The Problem of the Loyal Henchmen arises when people willingly obey authorities everyone knows to be evil. Why, after the villain has fled in his private submarine, and while the high-tech palace crashes and burns, does the last unincinerated member of the villain’s private militia risk his life to take a shot at James Bond? Loyalty to Blofeld? Loyalty to the principles of Blofeldism? What could that mean?

[…]

The mysterious part of totalitarianism’s appeal — and here we return to the Problem of the Loyal Henchmen — is that its official ideology can be, and usually is, absurd on its face, and known to be absurd by the leaders who preach it. [...] Totalitarian rule, Arendt argued, is predicated on the assumption that proving that a thing is true is less effective than acting as though it were true. The Nazis did not invite a discussion of the merits of anti-Semitism; they simply acted out its consequences.

Human men form martial organizations for the dual purpose of establishing and retaining territorial and mate control, as do, to a lesser extent, the men of many other species. “Ideology” is not now nor has ever been a real motivator.

Arendt was a philosopher.

Calling Arendt a “philosopher” is hilarious.

One day soon, America will come to terms with the profound ethnonarcissism of Arendt, Menand et al.

Madness? Spite? Hatred of bourgeois morality?

The henchmen of a Blofeld might be good characters, full of dysfunctional motivations, if only there were time to hear their stories.

Consider the following protagonist, who might be an anti-hero:

Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

With a philosophical flourish, Cato throws himself upon his sword; the Blofeld henchman takes a shot at James Bond.

H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds – Wells’ early science-fiction stories have held up amazingly well — and much better than Verne’s “harder” science-fiction. It’s hard to stay amazed by a submarine and by waterproof doors lined with India rubber.

The Problem of the Loyal Henchmen arises when people willingly obey authorities everyone knows to be evil. Why, after the villain has fled in his private submarine, and while the high-tech palace crashes and burns, does the last unincinerated member of the villain’s private militia risk his life to take a shot at James Bond? Loyalty to Blofeld? Loyalty to the principles of Blofeldism? What could that mean?

[…]

The mysterious part of totalitarianism’s appeal — and here we return to the Problem of the Loyal Henchmen — is that its official ideology can be, and usually is, absurd on its face, and known to be absurd by the leaders who preach it. [...] Totalitarian rule, Arendt argued, is predicated on the assumption that proving that a thing is true is less effective than acting as though it were true. The Nazis did not invite a discussion of the merits of anti-Semitism; they simply acted out its consequences.

Japanese anti-submarine warfare capability was never really very good, and in the early part of the war it was particularly dreadful. One reason for this was that the Japanese had incorrectly calculated the depth to which American boats could dive. They set their depth charges based on that, and the American submariners soon learned that if they dove deep enough (at depths well within the safety limit of the boat hulls) they would be all but immune to Japanese depth charging.

Obviously this was quite useful and interesting, and it began to be talked about back on shore, in a “Boy, have you heard about how stupid the Japanese are?” kind of way. The story spread, and spread, and it eventually ended up in a newspaper. And then one Congressman included it in a speech before Congress.

As might be imagined, the Japanese heard about this, and started setting their depth charges to go deeper. This prompted an officer in the Navy to send a letter to the Congressman saying that he was sure the Congressman would be pleased to learn that the Japanese had corrected their mistake.

Out of that experience, and a couple of others like it, submariners soon learned that they couldn’t ultimately trust anyone who was not in subs. It wasn’t that others might necessarily be inimical, but that they might be careless or stupid.

They came to be known as the “Silent Service”. Submarine officers didn’t wear their dolphins when in the O-club, and though they would be friendly and would talk about irrelevant subjects, they would not talk about what they did to anyone. They would talk, but never talk shop. They might not even admit that they were in subs.

Unfortunately, I was too young to ask him any really good questions, and he took the idea of “loose lips sink ships” as seriously as you would want from the Weapons Officer.

Eventually, he joined the crew of the USS Blueback as the Executive Officer, prior to taking over command of the USS Bonefish.

Anyway, knowing that my uncle regularly served aboard submarines made my “voyage” into the world of Verne’s undersea fiction even more memorable.

His work is almost in the techno-thriller genre, but the near-future tech isn’t thrilling now.

Wells is much more of a Big Idea guy, and I found myself enjoying his less grounded stories much more, even though I consider myself pretty grounded and a big fan of plausibility.