{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2916", "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": 2916, "subject": "\"Hour of Trust\" and rape", "messages": 5, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-02-03T15:21:19+00:00", "last": "2002-02-09T20:51:58+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-02-03T15:21:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Hour of Trust\" and rape", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Michael Andre-Driussi\" \nIt is a tactic to push the soldiers to commit more atrocities (killing\nwhite-flag waving civilians, even naked civilians), which will further\nerode civilian support for the government and boost support for the\nrebels." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "While you are right, I think you are looking at the etherial symbolism and\nmissing the earthy basics of his story.\n\n\nWhat are wars fought for?\n\n\nWars are fought by men, to obtain power over the bodies of women and their\nsexual/reproductive potential. Ultimately.\n\nThe text focuses on the **women** rebels who take the suicide/flameout route\nbecause these are the people who are effectively, devastatingly, negating\nthis, the most basic of male human motivations.\n\nAnd symbolically proving to the troops who attack them that, even if they\nwin, they will lose.\n\nNotice, the \"government\" people are at the top of the male power hierarchy.\nThey have women on tap. But in the same way that the grunts are not going\nto be able to rape any women even if they win, the executives and\npoliticians will not acually improve their Broad Reproductive Success by\nfucking the models/prostituites. They have in fact been out-evolved by the\nwomen, who get more from the transaction than their male \"exploiters\".\n\nThe whole government side is sterile, an evolutionary dead end.\n\n\nThe trope of the rape of defeated women in war occurs elsewhere in Wolfe.\nMora's rape in IGJ, and \"When I was Ming The Merciless\", are two examples\nthat come immediately to mind.\n\n\n hartshorn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-02-09T19:07:09+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) \"Hour of Trust\" and rape", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hartshorn quoted me and wrote:\n----- Original Message -----\nFrom: \"Michael Andre-Driussi\" \nIt is a tactic to push the soldiers to commit more atrocities (killing\nwhite-flag waving civilians, even naked civilians), which will further\nerode civilian support for the government and boost support for the\nrebels.\n\n\nWhile you are right, I think you are looking at the etherial symbolism and\nmissing the earthy basics of his story.\n\n\nWhat are wars fought for?\n\n\nWars are fought by men, to obtain power over the bodies of women and their\nsexual/reproductive potential. Ultimately.\n\nThe text focuses on the **women** rebels who take the suicide/flameout route\nbecause these are the people who are effectively, devastatingly, negating\nthis, the most basic of male human motivations.\n\nAnd symbolically proving to the troops who attack them that, even if they\nwin, they will lose.\n\nNotice, the \"government\" people are at the top of the male power hierarchy.\nThey have women on tap. But in the same way that the grunts are not going\nto be able to rape any women even if they win, the executives and\npoliticians will not acually improve their Broad Reproductive Success by\nfucking the models/prostituites. They have in fact been out-evolved by the\nwomen, who get more from the transaction than their male \"exploiters\".\n\nThe whole government side is sterile, an evolutionary dead end.\n\n\nThe trope of the rape of defeated women in war occurs elsewhere in Wolfe.\nMora's rape in IGJ, and \"When I was Ming The Merciless\", are two examples\nthat come immediately to mind." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, yes. There is truth to what you are saying. However, the imp in me\nis reminded of similar things done comically--was it in ZORBA THE GREEK\nthat the woman determined that the way to world peace was for all the wives\nof the military men to refuse to have sex with their husbands if they\nengaged in war?\n\nI don't think \"Hour of Trust\" is a \"war of the sexes\" story in the company\nof such Wolfe works as \"In Looking-Glass Castle\" and \"The Ziggurat.\" I\nthink it is about History, and historical turning points: we are witnessing\na near-future turning point, chaotic and confusing for the people in it,\nyet clearly a moment that decides the shape of the future. (Again, it is a\nlot like \"The Haunted Boardinghouse.\") There are suicide squads, just like\nthe kamikaze pilots of World War Two, but the point is not that they are\nall women, the point is that they are kamikaze. The fact that some of them\nare women is an added tinge of horror (as well as necessary foreshadowing\nfor the story's end).\n\nThe story is about the fall of (corporate) empire and the triumph of\n\"barbarism and religion.\" Wolfe is obviously well-aware of the birth of\nChristianity under similar circumstances--he includes the bald Christian\nguy among the three Peace people, clearly re-creating an \"early martyr\nslain by Roman soldiers\" sort of scene. (And there does seem to be a new\ncult/religion among the civilian population and the rebels, though how\ncoherent it is remains unclear,likewise how central it is to the rebels.)\n\nAllow me to back up a moment and retrofit context to my original post:\n\nWar is an institution. Slavery was/is an institution. These institutions\ngrew out of, evolved from, situations that were, according to some, worse.