{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/819", "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": 819, "subject": "Wolfe's politics", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-06-17T11:32:10+00:00", "last": "1998-06-30T17:35:04+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan Parmenter", "address": "dan at lec.com" }, "date": "1998-06-17T11:32:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's politics", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: Miles Goosens \nAnd I'm a bit afraid that Mr. Wolfe is turning into an old fart. Not only\nwas the LONG SUN tetralogy a distinct letdown, but I recently read a review\nthat he wrote in which he made lame and gratuitous anti-\"political\ncorrectness\" asides." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think that Wolfe has ever made any secret of his\nconservatism. He has said that at one time he was a William\nF. Buckley-type conservative. Now Buckley himself is hardly a typical\nconservative (he's been pro marijuana legalization for years), so\nmaybe that was part of the appeal. Wolfe has also said (perhaps in\nthe same interview, one of the ones on Paul Duggan's Wolfe page) that\nhe occasionally finds himself agreeing with Pat Buchanan. Now\nBuchanan, despite seeming like the ultimate \"Amerikanner\" is also\nsomething of a oddity among Republicans; he's been known to criticize\nthe zeal with which big business has abandoned American labor for\ncheaper climes.\n\nAnd just to bring it back to 5HC for a moment, VRT/Marsch claims to be\na member of \"The Laissez Faire Party\", which seems to be a sort of\nhumorous variation on libertarianism.\n\nIt's hard for me to imagine Wolfe as entirely \"anti-PC\"; after all, I\nthink that 5HC is essentially a critique of colonialism.\n\nI suspect that Wolfe, like many people doesn't necessarily consider\nhis politics as being reducible to a party affiliation or set of\nbeliefs. \n\nD" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1998-06-30T16:58:03+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Wolfe's politics", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's hard for me to imagine Wolfe as entirely \"anti-PC\"; after all, I\nthink that 5HC is essentially a critique of colonialism.\n\nI suspect that Wolfe, like many people doesn't necessarily consider\nhis politics as being reducible to a party affiliation or set of\nbeliefs. \n\nD" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tSpeaking as a long-time conservative:\n\n\t1. Wolfe's conservationism (environmentalism) is wholly in keeping with\ntraditional conservatism, which is not committed to a total laissez-faire\napproach to all matters. He's right in line with men like Russell Kirk and\nFrancis Schaeffer.\n\t2. The same holds true of his anti-colonialism. G. K. Chesterton was one\nof many Catholic and non-establishment Protestant evangelicals who\nadvocated a \"little England\" and opposed imperialism on moral grounds. It\ngoes back to Edmund Burke's attacks on how the British abused the Indians\nin India.\n\t3. It is safe to say that Wolfe started out as a generic Catholic\nconservative, but as a mature thinker, has become too broad for any kind of\ntypecasting. But his general perspective is going to be pro-Christian,\npro-Bible, and thus pretty conservative as compared with modern notions.\n\t4. He is fully capable of sympathizing with anti-establishment movements,\nas we see in \"Hour of Trial.\" But notice that while Gene Wolfe marches with\nthe radicals, he does so praying the Lord's Prayer!\n\t5. The whole PC movement is so incredibly bigoted and anti-intellectual\nthat it is hard to see why anyone, conservative or liberal, would credit it!\n\t6. But the conclusion of the whole matter is this: Wolfe has said in\ninterviews that he is a practicing Roman Catholic, \"but you may not\nunderstand what that means.\" The same is true of being a conservative. A\ngreat many people who have not read Christian and conservative (not the\nsame thing, of course) literature have very odd notions about what such\npeople actually believe and espouse.\n\nJust some food for thought.\n\nJim Jordan" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Miles Goosens", "address": "outdoorminer at mindspring.com" }, "date": "1998-06-30T17:35:04+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Wolfe's politics", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 04:58 PM 6/30/98 -0500, Jim Jordan wrote:\n1. Wolfe's conservationism (environmentalism) is wholly in keeping with\ntraditional conservatism, which is not committed to a total laissez-faire\napproach to all matters. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "6. But the conclusion of the whole matter is this: Wolfe has said in\ninterviews that he is a practicing Roman Catholic, \"but you may not\nunderstand what that means.\" The same is true of being a conservative. A\ngreat many people who have not read Christian and conservative (not the\nsame thing, of course) literature have very odd notions about what such\npeople actually believe and espouse." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not to go entirely off-topic, but what Jim is talking about serves to\nhighlight the radical disjuncture between what most people think\n\"conservative\" means vs. what academics usually mean by the same term. As\nJim points out in #1, philosophical conservatism often questions the\nmorality of a \"laissez-faire\" market-driven economy, whereas those\npopularly identified with \"conservatism\" usually fetishize \"free markets\"\nand, in at least this sense, embrace liberalism just as heartily as\n\"liberals\"! \n\nBut if you tell people that their \"conservatives\" are really liberals,\nyou'll get nothing but puzzled stares.\n\nI consider myself to be very left-leaning, and not religious at all, but I\noften find myself in sympathy with those on the academic right. If you\nthink of the range of political opinions as a circle rather than a\ncontinuum, the far left and the far right are not that distant... :-)\n\nlater,\n\nMiles\n\n\n===============================================================\n\"Gettin' piss-drunk, givin' the players a hard time, throwin'\na chicken bone at the cop - that's what baseball is all about.\"\n\t-- a lout from Cleveland two rows in front of me at \na Tigers game, waxing rhapsodic about how Indians games used\nto be\n\nMiles Goosens\noutdoorminer at mindspring.com\n\nhttp://www.mindspring.com/~outdoorminer/miles\n===============================================================" } ] } ] }