The Man In
The High Castle by Philip K. Dick, one of the most celebrated writers of
Science Fiction, author of the excellent Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/10/blade-runner-1-aka-do-androids-dream-of.html the original material for the much
more famous Blade Runner
9 out of 10
This reader
is not a fan of Science Fiction, although with the list of 1,000 Novels
Everyone Must Read containing over one hundred titles, he is getting to the
point where he will have read about thirty, in the next sixty two years or so,
and Philip Dick is one of the story tellers that does entice and seduce the
audiences, with gems like the aforementioned Androids and Sheep, with Ubik
producing and equally lasting good impression
https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/04/ubik-by-philip-k-dick-10-out-10.html
The Man In
The High Castle therefore should be no surprise, when it captivates and
delights, however different the theme would be, for we have here an alternative
present, wherein Britain, America and their allies have lost World War II, and
now humanity is controlled by Germany and Japan.
However,
all is not well between the latter and once the new Fuhrer is dead, all hell
could break loose, with plots (some spoiler alert might be necessary here) to
use a pretext to launch a nuclear attack, which would wipe out the imperial
family and multitudes along with them, presumably making Germany the sole ruler
of the planet, imposing its vicious rules on humankind, exterminating adversaries
We could
think of the present and the lucky break we have had, with the Americans,
British and Soviets winning the war, instead of the Nazis and the Japanese, and
realize that it was a close call, there could have been events, decisions that
had they happened or taken place, we would live in the world described in the
novel.
As it is,
we worry about what the future holds, with the prospect of China dominating the
planet, with Russia as a weaker sidekick, and we already have plenty of
material to look at – take the scolding given by tyrant Xi to democrat Justin
Trudeau, the latter has had to explain that Canada is a democracy and thus he
needs to tell the press and electorate what he is up to, including in dealings
with China.
We have to consider
what the war in Ukraine is going to do to the world, it has already crushed the
long peace in Europe, the prices of energy have soured, and so did those for
food, most importantly though is the fact that hundreds of thousands have
perished in this calamity caused by one man (however much prompted, supported
by acolytes, oligarchs and other vermin) and for the longer term, we have to
refer to luminary Yuval Harari, author of three fabulous masterpieces, Sapiens
– A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus – A Brief History of Tomorrow and 21
Lessons for the 21st Century http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/02/sapiens-brief-history-of-humankind-by.html who has written an article in The
Economist.
In that, brilliant
Yuval Harari writes about what the conflict will do to budgets, as states will
look at what Russia has been doing and increase their spending on defense
(something anticipated by the thinker and confirmed by what has happened in the
meantime) a move which will spark a wave, because others will follow the same
trends, so that they are not left behind and vulnerable and this vicious spiral
will also affect climate change measures, for there will be less and less left to
spend for adaptation, funds under discussion at COP conferences (one is about
to wrap up now in Egypt) for developing nations that face big threats, in the
case of islands, they could be under water in the very near future…
Thus, if we
do not descend into World War III and annihilation of humanity because Russia
will use nuclear weapons (which it has threatened to do multiple times) or they
attack a NATO country (a missile has landed in Poland, but Alhamdulillah, it
was just an accident, a defense rocket from Ukraine was responsible) and then
we have the most catastrophic scenario on our hands, and then we say goodbye to
it all.
I have been
mesmerized by Vaterland aka Fatherland by Robert Harris http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/12/fatherland-by-robert-harris-10-out-of-10.html and find that there are similarities
between Vaterland and The Man in The High Castle, since they both present an alternative
end to world War II, in which Germany wins in both novels, albeit in the latter
this victory is shared with Japan, and dissatisfied with that, there is a plot
to use the hydrogen bomb to eliminate the Empire of the Rising Sun…http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world
Good
Science Fiction book are very useful in making us think what the future will
look like – positive psychology has a happiness rule on that, called Imagine
The Best Possible Future, which has a few advantages, one that you get closer
to what you wish, readier, better prepared, another that you are enjoying in
the present, which becomes brighter, this potentially successful future, and
then positive, optimistic humans live longer, have better private and
professional lives, get sick less often and when it happens, they stay so for
shorter periods, but what about the calamities that seem to be expecting in the
wings…
There are
advantages to being negative, indeed, there are professions tailored for that,
in that they encourage negativity – such as financial analyst, the one looking
for mistakes aka negativity, lawyers used to be the most depressed, with the
highest rates of divorce and suicide in America, I don’t know the more recent statistics,
and they were the butt of so many jokes, such as ‘a shark finds a lawyer in the
water and avoids him, what do you call that…professional courtesy’ – but it is
also the other way round, as in there are domains where one needs to be
negative for the task to be well done, since the optimists have a better view
of the ‘big picture’, but it is the negative ones that have a more accurate
image of details.
Therefore,
you want a negative human to investigate
crimes, to be the traffic controller for your airplane and so on…as for what we
have to wait for in the future, let us hope that China (eventually with Russia,
or some other rogue state as partner, or without one) will not take the place
of America (flawed and debilitated as it is by the trump [without capital
letter intentionally] years, and the perspective of yet another four years of
mayhem and disaster) and put us all in the commie big prison…
http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html
Niciun comentariu:
Trimiteți un comentariu