Showing posts with label Eddington. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eddington. Show all posts

Thursday 6 January 2022

The Frontier







SISKO : 
Do you know what The Trouble is? 

KIRA : 
….no. 

SISKO : 
The Trouble is Earth

KIRA : 
Really? 

SISKO : 
On Earth there is no poverty
no crime, no war
You look out the window 
of Starfleet Headquarters 
and You see Paradise
Well, it's easy to be A Saint in Paradise, 
but The Maquis Do Not Live in Paradise. 
Out there in The Demilitarised Zone, 
all the problems haven't been solved yet. 

Out there, there are no saints, just people
Angry, scared, determined people 
who are going to do 
whatever it takes to survive 
whether it meets with 
Federation approval or not

KIRA : 
Makes sense to me. 

SISKO : 
I'm glad someone understands. 

 

SISKO:
 Mister Eddington. 
I have just one question. Why? 

EDDINGTON 
[on monitor]: 
Will knowing my personal motivation 
change anything at this point? 

SISKO
No, I don't suppose it will. 

EDDINGTON 
[on monitor]: 
Then let's table that for now. 
The only reason I've contacted you 
is to ask you to leave us alone

Our quarrel is with the Cardassians
not the Federation. 

Leave us alone and I can promise you 
you'll never hear from the Maquis again. 

SISKO
Unless you see another shipment you want to hijack. 

EDDINGTON 
[on monitor]: 
You keep sending replicators to Cardassia 
and you're going to have a lot more 
to worry about than hijackings. 

SISKO
I don't respond well to threats. 
I thought you would know that by now. 
But I'm beginning to see that 
you don't know me at all

EDDINGTON 
[on monitor]: 
I know you
I was like you once, but then I opened my eyes.
 
Open your eyes, Captain. 

Why is the Federation 
so obsessed about the Maquis? 

We've never harmed you, 
and yet we're constantly arrested 
and charged with terrorism. 

Starships chase us through the Badlands 
and our supporters are harassed and ridiculed. 

Why?


 Because We've 
left The Federation, 
and that's the one thing 
you can't accept. 

Nobody leaves Paradise. 

Everyone should want to be 
in The Federation. 

Hell, you even want 
The Cardassians to join. 

You're only sending them replicators 
because one day they can take 
their rightful place 
on the Federation Council. 

You know, in some ways 
You're worse than 
The Borg. 

At least They tell You 
about Their Plans 
for assimilation. 

You're more insidious. 
You assimilate people 
and they don't even know it

SISKO
You know what, Mister Eddington? 
I don't give a damn what you think of the Federation, the Maquis, or anything else. 

All I know is that you betrayed Your Oath, 
Your Duty, and me

And if it takes me the rest of my life, 
I will see you standing before a court-martial 
that'll break you and send you to a penal colony, 
where you will spend the rest of your days 
growing old and wondering whether 
a ship full of replicators was really worth it.




DAX:
Les Miserables.

SISKO:
You know it?

DAX:
I can't stand Victor Hugo. 
I tried reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but I couldn't get through it. 
It was so melodramatic and his heroines are so two dimensional.

SISKO:
Eddington compares me to one of the characters, Inspector Javert. A policeman who relentlessly pursues a man named Valjean, guilty of a trivial offence, and in the end Javert's own inflexibility destroys him. He commits suicide.

DAX:
You can't believe that description fits you. 
Eddington is just trying to get under your skin.

SISKO:
He did that eight months ago. 
What strikes me about this book is that 
Eddington said that it's one of his favourites.

DAX:
There's no accounting for taste.

SISKO:
Let's think about it.
A Starfleet security officer is fascinated by a nineteenth century French melodrama, 
and now he's a leader of the Maquis,
 a resistance group fighting the noble battle 
against the evil Cardassians.

DAX:
It sounds like he's living out his own fantasy.

SISKO:
Exactly. And you know what?
 Les Miserables isn't 
about The Policeman.
It's about Valjean, the victim 
of a monstrous injustice 
who spends his entire life 
helping people, making noble sacrifices 
for others. 

