Interview with me!
This is the first in a series of interviews that I'm making about the writing of Simon Peter. My interviewer is Tim "Santiago" Converse, who is a scholar and a friend that is helping me out with . . . well, a lot of things.
This is the introductory interview. We'll be doing more of them in the fullness of time, with the juicy, meaty questions like "why did you rape Jesus?" - but for now, we decided on a more measured and stately interview technique.
Anyway, I hope people enjoy it!
This is the introductory interview. We'll be doing more of them in the fullness of time, with the juicy, meaty questions like "why did you rape Jesus?" - but for now, we decided on a more measured and stately interview technique.
Anyway, I hope people enjoy it!
Labels: atheism, christianity, interview, simon peter, writing
19 Comments:
Chris - it's great to see you.
I downloaded and read "Ruthless & Defiled" & enjoyed it a lot, tho' I though it had a few weaknesses that would be difficult to rectify in it's current short format. Expanded to a novel a lot of bumps could be ironed out.
I'm not a critic, just a reader. I don't want to piss you off by ripping your work apart!
While doing my boring factory work after reading it I thought about it a lot.
Stew - Fortunately, Chris did expand it to a novel, after a fashion. He wrote a novel based on the same concept, but ... well, longer. Different characters, different plot/mystery, but still a dystopic vision of an anarcho-capitalist future. Good stuff!
Stew,
Fire away with the critique. And, as Becky said, I did end up expanding it -- or, at least, the themes of it -- into a novel. ;)
As I said, it was mostly a proof of concept for Condotierri. I wanted to know if I could write, for a period of time, in that style.
I'm glad you thought about it. That is one of the biggest compliments you could give. It made you think?! GREAT! What were you thinking about it?
I enjoyed watching the interveiw, it was very interesting.
It is so true that people, secular & atheists have a hard time bringing themselves to acually criticize Jesus. Myself included. I've never thought about why, though.
I've studied anough about the historical Jesus to reconize him as a Apocalyptic Jewish prophet.
But as far a considering any other motive, I haven't.
It would be an interesting work of fiction, for sure.
What was I thinking? I was greatly taken by the idea of a near future where public services like the Police are handled by private firms. But I was thinking that, in such a society, all the other services would be privatased too, and only available to the rich - garbage disposal for example. I felt that in the descriptions of the poor parts of town it would be shoulder high in refuse. And if most of the house had no water, where did people crap? No flushing toilets. The places would be rank. it would be the same deal with ambulances and the fire services. if you had no contract your house would simply burn. or if you had a contract with a fire service, and the neighbours house was on fire and they didn't, your contracted fire service would come in and simply dynamite the neighbours house to save yours!
Of course we are already going down this route. Our utility bills bear no resemblance to the companies that traditionally used to supply stuff. Mobile phone companies offer electricity and gas. We also already see that ambulance and fire crew come under attack from mobs when they go into certain neighbourhoods. Perhaps in a near future these will become paramiltary. Would a company like legionnaire also offer fire and medical cover?
Operatives like Dante would have to be well up on contract law, especially in scenes like the one where the wife beaters contract conflicted with his wife's contract held by a rival company. Did the private police become paralegals or did lawyers become paramilitary?
The contracting out of private services was blamed on the ratepayers who chose a diminishment of service against a cut in rates. Did you see this as a nationwide phenomenon? If not, surely the cities would simply empty as people left for states that still had traditional police forces etc. if there is no work or security or power or water in the cities, why would people stay?
These are just some of the things that ran through my mind on the issues of services, lots more on the character of Dante & his motivations. Ruthless & Defiled kept me occupied for more than 1 shift.
l>t,
Yeah, I've noticed the very strong tendency for even fairly radical non-Christians (such as atheists) to nevertheless lionize Jesus.
I'm gonna talk Nietzsche a while. ;)
I think some of this is the "long shadow of god" that Nietzsche mentioned. I agree that god is dead, or in the process of messily dying, but we're going to have to live with the repercussions of that for a while. And part of the repercussion is, I think, dealing with . . . post-religious colonization.
I dunno how hip you are into the post-colonial scene, guys like Edward Said, but the post-colonialists try to evaluate the repercussions of colonialism in the post-colonial world -- the way that colonialism was a formative experience in the post-colonial present, and the continuing trauma of colonialism on the colonized.
