/lit/ - Literature

>Martin’s creation is a society in which man knows how to build and travel, to make himself comfortable, perhaps to cure and treat some diseases, and to fight wars scientifically—but in which there is no trace of Christ. The Good Samaritan is not known of here. Nobody has heard of the Prodigal Son, and the Sermon on the Mount has never been delivered. There are not even rumors of these things. The only appeal is to a very basic common decency, the absurdly overrated Golden Rule, which in a world without Jesus has two great unavoidable flaws. The first is that the weaker and poorer you are, the less other people are inclined to hope for favors from you, or fear your revenge. And so enlightened self-interest will cheerfully leave you wounded, destitute, or alone, or tolerate the fact that you are enslaved, reserving the Golden Rule in practice for others who are more likely to reciprocate. The second is that, having no way to find the mind’s construction in the face, or to see into our neighbors’ secret hearts, we have very little true knowledge of the secret deeds and inward thoughts of others. “Do as you would be done by” rapidly becomes the very different “Appear to do as you would be done by.”

>In such a kingdom, power and virtue are entirely separate. The snarling brute rules, unrestrained by reminders that a just God will judge him in turn. He is wealthy, powerful, and clever, like the figures depicted by the Riace Bronzes. He sits at the pinnacle of a civilization of impunity, which delivers many joys to the rich and the strong, and misery to the weak and poor. Imagine that, stretching out in all directions and forever, and you have George Martin’s world.

>As far as I can find out, Martin is a lapsed Roman Catholic and has quite banal views about how religion causes wars and God is a “giant invisible guy in the sky.” I do not think he has set out to make an attack on Christianity. I do not think he especially likes it, but I suspect he has discarded it, and so he has written an account of a world in which it simply does not exist. His fantasy greatly disturbs me, because it helps to normalize the indifference to Christianity which is a far greater threat to it than active atheism.

2/2

What does /lit think of the lesser known Hitchens? I find him endearing and eccentric desu. For some reason he doesn’t believe that addiction is real.
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/02/the-fantasy-of-addiction

>>18843880
We meet again.

>>18726403

>>18678397
Yeah, I'm thinking based.

>No English child will ever again experience, as I did, the joys of Arthur Conan Doyle’s great historical romances The White Company and Sir Nigel, set in the far-off fourteenth century.

>For me, Conan Doyle’s description was a vital revelation. The men of that time were not people just like us, who happened to be clad in strange clothes, eating venison pasties and saying “forsooth.” Their individual lives were carried out in the shade of Christ’s reign. Kings genuinely feared God and his justice. And their subjects, in turn, did not dare to touch the Lord’s anointed.

>Martin’s brilliantly inventive alternative world is set in something very like the English Middle Ages. It relies for its power and effect upon a profound cynicism about human goodness, which, I believe, did not exist in such societies. He gives twenty-first-century religious opinions to people who have fifteenth-century lives.

>In his imaginary country, virtue and trust are always punished. The most attractive major character, Eddard Stark, dies swiftly, unjustly, and horribly. He dies largely because he is so honorable and dutiful. His horrified family is scattered to the winds to suffer or perish. And from that moment on in the story, almost everyone associated with honesty, selfless courage, and justice is doomed. Almost the only likable figure who survives through all the books is the dwarf, Tyrion, who is occasionally kind, but also consumed with cynicism and despair.

>Bravery and charity toward others are rewarded with death or betrayal. The simple poor are raped, robbed, enslaved, and burned out of their homes. Chivalry, a real thing in Conan Doyle’s world, is for Martin a fraud. All kinds of cruelty and greed, typified by the House of Lannister, flourish like the green bay tree. Treachery and the most debauched cynicism are the only salvation, the only route to safety or advantage. Perhaps the most intense moment of the entire saga, the “Red Wedding” is composed entirely of the most bitter betrayals, including a terrible violation of the laws of hospitality. Yet as far as I can see, the betrayers gain advantage by their action. Three major figures, all in the grip of different versions of amoral cynicism, dominate all the thousands of pages that follow, and while others are murdered all around them, they live on.

>Martin cannot write as well as Tolkien or Lewis, in my view because he cannot draw on Tolkien’s or Lewis’s enormous storehouse of legend, saga, poetry, and literature. He sometimes dwells rather lengthily on the menus at the barbarous banquets he describes. He dwells on slavery and human cruelty in general, and his language can be coarse. Four-letter words occur.

>The struggle for gender equality in education and professions was won decades ago. What is really fascinating is this extraordinary alliance between radical leftist feminism and corporate multinational business which is probably the most sinister and cynical alliance since the Nazi-Soviet pact.
Uhhhhhh .... based???

Yeah, I'm thinking based.

>>17803979
>Hello there. Are you in possession of any illicit drugs?

>>17786973
The King James Bible and the Common Book of Prayer, you degenerate rabble-rouser.

>>17744279

>>17414741
Hello, Butterfly. Are you in possession of any illicit substances? If so, I shall wrest them from your grimy fingers. Tell your boyfriend Peter says hello.

>>17351618

>>17313975
No.

>>17310218
It lacks Peter Hitchens

Have you read the KJV?

>>17294018
>Peter Hitchens

>>17293949
>Jesus

>>17293822

>>17292265
blocks his own path

Yeah, I'm thinking based.

>>17292082
blocks your paths, wrests this secular dross from your hands, takes your filthy stash of mild-altering drugs and provides you with a fresh copy of the BCP

>>17285487
Are you in possession of any illegal drugs, anon? If so, I shall report you forthwith to the local constabulary.

>>17284623
We meet again, Butterfly.