I mean, I disagree with this diagnosis. Both emerge as the "right" answer not because it's a rational analysis of plausible material conditions, but because of authorial fiat. The only advantage I would cede to the imperium are that some of the authors of 40k are aware that is is ridiculous, whereas Lind just seems to be an reactionary moron.
As you note, a significant fraction of
Warhammer 40,000's authorship (which can only be discussed as a collective body)
does not argue that the Imperium of Man is the "right" answer. Recognizing that for one reason or another (there are many) it is very much an example of people coming up with the wrong solution to many of their problems, to the point where it is ultimately destroying them all.
Furthermore, there is an important element of
Warhammer 40,000: its history is written as
tragedy and its present circumstances as as a slowly unfolding disaster. Outside threats, while not turning the Imperium into an objectively correct or
good state, do at least exist and would at least cause objective harm if allowed to triumph. Victoria, by contrast, is presented as having cheerfully chainsawed its neighbors for no reason better or more clear than "own the libs."
While I'm not fond of Puritan ideology, much less the Vics, I kind of dig the idea of being named an entire quoted sentence. "My name is Not-All-Those-Who-Wander-Are-Lost Jones, usually go by Wander."
Honestly, comparing the Vicks to the Puritans is grossly unfair to the Puritans.
The Puritans brought
a lot of mixed cultural baggage with them. Some of it was overtly
bad (e.g. being the only group of English colonists who did any witch-hunting as far as I can tell); you can see more examples at the link.
And yet. And yet.
The Puritans (as mentioned in the link) also brought with them ideas like protections against spousal abuse, an active society-wide commitment to reducing wealth inequality and restraining the pretensions of the aristocratic upper class, a desire to spread mass education, and a firm belief that the community was responsible for the success and welfare of all its members.
That Puritan cultural baggage eventually unpacked into a lot of the things that formed the foundation of the abolitionist movement and the rise of taxpayer-funded public education and social safety programs. Puritanism was,
like all 17th century political and religious ideologies, so full of flaws and sins that we could spend a long day just picking them all apart... But it was carrying with it a certain amount of light, light that is ancestral to much of what we are glad to have today, and light which the Victorians have rejected.
The Victorians, essentially, want the
superficial aesthetic trappings of the Puritans, without the culture and content. Or rather, without any of the culture and content that
isn't something they can turn into support for a sick fantasy. They want the witch burnings, in other words, but not the domestic abuse laws.
When do you think was the last time the Victorians held a proper town meeting? When a minister condemned the actions of a powerful man? When the community passed a law taxing the rich to benefit the poor?
They're not Puritans; they're Nazis who killed a bunch of Puritans and try to wear their skins as disguises.
Im not actually sure this is true.
The Vics actively purged all semblance of high technology from their territory. We didn't. A lot of ours just fell into some disrepair, and people stopped active display of stuff that would draw attention.
Yes, but they also actively destroyed a lot of the infrastructure that would enable widespread use of high technology in the rest of the country. We're not living in the kind of condition a modern underdeveloped country might have, where the village lacks clean drinking water and yet has cell phone reception. The Vicks mostly blew up the cell phone towers too.
And, again, the reality remains that so many of our citizens were, at game start,
subsistence farmers lacking the equipment and training to do better, that our country nearly starved despite frantic efforts to mass-produce and distribute farming equipment.
We still might have famines without that; we're still actively working on that!
But if you simply MUST demand nitpicks for the nitpick god, FINE. I will say this:
The
mean Commonwealth citizen is likely to be significantly more technologically literate than the
mean Victorian (though just as our society has computer operators and engineers at the high end, so does theirs have radar technicians!).
But the
median Commonwealth citizen may have little more access to high technology than the
median Victorian, until and unless we spread the kind of infrastructure, wealth, education, and goods that let us open the gap farther.
