Not surplusage
Another quote from Robert Heinlein.
All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly, which can — and must — be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a "perfect society" on any foundation other than "Women and children first!" is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly — and no doubt will keep on trying.This is a statement of the usually-forgotten obvious, one which therefore needs restating. The only niggle is that it seems to imply that, as long as the "Women and children first!" rule is observed, it is all right to attempt to formulate a perfect society, when in fact it never all right.
2 comments:
the reason at all that "starry-eyed ideaists are there and will always be" is because there is a lot more to humanity than just cold calculation to preserve our genes. We are essentially two camps, or sometimes two camps in the same person - idealist and materialists. This is how we are and were since the beginning of conscious time.
Can't disagree with that.
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