That's how Eddington sees himself. 
He's Valjean, he's Robin Hood, 
he's a romantic, dashing figure, 
fighting the good fight against insurmountable odds.

DAX:
The secret life of Michael Eddington.
How does it help us?

SISKO:
Eddington is the hero of his own story. 
That makes me the villain. 

And what is it that every hero 
wants to do?

DAX:
Kill the bad guy.

SISKO:
That's part of it. 
Heroes only kill when they have to.

Eddington could have killed me 
back in the refugee camp 
or when he disabled the Defiant, 
but in the best melodramas 
the villain creates a situation 
where the hero is forced 
to sacrifice himself 
for the people, for the cause. 
One final grand gesture.

DAX:
What are you getting at, Benjamin?

SISKO:
I think it's time for me to become The Villain.


 
There are Heroes on Both Sides. 
Evil is Everywhere.


EDDINGTON
But think about those people you saw in the caves, 
huddled and starving. 
They didn't attack the Malinche.

SISKO
You should have thought about that 
before 
you attacked a Federation starship

(Sisko turns his back on the Eddington hologram


(Transmission ends)


Captain's log, supplemental. 
Resettlement efforts in the DMZ are underway. 
The Cardassian and Maquis colonists 
who were forced to abandon their homes 
will make new lives for themselves 
on the planets their counterparts evacuated. 

The balance in the region will be restored, 
though the situation remains far from stable.




He is The Chosen One.

He will bring Balance.


SISKO: 
Are you all right? 

EZRI: 
I talked with Worf.
 He doesn't want to have anything to do with me. 

SISKO: 
Perhaps I should have a talk with him. 

EZRI: 
Absolutely not. You intimidate him. 

SISKO: 
Me? 

EZRI: 
Don't tell him I told you. 

SISKO: 
I intimidate Worf, huh? 

EZRI: 
You like that, don't you? 

SISKO: 
Of course not. 

EZRI: 
Come on. I've been a m

Tuesday 19 January 2021

Plato’s Caveman




IAN: 
It's an •illusion•. 
It MUST be.

Old Grandfather : 
What is he talking about now?

SUSAN: 
What are you doing here?

Old Grandfather : 
You don't understand, so you find excuses. 

Illusions, indeed? 

You say you can't fit an enormous building into one of your smaller sitting rooms.

IAN: 
No.

Old Grandfather : 
But you've discovered Television, haven't you?

IAN:
Yes.

Old Grandfather : 
Then, by showing an enormous building on your television screen, you can do what •seemed• impossible, couldn't you?

IAN: 
Well, yes, but I still don't know —

Old Grandfather : 
Not quite clear, is it. 

I can see by your face that you're not certain, you don't understand —

And I knew you wouldn't. 
Never mind. 

Now then, which switch was it? No. No, no. 
Ah yes, that is it. The point is not whether you understand. What is going to happen to you, hmm? 

They'll tell everybody about The Ship now.

IAN: 
Ship?

Old Grandfather : 
Yes, yes, Ship. 

This doesn't roll along on •wheels•, you know....


Oh, you think Darkness is your ally. 
But you merely adopted The Dark, I was born in it. 
Molded by it. 

I didn’t see the light until I was already A Man.
By then it was nothing to me but blinding!

The Shadows betray you, 
because they belong to me!






“Next,” said I, “compare our nature in respect of education and its lack to such an experience as this. Picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern 1 with a long entrance open 2 to the light on its entire width. Conceive them as having their legs and necks fettered3 from childhood, so that they remain in the same spot, [514b] able to look forward only, and prevented by the fetters from turning their heads. 

Picture further the light from a fire burning higher up and at a distance behind them, and between the fire and the prisoners and above them a road along which a low wall has been built, as the exhibitors of puppet-shows4 have partitions before the men themselves, above which they show the puppets.” 

“All that I see,” he said. 

“See also, then, men carrying 5 past the wall [514c] implements of all kinds that rise above the wall, and human images

1 The image of the cave illustrates by another proportion the contrast between the world of sense-perception and the world of thought. 

