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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   2764 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 30, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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So, what are you reading?

I finished al-Ghazali's Banes of the Tongue, which was well worth the read. I can dimly see some aspects of Islam, and in particular the hadith "Beware of the believer's intuition because he sees by the light of God" has caught my eye. There is a sense of leaving uncovered what God has covered and not speaking about what doesn't concern you; in particular, if one is gossiped to, the gossip says more about the gossiper than the one who is spoken about. It has kindled an interest in ways of knowing which might arise from an Islamic mindset.

What is forbidden is supposition [about another's alleged evil ways], and supposition is an expression of what the soul believes is reliable, and the heart inclines toward. God says, O you who have believed, avoid much negative assumption. Indeed, some assumption is sin [Q. 49:12]. The reason for its unlawfulness is because the secrets of the hearts are known only to the Knower of the unseen, so it is not for you to believe in another’s wickedness unless it is disclosed to you by observation and cannot be explained away.

The book is quite comprehensive, talking about things like arguments, joking, praising or being praised, and I'm sure to be revisiting this often.

I just finished Nevil Shute's In the Wet (1953), which to me is unjustly remembered primarily for having a part-Aboriginal protagonist who voluntarily goes by the nickname Nigger in an attempt to pre-emptively defuse racial conflicts. I actually think Shute explores the racial dynamics in quite a thoughtful and believable way, but in my experience in online groups, many readers immediately jump to feeling "uncomfortable" about the protagonist's name, and lose sight of the story itself. As far as that goes, it's not one of Shute's very best; an exploration of what might have happened to the British Commonwealth if it had stayed together into the 1980s, it was always lacking the drama and tension that define Shute's most enjoyable novels.

One thing I found thought-provoking was the idea of the "multiple vote," in which citizens gain additional votes by doing various salutary things: starting a family and not divorcing, operating a profitable business, gaining education and so on. (Also explored by Heinlein in Starship Troopers and elsewhere.) Shute views this as a natural and necessary growth of democracy, without which it will devolve into whatever members of society produce the least, voting themselves benefits. I told my wife about this and she said, "Isn't that how it really did work out in practice?" Sometimes it's hard to disagree.

In all of his Australian novels, Shute displayed a belief that Australia would continue down a semi-libertarian, freewheeling path where adventurers could go and make a fortune; Hammond Innes also describes an Australia like that in novels like Golden Soak. My impression is that it very much did not turn out that way, and I'd be curious to know more about how and why. I suppose a big part of it is just that all frontiers eventually close.

why

My guess: Australians are Britons, and whatever is wrong with those is wrong all the way through them.

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