James E Hartley

Preserving a Culture

As I have rather frequently noted, when asked about the learning goals for my classes, I always reply, “To help students learn to read Shakespeare for Pleasure.”

Since most of my classes are in the Economics department, this answer always strikes people as a bit, well, odd. But, I am not joking when I say that.

To say that we learn economics in order to learn to read Shakespeare for pleasure is making a cultural argument. The study of economics is part of a larger intellectual culture, one in which we build models of the world in order to understand the world. The cultural argument is that Newton, Austen, and Smith were all building models, that thinking about those models is both enjoyable and illuminating, and that when you can learn from both Dickens and Ricardo, then you can enjoy learning from Shakespeare.

A vital part of this argument is that there is something about this culture which is worth preserving, worth handing down to the next generation. To see why it is worth preserving culture, we first need to think about what it means to have a culture. Enter T.S. Eliot.

“Notes Toward the Definition of Culture” is one of the essays in Eliot’s Christianity and Culture. The essay has seemingly modest aim: to define the word “culture.” Being by Eliot, the essay roams widely into all sorts of obscure nooks and crannies, but if you have ever read any of Eliot’s poems, you would expect nothing else.

The crisp definition of culture is:

Culture may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living. And it is what justifies other people and other generations in saying, when they contemplate the remains and the influence of an extinct civilization, that is was worth while for that civilization to have existed.

That is a marvelous description of a culture in two ways. First, it is a rather accurate way of distinguishing our culture from the other aspects of our lives. Second, it gives a means to categorize a culture as a good culture or a bad culture by letting the future be the jury.

Culture comes in at many levels. There are the historical relics (Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby); the European imports (Hamlet, War and Peace, the Mona Lisa); the modern blockbusters (Marvel, Harry Potter); streaming TV (The Queen’s Gambit, Real Housewives); music (Bach, John Williams, Lana Del Rey and Dr. Dre); the holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, July 4);and the mighty trio (NFL, NBA, MLB). High culture, low culture, and maybe even something in between.

What is important is a structure of society in which there will be, from “top” to “bottom,” a continuous gradation of cultural levels: it is important to remember that we should not consider the upper levels as possessing more culture than the lowest, but as representing a more conscious culture and a greater specialisation of culture. I incline to believe that no true democracy can maintain itself unless it contains these different levels of culture.

The challenge for the modern age is thus not to ensure the existence of culture. The Kardashians will always be with us. Neither the NFL nor Marvel is on the verge of vanishing. The challenge for our age is to preserve high culture, to remind people that just because you like J.K Rowling, you shouldn’t skip discovering the joys of Dante.

There is a popular misperception that high culture is some sort of church demanding strict obedience; Thou shalt not speak ill of Shakespeare. While there is inevitably a relationship between the religion and the culture of a society, in both cases there is an acute need for debate and discussion within the hallowed inner chambers. Eliot’s comments on Christianity and culture apply equally to the discussion about the Great Books and music and painting.

Christendom should be one: the form of organisation and the locus of powers in that unity are questions upon which we cannot pronounce. But within that unity there should be an endless conflict between ideas—for it is only by the struggle against constantly appearing false ideas that the truth is enlarged and clarified, and in the conflict with heresy that orthodoxy is developed to meet the needs of the times; an endless effort also on the part of each region to shape its Christianity to suit itself, an effort which should neither be wholly suppressed nor left wholly unchecked. The local temperament must express its particularity in its form of Christianity, and so must the social stratum, so that the culture proper to each area and each class may flourish; but there must also be a force holding these areas and these classes together. If this corrective force in the direction of uniformity of belief and practice is lacking, then the culture of each part will suffer.

Another way of framing the challenge of our age is making sure there are enough people in the next generation to carry on that endless conflict between ideas in the sanctums of higher culture, to carry on the battles against heresy and work out the orthodoxy of the age.

High culture is ever at risk because the forces of low culture are like the sea eternally crashing upon the rocks. No matter how strong the rocks are, the sea will never stop crashing against them; but there is no guarantee the rocks will persevere against the forces of the sea. Sometimes a culture will crack under the strain; and the question for future generation is whether the culture produced anything still worthy of veneration.

