What's So Great About Ushas?

b sharp · 17 Jul 2008, 20:08 · from 2008-July.txt.gz

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From: bsharporflat at hotmail.com (b sharp)
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:08:11 -0400
Subject: (urth) What's So Great About Ushas?
Message-ID: <BAY103-W260984CFCB9687D82D29A9D78E0 at phx.gbl>

A nice, thoughtful post Dave Tallman, I'll debate a couple points. You say:

>I can't agree with b sharp's argument. It seems like a victory by definition: the 
>Hierogrammates are good because they are so smart that we cannot judge them.

That is not quite right. I would say, (as always, trying to advocate what I think are 
Wolfe's intentions not my own philosophy) that because the Hierogrammates are so 
smart, we cannot judge their ACTIONS.  

Trying to use what I think is Christian theologic principles, one does not have to be 
a great intellect to follow God.  All you need are two things: 1. a basic ability all sane,
adult humans have: the intuition to know God (and His goodness) from Satan (and his
evil). Once you have that, all you need is simply...2. faith.  A good Christian faithfully
follows and believes the word of God without the need for deep philosophical ponderings
on whether God is acting good or bad at a particular moment. He is always acting good.

Likewise with angels. If the debate is whether Hierogrammates are intended by Wolfe to
be like angels or devils that's a different issue. I will suggest that those readers who find
the Hierogrammates to be evil would also find the philosophy of Christians (and Gene 
Wolfe) to be steeped in evil.

But, as most seem to do here, accept that the Hierogrammates are intended to be good 
then our judgement must cease (I think Gene Wolfe would say). We are supposed to have
faith that such beings, so much closer to God than we, have actions which will always be for
the good. Perhaps they are capable of making mistakes but we do not have the ability to 
detect them. No more than a cat has the ability to recognize when a veterinary surgeon has
made a medical error.

The cat analogy is funny actually. I can imagine many people who would consider the 
vivisectionist the good person for trying to save human lives with medical research while the 
cat surgeon is mildly evil for wasting medical time, skill and facilities on an animal when many
humans must do without.

But, anyway, as your post recognizes, the only way we can attempt to understand and judge 
Hierogrammates is to humanize them. But they are not human. It would be like cats trying to 
felinicize two doctors in judging their morality. 

-bsharp

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