\n(Clearly an \"anti-Golden Age\" stance.) For example, I've seen it said that\nSlavery was the merciful alternative to Genocide (active/passive).\nLikewise War, by its very nature, stayed clear of certain behavior like\nGenocide and Scorched Earth campaigns--not that they never happened, just\nthat they were recognized as large scale atrocities. War in the Modern Age\nis built upon this and more: hence the attempted genocide by the Nazis is a\nshocking descent of a highly civilized nation into pre-civilized barbarism\nin a very short time span.\n\nSo War is a game with rules, as ridiculous and sad as that is. War is an\ninstitution, and over time institutions change (sometimes for the better,\nsometimes for the worse: Slavery in the US was worse than slavery in\nancient Greece, for example)--they can even be done away with (Slavery\nabolished in Russian Empire, British Empire, and the US, despite the fact\nthat Industrialization seems to =strengthen= the need for Slavery). But\nimho the flaming kamikaze hug is not a step towards evolving out of War,\nrather it is several steps backwards, forcing devolutionary behavior.\nTurning Modern War into something more like the take-no-prisoners,\ncontinental scorched-earth campaigns of the Mongols.\n\nScorched earth (killing peasants, destroying farming networks) worked\nrather well for the Mongols--it took centuries if not a chiliad for parts\nof Asia to recover, and that was what the Mongols wanted: to preserve their\nnomadic \"cowboy\" ways against the encroaching fixed-place-dwellers.\nScorched earth worked poorly for Hannibal--if he had managed to win against\nRome, perhaps it would have been seen as the necessary evil. But since he\ndidn't, it justified the later annihilation of Carthage. (Hannibal's\ntactic probably also paved the way for Rome's shift from a Republic to a\nDictatorship.)\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-02-09T18:00:15+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) \"Hour of Trust\" and rape", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: \"Michael Andre-Driussi\" \nThe whole government side is sterile, an evolutionary dead end.\nThe trope of the rape of defeated women in war occurs elsewhere in Wolfe.\nMora's rape in IGJ, and \"When I was Ming The Merciless\", are two examples\nthat come immediately to mind." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, yes. There is truth to what you are saying. However, the imp in me\nis reminded of similar things done comically--was it in ZORBA THE GREEK\nthat the woman determined that the way to world peace was for all the\nwives\nof the military men to refuse to have sex with their husbands if they\nengaged in war?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, that is a comical story, while \"Hour of Trust\" is very realistic." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't think \"Hour of Trust\" is a \"war of the sexes\" story in the company\nof such Wolfe works as \"In Looking-Glass Castle\" and \"The Ziggurat.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, it is a war story, with one side having been hopelessly outevolved by\nthe other.\n\nThe fact that women captives suicide does not make this a \"war of the sexes\"\nstory. It simply means that their side, the winning side, has gained a\ntranscendent resolution, and has become able to step out of the old rules\nand define new ones under which they are winning.\n\nGovernment (if it is not blessed by god) becomes a predator upon the nation,\na tyrant. Here we have a tale of the government being thrown off by the\ntactic of premptively destroying all the \"loot\". So it seems to me.\n\n\nThe rest of your points are perfectly valid, and indeed do not contradict\nthis.\n\n\n." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "So War is a game with rules, as ridiculous and sad as that is." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You know Wolfe's position perfectly well. War must be, in a sinful world.\nTherefore it had better have rules. War as a game with rules is *better*\nthan war as genocide.\n\nBy imagining that we can avoid war, in a fallen universe, we always find\nourselves back with war-as-genocide, as the Holocaust, the Gulag, and other\nequivalently sized genocides in the pursuit of Utopia show.\n\n\n hartshorn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-02-09T20:51:58+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) \"Hour of Trust\" and rape", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Hartshorn quoted and wrote:\nI don't think \"Hour of Trust\" is a \"war of the sexes\" story in the company\nof such Wolfe works as \"In Looking-Glass Castle\" and \"The Ziggurat.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No, it is a war story, with one side having been hopelessly outevolved by\nthe other." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You are banging that evolution gong again. This is where we disagree: I\nsee kamikaze pilots as devolutionary to both sides. You see it as\nevolutionary, as in the next bit:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The fact that women captives suicide does not make this a \"war of the sexes\"\nstory. It simply means that their side, the winning side, has gained a\ntranscendent resolution, and has become able to step out of the old rules\nand define new ones under which they are winning." