Sic semper tyrannis
Oct. 20th, 2011 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chrishansenhomeAmong others, those were the words that John Wilkes Booth shouted as he leapt from the Presidential Box at Ford's Theatre after mortally wounding President Abraham Lincoln.
Over the more than a century and a half since that day in 1865, political figures from Presidents of the United States, Kings, Archdukes, dictators of all sorts, and leaders such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. have been assassinated.
Today we have learned about the capture of Colonel Moammar Gaddafi, the deposed leader of Libya, and his subsequent death, either as a result of wounds suffered during his capture or from a subsequent gunshot. This has been the inevitable conclusion of the events begun by the uprising in Misrata in February.
The scenes shown on CNN and the BBC News Channel are of Gaddafi, alive, being taken away in a truck, and of Gaddafi, dear, sometime later. We see jubilant Libyan fighters waving their guns in the air and shooting off celebratory rounds. Other fighters are flashing the "V for Victory" sign, or boasting that they were the one who found Gaddafi in his drainage pipe hideout and dragged him out to be shot. Women and children are waving signs and ululating in victory.
Why then do I feel uneasy?
I suppose that not having lived under a tyrant I have a jaded view of deaths of tyrants. The video of Saddam Hussain falling through the scaffold's trap door to his death was pretty awful. The death of Osama bin Laden, while not accompanied by pictures or videos, was fairly squalid as it was described. The scenes of Egypt's Mubarak, being brought into court on a stretcher, obviously ill, aren't very pleasant either. Going back in time a bit, the suicide of Adolf Hitler brought the Second World War in Europe to a swift end in 1945. Stalin's apparent death was celebrated by his closest aides, until he was found to be still breathing; his end had to be hastened by a pillow (reportedly).
Death has a way of being both an ending, and a beginning. The death of Gaddafi has brought his rule in Libya to a pretty bloody closure. But is it the beginning of a new, democratic state of Libya where democratic rule of law will reign over its people? We do not know. We can only hope.
But I must confess that I do not feel easy today. I am not sad at the end of a brutal dictatorship. I am, however, sad that the Libyans arrived at this end through yet another killing. Death, whether of a child in Ethiopia or Somalia from famine, or of a dictator in Libya, or of a close friend, does not bring me any joy.
I do not mourn his passing; however, I do not take joy at the manner in which it happened.
And, lest we forget, death will visit us all, without exception. No one will live forever (nor would anyone want to, I believe). Death has taken the Colonel. However, death will take us too.
It is said that the Rt. Rev'd Mervyn Stockwood, once Bishop of Southwark, remarked on the longevity in office of various elderly priests with, "Where there's death, there's hope." I think that in the Colonel's case we can only trust that this saying was right. May all the victims of tyranny worldwide rest in peace and rise in glory.
Over the more than a century and a half since that day in 1865, political figures from Presidents of the United States, Kings, Archdukes, dictators of all sorts, and leaders such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. have been assassinated.
Today we have learned about the capture of Colonel Moammar Gaddafi, the deposed leader of Libya, and his subsequent death, either as a result of wounds suffered during his capture or from a subsequent gunshot. This has been the inevitable conclusion of the events begun by the uprising in Misrata in February.
The scenes shown on CNN and the BBC News Channel are of Gaddafi, alive, being taken away in a truck, and of Gaddafi, dear, sometime later. We see jubilant Libyan fighters waving their guns in the air and shooting off celebratory rounds. Other fighters are flashing the "V for Victory" sign, or boasting that they were the one who found Gaddafi in his drainage pipe hideout and dragged him out to be shot. Women and children are waving signs and ululating in victory.
Why then do I feel uneasy?
I suppose that not having lived under a tyrant I have a jaded view of deaths of tyrants. The video of Saddam Hussain falling through the scaffold's trap door to his death was pretty awful. The death of Osama bin Laden, while not accompanied by pictures or videos, was fairly squalid as it was described. The scenes of Egypt's Mubarak, being brought into court on a stretcher, obviously ill, aren't very pleasant either. Going back in time a bit, the suicide of Adolf Hitler brought the Second World War in Europe to a swift end in 1945. Stalin's apparent death was celebrated by his closest aides, until he was found to be still breathing; his end had to be hastened by a pillow (reportedly).
Death has a way of being both an ending, and a beginning. The death of Gaddafi has brought his rule in Libya to a pretty bloody closure. But is it the beginning of a new, democratic state of Libya where democratic rule of law will reign over its people? We do not know. We can only hope.