Instead of going above the plane of ordinary experience for the other two members of the proportion, Plato here goes below and invents a fire and shadows cast from it on the walls of a cave to correspond to the sun and the “real” objects of sense. 

In such a proportion our “real” world becomes the symbol of Plato's ideal world. Modern fancy may read what meanings it pleases into the Platonic antithesis of the “real” and the “ideal.” It has even been treated as an anticipation of the fourth dimension. 

But Plato never leaves an attentive and critical reader in doubt as to his own intended meaning. there may be at the most a little uncertainty as to which are merely indispensable parts of the picture. 

The source and first suggestion of Plato's imagery is an interesting speculation, but it is of no significance for the interpretation of the thought. Cf. John Henry Wright, “The Origin of Plato's Cave” in Harvard Studies in Class. Phil. xvii. (1906) pp. 130-142. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, pp. 89-90, thinks the allegory Orphic. Cf. also Wright, loc. cit. pp. 134-135. Empedocles likens our world to a cave, Diels i.3 269. Cf. Wright, loc. cit. Wright refers it to the Cave of Vari in Attica, pp. 140-142. Others have supposed that Plato had in mind rather the puppet and marionette shows to which he refers. Cf. Diès in Bulletin Budé,No. 14 (1927) pp. 8 f. The suggestiveness of the image has been endless. The most eloquent and frequently quoted passage of Aristotle's early writings is derived from it, Cic.De nat.deor. ii. 37. It is the source of Bacon's “idols of the den.” Sir Thomas Browne writes in Urne-Buriall: “We yet discourse in Plato's den and are but embryo philosophers.” Huxley's allegory of “Jack and the Beanstalk” in Evolution and Ethics, pp. 47 ff. is a variation on it. Berkeley recurs to it, Siris, 263. The Freudians would have still more fantastic interpretations. Cf. Jung, Analytic Psych. p. 232. Eddington perhaps glances at it when he attributes to the new physics the frank realization that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows

2 Cf. Phaedo 111 Cἀναπεπταμένους

3 Cf. Phaedo 67 E.

4 H. Rackham, CIass. Rev. xxix. pp. 77-78, suggests that the τοῖς θαυματοποιοῖς should be translated “at the marionettes” and be classed with καινοῖς τραγῳδοῖς(Pseph.ap.Dem. xviii. 116). For the dative he refers to Kuehner-Gerth, II. i. p. 445.

5 The men are merely a part of the necessary machinery of the image. Their shadows are not cast on the wall. The artificial objects correspond to the things of sense and opinion in the divided line, and the shadows to the world of reflections,εἰκόνες.

[515a] and shapes of animals as well, wrought in stone and wood and every material, some of these bearers presumably speaking and others silent.” “A strange image you speak of,” he said, “and strange prisoners.” “Like to us,” I said; “for, to begin with, tell me do you think that these men would have seen anything of themselves or of one another except the shadows cast from the fire on the wall of the cave that fronted them?” “How could they,” he said, “if they were compelled [515b] to hold their heads unmoved through life?” “And again, would not the same be true of the objects carried past them?” “Surely.” “If then they were able to talk to one another, do you not think that they would suppose that in naming the things that they saw1 they were naming the passing objects?” “Necessarily.” “And if their prison had an echo2 from the wall opposite them, when one of the passersby uttered a sound, do you think that they would suppose anything else than the passing shadow to be the speaker?” “By Zeus, I do not,” said he. “Then in every way [515c] such prisoners would deem reality to be nothing else than the shadows of the artificial objects.” “Quite inevitably,” he said. “Consider, then, what would be the manner of the release3 and healing from these bonds and this folly if in the course of nature4 something of this sort should happen to them: When one was freed from his fetters and compelled to stand up suddenly and turn his head around and walk and to lift up his eyes to the light, and in doing all this felt pain and, because of the dazzle and glitter of the light, was unable to discern the objects whose shadows he formerly saw, [515d] what do you suppose would be his answer if someone told him that what he had seen before was all a cheat and an illusion, but that now, being nearer to reality and turned toward more real things, he saw more truly? And if also one should point out to him each of the passing objects and constrain him by questions to say what it is, do you not think that he would be at a loss5 and that he would regard what he formerly saw as more real than the things now pointed out to him?” “Far more real,” he said.
“And if he were compelled to look at the light itself, [515e] would not that pain his eyes, and would he not turn away and flee to those things which he is able to discern and regard them as in very deed more clear and exact than the objects pointed out?” “It is so,” he said. “And if,” said I, “someone should drag him thence by force up the ascent6 which is rough and steep, and not let him go before he had drawn him out into the light of the sun, do you not think that he would find it painful to be so haled along, and would chafe at it, and when

