Prof. Dr. Laszlo Jamf (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
laszlo_jamf) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
poly_chromatic2013-06-02 01:19 pm
laszlo_jamf) wrote in poly_chromatic2013-06-02 01:19 pm
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Betrayal and treason. That such should be found so near to one's own heart. Metaphorically speaking.
Citizens, I tell you this not as an announcement, but as a warning, as a cautionary tale.
Treason must be rooted out. Treachery must be pulled up from source. It must be cut out. It must be burned through.
"Treason, sedition." It's been so long since last those words echoed. "Treason, sedition." "Treason, sedition." That they should echo so nearby. That the one accused and guilty should be so near at hand. Yes, j'accuse.
I'm not melancholy about it. I might be shocked. I think I am shocked. But things are as things are. And things must be done relative to the things that are. For every action and &c. Which is a statement that holds true in most situations. As always, there are exception. But this is no exception.
This is not a question of ethical behavior or morality.
Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man's vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgements ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.
Herein is an issue of what is and what is not. It is binary. It is things done and left undone.
In aerodynamics, because one has only got the thing on paper at first, one uses dimensionless coefficients: ratios of this to that--centimeters, grams, seconds all neatly cancelling out above and below. This allows one to use models, arrange an airflow to measure what one is interested in, and scale the wind-tunnel results all the way up to reality, without running into too many unknowns, because these coefficients are good for all dimensions. Traditionally they are named after people--Reynolds, Prandtl, Nusselt, Mach--but the question here is, how about a number of this new name, this name I know? How's chances for that?
Not good. The parabola which this one has traveled is unexpected. The parameters breed like mosquitoes in the bayou, faster than one can knock them off. Hunger, compromise, money, paranoia, fascination, memory, comfort, potential, seduction, guilt. Actually, guilt gets a minus sign on this one, even if guilt is trendy in these situations.
Do you find it a little schizoid breaking up a flight profile into segments of responsibility? It's half-bullet and half-arrow. Rockets will demand this, not us. So. Perhaps one uses a rifle, a radio, a typewriter. Some typewriters in some places have killed many more than any one rocket could. Consider it. You are either alone absolutely, alone with your own death, or you take part in the larger enterprise, and you share in the deaths of others. Are we not all one? Which is your choice? The greater vehicle or the lesser vehicle?
Yeah, rocket science, kids.
If they ask me if this one was always crazy, I will say it was the country. The country turned them out. But I will tell them the truth. That among us was the one who was responsible. Not that we have all the details. But they will understand who it was and none other who shaped events along such a calamitous course. Means and ends are of little moment here. Idle speculations. But even though this one would carry the draft of this murderous plan with them to the grave, it will nontheless be known in all its infamy to one's Maker, if Maker there be, and as that is so, so shall it be made known the least of men. All in the fullness of time. It was never me.
But I will speak to that one, the one accused and guilty.
You came forward to take part in a work. But you were a witness against yourself. You sat in judgement on your own deeds. You put your own allowances before the judgements of history and you broke with the body of which you were pledged a part and poisoned it in all its enterprise. Hear me. I spoke to you, I spoke for you, and you only and you turned a deaf ear to me. If what we do is not holy, then man is nothing but antic clay. All acted in good faith according to their parts. For it was required of none to give more than he or she possessed nor was anyone's share compared to another's. Only each was called upon to empty out his or her heart in common and one did not.
Can you tell me who that one was?
What joins us together is not the sharing of work, not the sharing of bread, but the sharing of enemies. But if I was your enemy, with whom would you have shared me? With whom? Your compatriots? Where are they now? What broken shapes do you call your companions now?
Even if you should have stood your ground, what ground was it?
I wash my hands of this.
[ooc: The plot thickens...]
Citizens, I tell you this not as an announcement, but as a warning, as a cautionary tale.
Treason must be rooted out. Treachery must be pulled up from source. It must be cut out. It must be burned through.
"Treason, sedition." It's been so long since last those words echoed. "Treason, sedition." "Treason, sedition." That they should echo so nearby. That the one accused and guilty should be so near at hand. Yes, j'accuse.
I'm not melancholy about it. I might be shocked. I think I am shocked. But things are as things are. And things must be done relative to the things that are. For every action and &c. Which is a statement that holds true in most situations. As always, there are exception. But this is no exception.
This is not a question of ethical behavior or morality.
Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man's vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgements ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.
Herein is an issue of what is and what is not. It is binary. It is things done and left undone.
In aerodynamics, because one has only got the thing on paper at first, one uses dimensionless coefficients: ratios of this to that--centimeters, grams, seconds all neatly cancelling out above and below. This allows one to use models, arrange an airflow to measure what one is interested in, and scale the wind-tunnel results all the way up to reality, without running into too many unknowns, because these coefficients are good for all dimensions. Traditionally they are named after people--Reynolds, Prandtl, Nusselt, Mach--but the question here is, how about a number of this new name, this name I know? How's chances for that?
Not good. The parabola which this one has traveled is unexpected. The parameters breed like mosquitoes in the bayou, faster than one can knock them off. Hunger, compromise, money, paranoia, fascination, memory, comfort, potential, seduction, guilt. Actually, guilt gets a minus sign on this one, even if guilt is trendy in these situations.
Do you find it a little schizoid breaking up a flight profile into segments of responsibility? It's half-bullet and half-arrow. Rockets will demand this, not us. So. Perhaps one uses a rifle, a radio, a typewriter. Some typewriters in some places have killed many more than any one rocket could. Consider it. You are either alone absolutely, alone with your own death, or you take part in the larger enterprise, and you share in the deaths of others. Are we not all one? Which is your choice? The greater vehicle or the lesser vehicle?
Yeah, rocket science, kids.
