{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3304", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3304, "subject": "War With The Ascians as a Proxy War?", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-06-10T18:38:36+00:00", "last": "2002-06-11T14:01:11+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-06-10T18:38:36+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) War With The Ascians as a Proxy War?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Just to fill out the background material on pagan:\n\nHenry Chadwick is the author of the Penguin-published \"History of the Early\nChurch\" (a book I thoroughly enjoyed-but I can't find my copy suddenly).\nWhen I originally read HOTEC I was familiar with the etymology of pagan\nwhich Andrew quoted. But I seem to remember that I was persuaded to\nChadwick's explanation because he insisted that the term goes back at least\nto the early 3rd century, when Christianity was still a capitol offense. If\nhis dating is accurate, and the term was used by the military as he claimed\n(and I chose to take his word for it) then it seemed unlikely that the term\nwas a snub to rustic \"superstitions\" since most prominent city-dwellers held\nthe same beliefs at the time.\n\nAnyway, I'm really enjoying the discussions on this list. :)\n\n-Crush\n------------------------------------------\nAndrew Reeves wrote:\nI'm going to throw in a bit of pedantry here. The origin of \"pagan\"\ncame from \"paganus\" meaning \"rube\" or \"rustic.\" Since Christianity started\nin the\ncities, eventually, the term for country dweller came to be associated with\nthat\nof those who still clung to the old rites.\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------\nDan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nI am not knowing from Henry Chadwick. Merriam-Webster's online\ngives this for the etymology of Pagan:\n\n Middle English, from Late Latin paganus, from Latin,\n country dweller, from pagus country district; akin to\n Latin pangere to fix -- more at PACT\n\nUnder PACT, we find this:\n\n Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin pactum,\n from neuter of pactus, past participle of pacisci to\n agree, contract; akin to Old English fOn to seize, Latin\n pax peace, pangere to fix, fasten, Greek pEgnynai\n\nSo, wow: \"pagan\" turns out to be related to \"peace.\" But,\nmore to the point, Andrew's \"bit of pedantry\" seems to be\npretty accurate." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Reeves", "address": "abreeves at mail.utexas.edu" }, "date": "2002-06-11T12:23:12+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) War With The Ascians as a Proxy War?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nThat brings up another thought. The Ascians are definitely baddies.\nBut if Erebus is, say Kim Il Song," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Okay, whoa, hee-haw, stop right there. The analogy I was drawing\nthere almost certainly does _not_ apply at the level of equating\nfictional character X to historical character X'. I was suggesting\nrather that Mr Wolfe's actual experience in such a proxy-war might\nmake him more likely to portray such a war in his fiction, and\npointing out some specific features that make me think that the\nwar between the Commonwealth and Ascia is such a portrayal, and is\ncolored by Mr Wolfe's experiences. But to try to draw character-level\nallegorical correspondences seems to me on about the level that tries\nto draw such correspondences from _The Lord of the Rings_ to World\nWar II." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yeah, it would be goofy to try to draw a 1:1 correspondence between the\nimagery of BOTNS and anything happening here in the present. Nonetheless,\nif you've ever listened to Radio Pyongyang on short-wave (no, I don't\nremember the frequency), it sounds creepily close to Loyal to the Group of\nSeven. It seems that almost every other phrase is \"Kim Jong Il wee dae\nhan soo ryong nim\" (=the Great Leader Kim Jong Il) and a series of other\nhorrid totalitarian clichés.\n\nBut no, there's no one to one correspondence, I was just sort of writing\ndown my ramblings.\n\nAndrew" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--Blattid\n\n--" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2002-06-11T14:01:11+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) War With The Ascians as a Proxy War?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 6/7/02 10:49 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at ddanehy at siebel.com wrote:\nI do not have a clear answer to that, but can answer a variation\non the question: I think Wolfe clearly wants us to assume that,\nwhatever the motives of the angelic beings may be, humanity's best\ninterests are best served by allying with the hieros." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Of course, the hieros do plan to wipe out 99.9% of Urth's population. But\nWolfe may be taking the \"Live Free or Die\" view (not to mention the various\nreasons why this mass murder is a Good Thing that have been proffered).\n\n--Adam" } ] } ] }