On The Hub and Godness

I thought what Anne said about the Hub was interesting, especially her discussion on whether or not he's a God, and I'd like to expand a little more on that idea.

Semantically speaking, I don't see what there is to separate Hub from God-like status. His direct involvement in the lives of billions of people, his ability to control the fortunes of an entire planet.. he is in fact much more active, visible and identifiable than any God we've come in contact with. One could, perhaps, say that this very feature separates him from God -- that God is too much of an abstraction, and the fact that Hub can be quantified and explained keeps him from being a God, despite his omniscience and omnipotence.

There is, then, the matter of how one defines 'God'. If you adhere to a strictly classical notion of God, as being universally good, universally omnipotent, then Hub doesn't fit into the God category. His governing of the universe is more limited to human affairs; he can't bend and change the laws of physics, as we might perhaps expect God to be able to do. According to this definition, he is merely a highly-advanced technological construct.

But if you take a more humanistic outlook on the matter, and conceive of a God as any entity, either veridically existent or projected, that is believed in, trusted, or relied on by humanity (... or by Culture), then it becomes very easy to classify Hub this way.

It's kind of a small and nit-picking point, but one that interests me nonetheless.

The Hub

I really enjoyed Look to Windward. Banks created a nuanced, intricate plot that I'm definitely going to be reading again. There are so many things to talk about, too, Thursday's going to be fun.

But what I really want to talk about is the Hub. The Hub fascinates me - not just because he's an interesting character, but because he's a character at all. The Hub is basically a hyper-advanced super computer (Culture : humans :: the Hub : Mike), yet besides controlling the weather and Orbital-wide life support systems and transport systems and advising Masaq' citizens on everything ever ("His name is Bob" "Here's how to get to Sesame Street" "No, you can't eat that"), he has a personality. He chats to people at parties through his avatar, but he's not just a social lubricant who's really good at setting people up; he's a friendly face for everyone, someone familiar and enjoyable to talk to.

It's easy to see how a world with a Hub could be such a relaxed, happy place. No one is ever alone with the Hub around; no one ever has to look stupid with the Hub whispering in their ear; no one has to worry, because the Hub takes care of everything. But the Hub's not just a maintenance system, he's a friend - I wonder how many people in our society who go endure turbulent friendships and flawed relationships and end up feeling hopelessly and utterly alone would secede from the world if given a Hub-like figure: someone with infinite patience and time to listen and discuss.

So the Hub is very much a kind of person - definitely not a human, but a person, a Mind. But is he a God? He mentions once that Minds are "close to gods, and on the far side". And, indeed, the Hub's intimate involvement with and protection of each one of the billions of inhabitants of Masaq' is godlike; at any given moment he's likely to have a trillion processes running at once, but he also has emotions - he feels love and duty towards the Masaq'ians.

But I don't think the Hub is a god. Perhaps he's right, and he is something beyond godliness, but he displays a typical human characteristic: the recognition of one's needs as the most important thing in one's world, and which may be pushed aside or dealt with in favor of assisting others, but which in the end control you. In the end, the Hub has protected and nurtured the inhabitants of the Masaq' Orbital for eight hundred years, but he recognizes that his grief for his twin will never dissipate. He is close enough to human to empathize with Quilan's loss of his mate, close enough to commit a suicide that will benefit only himself. It's in that moment that I find the Hub to be the most likable and even perfect.

Is Jon human?

So Russ' post has got me thinking about Jon. He's an interesting character - Moore does a great job in portraying a sentient, yet objective point of view, which is something that our planet has never known.

However, Jon wasn't always the superpowered-superweapon that he is during the period illustrated in Watchmen. He was once a totally normal human being, who - like many traditional superheroes - got his powers through a freak accident. Unlike most superheroes, however, he seems to have lost his humanity in gaining is powers - and not in the way supervillains, do either.

All of the passion and emotion of humanity seems to have leeched out of Jon. I guess that once you can see the universe on a subatomic level and manipulate everything you see, stuff like emotion and morals must seem.... silly. At the end of the book, when he leaves for another universe, Jon seems to be a completely alien being.

But I don't think that it was just his transformation that changed his emotions; I think it was the time spent with a completely different, non-human point of view. Russ, this is how I'd answer your question as to why Jon continued to respect the authority of the President: he remembers and acts on the emotions and morals of his previous human self, and hasn't yet begun to change as a result of his deeply technical worldview. Perhaps as he stays longer and longer as his new self, particles and atoms and physics become more and more understandable and familiar, but passion and morality become more foreign and strange.

