[Dragaera] Liberals

[Philip Hart via Dragaera]

On Fri, 14 Nov 2014, Jerry Friedman via Dragaera wrote:

>> From: Philip Hart via Dragaera <dragaera at lists.dragaera.info>
>>
>> but isn't Paarfi's perspective liberal?
>
> Maybe we mean something different by liberal.  I mean someone in favor of
> more or less the U.S. Bill of Rights, and social and legal reforms to help
> the poor and the victims of prejudice.  (I think.)

It seems to me that the main concern of the entire Pirodyssey (aside from 
the historical bits) is prejudice and the need for cultural if not social 
reform.  Half the characters are crossbreeds or in mixed relationships and 
the current morality is made to look destructive and unnatural at every 
turn.


> Paarfi shows us comically brave and clever Teckla, but he seems to take it
> for granted that the Teckla should have the lowest status, and he seems
> uninterested in reform.

He's writing a history, and an entertainment, not a tract - but 
convincing  his readership that Teckla can be clever and brave seems 
like a good program for a liberal.  Actually I should rather say he's 
nearly writing a tract about intermarriage, and adding an overt economic 
message on top might be a bit much.  Maybe next installment?


>> Don't Dzur fight for Teckla and Easterners when their swords are sharp?
>
> Yes, but not for the rights of Tecklas and Easterners in general.  (As 
> far as we know.  I feel that in /Phoenix/ there was a Dzur or two 
> fighting the Phoenix Guard, but only because mowing down Teckla is 
> unsporting.)

Do we know their motivation is the latter and not the former?  (I was 
thinking we learn that one sees Dzur fighting on the side of Easterners 
and Teckla in some discussion of events in _Dragon_.  Maybe some aside 
by Sethra.)


>> not be a lot to say.  (Here I'm thinking a bit of LeGuin's _The
>> Dispossessed_ and the statement at the end by the Hainish man that they
>> have tried everything over millennia and nothing works.)
>
>
> I'd forgotten that.  But I get the impression that a lot doesn't get tried
> on Dragaera. [...]

We wouldn't know now if a Hainish conclusion had been reached, unless 
there was an explicit discussion; or if everyone just sees the Cycle as 
ineluctable, or the social pressures are too strong to dispute.  But I 
actually have the sense that there are uprisings, which is surely trying 
something, really frequently for an Empire with a strong divine presence 
and good reason to think there's something superdivine going on.

One more thing to mention is that the Teckla get to run things once a 
cycle.  And another is that they're at the bottom of the cycle.  The 
argument for reform might well be met with, "They get theirs next time 
around."  And yet another point is that we don't know (I think) that 
souls tend to stay in Houses - "they'll get theirs next time they're a 
noble".