop action to return to their first-person shooter video games.
Actually I enjoy the politics in the stories. They make me think more about the situation and the ideas behind any decisions the characters make. Some are similar to political parties today, sometimes not. But then fiction is meant to explore the possible to see what might happen. I do hope we see more of the latest world with Isolate and Councilor even with different characters.
Politics brings me back to reading your stories repeatedly; each new one is a delight. Although you are a slow read for me, this is a good thing. I have to pay attention and think about the ideas you are presenting.
Many other authors I used to read no longer satisfy me, as their books are so repetitive and often filled with gratuitous violence.
Non-historical fiction has more latitude to explore possibilities, at least as long as within its own rules they’re plausible; so whatever one’s view of actual politics needn’t apply, esp. if there’s an element of cautionary tale regarding any extreme.
That says little about politics in the real world, which is probably best described as a necessary evil, IMO esp. if it’s heavy on government rather than voluntary private means (which do indeed still have their own politics for probably any number of people greater than one). Regardless of formula, the problem with a necessary evil is that more than necessary is not better but usually worse. Private means can be somewhat authoritarian within their limited scope and membership and occasionally get incredible results (SpaceX launches vs the rest of the world, for example), without seriously affecting those not interested in the venture. In government, at their best, bounded functions with physical objectives (military, FEMA) can do well if their leadership and higher civilian leadership are more or less honest (witness the hollowness of Russia’s military with the corruption making much of their equipment useless) and not idiots.
But the premium for a necessary evil paid in either taxes, lost liberty, or other inefficiencies tends to be higher than should be tolerated.