The Slows and the past.
2023-01-28 20:24![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asher553... "Those treaties were signed many generations ago. Things change," I said, though I knew it was silly to get into an argument with one of them.
"My grandmother signed them."
- 'The Slows' by Gail Hareven
In the dialog above, both parties are telling the truth: in the world of the story, the narrator has seen "many generations" elapse due to the advent of Accelerated Offspring Growth; but for the Slow woman and her ancestors who eschewed such technology, the same timespan connected grandmother and granddaughter.
It's not accidental that this accelerated pace makes it easier for the narrator's character to justify abrogating the old treaties - because after all, "things change". The faster pace of life - and of the life cycle itself - makes the moral claim of the past on the present seem tenuous.
"My grandmother signed them."
- 'The Slows' by Gail Hareven
In the dialog above, both parties are telling the truth: in the world of the story, the narrator has seen "many generations" elapse due to the advent of Accelerated Offspring Growth; but for the Slow woman and her ancestors who eschewed such technology, the same timespan connected grandmother and granddaughter.
It's not accidental that this accelerated pace makes it easier for the narrator's character to justify abrogating the old treaties - because after all, "things change". The faster pace of life - and of the life cycle itself - makes the moral claim of the past on the present seem tenuous.
