Pleading for Sodom

"Suppose there were fifty righteous people in the city; would you really sweep away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people within it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike! Far be it from you! Should not the judge of all the world do what is just?”

The LORD replied: If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.

Abraham spoke up again: “See how I am presuming to speak to my Lord, though I am only dust and ashes! What if there are five less than fifty righteous people? Will you destroy the whole city because of those five?” I will not destroy it, he answered, if I find forty-five there.

But Abraham persisted, saying, “What if only forty are found there?” He replied: I will refrain from doing it for the sake of the forty.

Then he said, “Do not let my Lord be angry if I go on. What if only thirty are found there?” He replied: I will refrain from doing it if I can find thirty there.

Abraham went on, “Since I have thus presumed to speak to my Lord, what if there are no more than twenty?” I will not destroy it, he answered, for the sake of the twenty.

But he persisted: “Please, do not let my Lord be angry if I speak up this last time. What if ten are found there?” For the sake of the ten, he replied, I will not destroy it.

-Genesis 18:24-32
I was thinking of this passage while reading Dan Henninger's piece on the closing of minds at some of America's elite academies. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was told not to speak, though she is an atheist and a feminist, for she had slandered Islam. Christine Lagarde was told not to speak, though she is one of the world's most successful women and a leader of the International Monetary Fund, for the IMF has gone from being a leftist darling to falling under suspicion of "imperialist" leanings. Robert J. Birgeneau, who as Chancellor of Berkeley was one of the guiding stars of political correctness and a long-time advocate of gay marriage, he was told not to speak. Why? Because Berkeley's police used force to expel Occupy protesters.

Just as Sodom turned away from the righteousness of the Lord, these academies have turned away from the moral laws on which they were founded. Established as places of free speech and respectful inquiry, they have become dens of anger and oppression. Henninger explains how it began as a purge against conservatives in the academy, but now has come to consume even those who ought to be darlings of the left -- who have, indeed, been men and women of the left all their lives.

It will not take God to destroy an institution that leaves behind the good it was founded to achieve, and out of which its power grew. Their power depends upon their doing that good, for the sake of which good people donate money or pay taxes to support them, and send their children to be educated there. For a while these institutions may linger, while a few righteous remain to do the work that justified these institutions' economic and social support.

When the day comes that you 'can no longer find ten righteous people among them,' though, they will cease to be.

UPDATE: Via Lars Walker, apparently Science Fiction is now undergoing the same process.

5 comments:

Ymar Sakar said...

http://voxday.blogspot.com/search/label/SFWA

There is a war going on in that sector of operations called science fiction. David Brin and John Scalzi were two individuals I smacked words with or despised their words with, back in 2008. They seemed to have some pretty well fortified positions from what I saw. Rebels like Vox, though, seemed to have them under siege in 6 years. I find that hilarious.

Vox Day, their bogeyman, has plenty of intros on how the battle there began and ended.

Evil organizations ultimately exiles (or kills or mind controls) any person that has the power to resist, leaving only slaves, zealots, fanatics, true believers, and employees of evil. If there are still resistors against the Religion of Evil, then all it takes to get them away is to tell them to evacuate and give them an escape, and then the city will be Pure. And one can plop down a kinetic strike in its center.

Sodom could easily have intimidated, exiled, or killed any do gooders. What are left, would then be people who have made their free choice. Those that have been coerced or forced, have made the choice to submit as slaves. While killing humans may be a sin of guilt, killing animals is a lesser guilt.

In a city of 50% Light and 50% Dark, it's not easy to tell who the bad guys are. Too many human shields. They refuse to evacuate the city because of this or the other. A city of 99% evil has done most of the work already.

raven said...

I truly pity anyone taking on Larry Correia ! He will slice , dice, mince ,mash and make gravy of them!

Texan99 said...

This comment on the "Hugo" post seems to be ringing a lot of bells:

"I don't care if a writer creates a speculative universe where every character is a transgendered gay hermaphrodite in a pansexual society - if it's a good story and everything ties together. And I don't care if a writer creates a vision of the future where humanity is composed of two sexes (male and female - as it actually is) and those two sexes have rape-coitus in the hetero-cage without checking their privilege and make little evil fascist breeder babies - if it's a good story and everything ties together."

Grim said...

Well, one of the problems with SciFi is that it's too sexualized anyway. It turns out you can tell a great story without any sex scenes at all -- certainly without doing them 'on camera,' as it were.

Eric Blair said...

I think the comments illustrate why I read so little sci-fi these days.

It's being written for the foolish.