>The question was then put as to whether there were on Mars or other planets in the void men or creatures like them and at this the judge who had returned to the fire and stood half naked and sweating spoke and said that there were not and that there were no men anywhere in the universe save those upon the earth.
>The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose you way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others.
What did he mean by this?
a) the universe is too big to comprehend b) too big, containing too much to allow for multiples c) whatever order you can grasp to reality was put there by you to make it easier for yourself.
>>7381020
Is he not wrong about statement b? Larger universe would allow for more opportunities to produce the conditions necessary for life.
Do statement a and statement c not contradict his own stated mission of becoming the "suzerain" of the earth and knowing all there is to know?
>>7380990
Second one, people forming biased conceptions of universal narratives based on subjective experience etc etc.
>>7381035
>Is he not wrong about statement b?
it's not literal... he's not literally talking about whether aliens exist, nor does he care about it. i guess i should have used the world 'reality'. repetitions represent limits, in a way.
>Do statement a and statement c not contradict his own stated mission of becoming the "suzerain" of the earth and knowing all there is to know?
why would it? and is he a man?
>>7381035
My interpretation is that he's playing with them. Literally "you humans...". He thinks he understands reality's ultimate order but if humans did so as well and dared to challenge it because it subjugates them like lost mice in a maze, that would threaten his suzerainty, so he discredits the notion. His little coin trick might be another assertion of this superiority, in being the only one not taken by the illusion. I tend to think the later dream of the coin-forger trying to appease the Judge suggests the Kid's intuition that the Judge's order (represented by the false coinage) is itself false, and there is a higher order, the pursuit of which represents a rejection of the Judge's order and so he is the "judge" of all attempts at such treachery.
>>7380990
>Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose you way.
knowledge is socially, i.e. semiotically, constructed
the real is unsymbolizable; something will always escape your attempts to symbolize it
in other words, the deep but fundamental insights of structuralism
>>7381105
Well, if we assume he is a human, how did he come to free himself from the illusion of order in reality? What makes him think he can absorb all knowledge on the earth and make every entity "stand naked before him" when he simultaneously asserts that "more things exist without our knowledge than with it" and more crucially, that "existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass"?
Of course, it is possible he is not human at all and that answers that, but I am wondering if the Judge believes that any man can hope to be "suzerain" or is this reserved to him alone as War incarnate?
I want to read this book again now
>>7381114
Regarding the coin trick:
>The arc of circling bodies is determined by the length of their tether, said the judge. Moons, coins, men.
What is men's tether? What determines its length? What are they tethered to?
I haven't read the dream sequence part yet. I will keep this idea in mind when I do.
>>7381125
>structuralism is the theory that elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. It works to uncover the structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel.
What is the overarching system or structure in the Judge's worldview? Is structuralism related to this passage as well:
>In such games as have for their stake the annihilation of the defeated...the whole universe for such a player has labored clanking to this moment which will tell if he is to die at that man's hand or that man at his. What more certain validation of a man's worth could there be?
Is this why war is god? Because it forces this relation among men and this is the only validation of their worth in this world?
>>7381145
The Judge knows full well that no man can attain suzerainty in the material world. But he encourages the idea (for example, by agreeing to aid Glanton), because such materialistic confidence/assertiveness is in fact what perpetuates his own order (the natural order). I see the Glanton/Judge relationship the same as the Fedallah/Ahab one, or Devil/Faust. Men's false belief that they can attain some superior worldly position is just an elaboration on all animals' instincts to compete. I don't think the Judge is human, but rather some sort of "archon", agent or avatar of the illusionary material world's overlord (the demiurge), going with the book's Gnostic interpretation.
>>7381187
>Because it forces this relation among men and this is the only validation of their worth in this world?
From a structuralist point of view, I mean. Like, are men and objects devoid of meaning (or rather, have unintelligible meaning) until forced into this interrelation through war which thereby allows them to validate their existence as something real?
>>7381167
>What is men's tether? What determines its length? What are they tethered to?
The tether is simply the unique string or destiny leading along all things blindly within the the system or maze the Judge represents. Basically, a natural order of materialistic fatalism, where even men's minds are ultimately equivalent to objective facts. He's claiming men not only cannot fully understand this order but can never escape its bounds.