Teaching people about the glories of high culture is not (or at least should not be) saying that mass culture is unworthy of attention. I, for one, thoroughly enjoy superheroes and the NFL. Mass culture does indeed fit Eliot’s description of being part of the thing that makes life worth living. But nether WandaVision nor the 2021 NFL Draft will be the thing that future generations look back on and say “It is good that such a civilization existed.” The legislation passed by Congress in 1885 is not what we remember about that year; we remember Huckleberry Finn, and we remember it because it is worth remembering. The challenge for education is now what it has always been, to hand down that culture so that Huckleberry Finn will never be forgotten.

Deep Reading Brain, RIP

Will the generation after yours still be able to read? If we think of “reading” as basic literacy, then the answer is surely “Yes.” But, what if we think of reading as the ability to sit down with a 300 page physical book and concentrate on it and ponder its depths? What if we think of reading in the way it is portrayed in those images of yore, of a person in a room with a book and no distractions, no computers or phones or televisions? Will that kind of reading still exist in the generation after yours?

I first started thinking about this question back in 2009 when I heard a talk by James Bowman. You can read the talk here—highly recommended; it is one of the most memorable talks I have ever heard. Bowman began with the arresting statement, “You might not know it to look at me, but I used to be pretty smart.” He explains:

Intuitively, however, I feel that my time spent online has robbed me of at least some of my powers of concentration, and I believe that a very significant component, if not the principal one, of intelligence is the power of concentration. Or, to put it the other way around, stupidity is the inability to focus, and my ability to focus has become severely compromised.

Bowman, the media critic for The New Criterion, spends a lot of time reading things online. A lot of time. So do you (like right now, for example…). So do I.

Maryanne Wolf has a book about the phenomenon: Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. It is the study of the science of the reading brain. People have been doing all these brain studies where they watch which parts of the brain light up and we now know a lot about how the reading brain works. I really wanted to love this book. (More about that anon.)

Wolf begins starkly: “human beings were never born to read.” Reading is an acquired skill, a rather important acquired skill: “the quality of our reading is not only an index of the quality of our thought, it is our best-known path to developing whole new pathways in the cerebral evolution of our species.” The way in which humans learn how to read has a radical influence on the way the brain develops, which has a huge impact on the way the brain works.

The young reader can either develop all the multiple deep-reading processes that are currently embodied in the fully elaborated, expert reading brain; or the novice reading brain can become “short-circuited’ in its development; or it can acquire whole new networks in different circuits. There will be profound differences in how we read and how we think, depending on which processes dominate the formation of the young child’s reading circuit

In other words, how we read is rather important in determining the shape of our existence in the future.

Wolf is particularly alarmed by the slow death of “deep reading.” “Will the quality of our attention change as we read on mediums that advantage immediacy, dart-quick task switching, and continuous monitoring of distraction, as opposed to the more deliberative focusing of our attention?” Learning how to read in a digital age does not involve developing “cognitive patience.”

What develops instead is “continuous partial attention.” Look around and you can instantly see that. It more than just having multiple browser windows open simultaneously. It is the loss of an ability to only have one browser window open. You can see it vividly in a college classroom these days. A not insignificant portion of the students have a nearly impossible time focusing on the class; they literally don’t know how to do only one thing at a time and concentrate on that one thing. When I assign books to read, I know in advance that a portion of the class literally has never developed the ability to sit in a quiet room with just a book and read it. They have never had to do that in their lives. The question is whether this will move from being a minority of the class to a majority of the class to almost the entire class in the future.

The science of reading is pretty clear. For example, if you give two sets of students the same reading assignment, but some read it in a physical book and some read it electronically, the students with the physical book have a much higher comprehension. This applies to novels, for example: students with the physical book have a higher ability to do something as simple as remember the plot of the novel in chronological order. Given the choice between reading a physical textbook and an electronic textbook, it is not even close which you should choose if you want to learn the subject.

It is not that you can’t learn anything in an electronic reading environment; it is simply that you will not learn things as deeply or as well. Your attention flitters hither and yon, picking up a bit here and a bit there. This has an effect on cognition; screen readers do not develop the ability for sustained thought and attention.

What are the consequences of this change in the reading brain? Well, this is where I really wanted to like this book. James Bowman pointed to all of the above in his talk back in 2009. Here I have a book published a decade later purporting to be an examination of the science on the matter, and while it confirms Bowman’s autobiographical account, the evidence in this book turns out to be primarily a larger collection of anecdotes with a few studies tossed in. On the question of what the future reading brain will be like, the book has nothing to offer. We don’t know what the next generation’s cognitive pathways will create.

