I enjoyed most of The Nation, right up until Daphne/Ermintrude's father arrived at the island. But I found the final few chapters thoroughly off-putting, to the point where I now tell people that I didn't much like the book. My particular gripes are about the need that Pratchett (an avowed humanist) had to intervene in the story and make it a moralistic play about the ability of science and exploration to give semi-mystical meaning to our otherwise purposeless civilization. Maybe that's putting it a bit strong, but I felt like the author spent four-fifths of a book exploring the interesting interstices of faith, doubt, miracle, perserverance, love and devotion, and then resolved it with some pablum about how "science doesn't belong to anybody" and can somehow both preserve our cultural traditions and at the same time unite us across all cultural boundaries. Which I think is absolute tripe. Science is (IMO) too revered in our Western culture (even our anti-authoritarian American culture); it's a useful tool, but it's not the answer to life, the universe and everything. Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and Carl Sagan notwithstanding.
Whew, rant out of the way. What's hidden in there is I really did think it was a rippingly good book for about 200 pages. I think all of the questions Alvin and Paul raise are interesting and deserve a more full treatment than I can give at the moment, but I'll write my thoughts on a few.
The Culture and the Necessary I don't know to what degree I try to separate those aspects of my belief system that are culturally bred from those that are fundamental and invariant under multi-verses. I often ask myself questions like, "How absolutely wrong is it to drink alcohol?" (appropriate, given the context of the question within the poison beer). Obviously in ancient times and within the modern church prophets have drunk alcohol, presumably without everlasting consequences. So if alcohol isn't absolutely wrong, why is it wrong now in this time? Is it a cultural reason?
Perhaps more along the lines of what Alvin was thinking, I remember my shock during my first few weeks in Belgium when the Priests didn't cover the sacrament bread with a white cloth! I had seen in so many US wards the ritual of the sacrament that it seemed naked somehow without the solemn folding back of the cover to expose the bread, and then recovering and folding back the side to reveal the water. And I was doubly shocked when I realized that the sacrament ritual I was so used to was nowhere prescribed in the Scriptures. It was a bit of culture that had crept into the observance.
Are such things bad? I think they are, but not as bad as what can happen when you choose to confront them overly often. Specifically, performing spurious rituals and accepting as true and right things that are really just cultural appendages is (generally) preferable to attacking misfounded belief and risking 1) hurting another's faith and 2) accidentally hewing too deep and attacking well-founded belief. Excessive piety has seldom (it seems to me) led to excommunication, but if you slaughter too many sacred cows you may eventually find yourself killing something truly sacred (no offense to the Hindoos).
North vs. South In actual terms of North and South, it's interesting to note that most of the people live north of the equator (which makes sense since about 70% of the habitable land mass is north of the equator). So on one level it's almost inevitable that history would have a Northern slant to it.
To the more salient question of cultural superiority and subjugation, I feel pretty sensitive to it. I see within the US itself an increasingly homogenized culture, as regional dialects and accents disappear and we all shop for the same cheap crap at identical Walmarts and eat the same cheap food in identical plastic booths at fast food chain restaurants. I recognize that it's a completely rational decision; there are real to cost and efficiency benefits of the homogeneous culture. But I find it distressing that all local flavor seems to be disappearing from America. And I worry that the same thing is happening as a result of modernizing forces throughout the world.
While I feel that loss of cultural identity is a real problem, both within the US and internationally, I don't know that I would support any organized efforts to combat it. I think cultural preservation, and the desire and energy for cultural preservation must come from within the culture rather than without. Tying into the book, I thought the eventual protective role played by the British Empire while the island Nation made itself into a scientific Shangri-la derives from the same nation-building hubris that makes us believe we can export ideology. While I think it's important to engage on such matters (I'm a big supporter of muscular US diplomacy), I think the idea that a system in which local culture needs a global protector is doomed to failure.
Is there a time to lie In the tenth grade we were assigned to write an in-class essay on this very question. More specifically, on the portion of Adventures of Huck Finn when Huck lies to protect
I think there is definitely a time to lie. I wouldn't be able to construct scenarios in which it is unambiguously the right decision, but I feel confident in a Nephi and Laban way that all actions, no matter how abhorrent in normal everyday life, may be right in certain circumstances. That said, I'm pretty careful about giving honest answers to my kids about things like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. I don't seek out opportunities to puncture their innocense, but if they come to me with questions I pretty unapologetically give honest answers. Because I think a lot of harm can be done when you put your child's trust in you at risk, and I think there are few reasons to do such a thing.
Still, though, I would not say never; I can easily conceive of scenarios in which I would purposefully mislead and even straight out lie to my children in order to protect them from truths which would, in my belief, harm them. And if slave-traders were really after my friend Jim, I would tell them he ran the other way and try to sneak off while they weren't looking.
