{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2352", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 2352, "subject": "Another tangent", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2000-08-16T10:16:12+00:00", "last": "2000-08-16T10:57:09+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Russell", "address": "j.a.russell at exeter.ac.uk" }, "date": "2000-08-16T10:21:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Another tangent", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Still writing my paper for the symposium and another \nquestion has occured to me that I don't really know the \nanswer to (although I have some ideas).\n\nBasically its this; What would you guys say is GW's \npolitical stance? What is he, where is he coming from?\nObviously he is not particularly left wing ('Particularly' \nis probably too tame a word, now that I think about it), \nbut would you say that he is right, or rebublican or \ndemocrat or what, really?At the moemtn I only really know \nwhat he is against, not what he is for.\n\nAlso, how do you feel about the antipathy expressed towards \nVodalus intentions - to send man to the stars again. Is \nVodalus problem that his method is suspect, or is Sev (or \nGW himself) being completely negative about man's \ntechnology and space travel? I appreciate the 'bringing \noriginal sin to other worlds' argument, and the 'quest for \nbalance' reading of the novel (which I tend to agree with), \nbut nevertheless I find this desire not to succeed or \nachieve wierd. I can see that Vodalus intentions inevitably \ncontradict the idea of acheiving balance between the \nnatural (mythic, folkloric, etc) and the technological that \nCyraicia talks about, but I am interested in how people \nthink this works in relation to the rest of the work. \n\nCheers,\n----------------------\nJim Russell\nUniversity of Exeter" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "2000-08-16T10:16:12+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Another tangent", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe's political views are probably not easy to peg. Wolfe talks\nabout his political beliefs in Nutria's interview\n(http://world.std.com/~pduggan/gwjbj1.html#pol).\n\nI would suspect that the closest classifcation would be as a\n\"conservative,\" but not in the usual American sense of the\nword--despite what he says in the interview about freedom, I suspect\nthat Wolfe is not a libertarian, and he certainly has strong views\nabout environmental conservation, which would seem not to suggest\nthat. I've read the phrase \"baroque conservative\" used to describe\nR. A. Lafferty (and Mark Helprin), with connotations of a complex,\nnon-ideological political approach based strongly in religious or\nmetaphysical belief. That might roughly cover Wolfe as well.\n\n\nWolfe's opposition to Vodalus seems similar to the opposition to space\nexploration in C. W. Lewis' three science-fiction novels: space\nexploration isn't so much bad in and of itself, but it certainly is\nbad if we go about it with dreams of galactic empire. THE FIFTH HEAD\nOF CERBERUS suggests how Wolfe thinks we would likely end up behaving\nin a populated universe (and based on experience on Earth doesn't seem\ntoo far out, I'd think). Vodalus clearly wants to reestablish\nsomething like Typhon's world-spanning tyranny, which would certainly\n\"pollute the universe.\" Clearly all space travel isn't bad\nthough--Severian's travels are ok, and there seems to be a positive\nelement to the remaining space travel by humans on the ship (although\nmany sailors turn to the side of Abaia and co.) The passage at the\nend of the first chapter of CLAW, which we've quoted recently,\nsuggests that Vodalus' aims are sinful in that he is trapped in the\npast mistakes of humanity--it isn't the future or growth that is\noriginally sinful, but the endless repetition of evil patterns and the\nrejection of divine guidance to something better: \"That we are capable\nonly of being what we are remains our unforgivable sin.\"" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Henley", "address": "supplanter at highclearing.com" }, "date": "2000-08-16T10:57:09+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Another tangent", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "-----Original Message-----\nFrom: urth-errors at lists.best.com [mailto:urth-errors at lists.best.com]On\nBehalf Of Jim Russell\nSent: Wednesday, August 16, 2000 6:22 AM\n\nBasically its this; What would you guys say is GW's \npolitical stance? What is he, where is he coming from?\nObviously he is not particularly left wing ('Particularly' \nis probably too tame a word, now that I think about it), \nbut would you say that he is right, or rebublican or \ndemocrat or what, really?At the moemtn I only really know \nwhat he is against, not what he is for." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I would say Wolfe is a Catholic conservative in the mold of his heroes like Chesterton. Because he is a _religious_ conservative, he makes more conscious shows of sympathy for the poor than conservatives are assumed to have these days. Also, like his Savior, Wolfe seems to be comfortable in the (imaginative) company of whores and thieves. I've never been able to get behind interpretations that link any given prostitute in the Wolfe corpus to \"the Whore of Babylon\" or whatever, because it's so obvious that Wolfe _likes_ his (fictional) prostitutes, and makes them likable to us, too.\n\nWorth noting as a token of Wolfe's _social_ conservatism: that story-whose-title-I-forget in Strange Travellers that people have compared to Delany - the story-within-a-story about the archaeological expedition that ends with the drug overdose. This story's style really _is_ Delanyesque - it reminds me especially of \"We in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line\" and \"Driftglass.\" And yet the action of the story amounts to a _critique_ of Delany's themes. (Wolfe's theme boils down to \"Drugs are bad for you.\" The theme of a real Delany story would be \"Drugs are good for you.\")" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also, how do you feel about the antipathy expressed towards \nVodalus intentions - to send man to the stars again. Is \nVodalus problem that his method is suspect, or is Sev (or \nGW himself) being completely negative about man's \ntechnology and space travel? I appreciate the 'bringing \noriginal sin to other worlds' argument, and the 'quest for \nbalance' reading of the novel (which I tend to agree with), \nbut nevertheless I find this desire not to succeed or \nachieve wierd. I can see that Vodalus intentions inevitably \ncontradict the idea of acheiving balance between the \nnatural (mythic, folkloric, etc) and the technological that \nCyraicia talks about, but I am interested in how people \nthink this works in relation to the rest of the work. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think it can be that Wolfe's view is contra space travel per se. For one thing, he says that the future he imagined in the book began as \"What happens if we just stay in place right here on earth and stagnate until everything runs down and runs out.\" At some point the background mutated into one where humanity is bottled up, but the original impulse is in line with the Dark Future If We Stay Put imagined by the most gung-ho space enthusiasts.\n\nBest,\n\n\nJim\n*********************\nJim Henley\nNAS Revenue Assurance\n703-793-4080 voice\n703-793-4194 fax" } ] } ] }