As a result, the book ends with a question mark. We know what the Deep Reading Brain is and has done. We know the Deep Reading Brain is dying off and may not exist in the next generation. Is the development of the Electronic Reading Brain an evolutionary advance or regression? In order to lament the loss of deep reading, that seems to be a pretty important question. Wolf clearly thinks it is a regression; I do too. But it would have been nice if this book had more to offer that simply saying that Wolf doesn’t like the way things are headed.

That is the Law; Are We Not Men?

Not to go on all-Fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to eat Flesh or Fish; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to claw Bark of Trees; that is the law. Are we not Men?
Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

Hmm. I’d like to say that 4 out of 5 ain’t bad. And yet, I know I stand condemned of violating the Law. Does this make me less than human? This recitation of the Law is in H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau. The Beast Folk (described below) use it to remind themselves what it is to be Human. You can hear the echoes of Leviticus.

The plot for those who don’t know: Dr. Moreau vivisects animals, turning them into men. The experiments are not successfully complete. The animals still retain some remnant of the beast even when they seem more like Humans.

So the Law is put in to tell them know how to behave. If you recite the Law often enough, maybe those habits will get ingrained. You’ll stop going on all fours and clawing the bark of trees and trying to eat the other newly created humans. The beasts learn to think of Moreau as God, punishing violations of the Law. His is the house of Pain. It will shock you to hear that things do not go well on this island.

Wells clearly wants us to think that the Law is silly, that Moreau is capricious and cruel. We are meant to be struck with horror at Moreau. But (Allegory Alert!), Wells is not simply wanting you to think about Moreau and his animals. Moreau is God who creates these beings and then gives them the Law in the hopes that they will behave better than their nature induces them to behave. When the created beings disobey the Law, Moreau causes pain. The created beings thus have to deny their true natures to conform to a painful process of becoming something they are not. And Wells wants you to read this allegory and realize that the entire Christian narrative is fundamentally cruel.

Yet, is the Law really all that bad? Imagine you were a beast, with a beast’s nature. Would not your life be better if you could overcome your nature and live a higher life? Why should we celebrate the nature of the beast? That isn’t a thought experiment at all; just think about your own life. Who can honestly say that he has committed no sin? Who can honestly say that they are not better than they would be in the absence of any Law or moral codes restraining their baser instincts?

Think of all the things you have done that you think are wrong. Not to do those things; that is the Law. Are you not human? Then you realize that, well, maybe you are a bit of a beast after all, not even living up to your own standard of righteousness. Wells seems to be suggesting that the whole idea of the Law is the problem; that it is absurd to ask beasts to behave like men. But is it? Is it absurd to turn bad men into better men? Should we all just revel in our own depravity? Why shouldn’t we be grateful for a standard of behavior that shows us how Men should behave?

But, this isn’t the sort of question Wells wants us to ask when reading his book.

I once spent a merry couple of hours talking about Moreau’s whole experiment with a group of students. Is it wrong to turn animals into men? If I could create dog-man, would that be good? Should a firm embrace diversity by hiring cat-woman and cow-man? Would we all be happy working with these new beings?

There was instinctive revulsion among my students when the question was raised—which is pretty interesting when you think about it. What would be so wrong with meeting a being which was born a pig and has been modified so that it can walk and talk like a human? Would you want to have dinner with pig-man? Or marry ape-woman? Is there something fundamentally morally wrong with the idea of creating such a being? Are there limits, ethical limits, to such things?

All in all, for a schlocky sensationalistic trashy novel, there are quite a few things worth discussing in it. Did Wells then write Great Books? I have a hard time thinking he did. Yet, here we are a century and a quarter after this book was published reading and talking about it.

That may well be the most troubling thing about this whole book.

The Unquenchable Spark of Humanity

“I wish the book didn’t make me SO sad — I started reading it knowing nothing about the storyline or the author. There are no happy characters, no tying things in a bow, no joyous moments unmarred by sorrow. Yet, you can’t help but sympathize with each of the main characters.”

That was the summary one of my former students provided in a fledgling online reading group. The book: Toni Morrison’s Beloved.

But, first some background (which will seem to you, Dear Reader, to be utterly without interest. Bear with me for a moment.) I first picked up this book many decades ago before I really knew how to read. I don’t mean before I was literate; I mean before I knew how to read with insight and understanding. I hated the book; I quit around page 75. If you asked me about the book I would have said: It is the story of a woman named Sethe who escaped from slavery, had a baby named Beloved who died, and then years later this mysterious stranger named Beloved shows up who doesn’t act human and has supernatural powers and nobody can put two and two together and why exactly am I reading a ghost story because I don’t even like ghost stories. Like I said, I didn’t know how to read yet.

