Comments on: Uqbar

By: Prentiss Riddle

Prentiss Riddle — Fri, 11 Jul 2003 23:30:40 +0000

Subjects of the Queen? You mean, like opera and fat-bottomed girls?

By: johnny phenothiazine

johnny phenothiazine — Fri, 11 Jul 2003 02:40:46 +0000

hey man love that stuff, a while back I even scanned that for you all to steal your old friend johnny p

By: mitch

mitch — Fri, 11 Jul 2003 02:18:38 +0000

R.J. Rummel: “…the Soviet Union appears the greatest megamurderer of all, apparently killing near 61,000,000 people. Stalin himself is responsible for almost 43,000,000 of these. Most of the deaths, perhaps around 39,000,000 are due to lethal forced labor in gulag and transit thereto.”

By: Andrew Northrup

Andrew Northrup — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 20:11:57 +0000

In my alternate universe, Don Quixote is a children’s story about a donkey name Don Quicks-Oaty, Uqbar is an imaginary land invented by famed pianist/humorist Victor Borge, and the capital of Australia is, as it is in the real world, Paul Hoganopolis.

By: alkali

alkali — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 19:05:04 +0000

I asked: Are these elaborate jokes? What am I missing here? Brad DeLong counsels: What you are missing is that Daniel Davies does in fact live not in your universe but in a closely-related parallel one—in which Sydney is the capital of Australia, and the author of the Qijote is Guillermo de Cervantes. Is Prof. DeLong trying to explain that D^{2 is joking, and D}2’s reference to Borges is the tip-off? Or is the professor himself trying to have some fun with me? It was bad enough when Yglesias went on for pages about philosophy articles I’ve never read. Now this fresh hell. I’m going to go back to reading comic books in a minute.

By: Jeremy Osner

Jeremy Osner — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 17:46:28 +0000

Speaking of parallel universes, there seems to be some confusion between J. Borges and e. e. cummings at the linked translation of his commentary.

By: Kenneth G. Cavness

Kenneth G. Cavness — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 15:59:13 +0000

Now that I have read the article on Uqbar, I can honestly say: I’ve been ravished by d^2’s linguistic legerdemain, and I loved every minute of it.

By: tristerol

tristerol — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 12:44:20 +0000

Everyone knows that Pierre Menard was the modern author of Don Quixote.

By: Charlie B.

Charlie B. — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 12:41:59 +0000

My post was meant to demonstrate that today’s historians have shifted all debate about “appeasement” to 1939 and ignored the events of 1936-38, the lessons of which are inconvenient to them. As a result there has been a general deterioration in understanding of the factual narrative of the outbreaks of hostilities in 1939-41. Other responses: The victims of Stalinist Communism must include those who died in China at Communist hands during the Civil War and after 1951, in Eastern Europe after 1939, and also in Korea and Vietnam. The figure is nearer to 60 million than 20 million. “There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” – when? “Osama bin Laden is an enemy of Saddam Hussein and has repeatedly denounced the Iraqi government” what is an enemy? what does OBL think an “enemy” is? is my enemy’s enemy my friend? “the land mass currently occupied by the United States of America was formerly occupied by human beings, who were largely exterminated during its settlement by Europeans” No, that is not a fact – it is an analysis that contains far too many terms that are not defined or explained, and no historical data. Failure to mention other points does not imply that I agree they are correct (9th Amendment).

By: Charlie B.

