I was simply pointing out that the whole “peaceful and nice Amarrians” is largely an illusion anywhere above the personal level. Reclaiming was always a goal, and remains always a goal, it is simply tools that change.
And frankly, I’ll rather have someone point a gun at my head and tell me to kneel, than have someone offer me a prettified and dressed up version of the Faith in order to make me surrender voluntarily and stop opposing to the violent reclaiming and holding of others of my kind.
At it least the former is honest. The latter… even if the person is sincere, they are lying to themselves.
Everyone does that, though. I mean, do we really want to look at our social norms and cultural expectations all that closely? Bonds of history, of culture, even of blood-- are they really so important? Even the “self” might not be so real as we think of it as being.
Only, there’s a danger in letting such foundational illusions go. If an illusion serves a worthwhile function, maybe it’s worth keeping anyway?
Maybe there’s a question which illusions are worth keeping, but that seems like a question we might have some trouble answering on each other’s behalf.
Everyone does, not everyone projects it on others (edit: others referring to other peoples, not other kin). When such bonds define what has kept us unified, yes they are important and forgetting/ignoring them is only to our detriment.
Sure, but another society that projects its beliefs onto others is the Gallente Federation. Should they not have interfered in Amarrian society by sponsoring the Minmatar Rebellion and just left you there?
Even if a Gallentean tries to persuade me of the virtues of democracy, I don’t really feel like I need to respond by carving his giblets into mince-- even if he’s persistent (and, as a culture, they are). Stopping my ears is enough, at worst. Pointing out the system’s frailties (like a tendency under stress to abruptly collapse into mob rule) seems better still.
I think it’s clear where your illusions are in that you regard the Federation’s support of the Rebellion as an interference in Amarrian society. You may not be in chains, Jenneth, but perhaps your mind is enslaved.
Well, the Matari had been in chains for close to a thousand years even then, Mr. Nomistrav. Most of their society had to be reconstructed or, maybe, reimagined. (It was probably a kindness the Federation did them, though I wonder whether it’s really for the sake of the Minmatar that the Federation did it.) (I guess I’m nobody to throw rocks at mixed motives, though.)
The line Deitra is trying to draw is between a meddlesome and non-meddlesome power-- one that imposes its ideas on others, and one that does not. It’s a very Matari/Caldari formulation of relative good and evil, true to Deitra’s experience.
But, do you really see the Federation as non-meddlesome?
Logically, there was peace before 10 June YC110. That could be said about us with gallente as well, but that would be strained. After all, there weren’t nyxes ramming Minmatar stations and there were no genocide of Minmatars with slogans to “Exterminate all Minmatar” on “Minmatar Prime”, right? Amarr could be xenophobic, but not as xenophobic as we are, and I don’t see any direct offenses against Minmatars in particular from the Empire before YC110.
Well, I mean, that could certainly be changed if we look deep into the history, 1000 or even 300 years ago, which certain… persons like to bring, but, really, that’s already history, not politics.
If we look at events as they are without trying to interpret them subjectively, there is really nothing to argue about. Minmatars were agressors. There was peace. The Empire didn’t provoke them.
Well, for sure we hate gallente! We hate them for the ■■■■ they pulled 200 years ago. We despise them for their hypocrisy and amoral behavior. For their dishonorable politics and arrogant aggressive self-righteous stance where they have no moral ground for that. But you see, we don’t attack them over it. It weren’t us who were going with “Exterminate all Gallente”, it were Gallente who came with “Extreminate all Caldari”. We are fighting the war to protect Black Rise from gallente invasion. We are fighting the war to secure Caldari Prime from occupants. We didn’t roam through the Federation space, kidnapping every Caldari to save them from oppressive democratic regimes, we just secured our own planet and signed peace with them as soon as that was accomplished. Further war with invasion into Black Rise was a Gallente initiative. Yes, we despise them, we hate them, but we don’t act on our hatred. We act to protect what is ours from their aggression and their hatred of us.
It’s not a question of memories, Ms. Jenneth. It’s a question of acts. And minmatars tried to bully their neighbors because of their hatred. Please don’t equate us to them in this regard.
You have records. You have institutional memory. But you aren’t carrying the scars and traumas of wounds dealt centuries ago festering beneath the fresh cuts of the wounds your empire is still dealing us.
So, um, when talking about the Amarr, Mr. Quatrevaux, please don’t include me? It’s a disservice to everybody involved. Mr. Nomistrav’s critique aside, if you look up you’ll see a few arguments the Amarr themselves wouldn’t have made.
As for records and so on, True Amarr can live for centuries. There are as I understand it Amarr alive today who remember the Minmatar Rebellion. Vak’Atioth, and the Rebellion that followed, were remarkable moments in Amarr history. They’re exactly what allowed for Heideran the Peacemaker and the Pax Amarria.
It’s something their society is still processing, a paradigm-changing shock … at least potentially. It led to a century of relative peace, but exactly how it’ll be processed, in the end, remains to be seen.
But yes, I’d expect the Amarr to remember very, very well. The question in the long run is what lessons they draw from that memory.
Ms. Jenneth, I’ve talked with you, I’ve flown with you. I genuinely like and respect you. I enjoy listening to (or reading) you because I always learn something along the way.
Just as your perspective of yourself as opposed to my station causes you to refer to me as “Mr. Quatrevaux”, my experiences inform my view of you, which is that you are Amarr.
You defend the Empire just like Amarr do: with no basis of any real experience with the Republic.
You may not be a citizen or member of the Faith, but functionally, you are Amarr.
Yes. And what I said was
Unless you want to make the patently ridiculous argument that the Amarr suffered in some way during the Occupation, the fact that there are long-lived Amarr is a strawman. They may still feel that supposed embarrassment over losing to us in the Rebellion, but they didn’t suffer the wholesale loss of their culture at the hands of religious extremists.
The Matari have long memories because if we forget, then we are lost. And we have long memories because the memories of our true culture, our Minmatar Empire, are all that we have left of it.
So many things I could say here. I will stick to what is most central:
Violence and war are always, were always and always will be an option in settling conflicts between humans. Saying that because it’s an option that it is in truth what any civilisation or nation is about, is just stupid, or all human endeavours would be just about that.
The distinction between ‘meddlesome’ and ‘non-meddlesome’ cultures is all nice and fine in theory, but practically, they are really just academic. If you want others not to ‘meddle’ with you, you have pretty much push that onto them - which is easily framed as a ‘meddlesome’ act in itself. If you don’t do it, interaction will happen, there will be competition of ideas etc. pp.
The truth is that ‘meddlesome’ and ‘non-meddlesome’, just as ‘violent’ and ‘non-violent’ are strategies to reach ones goals and which is choosen depends on the goals in question, ones inclination towards one or the other, sure, but most importantly: Circumstance. You want to pick the best strategy given the circumstances.
And circumstances aren’t unilaterally dictated, usually. People are always so fast with pointing fingers. Everyone does well to remember, though, that if we point fingers at someone else, there are usually three fingers pointing back at ourselves.