(urth) Seventeen

[Gwern Branwen]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:51 PM, Nathan C. Tresch
<nathanctresch at gmail.com> wrote:
> He attributed his inspiration for the Ascians to the Turks of the Byzantine
> period of history, and points out that they are north american in origin in
> this interview:
> http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/wolfe46interview.htm

Not quite. He said they were 'my equivalents of the Turk' to the
'stagnant political entity' of the Commonwealth. That is,
Byzantium:Turks :: Commonwealth:Ascians. This is *not* the same thing
as 'the society of the the Ascians is a version of the Ottoman
caliphate'.

Personally, the very first time I read TBotNS, it was obvious to me
that the Group of Seventeen's society was heavily modeled on communist
China. The parallels are just too many.

The style of the story is focused on an agriculture society on what
may be a collectivized farm (China's usual mindset, and especially
that of Mao who swam in the sea of peasants), the Group of Seventeen
is appealed to like the peasants appealed to distant mandarins and
Party officials for justice*, the Group of Seventeen is even named
like various Chinese entities - Gang of Four, anyone? -The use of
numbers is again characteristically Chinese, if you don't believe me,
look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Chinese_numbered_policies
or look at how many Chinese entries there are in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Numeric_epithets (This
impression is particularly reinforced if you read any substantial
amount of ancient Chinese literature/philosophy/history.) The quoting
is a clever mockery of communist quoting and especially quoting from
the Little Red Book (an approved text if ever there was one). The
sentiments are in line with communist theory.

Hell, "correct thought" is literally a China term! Look through Google
Books if you don't believe me, eg.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ku5fABfvOGgC&pg=PA45&dq=%22correct+thought%22#v=onepage&q=%22correct%20thought%22&f=false

So there are many many points in the story that reek of Chinese
communism. And *not* of Islam or the Turks.

* Not just my observation; see
http://crookedtimber.org/2009/03/07/loyal-to-the-group-of-seventeen/

-- 
gwern
http://www.gwern.net