In a similiar fashion, we've been colonized by religion, and even after we've rejected religion we're still living in a world that is strongly shaped by those historical events and they're still playing themselves out -- even in the hearts and minds of the strictest atheist alive. I think that part of that post-religion is the belief that religious figures are worthy of merit outside of the religious faith.
Like the interpretation that Jesus is, in some fashion, a crusader against either Jewish corruption or Roman conquest. That's a heck of an interpretation. He doesn't really agitate against either the corrupt Jews or the colonizing Romans. What he does do is call for a spiritual transformation. Even in that, he is hardly original, even for a Jew -- everything Jesus said about peace and love, Hillel said something like 100 years before Jesus. By reading the actual texts, he is just a backwoods preacher who runs afoul -- really, through no merit of his own -- with the corrupt Jewish establishment. There is nothing in the Bible that leads me to think, really, that he was systematically engaged in fighting corruption amongst the Jewish upper classes or the Romans.
As a comparison, take David Koresh. Now, you COULD say that his stand against the federal government was a principled stand against corrupt authority. And, really, some of his followers (they're still out there) say precisely that. But it doesn't really hold water. Koresh taught an apocalyptic religion, but he didn't challenge authority until it was literally busting down his door. That he managed to, er, immanitize his eschatology -- fulfill his doomsday predictions -- in an openly suicidal way DOES NOT transform him from a religious nutjob into a freedom fighter against tyrannical government authority. Likewise, Jesus' apocalyptic ways can be interpreted in the same way -- that a religious nutjob managed to goad authority into destroying him doesn't make him a freedom fighter in any sense of the word.
Yet, almost everyone interprets Jesus in such a way, even though a study of messiahs in history leads one to the conclusion that they're megalomaniacs, not principled fighters against corrupt authority.
So, I think that our taking Jesus so seriously (even when there's scant reason to do so, and considerable reason to believe he's just a crank) is a result of the post-colonization of religion in society. I think we are all suffering from it to some extent.
Not just with Jesus, either, but the way that most non-theists are obsequious about religion. Like it's somehow being mean to call beliefs based on fantasy, y'know, beliefs based on fantasy -- like we're somehow obligated to let people have their delusions without intellectually challenging those delusions. It's crazy, but we do it all the time.
I think to free ourselves, and our culture, of the shackles of religion we should stop treating religious figures like they're honest, serious people in any way.
Stew,
I think you saw the point of the story COMPLETELY. If I was aiming for any particular response, that's the one I was going for -- not just your analysis of the consequences of anarcho-capitalism, which was thrilling for me to read, and very important, but the way that we're moving towards anarcho-capitalism right now. It put a big smile on my face! So, thank you for your post. I feel appreciated, and I'm delighted that you found so much to think about.
I had considered some of what you said, but I didn't expand on describing the consequences of anarcho-capitalism because I was trying to be Wellsian -- when writing science-fiction, narrowly focus on one topic because, otherwise, you'll get lost in canyons of your imaginings. This happens to me a LOT when I lose focus, so when I write sci-fi, I try to stay tightly focused or things balloon out of control and I spend so much time pedantically talking about futurism that I never tell a story.
Whether a security company like Legionnaire would offer other services depends. IMO, at the phase of anarcho-capitalist development in "Ruthless", not very much, because (in my mind) the anarcho-capitalism was still not fully developed. (It is even less developed in Condotierri, tho' I have a sequel for Condotierri that take anarcho-capitalism to what I believe is it's logical end point.) In the future of the story, almost certainly security companies -- and particularly security companies, BTW -- would start to expand into other sectors of the economy, and the logical first target after police security would be other first response stuff like ambulances, fire, etc. The end point would be, I feel, the realization by security companies that they have a monopoly on violence and functionally control civilization -- that anarcho-capitalism is, itself, inherently unstable because by design it would place no limits on the expansion of personal wealth or means of gaining that wealth. And security companies, at the end of the day, would have all the guns.
I do disagree that security officers would need a lot of training in contract law, because in my mind, at least, the contracts are basically bullshit. It says it explicitly in the story, even -- it's just a public relations gimmick, and the truth is that they do what they can get away with, and without public oversight we wouldn't even know what that is. So, actual training in contract law would be, I think, a waste of time -- better training would be in how to handle public relations in delicate situations, to create a favorable impression, rather than have knowledge of spurious corporate law. That's my idea, anyway, and I'm not saying that it's better than yours, it's just the one I operated from when writing this story.
Did the private police become paralegals or did lawyers become paramilitary?
