I once wrote most of a novel based on the speculation about what would happen if someone from another century had access to modern technology? What would the Mongol Hordes have been like if they’d been equipped with Uzis instead of bows and arrows? Think what Genghis Khan could have done with a laptop and an Internet connection. Mr. Khan was brilliant and literate but had the morals and worldview of someone from long ago and far away. Such a person would make a very interesting character and a wonderfully complex and formidable villain.
Muammar Gaddafi is puzzling to a lot of people because he is a man out of his century. He should have been a chieftain warlord of a desert tribe, brutally absolute and absolutely brutal. But here he is in a world filled with cell phones and rocket launchers, Twitter and Facebook. If you were going to write him as a character you'd have to build him carefully to make him real. He's a warrior king archetype and it would be easy for him to deteriorate into a cardboard cutout, a cartoon villain. Gaddafi belongs to a time before the world was wired together; a time before your ideas and thoughts could circle the wide world in minutes.
In his proper world people travel on horseback and ideas travel along the edge of a sword. Ideas don't change, they are not fluid. The are as solid as mountains.
When Gaddafi was interviewed by the western press they were confused and perplexed by him "He's delusional," they said. "He's out of touch with reality." And that's true, sort of. He's out of touch with your reality because he doesn't care in the least about it. He’s aware of the modern worldview the same dim way he’s aware of the worldview of his horses. Who cares what horses think?
When Gaddafi talks to the western press and the western world he isn't delusional. What he says to them and what they say back are simply irrelevant to him. When he makes a speech on public media from his point of view the people of Libya are hearing the words of their master and whether the words are harsh or gentle the people are not actually part of the conversation. They can't converse. They can only obey or not. They are his property.
Unfortunately Gaddafi is being engaged with weapons he understands very well. The modern weapons of brutal force are more efficient than bows and arrows but they aren't different. His strength is that he thoroughly understands the world of a century ago. His weakness is he doesn’t understand what’s happening in the Arab world today. It’s possible this villain can be overcome with Tomahawk Cruise Missiles but more likely he can be defeated with the weapons of the modern world where ideas travel faster than a horse can gallop.TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
STATHI STATHI
Myriad
David Brin
Terry McKenna
Paul J. O'Rourke
Thomas Davis
Salon.com
Comments
Thing is, tho, that our warlords, who continue to think of their people as horses, have not evolved that much more - more sophisticated, less brute force (tho the threat remains). Consider the budget, where military and the rich are not touched, but the 'property' is mined for $...