I decided to start it again after reading Morrison’s brilliant novel The Bluest Eye. Suffice it to say, it is not even remotely the book I read before I knew how to read. Indeed, even the ghost in the story is different. The book is deliberately vague about Beloved (and, as discussed below, other things). Maybe she is the ghost of Sethe’s daughter, maybe the ghost of her mother, maybe a composite of all the dead, but the possibility I like best is raised by Stamp Paid toward the end of the novel: “Huh. Was a girl locked up in the house with a whiteman over by Deer Creek. Found him dead last summer and the girl gone. Maybe that’s her. Folks say he had her in there since she was a pup.”

Why do I like that interpretation? It adds yet another piece to the question raised by this novel which intrigues me a great deal. Is human dignity something which can be eradicated from a person?

The way that sort of question is normally raised is asking whether it is possible for one person to treat another person as if the second person was something less than human. Obviously that is true; there are so many examples, it is inescapable. The capacity in humans to treat other humans like animals (or worse) is extraordinary and provides the best evidence for Original Sin that I can imagine. It is depressing to start thinking of the creative ways that humans have invented purely to torture other human beings. Human depravity is a real thing. In order to commit atrocities of this sort, it does seem psychologically necessary to dehumanize your victims. To do otherwise would be difficult, to say the least.

That, however, is not the intriguing question raised in Beloved. Yes, the novel has accounts of horrific cruelty, but so do lots of other books. Beloved flips the question around. In the face of such evil, can a person lose their own inherent dignity or their own moral balance?

There are multiple books showing the triumph of the human spirit in the face of evil. Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, for example, is a massive argument that no matter what tortures and degradations are heaped upon people, human dignity remains, the human spirit prevails. Jean Hatzfeld’s books on Rwanda show the same thing. Books like that are inspiring even though the stories, the true stories, contained in them will tear apart your soul.

So, we know that it is possible to retain human dignity in the face of evil. But, what about the other way? Is it possible to lose human dignity? Is it possible that the inhumanity of one’s oppressors can squash the last vestige of humanity in a soul? Is it possible for a person to turn into an unthinking reactionary beast because the person has been treated that way for so long?

That is the question about the characters in Beloved. The characters suffered horror, true horror, as slaves, legally considered property, not people. Even after they are free, their lives are shattered beyond repair. These are broken people. All of them are broken. They cope with that brokenness in assorted ways. It is hard to feel happy about the lives any of these characters lead, but it is not hard to admire many of them for their persistence in the face of evil. Paul D and Baby Suggs are straight out of Solzhenitsyn.

But what about Sethe? Her story is horrific, easily the most horrific story in the book. It is hard to imagine a heart so made of stone it would not break encountering Sethe’s story. Yet, it is also hard to offer her your unqualified admiration. Living in freedom, she sees her former oppressors riding her way. Afraid of what is to come, she gathers her children, kills her baby daughter, and attempts to kill her sons.

What do we make of this act of desperation? A mother killing her own baby is the sort of story that becomes one of those TV trials these days. People are horrified. People ask how any mother could do such a thing? Do we say the same thing about Sethe? Or do we understand how she could do such a thing? Does her history explain her act of infanticide? Do we pity her? Or judge her?

The question underlying all that is how we, the Readers, look at Sethe. Is she a moral agent making an immoral decision? Can we say that the act was actually moral, that she was right to kill her baby daughter? Can we say we understand why she did it, but still condemn her for doing it? Would you sentence Sethe for the crime of infanticide or excuse her from punishment because of why she did it? And, the most disturbing question of all: are you thinking that what has happened to Sethe has actually removed her from the realm in which questions of guilt or innocence are appropriate?

Beloved raises these question, but I do not think it provides an answer. That is why the question of who or what Beloved is becomes so important. If Beloved is another women who escaped from captivity and then tried to find a way to get through life, then it adds to this story of moral accountability in the face of evil. Is what Beloved did right? And the fact that the nature of the character is ambiguous, the novel raises it to a question not just about the characters in this novel but all people in all time who have suffered under true cruelty. It is possible and inspiring for people to persevere in the face of that cruelty. But, what do we say about the people who were crushed by the cruelty? If they in turn commit cruel acts, how do we judge them?

