Brad wrote: >>From: Matthew Hunter <matthew at infodancer.org> >>On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 08:42:08AM +0800, Andrew Bailey <andrew at networkharmoni.com.au> wrote: >> >>>Why? Well he is a well read, highly intelligent individual who >>>understands social systems quite well, but for some reason is completely >>>unable to see why his marxist revolution is doomed to failure. >> >>He's a well-read, highly-intelligent ideologue. This attitude >>tends to breed an inability to consider the flaws in your own >>ideas, while exacerbating the flaws in others. >> > > > I recently reread Teckla and Phoenix (in that order, skipping Taltos). > Something really struck me this time. Kelly is, as a person, a real > ass. He is egotistical and incredibly rude. He doesn't argue with > you so much as batter you into insensibility. What I find fascinating > about this is that he is the only character who espouses, in any great > detail, the political philosophy of his movement (Natalia is actually > a sympathetic characeter, despite all that she has gone through, but > Vlad and her do not talk all that much). Now, as we all know, this > philosophy is quite close to that of the author. I think it takes a > certain amount guts to write a book where a complete twit is the > closest voice to how one feels about an issue. > > The other intersting thing, to me, about Kelly is that Vlad's > criticisms are correct. He really does not see people as individuals, > but as parts of various the system or of the revolution. All > philosophies, when taken to their extremes, see people this way. You > could almost take the book as argument against Marxism but Kelly would > be the same way regardless of what he was arguing for. Instead the > books are more saying that for any group to succeed in changing the > "system" they need to work with people as people, and not as classes. > (To be honest, I have tried to find a less trite of saying this, and > failed.) Of course, I might just be thinking a little much about > all of this.... > Yeah well Kelly is a Revolutionary and not a Politician, and that IMHO this is his main failing. Compromise and pragmatism do not seem to be in his vocabilary as anything other than terms of derision. Its really the all or nothing approch that he has to reform that annoys me. I feel he had a chance to negotiate an improvement in conditions but since it wasn't going to be on his terms he wasn't interested in anything. Vlad on the other hand could become a great politician all he needs is access to an Issola politcal advisor and scriptwriter[0]. Anyway hard line Trotskyites irritate me, I always want to slap them and say "The long march is made up of many steps." Andrew. [0] Now I am thinking of the Dragaerian version of "Wag the Dog", I don't know why but I am.