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Whereas I tried to show that it is devolutionary--if it is not\nscorched-earth itself, it certainly demands scorched earth in response. I\nsee it as the fanaticism of the medieval assassins, or the kamikaze pilots:\ntranscendent in the Mishima Death Cult way.\n\nIf the rebels \"win\" like the Mongols \"won,\" then, as I alluded in writing\nabout alternate Hannibals, the act might later be seen by History as a\nnecessary evil. (The Mongols won in the short term goal of creating the\nfirst world empire; but they lost in that they were culturally absorbed by\ntheir enemies.) We know they will win, and we sense that America, then\nBritain, and finally Europe will enter a new Dark Age as the new religion\nand new political system work themselves into a new civilization.\n\nYour other point about women as chattal, spoils of war, and reproductive\nstrategies begins to fall apart when it must be made plain that\nreproduction is for the living, colonizer and colonized alike. Kamikaze do\nnot reproduce--they are far more sterile than whore-mongering fatcats, they\nare the ultimate in sterility: they are dead.\n\nTo get back to the barbarian hordes, Mongol reproduction was served on the\ngenetic level, but lost on the cultural level. Which level really \"counts\"\nis different for different people, naturally." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Government (if it is not blessed by god) becomes a predator upon the nation,\na tyrant. Here we have a tale of the government being thrown off by the\ntactic of premptively destroying all the \"loot\". So it seems to me." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is the opposite of Gandhi's Tactic, which was truly a military\nevolution, and highly successful." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "War must be, in a sinful world.\nTherefore it had better have rules. War as a game with rules is *better*\nthan war as genocide.\n\nBy imagining that we can avoid war, in a fallen universe, we always find\nourselves back with war-as-genocide, as the Holocaust, the Gulag, and other\nequivalently sized genocides in the pursuit of Utopia show." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Now I get confused--I thought you were saying that breaking the rules\n(waving a white flag, etc., to lure soldiers to death) was =evolutionary=.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSIRIUS FICTION\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\n57 Lexicons left until OP!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-02-09T18:58:46+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) \"Hour of Trust\" and rape", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: \"Michael Andre-Driussi\" \n\nNo, it is a war story, with one side having been hopelessly outevolved by\nthe other." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "You are banging that evolution gong again. This is where we disagree: I\nsee kamikaze pilots as devolutionary to both sides." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh dear, this is my fault. My background thinking is steeped in\nEvolutionary psychology.\n\nI didn't mean \"evolve\" as in \"get better\". That is not an idea much\ncountenenced today. It is simply a new winning group competitive strategy.\n\nMorally it is indeed far worse - Wolfe is not portraying the rebels as\n\"good\", but simply as winners - but I think there is some hint that a new\nhope may be possible after the rebels have won." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Your other point about women as chattal, spoils of war, and reproductive\nstrategies begins to fall apart when it must be made plain that\nreproduction is for the living, colonizer and colonized alike." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, but the rebel girls do not kill themselves when they are having orgies\nwith their commune mates, of course. And only a few of them kill\nthemselves. These few are soldiers - sacrificing themselves for their\ntribe.\n\nTheir suicide is a political statement directed at the government troops\n\n**WE ARE ABSOLUTELY SERIOUS. EVEN IF YOU WIN YOU WILL GET NOTHING. OUR\nRESOLUTION IS TOTAL. HERE, I WILL DEMONSTRATE**" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Government (if it is not blessed by god) becomes a predator upon the\nnation,\na tyrant. Here we have a tale of the government being thrown off by the\ntactic of premptively destroying all the \"loot\". So it seems to me." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is the opposite of Gandhi's Tactic, which was truly a military\nevolution, and highly successful." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Agreed," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "War must be, in a sinful world.\nTherefore it had better have rules. War as a game with rules is *better*\nthan war as genocide.\n\nBy imagining that we can avoid war, in a fallen universe, we always find\nourselves back with war-as-genocide, as the Holocaust, the Gulag, and\nother\nequivalently sized genocides in the pursuit of Utopia show." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Now I get confused--I thought you were saying that breaking the rules\n(waving a white flag, etc., to lure soldiers to death) was =evolutionary=." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Once more \"evolved\" in this usage is not the same thing as \"good\" but rather\nis \"winning\".\n\nBut perhaps I should have defined my terms more closely on this list, with\nTieilard de Chardin lurking ever in the background! My fault.\n\n\n hartshorn" } ] } ] }