1 Cf. Parmen. 130 c, Tim. 51 B, 52 A, and my De Platonis Idearum doctrina, pp. 24-25; also E. Hoffmann in Wochenschrift f. klass. Phil. xxxvi. (1919) pp. 196-197. As we use the word tree of the trees we see, though the reality (αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστι) is the idea of a tree, so they would speak of the shadows as the world, though the real reference unknown to them would be to the objects that cause the shadows, and back of the objects to the things of the “real” world of which they are copies. The general meaning, which is quite certain, is that they wold suppose the shadows to be the realities. The text and the precise turn of expression are doubtful. See crit. note.παριόντα is intentionally ambiguous in its application to the shadows or to the objects which cast them. They suppose that the names refer to the passing shadows, but (as we know) they really apply to the objects. Ideas and particulars are homonymous. Assuming a slight illogicality we can get somewhat the same meaning from the text ταὐτά. “Do you not think that they would identify the passing objects (which strictly speaking they do not know) with what they saw?” Cf. also P. Corssen, Philologische Wochenschrift, 1913, p. 286. He prefers οὐκ αὐτά and renders: “Sie würden in dem, was sie sähen, das Vorübergehende selbst zu benennen glauben.”

2 The echo and the voices (515 A) merely complete the picture.

3 Phaedo 67 Dλύειν, and 82 Dλύσει τε καὶ καθαρμῷ. λύσις became technical in Neoplatonism.

4 Lit. “by nature.” φύσις in Plato often suggests reality and truth.

5 The entire passage is an obvious allegory of the painful experience of one whose false conceit of knowledge is tested by the Socratic elenchus. Cf. Soph. 230 B-D, and for ἀπορεῖνMeno 80 A, 84 B-C, Theaet. 149 A, Apol. 23 D. Cf. also What Plato Said, p. 5123 on Meno 80 A, Eurip.Hippol. 247τὸ γὰρ ὀρθοῦσθαι γνώμαν ὀδυνᾷ, “it is painful to have one's opinions set right,” and 517 A, 494 D.

6 Cf. Theaet. 175 B, Boethius, Cons. iii. 12 “quicunque in superum diem mentem ducere quaeritis”; 529 A, 521 C, and the Neoplatonists' use of ἀνάγειν and their “anagogical” virtue and interpretation. Cf. Leibniz, ed. Gerhardt, vii. 270.

[515a] and shapes of animals as well, wrought in stone and wood and every material, some of these bearers presumably speaking and others silent.” “A strange image you speak of,” he said, “and strange prisoners.” “Like to us,” I said; “for, to begin with, tell me do you think that these men would have seen anything of themselves or of one another except the shadows cast from the fire on the wall of the cave that fronted them?” “How could they,” he said, “if they were compelled [515b] to hold their heads unmoved through life?” “And again, would not the same be true of the objects carried past them?” “Surely.” “If then they were able to talk to one another, do you not think that they would suppose that in naming the things that they saw1 they were naming the passing objects?” “Necessarily.” “And if their prison had an echo2 from the wall opposite them, when one of the passersby uttered a sound, do you think that they would suppose anything else than the passing shadow to be the speaker?” “By Zeus, I do not,” said he. “Then in every way [515c] such prisoners would deem reality to be nothing else than the shadows of the artificial objects.” “Quite inevitably,” he said. “Consider, then, what would be the manner of the release3 and healing from these bonds and this folly if in the course of nature4 something of this sort should happen to them: When one was freed from his fetters and compelled to stand up suddenly and turn his head around and walk and to lift up his eyes to the light, and in doing all this felt pain and, because of the dazzle and glitter of the light, was unable to discern the objects whose shadows he formerly saw, [515d] what do you suppose would be his answer if someone told him that what he had seen before was all a cheat and an illusion, but that now, being nearer to reality and turned toward more real things, he saw more truly? And if also one should point out to him each of the passing objects and constrain him by questions to say what it is, do you not think that he would be at a loss5 and that he would regard what he formerly saw as more real than the things now pointed out to him?” “Far more real,” he said.
“And if he were compelled to look at the light itself, [515e] would not that pain his eyes, and would he not turn away and flee to those things which he is able to discern and regard them as in very deed more clear and exact than the objects pointed out?” “It is so,” he said. “And if,” said I, “someone should drag him thence by force up the ascent6 which is rough and steep, and not let him go before he had drawn him out into the light of the sun, do you not think that he would find it painful to be so haled along, and would chafe at it, and when