Another factor, on the other hand, could be love. Jon seemed to be losing contact with his human emotions as soon as he became a superbeing; however, he just seemed cold, a bit too logical - not completely inhuman. For example, when he vanishes the crew and audience of the film set to the street and moves himself to the moon, he's displaying rather human emotions - fear, anger, grief, frustration, pouting.

It is really when Laurie tells Jon that she's sleeping with Dan that Jon seems to truly leave emotion behind. Not too long ago, he gave a huge emotional response to the news that a number of people who associated closely with him might have cancer. Now, he seems unconcerned that the whole human race might bomb itself into oblivion. Was it love that kept Jon just a little bit human? Or was his progress to a frank objectivity inevitable in a being who can see and manipulate the very material of existence?

Watchmen and Geopolitics

This is the theme that most stood out at me throughout the work. Most likely because the book was such a great relic of the Cold War era -- there's so much terror about the pending nuclear holocaust, and it doesn't seem as though this feeling is entirely dramatized for the characters. By which I mean you can tell that Moore was reflecting the popular attitude of the time. All of this seems altogether foreign to our generation -- we've heard plenty of tell of the Cold Ward; we understand its implication and the extent of the terror it caused, but having grown up after it had ended, we have no real understanding of how powerful that fear must have been. I feel it permeates Watchmen.

There are enough obvious reasons: this standoff, and an effort on the part of Ozymandias to thwart it, are the driving points of the plot. What I thought was really interesting, though, was the way Moore tied these superheroes into the geopolitical structure. Especially the vigilantism of the Comedian -- and the seemingly more official business of Jon -- in the Vietnam War. Also, more importantly, the fact that Jon was essentially used as the ultimate weapon, or perhaps the ultimate deterent, against the Russians. One gets the sense that Moore's invention of Jon maybe stemmed from a Western desire to see the Russians thwarted in their expansionistic (slash dominational) efforts. Although that might be reading too much into Moore and his writing.

Regardless, Jon's character, and the way he is able to affect world affairs, just by his very existence, are very interesting. What I found particularly curious, though, was the fact that Jon was recognized and treated like any valuable and high-ranking agent of the government. He is summoned, and he is ordered to do things by the president. However we learn that Jon's view toward the universe has become entirely materialistic - he has learned to see things at the atomic level. Why, I wondered, does he continue to accept the president of the USA, and his molecules, as a source of authority? Why would he value Nixon's judgment (especially if he could see into the future, wink wink) above anyone else's? Perhaps a better question still: why were they stupid enough to let Jon into the same ROOM as the president? Nixon and all his secret service men would have presented Jon as much challenge as the billions of tons of Martian crystals he created. Which is none whatsoever.

Geopolitically, I found myself constantly wondering why Jon had such allegiance to the US government? His new powers as well as perspective, one would think, would have revealed to him the many errors of his government's ways, relative to what had been going on in the rest of the world. Why did he hold so true to his country and work on its behalf, when there could surely have never been any true incentive for him (How do you pay a man who can materialize cash?) It seems like, when Jon came into existence, the arms race would have turned into a Jon race -- a mad dash to win his favor and protection at any cost.

Masked Morals

I watied to post a few days after class because I have been wondering about morals and masks. If we can define morals as an individuals standards of right and wrong then those should not change for that person at any time. If someone puts on a mask, that does not change their personhood, it mearly is an alternative face that hides the real you from being seen in public. Being seen or not does not change your morals. Or at least it should not. Thinking that you become another person when you put on a mask is problematic. Let us pretend that everyone has his or her own secret identity. Then, in the time when we encounter strangers or people we think are wrong there is no problem with breaking their fingers or questioning them about whatever we want. Granted, one would have to be strong enough to enforce that kind of abuse on others but it is not unrealitic for that to take place for the majority of people. That means when you take off the mask you are vulnerable to the attacks of anyone else in masks. This would create a society that would be entirely unproductive other than creating an amazing personal defense system to ward off your crazy neighbors.

In the real world we do not wear masks, but we enjoy the idea of being someone else. What is it in this someone else with a different face that allows our violent urges to emerge? I do not think it is correct to suppose that we can change our morals based on our appearance. It is the same being within, and therefore the watchmen (specifically in the choice to blow up new york) are morally out of line. In the case of Rarshach the man has a duel personality disorder because he cannot handle the real him. His morals are founded on the mask. In his case, he did choose one way of being and stuck with it, but for personal reasons found himself more comfortable with a mask. This does not make his actions acceptible, but at least he had one moral code for himself, not two.