Severian as a student

Lane Haygood · 05 Jun 2008, 01:15 · from 2008-June.txt.gz

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From: lhaygood at gmail.com (Lane Haygood)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 20:15:20 -0500
Subject: (urth) Severian as a student
In-Reply-To: <775142.22820.qm at web83715.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <775142.22820.qm at web83715.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4B55431D-B8B1-4A49-8F06-B2E5115BFF71 at gmail.com>

Why assume that the two things are unrelated? Form follows function;  
morality follows, in many respects, the practicalities of the  
situation, at least insofar as we're willing to define morality by  
consequences. Running out of resources could have directed the moral  
change.

Or it could just be for the shock value.

Lane

On Jun 4, 2008, at 8:11 PM, John Smith wrote:

>
> It's interesting that the people of Urth find nothing
> strange about using human skin as a fabric.   Does
> this simply reflect the poverty of a society that is
> running out of energy and resources?   Or is it more
> of a comment on  the immorality of a society that
> treats people as things?
>
>
> --- thalassocrat at nym.hush.com wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:53:22 +1000 Tony Ellis
>> <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> For what it's worth, speaking as a copy editor I
>> have absolutely
>>> no
>>> problem believing Wolfe could have made that
>> mistake. Writers make
>>
>>> all
>>> sorts of mistakes, and one I regularly see is the
>> accidental
>>> substitution of one word for another that
>> apparently sparked some
>>> of
>>> the same synapses in the author's brain.
>>
>> Also for what it's worth, recall the old boatman
>> talking about the
>> corpses submerged in the botanic gardens. He says
>> the waters turn
>> their skin to leather - not like a boot-heel, but
>> like a lady's
>> glove. Doeskin is/was I think a common material for
>> gloves.
>>
>> Probably doesn't mean anything, but maybe some
>> context for an
>> accidental substitution by Wolfe.
>>
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>
>
>
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