Are we becoming the Eloi?

[Creature]

<deleted>

 

[ROMAK IV]

Foftunately, in the United States, our long heritage isn't so easily usurped. A potential tyrant, faces far more than the problem of confiscation that I already mentioned. Our society still functions almost entirely as the founders envisioned, that is, at the will of the people. There is no guarantee to any potential tyrant that he will have a loyal police force and army at his disposal. Most countries, even the ones considered pacifist, require large police forces in which to keep order. This is because, they operate largely, against the will of the people. The federal government had some difficulty just gathering together enough ATF agents to make the Branch Davidian raid. If the Davidians had been a murderous white supremeist hate group instead of being a little off the deep end religiously, they coudlv'e easily wiped the intial group out. As I said, the antigun folks are idealistic and utopian. Even in the UK, going from an armed but severly restricted society to an unarmed society, has been basically, a disaster. Gunowners in the US are largely very polite and accomidating. We urge everyone to follow the laws, no matter how stupid and unjustified. But as is seen, in places like California, where restrictive gun control laws have been inflicted rather swiftly, most of these draconian laws haven't resulted in a revolution, but instead, the citezens have quietly ignored the law or found a legal way to circumvent it.

For these reasons, I'm not worried about the country.

 

[Roswell 1847]

Are you jacked into your iPod without a clue/care how it works, preoccupied with the style of your hair, and hip to the latest trends and fashions? Sorry, your going the Eloi route.

Or maybe Emo.
Have you really looked at some of these young folks, we can only hope they grow out of it.

 

[Snarlingiron]

For these reasons, I'm not worried about the country.

And, yet many of us are. I often wonder if I am justified in my concern, or am I just becomming a reactionary old fart that can't stand to see anything change?

But as is seen, in places like California, where restrictive gun control laws have been inflicted rather swiftly, most of these draconian laws haven't resulted in a revolution, but instead, the citezens have quietly ignored the law or found a legal way to circumvent it.

Sorry, but I can't see this as a success. I see it more as evidence contrary to the opinion that "Our society still functions almost entirely as the founders envisioned, that is, at the will of the people." Clearly it doesn't. Or given the lack of will of the people to change it, maybe it does. Silence infers concent.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Infers concent?

Silence infers concent.

Hi, I'm Garry, and I'll be your language Nazi this evening.

Silence implies conSent.

Silence implies consent.

There, fixed it for you.

 

[strangelittleman]

MMMMM! Eloi!, with a side order of Soylent green!!!!!!! NUM NUM!!

 

[rocinante]

The minimum height for a Roman Legionaire went from six feet to five ten and then to no minumum height at all. Armor all but disappeared.

Interesting and I would like a reference please.

 

[benEzra]

I think we're more like the morlocks. We have a lot of military fellows on here, and last I saw nobody on welfare - I can't help but feel like maybe we're the ones doing the work and getting stepped on, and every once in a while we can usurp someone's reelection campaign.

IMHO, the Morlocks and Eloi both represent aspects of our humanity that are good in their proper place, but become pathological when isolated. The ideal human is neither Morlock nor Eloi, but a blend of the two; if you take a human and take away the Eloi aspect, you get a murderous predator, and if you subtract the Morlock aspect, you get a helpless sheep. I think his point was to warn against the division of humanity into soulless workers and incompetent gentry; every human needs to be a bit of both.

In that sense, I would hope that no one here is a Morlock; those would be the criminal predators and tinpot dictators who prey on the defenseless, who have no compassion and no appreciation for beauty and light.

I think C.S. Lewis made a similar observation in the 1940's. He described it using the metaphor of the mythical Lancelot, as someone who could be both gentle to the nth degree and fierce to the nth degree, when appropriate. When you lose the ability to do that, he said, your civilization collapses.

The medieval knight brought together two things which have no natural tendency to gravitate toward one another. It brought them together for that very reason. It taught humility and forbearance to the great warrior because everyone knew by experience how much he usually needed that lesson. It demanded valour of the urbane and modest man because everyone knew that he was as likely as not to be a milksop. . . .

If we cannot produce Launcelots, humanity falls into two sections - those who can deal in blood and iron but cannot be "meek in hall", and those who are "meek in hall" but useless in battle - for the third class, who are both brutal in peace and cowardly in war, need not here be discussed. When this dissociation of the two halves of Launcelot occurs, history becomes a horribly simple affair. The ancient history of the Near East is like that. Hardy barbarians swarm down from their highlands and obliterate a civilization. Then they become civilized themselves and go soft. Then a new wave of barbarians comes down and obliterates them....

A more extended quotation (still not the whole thing, which I can't find at the moment):

The Necessity of Chivalry

The word chivalry has meant at different times a good many different things--from heavy cavalry to giving a woman a seat in a train. But if we want to understand chivalry as an ideal distinct from other ideals--if we want to isolate that particular conception of the man comme il faut which was the special contribution of the Middle Ages to our culture--we cannot do better than turn to the words addressed to the greatest of all the imaginary knights in Malory's Morte D'arthur. "Thou wert the meekest man", says Sir Ector to the dead Launcelot. "Thou were the meekest man that ever ate in hall among ladies; and thou were the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest."*

The important thing about this ideal is, of course, the double demand it makes on human nature. The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth. When Launcelot heard himself pronounced the best knight in the world, "he wept as he had been a child that had been beaten".