1 Cf. Parmen. 130 c, Tim. 51 B, 52 A, and my De Platonis Idearum doctrina, pp. 24-25; also E. Hoffmann in Wochenschrift f. klass. Phil. xxxvi. (1919) pp. 196-197. As we use the word tree of the trees we see, though the reality (αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστι) is the idea of a tree, so they would speak of the shadows as the world, though the real reference unknown to them would be to the objects that cause the shadows, and back of the objects to the things of the “real” world of which they are copies. The general meaning, which is quite certain, is that they wold suppose the shadows to be the realities. The text and the precise turn of expression are doubtful. See crit. note.παριόντα is intentionally ambiguous in its application to the shadows or to the objects which cast them. They suppose that the names refer to the passing shadows, but (as we know) they really apply to the objects. Ideas and particulars are homonymous. Assuming a slight illogicality we can get somewhat the same meaning from the text ταὐτά. “Do you not think that they would identify the passing objects (which strictly speaking they do not know) with what they saw?” Cf. also P. Corssen, Philologische Wochenschrift, 1913, p. 286. He prefers οὐκ αὐτά and renders: “Sie würden in dem, was sie sähen, das Vorübergehende selbst zu benennen glauben.”

2 The echo and the voices (515 A) merely complete the picture.

3 Phaedo 67 Dλύειν, and 82 Dλύσει τε καὶ καθαρμῷ. λύσις became technical in Neoplatonism.

4 Lit. “by nature.” φύσις in Plato often suggests reality and truth.

5 The entire passage is an obvious allegory of the painful experience of one whose false conceit of knowledge is tested by the Socratic elenchus. Cf. Soph. 230 B-D, and for ἀπορεῖνMeno 80 A, 84 B-C, Theaet. 149 A, Apol. 23 D. Cf. also What Plato Said, p. 5123 on Meno 80 A, Eurip.Hippol. 247τὸ γὰρ ὀρθοῦσθαι γνώμαν ὀδυνᾷ, “it is painful to have one's opinions set right,” and 517 A, 494 D.

6 Cf. Theaet. 175 B, Boethius, Cons. iii. 12 “quicunque in superum diem mentem ducere quaeritis”; 529 A, 521 C, and the Neoplatonists' use of ἀνάγειν and their “anagogical” virtue and interpretation. Cf. Leibniz, ed. Gerhardt, vii. 270.

