From: pchaston (pchaston@supanet.com)
Date: Sat May 11 2002 - 17:28:31 MDT
I know that many contributors to this list are familiar with the works of
Ken MacLeod and the books that he has published.
In an interview with Reason online, dated November 2000, MacLeod detailed
his reasons for illustrating green extremism in his novels. It is reproduced
as follows:
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Q: You also seem to view the Greens more positively in The Sky Road than in
the earlier books in the series. But they seem to be different Greens,
because they don’t ban technology or persecute scientists, let alone empty
the cities like Pol Pot. Do you see them as the same group taking a
different path, or essentially a different group altogether?
A: They are the descendants of the "barbarians" who appear in the other
books, but they’ve been influenced in a more humanist direction, partly by
some of the people involved and partly by the necessities of survival. The
Star Fraction is full of venom against the "Green slime," partly because I
was really, really pissed off at the time at people like animal rights
terrorists and these "deep Greens"–in fact, I still am, I don’t withdraw a
single word against these people–but there are more humanist-oriented
ecologically concerned people, and they become the foundation of the new
society in The Sky Road.
*************************************
As I am still opposed, at this point in time, to viewing
extropianism/transhumanism as an embattled philosophy that has to sterotype
an enemy as "luddites" or "bioluddites", I would ask, do individuals on this
list differentiate between humanistic-oriented Greens and the MacLeodian
description of the "Deep Greens"?
Philip Chaston
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