Amusements 8/1/2000 • j********o@***.com 03/08/2000 00:00:000 UTC Well, I reread the Foundation Trilogy and my poor opinion stands. Really quite disappointing at many levels, not least of which in not fulfilling the sweep of the Seldon Plan and arriving at the Second Republic. I wonder if Asimov wrote the stories to be released as a unit, or if they were slapped together: the first 1 1/3 books are novellas, followed by the novels about the Mule and the Second Foundation, a structure that is annoying in its inconsistency. Just when we've gotten used to popping ahead fifty years every so-many pages to follow the sweep of history, we bog down, and finally just stop (the sequels that followed many years later just make things worse). The writing is just plain indifferent. The promising narrative device of Hari Seldon's video apparition is misused, underused, then abandoned. A more talented author might have employed interleaving flashbacks to the Seldon Planners at work with the historical accounts they were planning, while stoking curiosity as to Seldon's personal fate. Now a grab-bag of criticism: the novels could have, should have, contained a number of interesting meditations on freedom, self-governance, etc. (in the hands of someone like Vernor Vinge or Brin on a good day, they would have). The Second Foundation is completely at odds with Seldon's philosophy, the development of mental powers being purely speculative and placing the fate of the galaxy perpetually at the mercy of individual motives among the mentalists. Seldon's appearances aren't useful, and could be: instead of appearing after a crisis to give the Foundation a pat on the back, better to appear during the crisis and offer a solution to an insoluable dilemma, in effect, a shove in the desired direction. This is particularly a problem regarding the first crisis, which they solve by packaging their technology in a priestly religion, an idea Seldon sees at inevitable, but would only be so if it were an organic growth, rather than the quite deliberate and contingent scheme of the Foundation Council. The fact that Seldon is cultivating a transcendent faith in the Plan would have been an interesting point to meditate upon, in that such a belief might make the Foundation's behavior more predictable - the inevitable effect of the plan to sap individual initiative and collective effort was unexamined: the Foundationers are valiant, self-sacrificing defenders of a plan that doesn't need any defending, and that doesn't make sense. This could have been tied in with the ultimate plan, to produce a galaxy of passive, apathetic people, ready for the new regime. Indeed, Asimov could have explored the issue that the fundamental problem Seldon sees in in the galaxy is not social decay, but individuality itself, and the basic objective of the Seldon Plan is not a growing nucleus of civilization but a spreading cloud of lotus-dust! Hay could have been made about Seldon being a true son of the Imperium: he likes things big, he distrusts uncertainty, believes that "That which governs the most, governs best" - this could have been contrasted with the progressive, nationalist values of the Foundation that is his tool. The same could be said for Asimov, it seems! All wars are meaningless, anything that isn't universal is petty, all militarists dissolve in hysterics and shoot themselves when thwarted, etc.. We hadn't seen such creepy blind faith in scientism and social planning (even aside the Plan, I refer to the triumphal attitude the author displays towards the Foundation) since (the movie) "Things to Come," and Asimov should have known better after the War! Like most progressives, he doesn't truly value variety, competition, regionality, inhomogeneity, uncertainty. To coin a phrase, the Chinese pictogram for "crisis" is "danger"+"opportunity;" in America, "danger"+"opportunity" = "progress!" Asimov doesn't explore his Psychohistory significantly (the novel, "The Country of the Blind" does so, and is recommended - it features the fictional history of the secret Babbage Society). Does an individual have the right to preclude the efforts of future generations of individuals? What sort of values are intended for Seldon's Second Empire? A perpetual galactic oligarchy sounds like a threat, not a promise... Seldon may be a scientist, but to what degrees are his values a product of his times? Could not his fear of decay be a symptom of Imperial self-doubt, rather than a rational response to oncoming barbarism? It would have been interesting to see if Seldon had been biased against significant possibilities simply because they were unpredictable, a logical result given his instinctive aversion to uncertainty. Was there a potentially better plan, neglected because of its mathematical difficulty? The philosophical issues of mind-manipulation aren't explored adequately, nor the fact that the apparent nature of the proposed Second Empire, a dictatorship of mind manipulators, is quite repellent (as on my adolescent reading, I found myself rooting against the Second Foundation and for the individualism of its enemies). The Second Foundation should have promoted nostalgia for the Mule, as a precursor to their eventual reign. It occurs to me that a cool ending for the stories (and the Plan) would be for the Galactic Empire to be restored, and the Second Foundation to be gathered to celebrate their victory with a congratulatory appearance by Hari Seldon, in which he thanks them for their service and nukes the lot of them to oblivion! I guess it's still good for kids... Gorno Interesting episode of Daria, featuring her first kiss, received from Jane's just-ex-boyfriend! On that subject, if Trent didn't have a core of decency, he could have gotten the much more satisying core of something else! Speaking as a 34-year-old, you're only young once, so if you get the chance to nail a teenager, you better take it! • j*******i@i*.******m.com 06/08/2000 00:00:000 UTC On 03 Aug 2000 13:02:40 GMT, JohnGorno wrote: >The fact that Seldon is cultivating a transcendent faith in the Plan >would have been an interesting point to meditate upon, in that such a >belief might make the Foundation's behavior more predictable - the >inevitable effect of the plan to sap individual initiative and >collective effort was unexamined: the Foundationers are valiant, >self-sacrificing defenders of a plan that doesn't need any defending, >and that doesn't make sense. This could have been tied in with the >ultimate plan, to produce a galaxy of passive, apathetic people, >ready for the new regime. Indeed, Asimov could have explored the >issue that the fundamental problem Seldon sees in in the galaxy is >not social decay, but individuality itself, and the basic objective >of the Seldon Plan is not a growing nucleus of civilization but a >spreading cloud of lotus-dust! Hay could have been made about Seldon >being a true son of the Imperium: he likes things big, he distrusts >uncertainty, believes that "That which governs the most, governs >best" - this could have been contrasted with the progressive, >nationalist values of the Foundation that is his tool. The same >could be said for Asimov, it seems! All wars are meaningless, >anything that isn't universal is petty, all militarists dissolve in >hysterics and shoot themselves when thwarted, etc.. We hadn't seen >such creepy blind faith in scientism and social planning (even aside >the Plan, I refer to the triumphal attitude the author displays >towards the Foundation) since (the movie) "Things to Come," and >Asimov should have known better after the War! Like most >progressives, he doesn't truly value variety, competition, >regionality, inhomogeneity, uncertainty. To coin a phrase, the >Chinese pictogram for "crisis" is "danger"+"opportunity;" in America, >"danger"+"opportunity" = "progress!" There's a contrast between Foundation etc. and _The End of Eternity_ also by Asimov. In TEoE, all of history is planned by Planners who really are all-wise because they have time travel and can see what the effects of their actions will be ... and they still manage to make a mess of things. The obnoxious part of the Foundation series (a small group planning society supposedly for the common good) can also be found in the Lensman series, or in Slan, or in _Childhood's End_, or ... • s******j@e***.**o.com 07/08/2000 00:00:000 UTC On 6 Aug 2000 17:20:46 GMT, Joseph Hertzlinger wrote: >The obnoxious part of the Foundation series (a small group planning >society supposedly for the common good) can also be found in the >Lensman series, or in Slan, or in _Childhood's End_, or ... There's a fiesty, sharp-fanged reaction to this in Brin's _Foundation's Triumph_ which boils down to: "Who the hell gave YOU permission to f**k with history?" -- +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ SeJ@ay-oh-el-dot-com ~ stefanj@eye-oh-dot-com http://www.io.com/~stefanj/ CHARGES APPLIED FOR UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL EMAIL!