147
" Mademoiselle De Lafontaine – in right of her father, who was a German, assumed to be psychological, metaphysical and something of a mystic – now declared that when the moon shone with a light so intense it was well known that it indicated a special spiritual activity. The effect of the full moon in such a state of brilliancy was manifold. It acted on dreams, it acted on lunacy, it acted on nervous people; it had marvelous physical influences connected with life. Mademoiselle related that here cousin, who was mate of a merchant ship, having taken a nap on deck on such a night, lying on his back, with his face full in the light of the moon, had wakened, after a dream of an old woman clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one side; and his countenance had never quite recovered its equilibrium. "
― J. Sheridan Le Fanu , Carmilla
150
" The only social change presented by most SF has been towards authoritarianism, the domination of ignorant masses by a powerful elite—sometimes presented as a warning, but often quite complacently. Socialism is never considered as an alternative, and democracy is quite forgotten. Military virtues are taken as ethical ones. Wealth is assumed to be a righteous goal and a personal virtue. Competitive free-enterprise capitalism is the economic destiny of the entire Galaxy. In general, American SF has assumed a permanent hierarchy of superiors and inferiors, with rich, ambitious, aggressive males at the top, then a great gap, and then at the bottom the poor, the uneducated, the faceless masses, and all the women. "
― Ursula K. Le Guin
152
" From time immemorial, some men supposed to deal in one-valued 'eternal verities'. We called such men 'philosophers' or 'meta-physicians'. But they seldom realized that all their 'eternal verities' consisted only of words, and words which, for the most part, belonged to a primitive language, refleting in its structure the assumed structure of the world of remote antiquity. Besides, they did not realize that these 'eternal verities' last only so long as the human nervous system is not altered. Under the influence of these 'philosophers', two-valued 'logic', and the confusion of orders of abstractions, nearly all of us contracted a firmly rooted predilection for 'general' statements - 'universals', as they were called - which in most cases inherently involved the semantic one-valued conviction of validity for all 'time' to come. "
― Alfred Korzybski , Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics
153
" There are several important remarks which can be made about this 'absolute emptiness' and 'absolute nothingness'. First of all, we now know, theoretically and empirically, that such a thing does not exist. There may be more or less of something, but never an unlimited 'perfect vacuum'. In the second place, our nervous make-up, being in accord with experience, is such that 'absolute emptiness' requires 'outside walls'. The question at once arises, is the world 'finite' or 'infinite'? If we say 'finite', it has to have outside walls, and then the question arises: What is 'behind the walls'? If we say it is 'infinite', the problem of the psychological 'walls' is not eliminated. and we still have the semantic need for walls, and then ask what is beyond the walls. So we see the such a world suspended in some sort of an 'absolute void' represents a nature against human nature, and so we had to invent something supernatural to account for such assumed nature against human nature. In the third place, and this remark is the most fundamental of all, because a symbol must stand for something to be a symbol at all, 'absolute nothingness' cannot be objective and cannot be symbolized at all. This ends the argument, as all we may say about it is neither true nor false, but non-sense. We can make noises, but say nothing about the external world. It is easy to see that 'absolute nothingness' is a label for a semantic disturbance, for verbal objectification, for a pathological state inside our skin, for a fancy, but not a symbol, for a something which has objective existence outside our skin. "
― Alfred Korzybski , Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics
156
" Long story short, I got lured into a trap. A Mage using that concealment spell tried to knife me. Then someone else tried to blow my brains out with a bullet." " A Mage attacked you?" Alain asked, feeling a sick sensation inside. " She tried. I knew they'd been watching me. I didn't give them any reason to try to kill me." Mari looked at him. " Did I?" " It is my fault," Alain admitted. " Even though I have tried to keep them from finding out who you are, they still believe that you are dangerous." She gave him another look, then shook her head. " From the looks of things, I'm mainly dangerous to my friends and myself. Just how much trouble did you actually get in because of spending time with me in Dorcastle?" Alain looked into the fire. " My Guild did not believe that I had been with you in Dorcastle. The elders thought that the woman I had been seen with in that city was a common I had sought out because she researched the Mechanic I had met in Ringhmon." " Why would you want to find a common who looked like me?" Mari asked. " For physical satisfaction." The simple statement would have created no reaction in a Mage, but he saw the outraged look in Mari's face and hurriedly added more. " I would not have done that. But the elders assumed that I did. I told you that they believed I was attracted to you." " Alain, 'attracted to' doesn't bring to mind the idea of finding another woman who resembles me so that you can pretend that you're—" she choked off the words, glaring into the night. " The elders assumed that. I never wanted it. I would never do it. There is no other woman like you." Somehow he must have said the right thing, because she relaxed. " But because of that belief of theirs," Mari said, " your elders thought you might look for me again." " They actually thought that you would seek me," Alain explained. " They were very concerned that you would..." His " social skills" might need work, but Alain realized that he probably should not say the rest. Too late. Mari bent a sour look his way. " What did they think I would do?" " It is not important." " Alain..." He exhaled slowly, realizing that Mari would not give up on this question. " The elders thought that you would seek to ensnare me, using your physical charms, and through me work to strike at the Mage Guild." She stared back in disbelief. " Ensnare? They actually used the word ensnare?" " Yes. Many times." " Using my physical charms?" Mari seemed unable to decide whether to laugh or get angry. She looked down at herself. " I'm a little low on ammunition when it comes to physical charms, or hadn't these elders of yours noticed?" " You are beautiful beyond all other women," Alain objected. Mari rolled her eyes. " And you ate seriously deluded. I hadn't realized how badly until this moment. "
157
" So now, not only did my best friend leave, but the cheerleaders and their mindless followers assumed I was personally responsible for the petition (which, yeah, I was) and started being openly rude to me - shutting doors in my face, leaving nasty notes on my desk and in my locker, making fun of me when I could obviously hear them.
That's when I started keeping really quiet in class, and finding ways to show the other kids I wasn't afraid of them - like staring them straight in the eye when they looked at me, taking a step toward them when they talked to me, or walking right up to them and getting their personal space if I heard them say my name. Saying the meanest things I could think of whenever I had the chance - repeating rumors, embellishing them. I found out Kira Conroy had been arrested for shoplifting at the mall, and made sure everyone knew about it. The girl who burped in a boy's face during her first kiss, the girl who tripped and fell off the stage at the Miss Teen California pageant - I shared those stories the moment I heard them.
All's fair in war, right?
Suddenly I wasn't a nobody anymore.
I was a somebody.
Somebody everyone was afraid of. "
― Katie Alender , Bad Girls Don't Die (Bad Girls Don't Die, #1)