A Caustic Wit

“The University and other colleges are probably not justified by the existence of any one individual of excellence who may emerge from their course of study but by the fact that every member of the community should be provided the opportunity to develop his or her abilities for their own and the community’s betterment. I have not heard of any preening man being singled out for not achieving the pinnacle of success, so long as he is otherwise conscientious and useful and does not become a financial burden to society.”

The first thing to note about that quotation is how much it would be nice if College Presidents and PR departments talked like that. Most students, by definition, will not become the Best in the World, but all too often colleges talk as if their only goal is to produce more graduates who become internationally famous.

The second thing to note is the source. Kitty Kielland’s The Woman Question: In Answer to Pastor J. M. Faerden. That particular paragraph is demolishing the argument that women don’t need higher education because women are incapable of rising to the summits of success. There are, Pastor Faerden suggests, no female Beethovens or Mozarts, no famous historians. (Why historians? I have no idea.) Kielland suspects that women would be capable of rising to those heights, but the clever thing about her argument is that it bypasses it entirely by noting that not all educated men rise to great heights. She was too polite to note that Faerden is a good example.

The book was written in 1886, but until now, there has never been an English translation of the Norwegian text. Christopher Fauske just remedied that rather surprising fact. Kielland is not a name most people recognize, but they should. Kitty’s brother, Alexander, wrote what was for a time considered one of the Greatest Books in Western literature, Skipper Worse. (It is in the Harvard Classics five foot bookshelf of the great works of the West.) A few years back, Fauske translated the novel, and in doing the background work on Kielland, he discovered this book which his sister wrote.

(Side note: At present, Amazon does not have a decent English translation of Skipper Worse for sale. You can get the Fauske translation here. It was a rather good novel: review here. The Woman Question is on Amazon—you can click on the picture of the cover above to go there.)

Kitty Kielland was also, once upon a time, a well-known name in the art world, being one of the first generation of female painters showing they could create art every bit as amazing as their male counterparts. Undoubtedly in part because of her annoyance at the implicit barriers to female artists, she took her complaints to print. Faerden was displeased by Kielland’s arguments, so he proceeded to criticize them. Kielland replied in devastating fashion in The Woman Question.

The book was obviously written in an impassioned haste full of snark. Most amusingly, there is no Pastor J. M. Faerden. It is actually M. J. Faerden; the initials were reversed on the title page. The argument is episodic, reading like many of my students venting about something that really annoys them, jumping from arguemnt to argument, each new argument adding to the indignation of the last argument.

Two of the arguments really intrigued me. First:

In any case, the position of the housewife is that of the manager, and think how easy this work is for her because of inventions which more and more simplify housework. What a difference there is from our grandmother—yes, our grandmothers. How could they not look contemptuously at how things now are in a home we find ourselves comfortable in? They respected the fact that everything was spun, woven, knitted, and sewn in the house, that they themselves baked the bread, brewed the beer, and molded the candles. Who knows if there won’t be even more differences some few decades in the future, even greater simplification and family happiness?

I have read that exact argument many times in writings from the feminists of the 1960s. Managing a house in the age of electricity and indoor plumbing and refrigerators and dishwashers and gas or electric stoves and ovens is a rather different thing than doing the same job in the 19^th century. But Kielland wrote that passage in 1886, not 1966. Yeah, there were a few innovations in homelife in the decades that followed her. As Robert Gordon documents at length in The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the half century after Kielland wrote was the biggest revolution in managing homelife in the history of the world. Just about every appliance you regularly use in your house came into being in the “some few decades” Kielland foresees. Kitty Kielland is a prophet.

Second:

The author does not deny our time contains specific “moral hazards for the growing family,” but he believes this is in large part due to modern literature. While no one seems to think any book of modern literature is appropriate as a confirmation or birthday present for young people, that cannot be the standard by which literature is judged. And is it books that promote immorality or is it, in our case, the exact opposite? Is it not the immorality of society that shapes literature, mainly to be a scourge of chastisement?

Ah, yes, those immoral books of the 1880s. The year 1886, for example, saw the publication of Henry James’ The Bostonians and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But, the most striking thing about that remark is comparing it to our age. Which is more likely to be considered immoral these days: a modern book or a book from the past? The Pastor Faerdens are still among us, they just switched sides in the literature wars.

Kielland’s The Woman Question is not a Great Book, but it is a fun book. As Fauske notes: “Her verve and confidence, scathing wit, and indignant ability (and willingness) to point out stupidity and hubris brought me back to the text again and again.” Exactly so. The Kiellands, both Kitty and Alexander, deserve to be better known these days than they are. Let us hope Fauske keeps going with the translations.