If they ask me if this one was always crazy, I will say it was the country. The country turned them out. But I will tell them the truth. That among us was the one who was responsible. Not that we have all the details. But they will understand who it was and none other who shaped events along such a calamitous course. Means and ends are of little moment here. Idle speculations. But even though this one would carry the draft of this murderous plan with them to the grave, it will nontheless be known in all its infamy to one's Maker, if Maker there be, and as that is so, so shall it be made known the least of men. All in the fullness of time. It was never me.
But I will speak to that one, the one accused and guilty.
You came forward to take part in a work. But you were a witness against yourself. You sat in judgement on your own deeds. You put your own allowances before the judgements of history and you broke with the body of which you were pledged a part and poisoned it in all its enterprise. Hear me. I spoke to you, I spoke for you, and you only and you turned a deaf ear to me. If what we do is not holy, then man is nothing but antic clay. All acted in good faith according to their parts. For it was required of none to give more than he or she possessed nor was anyone's share compared to another's. Only each was called upon to empty out his or her heart in common and one did not.
Can you tell me who that one was?
What joins us together is not the sharing of work, not the sharing of bread, but the sharing of enemies. But if I was your enemy, with whom would you have shared me? With whom? Your compatriots? Where are they now? What broken shapes do you call your companions now?
Even if you should have stood your ground, what ground was it?
I wash my hands of this.
[ooc: The plot thickens...]
omg I've missed Laszlo
It's too much for a high school student like me, I think!
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There is one who would and has betrayed those around them.
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Really? Well, that's no good. How despair-inducing.
Are you some higher-up? I mean, usually bosses are the ones who know these kinds of things, and you sound like you've got a bird's eye view on what's going on in the City.
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Hi. Professor Doctor Laszlo Jamf. Deity of the City. One of...a few.
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A teacher, huh . . . I'm not surprised. Teachers always look like they're up to something.
So why are we here, Professor?
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[It really does.]
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Okay, then. Nothing I can do about it except to find a way to graduate, right?
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You don't look anything like our headmaster either, but I guess you two are working together?
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[1/?]
... [This whole speech upsets him and he's not entirely sure why. He could have written it off as the ramblings of a mad man, but his interest in the Deities prompts him not to abandon it out of suspicion and curiousity.]
... then, everyone here is dead? Is this another afterlife? Why, then, do they fear death so?
And a traitor among you?
[The speech is honestly, genuinely frightening to Naoi and he can't help but feel like he's being judged because of it. It's making him feel incredibly guilty and he doesn't even know this man! It's highly unlikely that the speech is aimed at him of all people, but he can't escape the increasing pressure—
So he breaks.]
[2/2]
For me, it's enough to control one person's worldview. [Now, he's grinning like a madman.]
Man truly is nothing more than clay to be shaped and molded! All the worlds are nothing, after all, with no one to experience them! I can drag a soul into itself, confine it in its mind, and alter its perception! Then, it is the same as controlling whole worlds— you might think it to be a smaller scale, but the physical world is nothing compared to the worlds within a mind!
True imprisonment is in the mind and spirit! My control is more perfect, more complete than yours! If you wish to enslave me, why allow me freedom to think?! You have failed!
Did it offend you that I asked for someone to kill me here? I have no life! You clearly made an error in bringing me here. I am not alive and therefore no mortal wound will kill me!
Do you wish to show me the difference between you and I?! I am god! Not this Maker, but god nonetheless!
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[When is the usual caution and rationality going to kick in? Whenever this boy regains his senses, as it appears he's taken leave of them for the time being, leaving his excessive pride intact.]
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That has no relevance!
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Don't you already know the answer to that question? You have so much control over us, why not read our minds? Turn us inside out, expose us, feed that curiosity and be done with us. Why curse us instead?
Surely, you don't need them for simple entertainment.
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[Text]
This post feels like a waste of space now.]
milk 2 cartoons
eggs 12er
butter 8 stix
[Text]
[ooc: He's referencing this novel there.]
[Video]
If Pinoko can't cook it, she doesn't need it!
[Video]
[ooc: He expects it'll soar majestically over most everyone's heads, which is why he says things like that.]
[Video]
... shay, are you new here? Pinoko doesn't think she's ever sheen you around before.
[Video]
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History is fit to judge nothing. It is merely a collection of the mistakes and successes of mortals, and it is just as fallible as the men from which it rose.
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History is infallible because it is what was. The records are the records of men and therefore imperfect. But that which was was, even if it is altered in the past, in the present, or in the future. A gesture which is made exists for all time in the space wherein it was made, whether or not that gesture was observed or noted.
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Yes, but even a perfect recollection of history does not provide or replace morality. Otherwise, higher governing forces would have no reason at all to exist. If you are harking to history to give us examples of the consequences of treason, this has no bearing in morality. Many mortals, and gods even, have died in the pursuit of a moral goal that was accomplished by invoking punishment upon corrupt authority.
I am not taking a side, merely pointing this out...although you have done no pleasantries to me, either.
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I didn't say "recollection." I mean history itself, not the descriptions of events.
Pleasantries aren't in my job description.
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Gods are notorious for taking advantage of their power and immortality to never learn their lesson...but I hope you have learned something from this. Help the City, and the City may help you. There are those of us who can assist, if you are willing to be kinder to the population, or at least to explain why you cannot be as such.
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But even if you do not wish to say -- will you help us nonetheless?
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My hands are tied.
There is no real direction here, neither lines of power nor cooperation.
Decisions are never really made--at best they manage to emerge, from a chaos of peeves, whims, hallucinations and all around assholery.
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Such is the way of the crowd, but such chaos can be influenced. It is not purely random.
Thank you for telling me what you have.