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Spaceways, v. 4, issue 5, whole no. 28, June 1942
Page 12
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12 SPACEWAYS LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP, CYNIC adept at foul-play, deceit; he's got to be the unprincipled; he can have no conscience nor morals; he's got to kill and kill and kill some more or be killed. Yeah, sure, the Boskonian culture is essentially cooperative. Why not, with the Boskonian creed of "cooperate or die"? And even then the cooperation is merely superficial. SSL, p IV, p 116: "There was no real unity among them (- Gannel's Council of Twelve -) ....each....fighting his fellows as well as working to overthrow....the Tyrant." Really swell cooperation, don't you think? Civilization only resorted to that creed when it was civilizing a planet and it was necessary to weed out unrelenting Boskonian power-crazed individuals from the mass of swayable Boskonians. Not many individuals can alter a planet's existence except the very highest in Civilization's scale of values, and these have been proved worthy by past experience. And if he does alter the planet's course of existence, it is for the good of the planet or Civilization in general; not for his own personal good. And furthermore, show me where any trusted individual of Civilization alters the entire course of a planet's existence without a consultation with at the very least one other entity who is at least his equal. More often it is a conference of a half a dozen, some of whom are his superiors. Clarissa MacDougal has a great brain. You have (no doubt unconsciously) at last made a general statement that is true. But as usual your subsequent sentences in which you try to disprove that statement are for the most part gibberish. Let me digress a moment. Your first two general statements that you said Sir Smith made have already been proved false. Smith never made any such claims as you say he did in general statements nos. 1 and 2. And even when you try to disprove statements that were never made in the first place, you get inextricably tangled up in your own false assumptions, as has been proved. But at least you are improving. General statement three is at least true. Smith has at least implied the greatness of Mac's brain. Then you try and prove she hasn't any such kind of a brain at all. Let us look at your proof-- What has Chris' not removing her clothes on Lyrane II got to do with her mental capacities? I'll tell you: the sum total of nothing. Most women who have had the idea of clothes drilled into them for countless generations cannot just up and discard them. Even great brains. Men, being men, can. The matter of clothes is entirely irrelevant because it does not prove a thing, pro or con, anent[[?]] Mac's said mental capacities. So her mission was a secret, eh? So the Lyranians do not notice her clothes, eh? I wish you would check up on your statements before you make them, Cynic. But I suppose if you did, you wouldn't have anything to say. Listen: (SSL, p III, p 101, Helen of Lyrane toherself): "Those outrageous males....had pretended not to be inimical, as had the peculiar, white-swathed Tellurian near-person who had been worming itself into her confidence in order to study the disappearances." Does that sound as if she were operating secretly (meaning unknown to the Lyranians) and that said Lyranians took no notice of her clothes? She wasn't masquerading as a Lyranian but merely trying to become friends with the Lyranian bigshots and thus uncover information valuable to the Patrol. I will agree with you on that point about sanitation but I disagree with you on the uniform. First: Chris did not live in this era. A technicality, I admit; but nevertheless... Secondly: When she donned a nurse's uniform after Kinnison had picked her up on Lyrane she was still Chief Sector Nurse. Lastly but by no means leastly, may I call your very observant attention to a little quote which apparently you overlooked? (SSL, p IV, -126, Mac to Brenleer, shopping after having resigned as C, S. Nurse): "Clothes, all kinds of clothes, except nurse's uniforms." Except nurse's uniforms! Really, Cynic, I feel sorry for you. And now at long last we come to your last general statement. "The Arisians are supposed to be super-super-supers." I have no quarrel with that, except that the "supposed" is extraneous. Sir Smith has very definitely stated that
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12 SPACEWAYS LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP, CYNIC adept at foul-play, deceit; he's got to be the unprincipled; he can have no conscience nor morals; he's got to kill and kill and kill some more or be killed. Yeah, sure, the Boskonian culture is essentially cooperative. Why not, with the Boskonian creed of "cooperate or die"? And even then the cooperation is merely superficial. SSL, p IV, p 116: "There was no real unity among them (- Gannel's Council of Twelve -) ....each....fighting his fellows as well as working to overthrow....the Tyrant." Really swell cooperation, don't you think? Civilization only resorted to that creed when it was civilizing a planet and it was necessary to weed out unrelenting Boskonian power-crazed individuals from the mass of swayable Boskonians. Not many individuals can alter a planet's existence except the very highest in Civilization's scale of values, and these have been proved worthy by past experience. And if he does alter the planet's course of existence, it is for the good of the planet or Civilization in general; not for his own personal good. And furthermore, show me where any trusted individual of Civilization alters the entire course of a planet's existence without a consultation with at the very least one other entity who is at least his equal. More often it is a conference of a half a dozen, some of whom are his superiors. Clarissa MacDougal has a great brain. You have (no doubt unconsciously) at last made a general statement that is true. But as usual your subsequent sentences in which you try to disprove that statement are for the most part gibberish. Let me digress a moment. Your first two general statements that you said Sir Smith made have already been proved false. Smith never made any such claims as you say he did in general statements nos. 1 and 2. And even when you try to disprove statements that were never made in the first place, you get inextricably tangled up in your own false assumptions, as has been proved. But at least you are improving. General statement three is at least true. Smith has at least implied the greatness of Mac's brain. Then you try and prove she hasn't any such kind of a brain at all. Let us look at your proof-- What has Chris' not removing her clothes on Lyrane II got to do with her mental capacities? I'll tell you: the sum total of nothing. Most women who have had the idea of clothes drilled into them for countless generations cannot just up and discard them. Even great brains. Men, being men, can. The matter of clothes is entirely irrelevant because it does not prove a thing, pro or con, anent[[?]] Mac's said mental capacities. So her mission was a secret, eh? So the Lyranians do not notice her clothes, eh? I wish you would check up on your statements before you make them, Cynic. But I suppose if you did, you wouldn't have anything to say. Listen: (SSL, p III, p 101, Helen of Lyrane toherself): "Those outrageous males....had pretended not to be inimical, as had the peculiar, white-swathed Tellurian near-person who had been worming itself into her confidence in order to study the disappearances." Does that sound as if she were operating secretly (meaning unknown to the Lyranians) and that said Lyranians took no notice of her clothes? She wasn't masquerading as a Lyranian but merely trying to become friends with the Lyranian bigshots and thus uncover information valuable to the Patrol. I will agree with you on that point about sanitation but I disagree with you on the uniform. First: Chris did not live in this era. A technicality, I admit; but nevertheless... Secondly: When she donned a nurse's uniform after Kinnison had picked her up on Lyrane she was still Chief Sector Nurse. Lastly but by no means leastly, may I call your very observant attention to a little quote which apparently you overlooked? (SSL, p IV, -126, Mac to Brenleer, shopping after having resigned as C, S. Nurse): "Clothes, all kinds of clothes, except nurse's uniforms." Except nurse's uniforms! Really, Cynic, I feel sorry for you. And now at long last we come to your last general statement. "The Arisians are supposed to be super-super-supers." I have no quarrel with that, except that the "supposed" is extraneous. Sir Smith has very definitely stated that
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