{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2883", "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": 2883, "subject": "Religion and Politics", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-01-04T18:37:31+00:00", "last": "2002-01-04T19:55:05+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-01-04T18:37:31+00:00", "subject": "Religion and Politics", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sorry for combined answers, but I get digest." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andy R wrote:\nI would suggest that the Whorl books contain a lot of\nexperimental writing about the forms of politics." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This would, I think, be particularly true of the Short Sun\nbooks: but it's actually true of the Urth books, too." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If none of the city-states described there are utopian,\nI can only suggest that that is because Wolfe does not\nthink Utopia acheivable in this life." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That would be a Christianly-correct point of view; this is\nthe Fallen World.\n\n---------------------------" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Then Nutria wrote:\nThe \"Christian model\" of societal hierarchy, to which Wolfe surely \nsubscribes, and which people on this list are free to reject, affirms\nthe following matters, among others:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I would observe before continuing that this is _a_ Christian model\nof society, though certainly a very common one." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " 1. The poor you will always have with you. Some people just\nwon't be able to \"make it.\"\n 1a. Corollary: Some people need to be taken care of, by others." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is the Christian duty of charity. No problem here." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " 2. Some people have a gift for leadership, and others (most)\nare gifted in other areas of life." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which is so obvious as to need no comment." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " 2a. Corollary: Pure democracy is nonsense, though a relative \ndemocracy such as the American Constitution envisioned is a good\nthing. To wit: a variety of ways of selecting leaders, checks and\nbalances in a diversified government, and rulers at various levels\n(county, state, federal) -- all of which is a Protestantized feudal\norder." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My only quibble here is with the word \"Protestantized.\" I think that\nthe Protestant rebellion/revolution/reformation is the result, and\nnot the cause, of this kind of thinking. Specifically, I would posit\nthat the proximate cause of the Protestant reXion is the nonaccidental\nnear-simultaneity in Western Europe of (a) the rise of the middle class*\nand (b) Gutenberg and the moveable-type printing press. The result was\nthat, for the first time, the Bible was available and had a large class\nof persons with the leisure to read and study it. But that same class\nwas already calling the whole feudal model, and especially the Divine\nRight of Kings [tm] into question.\n\n-----\n* this is wandering near to a sort of Christian Marxism, \"the rise of\n the bourgeoisie\" as the cause of everything, but...) \n-----\n\nIt is also worth noting that, on the one hand, the Christian Utopia,\nthe New Jerusalem, is a _Kingdom_; and on the other hand, that it is\na Kingdom in a pre-feudal sense. The model for the New Jerusalem is the\nKingdom of Israel under David and Solomon." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " 3. People usually but not always grow into their callings as a \nresult of their upbringing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "... and the \"not always\" is the hinge that deconstructs the entire\nfeudal model: medieval stories are full of peasants and seventh \nsons and the like who wind up rising above the station the feudal\nsystem would assign them through sheer ability (calling); less \nfrequent but not unknown are stories of people who fall from position\nthrough inability. Thus the persistent medieval image of the Wheel\nof Fortune." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " 3a. Corollary: Some kind of political aristocracy, with sons (and \ndaughters nowadays) reared for rule, in inescapable: Kennedys, Bushes,\netc. The \"skull & bones\" elite.\" The Eastern Establishment. Etc." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hidden in this assumption is the progenetic model of leadership, \nwhich nothing in Christianity warrants (or, admittedly, disallows). \nThe Great King, David, is not the son of a king, but an eighth-son \nof a shepherd; Jesus, though descended from David, is the son of a \ncarpenter's wife (note the evasion there). From Moses to Saul, \nIsrael is ruled by a priestly class of \"judges\" rather than a king. \nEtc." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " 4. The way differently gifted people relate to one another should \nbe through mutual service and joy in being who they are and in doing\nwhat they do best. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Absolutely." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The artisan enjoys his work, and does it to produce things for others\nto buy. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I would say only \"to use.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "... Same with the ruler, who is to serve his people with wisdom.\nThis is not a matter of \"lessers\" serving \"betters,\" " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thank you. And bringing us back for the moment to Catholicism\n(after all, GW _is_ a Catholic, by choice), it's worth remembering\nthat one of the titles of the Pope is \"the Servant of the Servants\nof God.\" " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Entrepreneurs become rich by seeing what other people need and/or\nwant, and by serving them by providing it. Monopolists, on the\nother hand, become rich by \"lording it over\" other people, and\npreventing competition." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "All of which leaves me a bit puzzled, if you are discussing GW as\na libertarian: I have never seen an adequate explanation, in \nlibertarian terms, of how to differentiate a successful entrepreneur \nfrom a monopolist, nor of how a \"free market\" will prevent the latter \nwithout governmental intervention(ism). But that's really not relevant \nto this, is it?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In short, some kind of societal hierarchy is inescapable. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is where I ask the big question: whether \"leadership\" need be\n\"hierarchy.\" That is, because I follow a person, need I accept him\nas in some way \"over\" or \"better than\" me? In the ideal model, I\nshould think, following would be joyful and voluntary and no need of\n\"hierarchy,\" as such, would be needed." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Finally, \"dark ages\" is just sarcasm. What most of us were taught \n in high school about this period is mostly rubbish, and Wolfe knows\n it (or believes it, anyway)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Right: there is a very real continuity from the \"dark ages\" to the\n\"renaissance\" which contrasts sharply with the equally real \n_dis_continuity that strikes at the \"enlightenment.\" \n\n\n--Dan'l" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at home.com" }, "date": "2002-01-04T19:55:05+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Religion and Politics", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l,\n No problem with your post on my part. I'm only interested, on this \nlist, in understanding where Wolfe is coming from. To answer your question:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is where I ask the big question: whether \"leadership\" need be\n\"hierarchy.\" That is, because I follow a person, need I accept him\nas in some way \"over\" or \"better than\" me? In the ideal model, I\nshould think, following would be joyful and voluntary and no need of\n\"hierarchy,\" as such, would be needed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's just a matter of what the word \"hierarchy\" means. If someone dislikes \nthe term, that's fine with me. I don't see how we actually disagree in \nsubstance.\n\nNutria" } ] } ] }