Look to the West Volume V: To Dream Again

[ArKhan]

Thanks for the typo correction Admiral Matt, have edited.


The TL has never been without them. As Owen says, Societism was there from the very first trial maps I did in 2006, which still had the Kingdom of Virginia, Prussia-Poland and Cooksland. In many ways, it is the central subject of the TL.

We are building up now to the big confrontation of the twentieth century, it would be a bit silly for someone to write about the OTL twentieth century and never mention Marx or communism until 1917.

If you mean how when writing about other subjects the in-timeline writers bring everything back to those ideologies--that just illustrates the political climate they are living in, like how in 1950s America the most unconnected things were claimed to be promoting Communism. It would not be an accurate reflection of 1950s America to try to edit around that fact when presenting a history of it. You could not discuss, for example, the struggle for black civil rights without talking about how opponents drew connections between it and Communism. You could not discuss cultural trends in music or literature or comic books without bringing up paranoia about nuclear war and Sputnik and the Red Menace. And so on.

Here's an idea, surly there are other ideologies in TTL beside those two? How about focusing on those for a change? At this point ANYTHING that has absolutely nothing to do with either would be a welcome change. I'd even take a list of alternate ice cream flavors over more of that D vs S crap. When this timeline started out it was interesting and exciting, but your overuse of the D vs S angle has made it boring, repetitive, and several other unpleasant adjectives. In short stop trying to ram then down our throat even in updates that have NOTHING to do with them.

 

[HIM Dogson]

The Jacobins were literally French steampunk Nazis.
And I really liked them for being so (technologically) advanced and evil.

Yeah, I fear that when the final confrontation with Societism comes Thande won't be able to top Liseaux and Boulanger.

 

[ArKhan]

Yeah, I fear that when the final confrontation with Societism comes Thande won't be able to top Liseaux and Boulanger.

Indeed, that was brilliant writing, and best of all had nothing to do with either ideology. Why can't we have more updates like that?

 

[Mumby]

Indeed, that was brilliant writing, and best of all had nothing to do with either ideology. Why can't we have more updates like that?

No offence, but you are coming across as very ignorant and bossy.

 

[Hobelhouse]

Something to consider might be the development of a "third way" ideology that claims to navigate between the extremes of Societism and Diversitarianism... like fascism claimed to be OTL. In theory (to the extent they had theory) the fascists claimed to be for class collaboration, in service to the Nation, rather than capitalist or communist flavors of class conflict in service to individualism or the international proletariat. Actually, come to think of it, fascism itself might fit the bill with a few tweaks. The Nazis were very... Enthusiastic about the distinctiveness of the German nation, but were also ... enthusiastic about Unity within the nation and purging anyone in or outside the nation who didn't fit their mold. Fascism reconciles the Diversitarian value of national distinctiveness and the Societist value of Unity by throwing out the values of internationalism and equality of peoples, which they both share but express in different ways. "Societism in One Nation" might be appealing to sufficiently brutalized nations like fascism was OTL. Both ideologies would find something to hate in it.

 

[Fleetlord]

Here's an idea, surly there are other ideologies in TTL beside those two? How about focusing on those for a change? At this point ANYTHING that has absolutely nothing to do with either would be a welcome change. I'd even take a list of alternate ice cream flavors over more of that D vs S crap. When this timeline started out it was interesting and exciting, but your overuse of the D vs S angle has made it boring, repetitive, and several other unpleasant adjectives. In short stop trying to ram then down our throat even in updates that have NOTHING to do with them.

Can we also have some episodes of Doctor Who without any of that weird time travel shit?

But seriously, you speak for no-one but yourself ArKhan, please don't affect otherwise.

 

[HIM Dogson]

Indeed, that was brilliant writing, and best of all had nothing to do with either ideology. Why can't we have more updates like that?

I have confidence that, whether Thande manages to top Liseaux, whatever he writes about Societism will be interesting and engaging, as this entire TL has been so far.