In my mind, mercenary organizations such as Dyncorp went into police work. This is really happening in places like Iraq, after all.
And, ultimately, this is science-fiction. I don't think things will get to the pitch they were in "Ruthless" -- and it's one of the reasons Condotierri isn't quite so anarcho-capitalist, to better maintain suspension of disbelief -- but my thought was that cities started hiring mercenary "security" firms to handle traditional police work and over time they just contracted out the whole justice system to private contractors, including not only the enforcement of law but the definition of law.
In the US, at least, you can see some of this happening, already. On one hand, you have several states that have outsourced their prison system to private contractors. On the other hand, you have people who are living in "gated" communities that have armed response private security corporations (often, literally in the mercenary business, too). I know that some cities have considered privatizing their police forces, but to my knowledge it hasn't happened, yet.
As to the reason why people would stay in the cities -- where else would they go? All of that stuff you said -- the lack of water, power, security, etc. -- would exist in the countryside, too, and it might be WORSE. At least in the United States, rural people are the most pro-private property in America. Some of these guys already believe they should have the right to kill anyone on their land they don't like, and they'd have the tools and space to make a body very effectively disappear. Never anger a man who has a pig farm. ;)
But, to answer your question a little less flippantly, I saw it at least as a national phenomenon, yes, something that built slowly over time -- like I'm seeing, right now, the privatization of law enforcement. Outside the context of the story, it is entirely possible that people are seeking political asylum elsewhere, of course, but "Ruthless" doesn't address that 'cause I was trying to be all Wellsian.
Maybe this can help you get through another shift or two. ;)
That was interesting. Thanks for sharing the interview and good luck with your book.
chris
I understand the concept of colonization in a rudimentry sense. I've never really studied it, though.
Post religious colonization is a fascinating idea, though.
Before I took the course on the "Historical Jesus" My only concept of Jesus was what I was taught in Sunday school as a child & the ideas I got as a Christian adult. I bet this is par for the course in American society.
he is just a backwoods preacher who runs afoul -- really, through no merit of his own -- with the corrupt Jewish establishment.
This makes more sense to me now.
But, to see him as the likes of Koresh or Jim Jones, Yikes!
See, still I want to defend him. I want to say, "Well he meant well."
Or my humanist side wants to say, "He was a link in the chain of higher conscienscness."
I agree that we need to be freed of the shackles of religion
But, we should stop treating religious figures like they're honest, serious people in any way.?
You mean NO religious heros at all?
Do you realize the implications of that?
Beep,
Thanks! I hope I can make it all turn out OK, myself. ;)
l>t,
Yes, we're all told specific things about Jesus that make it almost impossible to objectively look at the "evidence" about him. But if we discount his miracles, what's really left? Just some fairly commonplace stuff about non-violence and some confusing parables. Not precisely the thing to make a me want to lionize him further.
See, still I want to defend him. I want to say, "Well he meant well."
Or my humanist side wants to say, "He was a link in the chain of higher conscienscness."
Lots of people mean well -- but overwhelmingly religious fanatics aren't the sort of people you want to have around your kids. As presented in the Bible, sure, he's a great guy, means well, higher consciousness, so forth and so on. but L. Ron Hubbard's followers say the same thing about him, right? And so do the surviving followers of David Koresh.
So, while it's possible that Jesus was a guy who said some cool things and was elevated to godhood by his nutjob followers, I find it much more likely he was a religious nutjob like Jim Jones (who also had a benevolent message, if you listen to just his message). And I think we should discuss the possibility that Jesus wasn't very remarkable at all, or remarkable in a negative way.
You mean NO religious heros at all? Do you realize the implications of that?
A saner world? ;) Seriously, I don't see any down sides to it. If you do, lay 'em on me!
My Word!
I look forward to the turf battle between Saul of Tarsus and The Rock and his Jerusalem gang.
You are right that Yeshua is handled with 'kid gloves' and I think that part of that is the current PC environment but mainly there is still a formidable amount of power being weilded by the Christian majority...and few have the stomach for breaking with tradition..how UN-American!
I am also interested to see how you deal with the egregious lack of historical evidence, aside from the couple of lines mentioned about Yeshua by the sycophantic historian Josephus. C'mon.
