Subject: (urth) 'Doomed' multitudes

From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2005 03:21:38 +0000

I wrote, on the subject of Severian's victims being doomed:
>>No, they weren't. The multitudes would have continued to live their 
>>ordinary lives if Severian hadn't drowned them all.

Maru wrote:
>On a dying planet. With the most dehumanizing gov.'t ever 
>conceived poised to take over their lives, liberties, minds 
>(Abaia & co. ?) quite literally.

Abaia and co have *always* been poised to over the commonwealth. They
were poised when Severian left to be Tested, and when he comes back
70-odd years later the commonwealth is still there. We're even told that
Valeria's second marriage was a good thing because while she could take
care of the commonwealth 'he could take care of the Ascians.'

Baldanders says: "The armies of Erebus follow the waves, and all the
defeats they suffered at your husband's hands will be avenged." In what
way does 'all the defeats they suffered at your husband's hands' suggest
Abaia and co were poised to take over anything? 

Gunnie and the other sailors are shown both futures. If the Frozen Urth
future involves being horribly taken over by Abaia and co and everyone
being doomed, nobody mentions it. A lot of the sailors think it's a
future worth fighting for.

Nothing Master Ashe says suggests Abaia and co taking over either. If
anything he seems to think they're running out of options. 

>I am curious as to what your life is like if you can consider that 
>'ordinary'.

Oh, come off it. What constitutes an 'ordinary life' is entirely
relative to time and place. The lives of the everyday people of the
commonwealth Severian meets are ordinary for the people living them. I
don't recall many of them saying "Wow, our lives are just so doomed and
awful, aren’t they? I wish a big wave would come along and drown me and
everyone I love." 

I wrote:
>Since a planet does have to be drowned to
>realise the potential of a handful of survivors in the New Sun future,
I
>think that's more important. 

Maru wrote:
>Not just a handful.  A handful prolfically reproducing to repopulate
the 
>planet.
>A 'handful' which will persist throughout periods of time that if you 
>even apprehended a smidgen of their yawning aeons...

That's still a handful, Maru. In the Frozen Urth future handfuls, at the
very least, are taken to new worlds where they can reproduce with quite
the same degree of hyperbole.

>Getting the idea of how many people have a chance to live should 
>Severian choose to sacrifice a few? 

Getting the idea that just as many, if not more, will live if he doesn't
sacrifice anyone at all?

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2005 09:52:35 +0000

I've been too busy (and still am) to comment on this 
thread; but...

It seems to me that a bit of light might be shed on the
whole subject by attending to the Biblical concept, of
_the remnant_. This is a recurring theme throughout:
the idea that though Mankind or Israel sins, and God
chastises, He always brings forth a remnant to carry
on. This applies to the sons of Noah, to the Benjaminites,
to the returnees from the Babylonian Exile, and in smaller
ways to many other things. You find the theme all through
the prophetic books of the Bible.

I suspect strongly that Wolfe has this theme in mind,
though perhaps not consciously.

--Dan'l

-- 
You probably do not want to know what that odor is. 
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer

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From: maru <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2005 11:36:01 +0000

>though perhaps not consciously.
I personally suspect, since the remnant is always
'more pure' than the previous population, this is merely
natural fall out of the 'us vs them' way of thinking, where
'us' is always smaller than 'them'. Fires up the ol' zealotry spirit
even in cases where thinking so is absurd. (Witness how Christians
in the US feel presecuted!)
That, and 'we were spared, so God must like us better!'.

But Wolfe is not alone- look at Jordan's WOT series, and tell me
if you can't see it there as well.

~Maru

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2005 22:40:20 +0000

>natural fall out of the 'us vs them' way of thinking,... 

Hmmmm

>....Fires up the ol' zealotry spirit

"Us vs Them" thinking rears its ugly head in a most ironic way. :-)

~ Crush

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From: maru <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2005 18:19:04 +0000

> "Us vs Them" thinking rears its ugly head in a most ironic way. :-)

/me is disquieted; cannot reasonably parse & interpret above statement. 
Is it a cogent agreement and
amplification of the aforegoing? An especially ironic and subtle dig at 
the author of
the aforegoing?  Something else even diabolical and intricate, ramping 
even further
up the dizzying infinite insane meta-levels of post-modern irony and 
epistolary techniques?

/me head asplodes.

~Maru

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 10:46:11 +0000

> Crush wrote:
>An especially ironic and subtle dig at the author of
>the aforegoing?

That's the one, but more so at the concept that "us vs them" thinking can be 
tagged to a particular category of the human race or to a philosophic 
category. "Us vs Them" thinking is endemic to positively holding a point of 
view. I have the same reaction to this as the claim that there is something 
"dangerous" about "people who believe they are right" (which would suggest 
that there is something dangerous about people who seriously believe that 
there is something dangerous about people who believe they are right).

~ Crush

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From: maru <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 17:33:11 +0000

>care of the commonwealth 'he could take care of the Ascians.'
I recollect the Undines said that they could have, at any moment taken 
the Commonwealth
but they forebore, to try and stop the New Sun.  I find one of the 
interesting things in Urth of the New
Sun is how Abaia & co are portrayed in a far more sympathetic light- 
they fight on the side of the sailors
to let Urth die a slow death, than a violent rebirth.  70-odd years 
later the Commonwealth is still there
because as Severian says, the 'time when my death could have prevented 
the coming of the New Sun was past',
and Sev didn't have to fear assasination at their hands anymore.

>future worth fighting for.
The sailors are shown the consequence of the New Sun fork, not the Ice 
Urth fork.

>anything he seems to think they're running out of options. 
More evidence that they sought the wrong fork in the path- shows that 
even their
desired end of a slowly freezing Urth dooms them and their progeny.

>Getting the idea that just as many, if not more, will live if he doesn't
Please explain to me how you can say that N worlds of people (where N 
represents the totality
of worlds colonized by man, including a revitalized Urth/Ushas) could 
possibly only
equal or be less (!) than N-1 worlds of people.

~Maru

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From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 17:53:13 +0000

That's actually not a difficult question at all; in fact it *seems* so 
obvious how he "can say" it that I won't bother to try to answer it. Instead 
I'll ask a more productive question:

Why are you using "worlds" as a unit of measurement instead of individual 
human lives?

Related: What kind of perspective would it require to make this a valid way 
to measure?

To bake a cake for six people: put two containers full of the relevant 
ingredients into one container, and process appropriately. Separate contents 
into six containers and serve.

Maru said:
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---

From: maru <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 18:10:08 +0000

...
You know what I mean.

But the reason I am using worlds as a measurement is that
that is the simplest way of saying it.  I could say something
along the lines of all these 'containers' are necessarily the same size
and so you couldn't separate into six containers; or I could say 
something along
the lines that if you take Urth out of the picture you have irrevocably 
reduced
the future potential of the worlds of man, and this reduced potential 
will more than
outweigh the people spared a New Sun. And so on.
 
The perspective that makes this a valid way of measuring is a long-term, 
universal
viewpoint, which treats all humans as equal.

~Maru

Chris wrote:

> obvious how he "can say" it that I won't bother to try to answer it. 
> Instead I'll ask a more productive question:
>
> Why are you using "worlds" as a unit of measurement instead of 
> individual human lives?
>
> Related: What kind of perspective would it require to make this a 
> valid way to measure?
>
> ingredients into one container, and process appropriately. Separate 
> contents into six containers and serve.
>
> Maru said:
>

---

From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 01:32:04 +0000

Maru wrote
> but they forebore, to try and stop the New Sun.

What Joturna says is that Abaia "might have destroyed you... In a day,
or a few days. He's sought to tame you instead." UOTNS, XLIII.

Destroyed, not taken. Abaia wants humanity alive. 

> The sailors are shown the consequence of the New Sun fork,
> not the Ice Urth fork.

"Zak showed us that Urth had two futures... It could die and be born
new. Or it could go on living for a long time before it died forever."
UOTNS, XXII

Tzadkiel the Just shows the sailors that humanity drowns in one future,
but omits to mention that it is equally doomed in the other? Doesn't
sound very likely to me.

But this is all by the by. Nowhere in the books does it say that in the
Frozen Urth future humanity is enslaved by Abaia. Nowhere does it say
that branch of humanity is doomed. It says, quite categorically, that
life goes on.

> equal or be less (!) than N-1 worlds of people.

Because any attempt to predict which future will ultimately colonise the
most worlds is pointless speculation. The Green Men may eventually
decide Urth is so sacred they don't live on it at all. The Frozen Urth
people may build 50,000 ringworlds each with the surface area of a
thousand Urths. Rather more probably, both races will at some point
decide that they don't actually want to fill the universe to capacity
like mindless animals at all, and control their populations accordingly.

This is precisely why measuring what the New Sun achieves in terms of
future generations is a non-starter, as I've been saying for some time
now. The people on this list who suggest that it is worthwhile because
it may bring about the Hierogrammates at least have an argument.

---

From: maru <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 15:08:11 +0000

>Destroyed, not taken. Abaia wants humanity alive. 
Remember, Abaia and Erebus already own the rest of Urth
(apparently; at least we hear of noone else resisting them, and
so it is reasonable they have all come to an 'understandin'.
And That they own the rest of the world is reasonable when
you posit that they are modelled after  the Soviet Union and the
circumstances of the Cold War.  Didn't the whole thing with
approved texts and the Ascians remind you of 1984?).
They want the Commonwealth intact... why? Why is it  necessary
that the Commonwealth be 'tamed'? 
I think it is because the rest of the worlds
of man and the Hs see the Commonwealth as the legitimate speaker for Urth
and so if Abaia and co want a speaker for Urth who will choose an Ice 
future,
they must not raze the Commonwealth to the ground like they could, but 
as I said
take it intact and via more subtle and inefficient means. Sev says as 
much a few times.

>but omits to mention that it is equally doomed in the other? Doesn't
Sev says during the Flood that makes Ushas something to the effect
'So this is what the sailors saw.' and agrees with their choice.

>that branch of humanity is doomed. It says, quite categorically, that
No, it says that life will go on for a little while, and then they
will all die, forever.

>like mindless animals at all, and control their populations accordingly.
May, may may... (How could the Frozen Urthers build any Dyson rings?  It 
is all
they can do to import a few cannons, much less engage in mega-engineering
projects.  The future of a Frozen Urth is one of *irreversible* 
decline.  If they
cannot at the time of BOTNS make a ring, they will not be able to in the 
future.)

Humanity may be murdered tomorrow, and so leaving a world my descendants
can live in tomorrow is utterly irrelevant to any decisions I may make!

The Urth may be swallowed by a hidden, undetectable black hole
the bday after tomorrow, therefor let us make decisions only with
regard to us!

If we cannot be sure of anything, let us do nothing!

If it is not 100% certain that our food shall not infect us with tiny
alien parasites which will feed off us and burst messily out of
our chests, let us not eat at all!

>it may bring about the Hierogrammates at least have an argument.
But the Hierogrammates have already been brought about...

~Maru

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 15:30:57 +0000

>No, it says that life will go on for a little while, and then they

This point has already been discussed a few times in this thread, and what 
you seem to be implying here seems to be ignoring that.

Also, that sentence is... well, just look at it.

>May, may may... (How could the Frozen Urthers build any Dyson rings?

>If we cannot be sure of anything, let us do nothing!

If I am not misunderstanding things here, it sounds like you are battering a 
straw man here. I don't think he was suggesting not making any choices at 
all. What he was suggesting was that evaluating "future generations" was not 
a sound basis for making that choice.

And that's arguable. Just not on the terms you're presenting here.

---

From: maru <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 19:17:51 +0000

Chris wrote:

> This point has already been discussed a few times in this thread, and 
> what you seem to be implying here seems to be ignoring that.
>
Well c'mon. That's pratically a direct quote, which I didn't bring in, 
mind you. Someone else brought up
the UOTNS quote to the effect that 'they will live a long time, then die 
forever', about Urth's choices.
(Not the worlds of man, if that's what you thought I was referring to. 
The H's cannot do it for all the worlds
but only Urth- or so we think.)

> If I am not misunderstanding things here, it sounds like you are 
> battering a straw man here. I don't think he was suggesting not making 
> any choices at all. What he was suggesting was that evaluating "future 
> generations" was not a sound basis for making that choice.
>

But if you trying to evaluate on basis of human happiness, you must take 
into consideration future generations, to not do
so vastly magnifies your current generations rightful share of the pie.

~Maru

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 09 Apr 2005 00:14:38 +0000

Measuring by worlds is at best one step removed from what you're really 
trying to get at. There are hidden premises required which can at best be 
contingently true, if that. For one thing, to make "worlds" be the limiting 
factor it would require that humans find and eventually fill to capacity all 
available worlds. For another thing, why couldn't the planet be 
"rehabilitated" after the ice future comes to pass and repopulated by human 
cultures that left earlier? All they need is enough science to whip 
themselves up a white fountain.

This perspective perhaps treats all humans as equal, but just in the sense 
of being equally valueless.  No number of presently existing human beings, 
no matter how large, is capable of outweighing infinite "potential" future 
generations. Actual human beings, in this view, can count for nothing.

On another note, I think that to some extent we are not thinking of Urth as 
just a planet like any other. Through the framing device of the play, we are 
at some level being led to treat Urth as a sort of microcosm. Its death and 
rebirth are in some way treated as the death and rebirth of *everything*. 
I'm not sure if this sort of allegory should be attributed to Wolfe, or if 
it would be better to attribute it to Severian.

>and so you couldn't separate into six containers; or I could say something 
>along
>the future potential of the worlds of man, and this reduced potential will 
>more than
>>Related: What kind of perspective would it require to make this a valid 
>>way to measure?
>>