 

[OwenM]

I'm finding ArKhan a bit obnoxious, but seeing some Mentianism or maybe Neo-Franciscanism or Reactivism or Regressivism (we've already seen a little Cythereanism lately) would be fun if it fits into your planned updates coming up in the near future.

 

[Youngmarshall]

Have we even seen a single diversitarian or societist person in the timeline?

We've seen quotes from sanchez and future books written by diversists and societists and a framing story which revolves around both.

But the actual narrative has been about slave owners and jacobins and german pan nationalists and han vs manchu and russians in japan and muslims vs hindus in india.

If you just read the narrative of the timeline which is longer than war and peace and not the framing story (which is about 2% of the words) then you won't even recognize either of those words.

It seems a little premature to argue they're dominating.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

I like Hobelhouse's idea of an anti-Societist, anti-Diversitarian Third Way that rejects the equality of nations; it sounds like a plausible development, especially for nations which still have a strong sense of nationalism (so Societists would be demonised as traitors to the nation, quite possibly even more than communists were in OTL) but which have various historical disagreements with whoever dominates the Diversitarian bloc (Russia, the ENA, Feng China, whoever) and refuses to have any form of solidarity with any grand alliance including its geopolitical enem(ies).

I agree that Jacobin France was a breathtakingly excellent villain, and those parts of LTTW were thrilling and amazing to read. But I'm not so sure that Societism should emulate it. If Societism is meant to make us the readers think and question our own values, it would harm that purpose, rather than serving it, to make the Combine the dramatic force for evil that Lisieux's France undoubtedly was.

In regard to ArKhan's comments, I would also say that, when presented with an absolutely monumental piece of work that has taken a frankly astonishing amount of time and effort to create and is being made and provided to us for no compensation whatsoever, it seems more than a little impolite to demand that the author drop a major theme of the work for one's own personal preference.

 

[Beedok]

I like the Societism-Diversitarianism front. I didn't realise it was supposed to get us to question our values though.

One thing that I just thought of though: Surely if other nations accept Societism that's part of their cultural package and should be celebrated with the rest of their culture as Diversitarianism supports.

 

[HIM Dogson]

Oh, I don't want the Societists to be unambiguously evil, I just want them to have the same sense of Danger that the Jacobins did, which might be hard; Jean de Liseaux as a threatening villain was also excellent, as he was as evil as Hitler, to be sure, but also as brilliant as Bismarck.

 

[OwenM]

I like the Societism-Diversitarianism front. I didn't realise it was supposed to get us to question our values though.

One thing that I just thought of though: Surely if other nations accept Societism that's part of their cultural package and should be celebrated with the rest of their culture as Diversitarianism supports.

Some would probably argue that, but I imagine the general Diversitarian response would be similar to the usual response to "Isn't it undemocratic to not allow openly anti-democratic parties to run for election?".

 

[Fleetlord]

Some would probably argue that, but I imagine the general Diversitarian response would be similar to the usual response to "Isn't it undemocratic to not allow openly anti-democratic parties to run for election?".

...but it is undemocratic not to allow undemocratic parties to run.

Also, I thought that Diversitarian England had stopped censoring Societism and was instead disseminating it along with everything else so that it would lose it's "forbidden fruit" status and become just another (someone else's) culture.

 

[OwenM]

...but it is undemocratic not to allow undemocratic parties to run.

Also, I thought that Diversitarian England had stopped censoring Societism and was instead disseminating it along with everything else so that it would lose it's "forbidden fruit" status and become just another (someone else's) culture.

Yes, it is, but it's also pro-democracy. So not respecting a person's Societism would be un-Diversitarian but pro-Diversity.
And it's less "part of someone's culture" and more "(almost) everyone hates any set texts they had to read in school".

