The High Crusade
As I post on RT, and read the comments by people from all over the world, I am dismayed at how much Europeans and especially the Brits, are maligned. The British and the English before Great Britain was formed, brought a higher standard of living to ALL the peoples of the world, from the King of Siam to the Maori chieftains in New Zealand. There is an island in the South Pacific, Vanuata I believe, that worshipped Prince Phillip, and there are many islands with cargo cults. Decolonization which may or may not have been a good thing (I may get to that in a later post) was touted as freeing the former ‘slaves’ of the Europeans, and the British Empire. This is absurd. (I may get to the reasons for that later, too.)
But what I’ve found in this novel supports my own feelings in the matter. It’s perhaps a little long, but not boring. (I’ll post more quotes from this novel from time to time.)
The High Crusade, SF Novel by Poul Anderson, 1960
A small English town and fief in the 14th century is ready to sail to France, and vanquish that proud race, then go on to beat the Saracens, when a spaceship from a much higher level race of aliens---the blueskins---land in the fief. Englishmen manage to destroy all aliens on board, except one, who is made to fly the ship to France. However, the alien locks them in (nearly the whole town was on board) and sends them into deep space where the aliens originally came from, incidentally removing all knowledge of earth’s location.
To make a long story short, the English under their Lord Sir Roger de Tourneville, instead of the French, vanquishes the blueskins, who had subjected and oppressed peoples they had conquered and made Empires wherever they had gone.
An attempt was made by the Englishmen to find their way home, but was thwarted. And instead the Lord Sir Roger established English colonies throughout the regions once ruled by the blueskins.
From the chronicle of Brother Parvus:
“The ins and outs of what happened are too complex, too various from world to world, for this paltry record. But in essence, on each inhabited planet the Wersgorix had destroyed whatever original civilization existed. Now the Wersgor system in turn was toppled. Into this vacuum, unreligion, anarchy, banditry, famine, the ever-present menace of a blueface return, the necessity of training the natives themselves to eke out our thin garrisons, Sir Roger stepped. He had a solution to these problems, hammered out in Europe during those not dissimilar centuries after Rome fell: the feudal system.”
Now the moral is, as I have often posted on other sites, that for centuries Europeans used conflict to allow power to counter power. But in the North American colonies, something took place to instill a method that would allow power to counter power, without conflict, and at the same time allow freedom of the individual. Power now was countered, not by conflict, but by ‘parchment barriers’, and government power itself was limited in the same way: parchment barriers.
But what I’ve found in this novel supports my own feelings in the matter. It’s perhaps a little long, but not boring. (I’ll post more quotes from this novel from time to time.)
The High Crusade, SF Novel by Poul Anderson, 1960
A small English town and fief in the 14th century is ready to sail to France, and vanquish that proud race, then go on to beat the Saracens, when a spaceship from a much higher level race of aliens---the blueskins---land in the fief. Englishmen manage to destroy all aliens on board, except one, who is made to fly the ship to France. However, the alien locks them in (nearly the whole town was on board) and sends them into deep space where the aliens originally came from, incidentally removing all knowledge of earth’s location.
To make a long story short, the English under their Lord Sir Roger de Tourneville, instead of the French, vanquishes the blueskins, who had subjected and oppressed peoples they had conquered and made Empires wherever they had gone.
An attempt was made by the Englishmen to find their way home, but was thwarted. And instead the Lord Sir Roger established English colonies throughout the regions once ruled by the blueskins.
From the chronicle of Brother Parvus:
“The ins and outs of what happened are too complex, too various from world to world, for this paltry record. But in essence, on each inhabited planet the Wersgorix had destroyed whatever original civilization existed. Now the Wersgor system in turn was toppled. Into this vacuum, unreligion, anarchy, banditry, famine, the ever-present menace of a blueface return, the necessity of training the natives themselves to eke out our thin garrisons, Sir Roger stepped. He had a solution to these problems, hammered out in Europe during those not dissimilar centuries after Rome fell: the feudal system.”
Now the moral is, as I have often posted on other sites, that for centuries Europeans used conflict to allow power to counter power. But in the North American colonies, something took place to instill a method that would allow power to counter power, without conflict, and at the same time allow freedom of the individual. Power now was countered, not by conflict, but by ‘parchment barriers’, and government power itself was limited in the same way: parchment barriers.
“...I have remarked that Sir Roger de Tourneville established the feudal system on newly conquered worlds given into his care by the allies. Some latter day mockers of my noble master have implied he did this only because he knew nothing better to do. I refute this. As I said before the collapse of Wersgorixan was not unlike the collapse of Rome and similar problems found a similar answer. His advantage lay in having that answer ready to hand, the experience of many Terrestial centuries.
Europeans began to understand that conflict was not necessary to counter power; parchment barriers would do.
This novel by the way was nominated for a Hugo award in 1961, but was beaten by only one other: "A Canticle for Leibowitz".