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Since the envoys had brought news of the arrival of the Emperor, Bolesław’s kingdom had been overwhelmed by an all-encompassing state of commotion. Aside from the settlers living deep within the deepest forests, there was probably no one who did not, in some way or other, (...)
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8
The phones are always going wrong, so my parents aren’t upset when there’s no dialling tone. They’re at the fortieth birthday party of a female friend from their class at high school. They say they’re going downstairs to the phone booth for a (...)
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Jacek DukajAn ideal imperfection
About the book
“Royal families have always regarded themselves as inter-related; it’s the plebs and the poor who are the prisoners of borders and languages. But why, if they’re already here at the bottom, and if they inflict these bonds on themselves, this Civilisation…” –Zamoyski described a broad arc with the hand holding his cigar, encompassing the whole interior of “The Three Crowns” within the gesture – “…why is it so theatrical?”
“They’ve been performing it for six hundred years,” said Fire, laughing. “How else should it be?”
“Is it like that among your kind too? Among your parahabs ?”
“The parahabs are creating their own Civilisations. The Third Civilisation of RKI Progress covers part of the second and the beginning of the third and final part of the Curve. However, sometimes I have the honour of speaking in the name of the equivalent of the Grand Lodge in our Progress, and on those occasions I also represent Civilisations that only my animalingues understand now. In this regard your Progress is exceptional. Why on earth go poking around in a mechanism that works so well? You have a wonderful Civilisation. Maybe that’s just what’s needed to withstand similar expansion on the Curve – a touch of drama, some exaggeration, some kitsch and a little distance from yourself. Irony guarantees longevity.”
“Because you, prahbe , regard it just like a mechanism. But for me, a culture that cannot develop is dead. There’s no happiness in stagnation.”
The ambassador spread vis fat arms wide.
“Bah! But is there any happiness in change? Of course you know, stahs , everything is tending towards UI in a natural way. You know what death is – it’s the end of existence of a structure in the form that determines its identity, either as a result of decay or transformation into another form. No rules are stronger than the Laws of Progress, they’re the most basic principles of all, rooted deeper than the laws of physics. Every culture, every society and every species that’s under pressure to compete within a universe with fixed conditions inevitably tries to perfect itself, as it moves along the curve of changes towards UI. From forms that are worse adapted to those that are better adapted; and so the former are dying off. Basically, Progress is the history of the annihilation of successive embodiments of the phren . The Curve is the cemetery map of cultures. Each culture is balancing on a knife edge and becomes the victim of forces that are trying to tear it apart, forces of both progress and self-preservation. If the forces of progress prevail, its identity will be lost – and that means death. If the forces of self-preservation prevail, nothing changes right up to the end, when other, better adapted cultures crowd this one out – and that too means death. The difference appears as soon as there is an acceleration in roaming the Curve that causes these dependencies to be observed as hard statistical laws - a model is formulated (just as Alphonse Remy formulated one among your kind) and, on the strength of this knowledge, the culture takes action aimed at both preserving its identity and protecting itself against cultures from the summit of the Curve – because by then it is already aware of a threat. And that’s how Civilisations come into being. Or at least that’s how it happened in the Four Progresses. Of course, that isn’t the ultimate solution for all eternity either, but –”
“What about the Deformants? On the public Fields I have found examples describing divergent Progresses….”
“Ideological gibberish. Deformation usually arises as a revolt against Civilisation. That too is a line of change of a sort, but of course it does not strive towards UI. To call it Progress would be a major misuse of the word, because it doesn’t aim for perfection, so how can we measure its progress or degeneration? Undirected change is simply deformation. Clearly, neither Deformations – nor Civilisations lying lower on the Curve – would be possible if the universe were entirely cultivated, if the whole of space were filled with life. Just as on Earth various eccentric cultures survived as long as they were isolated, as long as the world wasn’t closed and the principles of competition had not yet begun to affect them. You could call them “natural Deformations”. But I know that even after that you had various such enclaves of archaism, motivated by religion or politics – Deformations and flights from Progress that are self-aware: the Chinese Empire, and in the west, the Amish; the museums of communism in Cuba or North Korea, the Taliban, later the Protectorate of the Cross and the Black Emirates… What happened to them?”
“They were engulfed by Christian capitalism.”
“They lost or adapted. Within a closed environment there is no escape. What did you call it in your times, stahs?”
Zamoyski blew smoke from his lungs. “Globalisation.”
“Globalisation. Globalisation is merely the first symptom of the fundamental, universal process of cosmologisation. The race begins on the globe, but in the final account it’s not about achieving the Perfect Form of a particular planetary environment, but the Perfect Form of the universe, of all possible universes.”
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
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There are more than 31,000 publishers registered in Poland. However, the market is highly concentrated. The 300 largest publishing firms still hold almost 98 per cent of it. More »
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