6a] he came out into the light, that his eyes would be filled with its beams so that he would not be able to see1 even one of the things that we call real?” “Why, no, not immediately,” he said. “Then there would be need of habituation, I take it, to enable him to see the things higher up. And at first he would most easily discern the shadows and, after that, the likenesses or reflections in water2 of men and other things, and later, the things themselves, and from these he would go on to contemplate the appearances in the heavens and heaven itself, more easily by night, looking at the light [516b] of the stars and the moon, than by day the sun and the sun's light.3” “Of course.” “And so, finally, I suppose, he would be able to look upon the sun itself and see its true nature, not by reflections in water or phantasms of it in an alien setting,4 but in and by itself in its own place.” “Necessarily,” he said. “And at this point he would infer and conclude that this it is that provides the seasons and the courses of the year and presides over all things in the visible region, [516c] and is in some sort the cause5 of all these things that they had seen.” “Obviously,” he said, “that would be the next step.” “Well then, if he recalled to mind his first habitation and what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow-bondsmen, do you not think that he would count himself happy in the change and pity them6?” “He would indeed.” “And if there had been honors and commendations among them which they bestowed on one another and prizes for the man who is quickest to make out the shadows as they pass and best able to remember their customary precedences, [516d] sequences and co-existences,7 and so most successful in guessing at what was to come, do you think he would be very keen about such rewards, and that he would envy and emulate those who were honored by these prisoners and lorded it among them, or that he would feel with Homer8 and “‘greatly prefer while living on earth to be serf of another, a landless man,’” Hom. Od. 11.489 and endure anything rather than opine with them [516e] and live that life?” “Yes,” he said, “I think that he would choose to endure anything rather than such a life.” “And consider this also,” said I, “if such a one should go down again and take his old place would he not get his eyes full9 of darkness, thus suddenly coming out of the sunlight?” “He would indeed.” “Now if he should be required to contend with these perpetual prisoners

1 Cf. Laws 897 D, Phaedo 99 D.

2 Cf. Phaedo 99 D. Stallbaum says this was imitated by Themistius, Orat. iv. p. 51 B.

3 It is probably a mistake to look for a definite symbolism in all the details of this description. There are more stages of progress than the proportion of four things calls for. all that Plato's thought requires is the general contrast between an unreal and a real world, and the goal of the rise from one to the other in the contemplation of the sun, or the idea of good, Cf. 517 B-C.

4 i.e. a foreign medium.

5 Cf. 508 B, and for the idea of good as the cause of all things cf. on 509 B, and Introd. pp. xxxv-xxxvi. P. Corssen, Philol. Wochenschrift, 1913, pp. 287-299, unnecessarily proposes to emend ὧν σφεῖς ἑώρων to ὧν σκιὰς ἑ. or ὧν σφεῖς σκιὰς ἑ., “ne sol umbrarum, quas videbant, auctor fuisse dicatur, cum potius earum rerum, quarum umbras videbant, fuerit auctor.”

6 Cf. on 486 a, p. 10, note a.

7 Another of Plato's anticipations of modern thought. This is precisely the Humian, Comtian, positivist, pragmatist view of causation. Cf. Gorg. 501 Aτριβῇ καὶ ἐμπειρίᾳ μνήμην μόνον σωζομένη τοῦ εἰθότος γίγνεσθαι“relying on routine and habitude for merely preserving a memory of what is wont to result.” (Loeb tr.)

8 The quotation is almost as apt as that at the beginning of the Crito.

9 On the metaphor of darkness and light cf. also Soph. 254 A.

Thursday 2 April 2020

It is a Massively Complex Quantum Simulation




[Holosuite corridor]

(Rom and Eddington take of a panel to get at the workings.

ROM: 
I've had to make a few modifications 
to this holosuite over the years. 

EDDINGTON: 
A few? It's like a junkyard in here. 

ROM
My Brother won't let me buy new components so I've had to scavenge for what I need. 

QUARK
I'm barely breaking even on the holosuites as it is. 
If I had to buy new equipment every time there was a glitch. 

EDDINGTON
Where's the core memory interface? 

ROM
Oh it's right behind the spatula. 

EDDINGTON
The spatula? 

ROM
It's made of a copper-ytterbium composite, the perfect plasma conductor. 

(Eddington scans the innards with a tricorder.

EDDINGTON
I've found them. All five of their 
physical patterns are in here 
and they're stable. 

ODO
Why here? 

EDDINGTON
The HoloSuite is specifically designed to store 
highly complex energy patterns. 
The Computer's processing 
their physical patterns as if 
they were HoloSuite characters. 
Trouble is, I'm not reading 
any neural energy. 

ROM
Neural energy has to be stored at the quantum level. 
The HoloSuite can't handle that. 

ODO
So if their physical bodies are stored 
here, where are their brain patterns

QUARK
Everywhere else. 
Their brain patterns are so large that they're taking up 
every bit of computer memory on the station. 
Replicator memory, weapons, life supports. 

ODO
He may be right. 
So what do we do about it? 
How do we get them back?

Monday 23 December 2019

The Hero is a Villain







SISKO: 
Let's think about it. 
A Starfleet security officer is fascinated by a nineteenth century French melodrama, and now he's a leader of the Maquis, a resistance group fighting the noble battle against the evil Cardassians. 

DAX: 
It sounds like he's living out his own fantasy. 

SISKO: 
Exactly. And you know what? 

Les Miserables isn't about The Policeman. 

It's about Valjean, the victim of a monstrous injustice who spends his entire life helping people, making noble sacrifices for others. 

That's how Eddington sees himself. 

He's Valjean, he's Robin Hood, he's a romantic, dashing figure, fighting the good fight against insurmountable odds. 

DAX: 
The secret life of Michael Eddington. 
How does it help us? 

SISKO: 
Eddington is The Hero of His Own Story. 

That makes me The Villain. 

And what is it that every hero wants to do? 


DAX: 
Kill The Bad Guy. 

SISKO: 
That's part of it. 

Heroes only kill when they have to. 

Eddington could have killed me back in the refugee camp or when he disabled the Defiant, 
but in the best melodramas The Villain creates a situation where The Hero is forced to sacrifice himself for The People, for The Cause.

One final grand gesture. 


DAX: 
What are you getting at, Benjamin? 

SISKO: 
I think it's time for me to become The Villain.





“The answer to all of this, everything that we’re talking about, is education into early history. 

Until people understand the Stone Age, the nomadic period, the agrarian era, and how culture, how civilization built up. . . 


In Mesopotamia - the great irrigation projects. Or in Egypt where you had. . . Centralized government authority became necessary to master these. . . 



You had a situation, an environmentally difficult situation like the deserts Mesopotamia, or the peculiar character of Egyptian geography where you can only have a little tiny fertile line along the edges of the Nile. 

Otherwise, desert landscape. 


So [understanding] civilization and authority as not necessarily about power grabbing but about organization to achieve something for the good of the people as a whole. 
Peterson: 
That’s exactly the great symbolism of 
The Great Father. 








Paglia: By reducing all hierarchy to power, and selfish power, is utterly naive. It’s ignorant. 

I say education has to be totally reconstituted, including public education, to begin in the most distant past so our young people today, who know nothing about how the world was created that they inhabit, can understand what a marvelous technological paradise they live in. 

And it’s the product of capitalism, it’s the product of individual innovation. 



Most of it’s the product of a Western tradition that everyone wants to trash now. If you begin in the past and show. . . And also talk about War, because War is the one thing that wakes people up, as we see. 

Peterson: And as we may see. 

Paglia: Yes, War is The Reality Principle. 

My father and five of my uncles went to World War II. 

My father was part of the force that landed in Japan. 

He was a paratrooper at the time of the Japanese surrender. And a couple of uncles got shot up and so on. 

When you have the reality of war, when people see the reality, the horrors of war - Berlin burned to a crisp and so on. 

Starvation and all. . . Then you understand this marvelous mechanism that brings water to the kitchen. 

And you flip on a light and the electricity turns on. 

Peterson: I know, for me, and I suppose it’s because I have somewhat of a depressive temperament. . . 

I mean one thing that staggers me on a consistent basis is the fact that anything •ever• works. 

Because it’s so unlikely, you know, to be in a situation where our electronic communications work, where our electric grid works. And it works all the time, it works one hundred percent of the time. 

And the reason for that is there are mostly men out there who are breaking themselves into pieces, repairing this thing which just falls apart all the time. 

Paglia: Absolutely. I said this in the Munk Debate in Toronto several years ago. All these elitists and professors sneering at men. It’s men who are maintaining everything around us. 

This invisible army which feminists don’t notice. 

Nothing would work if it weren’t for the men. 

