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    Politeness, Facts, Duty, Copulation, Equality, Society, & The State - No Man is an Island

    Jul 16, 2008 2:19 am Report Abuse

    Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how “pure” their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.

    What are the facts? Again and again and again-what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history”--what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!

    Do not confuse “duty” with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anytbing from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect. But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants “just a few minutes of your time, please--this won’t take long.” Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time--and squawk for more! So learn to say No--and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you. (This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.)

    Copulation is spiritual in essence--or it is merely friendly exercise. On second thought, strike out “merely.” Copulation is not “merely”--even when it is just a happy pastime for two strangers. But copulation at its spiritual best is so much more than physical coupling that it is different in kind as well as in degree. The saddest feature of homosexuality is not that it is “wrong” or “sinful” or even that it can’t lead to progeny--but that it is more difficult to reach through it this spiritual union. Not impossible--but the cards are stacked against it. But most sorrowfully--many people never achieve spiritual sharing even with the help of male-female advantage; they are condemned to wander through life alone.

    Whenever women have insisted on absolute equality with men, they have invariably wound up on the dirty end of the stick. What they are and what they can do makes them superior to men, and their proper tactic is to demand special privileges, all the traffic will bear. They should never settle merely for equality. For women, “equality” is a disaster.

    All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury or folly which can--and must--be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a “perfect society” on any foundation other than “women and children first!” is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly--and no doubt will keep on trying.

    Those who refuse to support and defend a state have no claim to protection by that state. Killing an anarchist or a pacifist should not be defined as “murder” in a legalistic sense. The offense against the state, if any, should be “Using deadly weapons inside city limits,” or “Creating a traffic hazard,” or “Endangering bystanders,” or other misdemeanor. However, the state may reasonably place a closed season on these exotic asocial animals whenever they are in danger of becoming extinct. An authentic buck pacifist has rarely been seen off Earth, and it is doubtful that any have survived the trouble there...regrettable, as they had the biggest mouths and the smallest brains of any of the primates. The small-mouthed variety of anarchist has spread through the Galaxy at the very wave front of the Diaspora; there is no need to protect them. But they often shoot back.

    No man is an island--” Much as we may feel and act as individuals, our race is a single organism, always growing and branching--which must be pruned regularly to be healthy. This necessity need not be argued; anyone with eyes can see that any organism which grows without limit always dies within •its own poisons. The only rational question is whether pruning is best done before or after birth. Being an incurable sentimentalist I favor the former of these methods--killing makes me queasy, even when it’s a case of “He’s dead and I’m alive and that’s the way I wanted it to be.” But this may be a matter of taste. Some shamans think that it is better to be killed in a war, or to die in childbirth, or to starve in misery, than never to have lived at all. They may be right. But I don’t have to like it--and I don’t.

     from the "Notebooks of Lazarus Long" in Robert Heinlein's 1973 novel, Time Enough for Love (pp. 240-251 and pp. 346-353).


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    topcat1954 Jul 16, 2008 2:36 am

    Wow, I tell you what, there is a lot more in this than meets the eye ! Thanks for such a thought provoking blog, Dave, I love it ! If there was an "incomplete strategy guide" for life, this would have to be added !

    .....Tc.....

    OntheFlops Jul 16, 2008 2:45 am

    Hummmmmmm... I think before I comment on one passage I shall read the whole book...one can not form an opionin based on a few words...but so far I have enjoyed his play with words..

    ~Flops~

    WvMarlee Jul 16, 2008 2:53 am
    I'm speechless.
    A55A55IN Jul 16, 2008 2:57 am
    the link is supposed to go to the blog I have with the whole notebook posted....

    I have fixed it

    here it is though

    http://www.railbirds.com/blog/124400/the-sayings-of-lazarus-long.html
    oddhand Jul 16, 2008 2:58 am

    TC you should do what Flops said he is going to do, I think you will like the book. I know that I did, all 8 times that I reads it.

    Hienlein was an amazing writer and philosopher. He can be compared to Asimov and in my opinion the scales come to an almost perfect balance.

    Thanks David I have very fond memories of reading the writings of Heinlien and everytime you post this they come flooding back.

    It's a good day!

    odd

    Bluesboy47 Jul 16, 2008 3:06 am
    thanks David enjoyed the read. thought proviking. Will check out the link. Again thanks
    bigpoppaboats Jul 16, 2008 3:33 am

    A55A55IN I didn't know you were such a sci fi geek LOL.... welcome to da club.

    I grew up searching out Heinlein and Asimov etc.

    Great excerpt BTW... some essential truths.

    Peace, J


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