We live in strange times..we have accumulated incredible empirical evidence about ourselves over the past couple hundred years but old habits die hard...as a species so many of us are afraid to take the training wheels off.
homo escapeons,
The epic battle between Peter and Paul deserves a book of it's own. The fight will be the sequel to Simon Peter, if Simon Peter justifies having one, which I obviously hope it will. ;)
The way I deal with the lack of evidence is to see it as a liberating force. There is no evidence, so I am not constrained by history, save in some very rough outlines. So I can write a book inspired by the Gospels, Acts and to some extent the Apocrypha but without having to worry about all this niggling historical questions! Very liberating. ;)
Yeah, I also agree about the training wheels thing. A lot of people are scared to take them off, no matter how much better the bike will ride without them.
OK. :) It seems to me we need heros. People that have achieved the next plateau of what we are striving for.
Religious heros speak to us of the promise of a consummation of a spiritual need.
Jesus is this concept to the western mind.
The implications are, If you comepletly tear this down, you leave a void.
I hope this makes sense.
L>T said...
OK. :) It seems to me we need heros. People that have achieved the next plateau of what we are striving for.
Religious heros speak to us of the promise of a consummation of a spiritual need.
Jesus is this concept to the western mind.
The implications are, If you comepletly tear this down, you leave a void.
What "spiritual needs?"
Why should anyone have "spiritual needs?" You have to define what those are before you can ask that kind of question because everyone will interpret such needs differently.
I have a very happy and fullfilling life without anything more "spiritual" then the inspiration of beautiful music, art and education. I don't have a need for anything of supposedly "devine" nature.
The "void" that exists is artificial, created by religious doctrine. Preachers tell us from their pulpits every week that we have this need and that Jesus can fill it, but if you had never heard about it in the first place, you wouldn't have noticed anything missing at all.
It is exactly the same thing as a television commercial. You didn't know you needed a new car until you were told that a new car would fill the hole in your life that you currently have because your current car is old. Does that really mean you need a new car?
l>t,
Oh, yeah, it make sense. I am, myself, deeply suspicious of "heroes" in any sense of the word, nowadays, because I distrust the process through which a person becomes a hero -- often, it seems to me, the actual person is lost, or irrelevant, to the process, and the hero becomes a vessel into which a person pours their bigotry as well as their aspirations.
However, I strongly suspect the spiritual needs, in particular, are an artificial construct. What do we actually need to be fulfilled and happy? Studies have been done! The closest that religion comes to being being involved in human happiness is "a sense of purpose" -- and religion isn't necessary to get that at all.
So it seems to me when people talk about spiritual needs, they're actually talking about psychological needs, and there are just better ways to get it than religion.
So, those are my feelings. I'm suspicious of heroes (though I admit to having a very complex relationship with the idea of heroism) and I don't believe that spiritual (re: psychological) needs are actually well met by religion.
Santiago beat me to it! :)
"Heroes" are not really all that bad Chris! *smile*
It is true that heroes can be of great value to us. They do inspire us. They certainly are capable of giving meaning to something. What is important is that when we choose to elevate someone to the status of hero that we know why we do it.
For example, I consider David Copperfield (the magician not the Dickens character) to be one of my heroes. Not a surprise I'm sure, but it was his work that inspired my efforts. Later I met other magicians who also became heroes of mine and continue to inspire me.
This kind of heroism is fine I think. But that is a personal hero as opposed to an institutionalized one. Jesus is an institutionalized hero. That kind of hero is the one that people really need to watch out for.
What is important is that when we choose to elevate someone to the status of hero that we know why we do it.
I agree with this, and there probably is a real and meaningful distinction between a personal hero (like you admiring David Copperfield) and an institutional hero (like Jesus or Stalin or whomever).
HOWEVER, I was definitely talking about heroes like Jesus, hehe.
santiago,
Acually, I meant "we" as a society more then specifically, myself.
As atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, etc...we are on the other side of religious type spirituality & that kind of hero worship, for the most part. As chris implies, we still suffer from post religious colonization.)
But... we atheist types are a minority. The majority of American society still very much has a christian mindset. IMO
The "void" that exists is artificial, created by religious doctrine. Preachers tell us from their pulpits every week that we have this need and that Jesus can fill it, but if you had never heard about it in the first place, you wouldn't have noticed anything missing at all. That's all true. Unfortunately, The majority of Americans have heard it & still believe it.
What is important is that when we choose to elevate someone to the status of hero that we know why we do it. Amen to that! :)
That said, I am really looking forward to Cris's book Simon Peter & the reactions he's going to get to it.
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