But I must confess that I do not feel easy today. I am not sad at the end of a brutal dictatorship. I am, however, sad that the Libyans arrived at this end through yet another killing. Death, whether of a child in Ethiopia or Somalia from famine, or of a dictator in Libya, or of a close friend, does not bring me any joy.
I do not mourn his passing; however, I do not take joy at the manner in which it happened.
And, lest we forget, death will visit us all, without exception. No one will live forever (nor would anyone want to, I believe). Death has taken the Colonel. However, death will take us too.
It is said that the Rt. Rev'd Mervyn Stockwood, once Bishop of Southwark, remarked on the longevity in office of various elderly priests with, "Where there's death, there's hope." I think that in the Colonel's case we can only trust that this saying was right. May all the victims of tyranny worldwide rest in peace and rise in glory.
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Immortality
Date: 2011-10-21 05:04 am (UTC)I have written a number of stories that include very old people likely to escape death entirely. The stories are not specifically about immortality and don't explore it deeply but I do explore a few of the mechanisms by which long life might be achieved. My current novel, which may eventually be titled "Quantum Demons", has characters who may essentially live forever by two different mechanisms, having a super being actively repairing their bodies to keep them alive and a form of reincarnation by being cloned into another universe. My very first novel, "Chosen", had two time dimensions that allowed us to travel between universes by a process much like cloning; characters who had duplicates in two universes could replace one that died by the same cloning mechanism, thus cheating death.
The mechanisms I explore in my stories, however improbable, have yet to be proved impossible.
Re: Immortality
Date: 2011-10-21 07:48 am (UTC)I could imagine a world where people lived fruitful and rewarding lives, working for 100 years or so at a job they loved. However, what is not normally envisioned in such a scenario is what happens to the younger generation. While there is no "lump of labour", keeping one's job for 100 years or so (hypothetically) leaves little room for the young. And the converse, retiring at 60 and enjoying 100 years or so of economically unproductive retirement, is not viable; even the shortish period of retirement that we now enjoy is becoming uneconomic, as the young begin to resent paying through the nose for the retirement of their parents and grandparents.
A few days ago there was an uproar here in the United Kingdom when an authority of some sort (I forget who) pronounced that older people living in larger houses than they needed (once the children left) were hoarding housing that was desperately needed by young people with families, and the older people should gracefully sell their homes and move to smaller accommodations or nursing homes. Can you imagine the housing shortage that would ensue if people lived to be 150 years old or older?
Don't forget that birth control of any sort, much less compulsory birth control as in China, is still opposed by a majority of the world population, including most of Islam and Roman Catholic Christianity. So while people are living double lifetimes, many people are replacing themselves three times over. If the birth of the 7 billionth child at the end of this month is any consolation, that child is likely to be born in Asia or Africa, and has a 1/3 chance of dying before its second birthday.
Now, all this aside, I would favour research that showed the way to longer, healthier, and more productive lifetimes for us all. I do not say that immortality is impossible; but, the consequences of immortality, unless changes are made to society that obviate them (and that are unlikely to be made, I fear), will be intolerable. Soylent Green and Blade Runner will come true.
Immortality
Date: 2011-10-21 05:35 pm (UTC)my current state of health, tottering from clinic to doctor to hospital: As for my health, it started to improve (or at least stopped deteriorating quite so rapidly) when I stopped trusting doctors and hospitals. A friend of mine, Dr. Carlos Donato, used to say, repeatedly, that everything takes forty days to heal ... except when it takes longer. I have one sore on my left leg that is about at the start of the healing time and on my right leg are others that have not yet been resolved into individual areas and are not yet obviously starting to heal. But I did determine what substance in my prescription medicines was causing the problem (polyethylene glycol / polypropylene glycol, AKA gravy). Even the pain I've been suffering has diminished. My health is fragile but I may survive a bit longer by not believing the medical industry.
I could imagine a world where people lived fruitful and rewarding lives, working for 100 years or so: I could imagine us breaking up planets into smaller habitats, enclosed and self-sustaining, freeing our long-lived population to explore the universe.
Can you imagine the housing shortage that would ensue if people lived to be 150 years old or older? Don't forget that birth control of any sort ... is still opposed by a majority of the world population.: I can imagine a variety of scenarios, not all of which are dystopian. Evolution converts stress into opportunity. Lack of housing could be the stress that drives us away from our fatal reliance on the surface of a planet that we know is doomed to destruction as our sun ages. The Earth will be destroyed, probably within half a billion years, but it doesn't have to take the human race with it.
All of this aside, my point was that death may not come to all of us, which is a good thing. There is a singularity approaching later this century beyond which we cannot make reliable predictions now, but in the words of the mathematician in "Jurassic Park", life will find a way.