Peterson: A professor is someone who’s standing on a hill surrounded by a wall, which is surrounded by another wall, which is surrounded by another wall - it’s walls all the way down - who stands up there and says I’m brave and independent. It’s like, you’ve got this protected area that’s so unlikely - it’s so absolutely unlikely - and the fact that people aren’t on their knees in gratitude all the time for the fact that we have central heating and air conditioning and pure water and reliable food. . . It’s absolutely unbelievable. 

Paglia: Yes, I mean people used to die. . . The water supply was contaminated with cholera for heaven’s sake. People don’t understand. To have clean water, fresh milk, fresh orange juice. All of these things. These are marvels. 

Peterson: And all of the time. 

Paglia: All of the time. Western culture is heading - because we are so dependent on this invisible infrastructure - we’re heading for an absolute catastrophe when jihadists figure out how to paralyze the power grid. The entire culture will be chaotic. You’ll have mobs in the street within three days when suddenly the food supply is interrupted and there’s no way to communicate. 




That is the way Western culture is going to collapse. And it won’t take much. 

Peterson: Single points of failure. 

Paglia: Because we are so interconnected, and now we’re so dependent on communications and computers. . . I used to predict for years it’ll be an asteroid hitting the earth, and then we’ll have another ice age.





Friday 8 February 2019

Javert



SISKO: 
Well, well, Mister Eddington. 

EDDINGTON: 
(hologram) 
You just couldn't resist the temptation to come after me, could you, Captain. 

SISKO: 
I like to finish what I start.
 
EDDINGTON: 
Well, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed, again. 
You won't get me, Captain. 

But I do have a consolation prize for you. 
Actually it's more of a gift.
 

KIRA: 
 Incoming transmission. 
Sending over a document. 

EDDINGTON: 
It's a book. One of my favourites. 
Les Miserables. 
 
SISKO: 
Thank you, but I've read it. 

EDDINGTON: 
Recently? If not, you should read it again. 
Pay close attention to the character of Inspector Javert

The French policeman who spends twenty years chasing a man for stealing a loaf of bread.

Sound like anyone you know? 



[Mess hall]
(Miserable Sisko is reading a PADD.

DAX: 
We've towed the transport ship out of the planet's gravitational pull. 

SISKO: 
Once our repair team is back onboard, release the tractor beam. 
The Cardassians can limp their way home in a day or two. 

DAX: 
Les Miserables. 

SISKO: 
You know it? 

DAX: 
I can't stand Victor Hugo. 
I tried reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but I couldn't get through it. 
It was so melodramatic and his heroines are so two dimensional. 

SISKO: 
Eddington compares me to one of the characters, Inspector Javert. 

A policeman who relentlessly pursues a man named Valjean, guilty of a trivial offence, 
and in the end Javert's own inflexibility destroys him. 

He commits suicide. 

DAX: 
You can't believe that description fits you. Eddington is just trying to get under your skin. 

SISKO:
 
He did that eight months ago. 

What strikes me about this book is that Eddington said that it's one of his favourites. 

DAX: 
There's no accounting for taste. 

SISKO: 
Let's think about it. 

A Starfleet security officer is fascinated by a nineteenth century French melodrama, and now he's a leader of the Maquis, a resistance group fighting the noble battle against the evil Cardassians. 

DAX: 
It sounds like he's living out his own fantasy.

SISKO: 
Exactly. And you know what? 

Les Miserables isn't about the policeman.

It's about Valjean, the victim of a monstrous injustice who spends his entire life helping people, making noble sacrifices for others. 

That's how Eddington sees himself. 

He's Valjean, he's Robin Hood, he's a romantic, dashing figure, fighting the good fight against insurmountable odds. 

DAX: 
The secret life of Michael Eddington. 
How does it help us?

SISKO: 
Eddington is the hero of his own story. 
That makes me the villain. 

And what is it that every hero wants to do? 

DAX: 
 Kill The Bad Guy. 

SISKO: 
That's part of it. 
Heroes only kill when they have to. 

Eddington could have killed me back in the refugee camp or when he disabled the Defiant, but in the best melodramas The Villain creates a situation where the hero is forced to sacrifice himself for the people, for the cause. 

One final grand gesture. 

DAX: 
What are you getting at, Benjamin?
 
SISKO: 
I think it's time for me to become The Villain.