 

[Alex Richards]

Well, I'm certainly really enjoying the political discussions, and really a Third Way ideology rather has to wait until both parties are present and displaying their ideologies in a strong manner, so that's probably a bit further away- after the Pandoric War surely?

 

[Admiral Matt]

Here's an idea, surly there are other ideologies in TTL beside those two? How about focusing on those for a change? At this point ANYTHING that has absolutely nothing to do with either would be a welcome change. I'd even take a list of alternate ice cream flavors over more of that D vs S crap. When this timeline started out it was interesting and exciting, but your overuse of the D vs S angle has made it boring, repetitive, and several other unpleasant adjectives. In short stop trying to ram then down our throat even in updates that have NOTHING to do with them.

Your rudeness is unacceptable.

As for your argument, if an author happened to write some things you like in the course of writing something you don't like, the problem is on your end, not the author's.

 

[Thande]

Thanks for the positive comments everyone, I appreciate them. It's also always interesting to see speculation of the time mentioned above like Hobelhouse's "Third Wayism", and totally not just because half the time I steal the speculative ideas people suggest here for future updates

(For example I think the Californian revolt was pushed back a few years at one point just because there was so much speculation about it happening in a later timeframe than I'd planned, and then I realised it did make more sense then).

 

[Analytical Engine]

I see what you did there Thande. Does the (possibly bald, but eccentrically dressed) guard's fortune-telling mother live in a medieval castle, by any chance? And is there a giant geodesic in the middle that blasts metallic confetti everywhere, for the wayward visitors to collect?

(Seriously, you combined the Crystal Palace with the Millennium Dome. )

As for the societist vs. diversitarian dynamic, there will probably be a block of nations that are neutral. Some will be "like, whatever man, just leave me out of it", whilst others will be "STOP LOOKING AT ME!!!". Thande has mentioned before that he is setting up a cold war between two blocs that are based not on economics but on uniformity vs. diversity. I could see the Diversitarian bloc having countries with everything between a Hayek/Friedman hands-off-my-free-market system, all the way to ones based on computer-driven indicative planning, which (whilst they don't always agree) is entirely in keeping with the bloc's ideology of diversity.

Since Brazil now controls former Portuguese Africa, I can see societist states on that continent also.

Interesting that the Philippines becomes independent - I guess it was too far away to integrate into the UPSA wholesale. Presumably it is also part of the Hermandad.

Thande, I would like to know more about TTL's palaeontology (especially given that National Geographic has been jumping onto the Jurassic World bandwagon and shown a shedload of dinosaur-related programs over the past week) and perhaps about the development of railway/tram networks ITTL also.

 

[Makemakean]

Here's an idea, surly there are other ideologies in TTL beside those two? How about focusing on those for a change? At this point ANYTHING that has absolutely nothing to do with either would be a welcome change. I'd even take a list of alternate ice cream flavors over more of that D vs S crap. When this timeline started out it was interesting and exciting, but your overuse of the D vs S angle has made it boring, repetitive, and several other unpleasant adjectives. In short stop trying to ram then down our throat even in updates that have NOTHING to do with them.

That's like reading a Cold War timeline and complaining about too much of this "Communism vs. Capitalism crap", or reading a Crusade timeline and complaining about there being too much "Christianity vs. Islam crap", and asking that more emphasis is brought to Zen Buddhism for some reason.

As I've stated before, I think it's important to remember that alternate history is a genre of fiction, and is not to be regarded as a speculative science into the way things probably would have gone had a specific event gone the other way (which surprisingly many people seem to think it's supposed to be). As such, any work of alternate fiction needs to have a certain focus on the central plot, and the central plot in this particular work is the Societism vs. Diversitarianism angle, and I don't think anyone can blame Thande for including too much on the topic now.

If anything, this timeline has been going on for the better part of a full decade and it's first in recent years that Thande's begun giving us more insights into what Societism and Diversitarianism even is. Many of us readers are quite happy to finally be given the information that Thande's jealously been guarding in secrecy for years.