Rooting for Team Human

The Library of America’s American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels, 1960-1966 opens with Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade. (N.b., that is not a typo in the first name—it really is Poul.)

If you like fun, short science fiction novels this is not to be missed.

“Short” is an interesting adjective—one of the things that happened in the 1960s is that science fiction novels started to become long. They eventually became very very long. Try to find a recent great science fiction novel that is under 600 pages (and being part one of a trilogy does not count). It can be done, but it is hard.

The High Crusade also fits into the genre called “Space Opera”—an odd term indicating a multiple-planet, multiple-alien races all fighting in some grand battles full of lots of over-the-top melodramatic moments. The “opera” part is curious since operas are not like that. But, you know what is like that? Soap operas. Hence the name.

Here is what makes The High Crusade stand out. The story takes place in 1345—yes, 1345, not 3145. An alien race lands its space ship in Merrie Olde England, where it encounters Sir Roger, a Baron, who had just mustered his army to go off to fight the dastardly French. Out of the massive spaceship comes hideous figures using their ray guns to slay the valiant Englishmen. The battle ensues, and Thanks Be To God, the Englishmen with their bows and swords win the day against the vastly outnumbered aliens.

Then it gets really interesting. Having just defeated these horrid creatures who are obviously the French, Sir Roger leads his army onto the Ship, commanding the lone surviving alien to take them back to his homeland of France where the English army can join (and win) the war. The alien complies, flying the ship home, which to the surprise of the English, but not the Reader, is not France at all, but a distant planet.

Commence the Story Proper. What happens when a 14^th century English Army ends up on a planet populated by an alien race which rules an interstellar empire? The ship which landed on Earth was a scout ship, seeking new planets to conquer. Obviously our 14th century Heroes are doomed in a war against these empire builders and their advanced technology.

Ah, Dear Reader, you have sold Humanity short. Sir Roger does us proud. Like I said, a very fun story, complete with a subplot worthy of Sir Lancelot and Guinevere! Space Opera meets Soap Opera. Settle in for a Rollicking Good Time.

Once you have enjoyed reading this tale, you can sit back and ask: Should you feel guilty for enjoying this book?

Crime Number 1: Was it OK to root for the Humans? Here we have a tale where the Humans come up against another species (the Wersgorix) and the humans merrily engage in a war against them. The Wersgorix aren’t nice, to be sure—they did just land a scout ship on earth and started incinerating humans, after all. They also have captured a whole bunch of planets and formed their Empire. So these aliens are Bad Guys. But, in a war between Humans and Wersgorix, which side is in the Right?

Let’s be Honest. You, Dear Reader, are not at all troubled by this question. Obviously you are on Team Human. Why? It’s pretty obvious. You are Human. (Sadly, the Wersgorix do not read this here blog—that is just the kind of race they are, those Wersgorix. Is it OK to curse the Wersgorix?) Since you are human, you root for humans. When a Wersgor soldier shows up, you do not root for it to destroy humans. Well, unless you are one of those nasty traitors to the human race. But, you aren’t like that, right? You would not betray all the humans to the Wersgorix, would you?

The question of whether it is OK to root for the Humans because you are Human is intriguing. Does that rule generalize? If it is OK to root for the Humans in their battle against the Wersgorix, what about in their battle against the flesh-eating wolves or malaria-bearing mosquitoes?

Crime Number 2: Was it OK to celebrate the triumph of human ingenuity against outside threats? Sir Roger and his army win the war not because they have superior weapons; they don’t. They win because they have superior minds. Humans are clever, very clever. Faced with an obstacle, humans figure out how to solve it. Are 14^th century humans up against a technologically advanced Empire? Why did you think the humans had the disadvantage? Which would you rather have on your side: ray guns or human minds?

If it is OK to celebrate the triumph of human ingenuity in the war against the Wersgorix, what about in the war against the planet? The planet is a hostile place. Most species discover they can only live in a small ecological niche on the planet. But humans? Is it not amazing that humans can live anywhere they want? Is it not amazing that humans constantly figure out how to conquer the environment? Is it wrong to think that is amazing and root for human ingenuity when the environment puts up obstacles?

The surprising thing about The High Crusade is how much it celebrates Humanity. If you want to feel good about your species, this is a great story. Does anyone still write stories showing how amazing humanity is?