Charlie B. — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 12:20:58 +0000

Good to read a thread of comments so profoundly relevant to the original post. Before the Iraq war the “Guardian” published the views of a dozen or so eminent historials about the degree to which the 1930s provided a historical point of comparison. With one exception they all ignored the nature of the appeasement in 1938, and the idea that we are safe from expansionary dictators if we give in to them until they present a threat that cannot be ignored (like initiating war themselves). In particular they ignored the extent to which Chamberlain presented Hitler as being sufficiently appeased by the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia that he ceased to be nearly as much of threat to general war; and the fact that after WWII documentart evidence showed that the Munich back-down convinced Hitler that the UK and France were much weaker than he had imagined, and that he could accellerate his plans for land seizure and general war to a degee he had previously thought too risky. As a result general war broke out in 1939. Had Chamberlain and France opposed Hitler over the Sudetenland Hitler might have slowed down his provocative expansion and with European war not breaking out till 1940 or 1941, thew allies would have been far better prepared. It is instructive to see how Chamberlain, speaking in the House of Commons in 1938 immediately after Munich characterised the “peace movement” of his time, and its role in what was a complelely disastrous and cowardly policy: Mr Chamberlain: “In my view the strongest force of all, one which grew and took fresh shapes and forms every day war, the force not of any one individual, but was that unmistakable sense of unanimity among the peoples of the world that war must somehow be averted. The peoples of the British Empire were at one with those of Germany, of France and of Italy, and their anxiety, their intense desire for peace, pervaded the whole atmosphere of the conference, and I believe that that, and not threats, made possible the concessions that were made. I know the House will want to hear what I am sure it does not doubt, that throughout these discussions the Dominions, the Governments of the Dominions, have been kept in the closest touch with the march of events by telegraph and by personal contact, and I would like to say how greatly I was encouraged on each of the journeys I made to Germany by the knowledge that I went with the good wishes of the Governments of the Dominions. They shared all our anxieties and all our hopes. They rejoiced with us that peace was preserved, and with us they look forward to further efforts to consolidate what has been done. “Ever since I assumed my present office my main purpose has been to work for the pacification of Europe, for the removal of those suspicions and those animosities which have so long poisoned the air. The path which leads to appeasement is long and bristles with obstacles. The question of Czechoslovakia is the latest and perhaps the most dangerous. Now that we have got past it, I feel that it may be possible to make further progress along the road to sanity.”

By: scott martens

scott martens — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 10:34:17 +0000

Epist, however the Canadian government has been organised over the years, there were still no Canadian citizens until the Citizenship Act of 1947. Before that, there were many Canadian residents of various kinds: British citizens on Canadian soil had full legal rights whenever they were in Canada and passed their British citizenship on to their Canadian-born decendants in perpetuity. All others were, as I understood it, British subjects, or British protected persons in the case of treaty natives, whose right to abode in Canada was assured as long as they were either born on Canadian territory or had legally resided there for at least three years and been naturalised, but who had no right to abode in the UK. I have repeatedly heard the term “British subject” used to describe this status, which was only replaced by Canadian citizenship in 1947. Canadian citizens born to British citizens in Canada who had never resided in the UK only lost their right to abode in the UK after the 1971 UK Immigration Act. Now, I have to think that there is the possibility that I too have been in contact with a parallel universe, but it seems to me that before 1947 Canada was a nation with no citizens, peopled largely by British subjects and a minority of British citizens.

By: Tim Lambert

Tim Lambert — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 08:48:31 +0000

The Sydney thing is obviously a reference to the fact that “honest” John Howard didn’t want to live in Canberra so he moved into Kirribilli House in Sydney and runs the country from there. Cervantes is left as an exercise for the reader.

By: epist

epist — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 08:35:42 +0000

As to Canada, The terms are a bit fuzzy. Canadians were made so by the British North America Act of 1867, which made the original four provinces (Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, if you must know) into the Dominion of Canada, but the Queen was still the head of Government. The young Dominion gradually became more independent, and was officialy released from ‘colony’ status by the Statute of Westminister in the British Parliament in 1931. In 1982, Canada ‘repatriated’ the consitution (and if you think its not as painful as it sounds, you’ve obviously never been polled)), completely reserving all consitutional powers with the Canadian government, but preserved the titular position for the British monarch (more specifically, the Governer General-whcih leads me to note that Canada has had an Asian woman as the head of the government for quite a while now. And yet we-almost-never brag about our PC cred cough gay marriage cough). So are Canadians ‘subjects’ of the Queen? In a sense, yes. But in a more accurate sense, no. When this happen exactly, however, isn’t clear; there are at least a couple of dates to choose from. Canadian conservatives (an officially protected species, they winter in the Gulf and summer in Ontario, like the geese) would say 1867, Canadian moderates (can you imagine the fun?) might take the Balfour declaration (1926) of complete self-governence for non-constitutional matters. Constitutional Purists (who make the moderates look like flappers)would say 1982. Canadian nationalists (I’m the other one) would say we haven’t yet slipped the chains. Thank you (/pedantry)

By: mj

mj — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 07:52:04 +0000

Cervantes did indeed write the first Quijote, but Menard’s Quijote was far far superior.

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 07:33:13 +0000

Brad: Just as I live in a different parallel universe in which the author of the Qijote is one Pierre Menard This is very strange, because Pierre Menard lived in a universe where the author of the Qijote is Miguel de Cervantes…