A recent discussion in the MAL club went like this:

“Im arguing against Julian because of one thing. The war he started was needless and ANYTHING gained by it will be lost in time. You can say seeds where planted, but we are talking about a empire with 1000’s of planets. All the Empire’s citizen see is how the Free Planet Alliance attacked their god-like kaiser, and not to forget all the propaganda. How could they ever agree to a democratic government form that brought ALL wars that ever happend to them in existence in the first place.”

…

“Hmmm, I’d disagree. One thing Yang was always referencing was history – he was a “scholar” after all, and Julian his biographer. Perhaps those planted seeds of constitutionalism were not realized within the political reality of the Empire, but, as those “fourth wall” historians were indicative of, the simple historical fact of political struggle keeps alive the respective political philosophies that need only exist in record that can, some day or another, revitalize their own mobilization.

So that brings up an interesting paradox of pragmaticism: does an historic victory count as a strategic victory? Actually, an historic victory probably wouldn’t discriminate against any kind of victory since it would all be recorded, lest conservative historians neglect certain events, but it seemed that the LoGH universe was a rather historically utopian microcosm in that the viewer was essentially this omnipotent entity that was guided by those historians and the narrator.

So in some ways I think the element of history in LoGh was one of the most significant: to say that war is entirely, inherently and inextricably futile to the point of total avoidance suggests that its everlasting effect on the history of human thought is worthless. So I’m not really saying we should go to war just so future generations can read about it and watch gory movies (ironic eh?) moreso than how the historical value of war and its purposes (i.e. to “historicize” constitutionalism) cannot be disregarded. Do the ends justify the means? I dunno, but I did like Oberstein.”

It’s exactly as Julian notes.