What, you may ask, is the relevance of this idea to the modern world? It is terribly relevant. It may or may not be practicable--the Middle Ages notoriously failed to obey it--but it is certainly practical; practical as the fact that men in a desert must find water or die.[...]

The medieval ideal brought together two things which have no natural tendency to gravitate towards one another. It brought them together for that very reason. It taught humility and forbearance to the great warrior because everyone knew by experience how much he usually needed that lesson. It demanded valour of the urbane and modest man because everyone knew that he was as likely as not to be a milksop.

In so doing, the Middle Ages fixed on the one hope of the world. It may or may not be possible to produce by the thousand men who combine the two sides of Launcelot's character. But if it is not possible, then all talk of any lasting happiness or dignity in human society is pure moonshine.

If we cannot produce Launcelots, humanity falls into two sections--those who can deal in blood and iron but cannot be "meek in hall", and those who are "meek in hall" but useless in battle--for the third class, who are both brutal in peace and cowardly in war, need not here be discussed. When this disassociation of the two halves of Launcelot occurs, history becomes a horribly simple affair. The ancient history of the Near East is like that. Hardy barbarians swarm down from their highlands and obliterate a civilization. Then they become civilized themselves and go soft. Then a new wave of barbarians comes down and obliterates them.[...]

The ideal embodied in Launcelot is "escapism" in a sense never dreamed of by those who use that word; it offers the only possible escape from a world divided between wolves who do not understand, and sheep who cannot defend, the things which make life desirable.

~C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns, "The Necessity of Chivalry" (1st published in Time and Tide, Aug. 1940)

Emphasis added. I think the underlined portion is exactly what Wells was saying in The Time Machine.

 

[Bezoar]

Animal Farm
1984
Fahrenheit 451
war of the worlds maybe

have already happened. Doesnt anyone remember reading how the government keeps changing laws to suit its program of domestic supervision?

 

[Green Lantern]

Sounds like I ought to read that book...

 

[Hazwaste]

I say this is off topic, way off topic, for this board.

Why? This is the "General Gun Discussion" area. I see his question as legitimate. I don't think he means are we literally becoming the characters in the story, but is our increasingly luxurious and sedentary society, combined with gun restrictions causing us to become soft and no longer care.

 

[22-rimfire]

The C.S. Lewis quotation is pretty thought provoking.

The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth. When Launcelot heard himself pronounced the best knight in the world, "he wept as he had been a child that had been beaten".

Compare this to the USA and I believe overall we are Launcelots or at least our military is. I wish more people would understand this. If you take the USA out of the historical equation, you would have a much different world today. It would be a world that most of us would not like to live in. But like the Iraqii's, they lost all memory of what it could be like and we'd be no different.

This other mention above also is thought provoking but in a different sense.

250 million firearms among at least 80 million gun owners in the United States, and there is quite a logistical problem collecting all of them.

Compare this to the illegal alien issue or protecting our borders. The government has pretty much thrown up their hands because anything like a Launcelot approach would be too brutal and unexceptable to the feminized US population.

If the government can't deal with 12 million illegals, how in the world can they deal with 250 million firearms in civilian hands? The answer lies in the honesty and respect for the law by most Americans. So it could happen. Many illegal Aliens have nothing to loose except their lives or their freedom. US citizens have a lot to loose or we believe that to be the case individually.

 

[lee n. field]

Are we becomming the Eloi? Living lives of pampered luxury and excess, beginning to forget even the concept of defending ourselves, but willing to sacrifice a few of our own now and again in order to maintain our excessive lifestyle?

In the absence of a single world dominating government, I don't think any single civilization would survive long enough for humans to become true Eloi, even if that were possible.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

To me the interesting question, is how quickly would the Eloi get all Morlocky if you removed the comfort and pampering? While I think there are comparisons to be made, I imagine many people could lose their Eloi-nature pretty fast once hunger kicks in.

 

[Jamie C.]

I dunno about the rest of you, but I'm still a snarling, slavering savage, that's never really fit into "polite" society...


J.C.

 

[Wheeler44]

I believe that we are neither Eloi or Morlock but each and every one of us a mix of them both. I guess that's what some of you are saying so I'm just agreeing. Look at the divisions between us here on the High Road. 9mm. vs. .45, GLOCK vs. 1911, revolver vs. bottom feeder, carry every second of every day vs. only carry on the way to the range, etc. etc. etc.

No one really is any one thing, just a mix of many things.

I think that the idea Orwell had is that we all should strive to find the middle ground within ourselves.

We are all good and bad. We are all strong and weak. We all have beliefs and feelings that somtimes fly in the face of logic.

The strongest admit their weakness and work to overcome that weakness. The smartest accept that logic shouldn't entirely replace feeling and work to understand different points of view.

It is when we only look at the world through our own circumstance that we become blind to all around us.

The only thing "we" "all" are becoming is worm food, and some are racing to do so, while others go kicking and screaming the whole way.

Peace and prosperity to you and yours.

Wheeler44

 

[Vaarok]

Specialization is for insects, that canned corn quote made me nearly choke laughing, and this was written on a tablet from ancient Mesopotamia, probably about ten thousand years ago:

"Children no longer mind their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching"