{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/650", "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": "whorl", "thread": { "id": 650, "subject": "[blue] Inhumic morality and dwellers in the deep", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-10-02T23:13:28+00:00", "last": "1999-10-03T15:50:10+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan Rabin", "address": "danrabin at a.crl.com" }, "date": "1999-10-02T23:13:28+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) [blue] Inhumic morality and dwellers in the deep", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Alex David Grace wrote:\nThe intelligent blood idea does present the cruel vision of species that, in\norder to remain morally and intellectually aware, must do something morally\nrepulsive. Essentially, to have any will, they must exercise their will in\na malevolent way." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Morally repugnant to whom? My interpretation of Krait's \"cattle\" metaphor\nand his comment \"I must eat\" is that the inhumi's drinking of blood is as\nmatter-of-fact to them as eating fish is to Horn. When leatherskins kill\nhumans, are they being immoral?\n\nI don't detect any self-loathing or guilt in either Quetzal or Krait (or\nJahlee for that matter). Inhumic morals could even be very similar to one\nprevalent human system (killing other species isn't particularly bad;\nneeding to eat justifies the means, etc.) and still fit the story. But our\nplanet only has one intelligent species, so we don't know which way we'd\ndevelop if cows could discuss philosophy with us.\n\nOr maybe inhumi aren't moral agents at all.\n\n *\n* *\n\nWe don't (yet) have any idea of how inhumi reproduce. We know they have\nsexes, but do they care for their young? Do they have a larval stage? The\nsecret could lie in this area, too.\n\n *\n* *" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Alice Turner wrote:\nDoes anyone think that Seawrack's Mother is an undine? The description is\nnot so undine-like, but it's very brief and Horn did not see her well. They\ncan swim between the stars, so why not?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I speculate that the Mother is somehow connected with Erebus and Abaia.\nShe has the right habitat, anyhow, and Jonas's aborted tale at the end of\n_Shadow of the Torturer_ seems to point to an origin on a planet far from\nUrth, visited by the human diaspora.\n\n -- Dan Rabin\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "1999-10-03T15:50:10+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) [blue] Inhumic morality and dwellers in the deep", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan Rabin asked:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Morally repugnant to whom? My interpretation of Krait's \"cattle\" metaphor\nand his comment \"I must eat\" is that the inhumi's drinking of blood is as\nmatter-of-fact to them as eating fish is to Horn. When leatherskins kill\nhumans, are they being immoral?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Or maybe inhumi aren't moral agents at all." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tThe last is possible, but with Wolfe I think it's always best to\nassume everything that looks intelligent and capable of willed action IS a\nmoral agent. Wolfe seems to have a pretty broad definition of human (Horn,\nat least, goes on about this at some length in OBW)--Jonas, Dr. Talos, sort\nof Babbie, etc. After all, the moral framework Wolfe's presumably working in\ndoesn't mean that just because the inhumi say \"they're cattle--who cares?\"\nthey're _right_ about it. I think the inhumi are clearly more likely to be\nmoral agents than leatherskins. Anyway, the inhumi seem (A) capable of being\na bit gleefully cruel--Jahlee and Krait show this at times, a kind of awareness\nof villainy that's at the least a parody of moral agency and (B) capable of\nacting quite in-inhuman--how do we explain Krait's actions on the lander (not\nthat we know exactly what happens yet) otherwise? At least for now I'm giving\nKrait the benefit of the doubt--he betrayed his kind for Horn, which was (so\nit appears now) a good act.\n\nIt seems we're saying that Seawrack may be like an adopted Undine. The more I \nlook at those sections (and the telling bit in the Dramatis Personae), the more\nI think \"Mom\" is an Erebus/Abaia type thing (whatever they are) and clearly Up\nTo No Good, although maybe resulting in good--BOTS all evince Wolfe's\nstatement that (in the story of St. Brendan in PEACE, this quote is inexact)\n\"the wicked do God's will also, they just don't like it.\"\n\n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Alex 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\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }