Friday 1 December 2017

A Fantastic World

Do the newspapers show us a world as fantastic as the future societies of Poul Anderson's sf?

In Britain, we have:

not an Empire any more but certainly the relics of one, including current plans for a Royal Wedding;

a Christian Church that has been in place since the sixth century;

not a multi-species civilization but certainly a multicultural society with a majority of non-whites in the City of Birmingham which has two Cathedrals, a Central Mosque and a Buddhist Centre;

international conflicts, including major threats to peace and security;

the world-wide web, including not only financial institutions and news media but also this blog which mainly concerns itself with exotica like a fictional Jupiter and the Terran Empire.

Like the Polesotechnic League, we do not know where we are going but we are on our way.

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Birmingham has TWO Cathedrals, the Catholic St. Chad's and an Anglican church (whose name I don't recall).

I have some anxious fears for the future, I admit. Such concern about rogue dictators with nukes (such as N Korea's Kim Jong Un) or fanatical jihadists (whether or not they get nukes).

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
Post amended.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I noticed! And I recall how St. Chad's Cathedral felt homelike to me when I visited it. The church was an example of the "brick Gothic" fairly common here in the US.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
The Anglican Cathedral is church-sized and was upgraded to Cathedral status relatively recently.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I've seen that Anglican "cathedral" when I visited Birmingham, but didn't enter it because there was too much else to see there.

I do know the first Anglican bishop of Birmingham was Charles Gore, who wrote books criticizing the Catholic Church. I have Abbot John Chapman's rebuttal BISHOP GORE AND 'THE CATHOLIC CLAIMS.' I recall Dom Chapman complimenting Gore for his personal kindness.

Sean