The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

Pedro Pereira · 18 Mar 2009, 03:21 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: domus_artemis at hotmail.com (Pedro Pereira)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:21:24 +0200
Subject: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
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________________________________
> Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:57:12 -0700
> From: cnbrewer at yahoo.com
> To: urth at lists.urth.net
> Subject: Re: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
>
>
>
> It seems like Silk is a good place to get at this. Here's a man who's horrified at the thought of doing any kind of wrong. And yet he readily and willingly uses and even trains with the most powerful weapons he can get his hands on (or at least the most sufficient for his purposes) when it becomes necessary for a more important purpose.
>
> Silk's is a position I'd like to think Wolfe has: weapons *themselves* are neither good nor bad. They can be horrible when used irresponsibly, and Silk is at times horrified by the azoth even when he loves it for being Hyacinth's. But they can also be necessary and even thoroughly good. Look at the male chem soldiers, for example, who are weapons-become-"human." Like people, they're good when they do good and evil when they do evil.

I can write a book about a tribsman who doesn't want to do "any kind of wrong". He's "job" as the son of a chieftain means he has to train with weapons. One day his tribe is attacked and he has to defend himself and kill a few guys in the process. Does that make me a defender of the free use of weapons by the citizens?

Wolfe my or may not be a defender of this political position, but taking into account the setting of his books, I don't see how these examples can be so clearly indicative of a real world political stance to everyone.
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