Gene Wolfe's Politics

John Smith · 26 Mar 2009, 12:55 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: jsmith2627 at att.net (John Smith)
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:55:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) Gene Wolfe's Politics
Message-ID: <958496.76164.qm at web180202.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

Rereading  "On Blue's Waters," I came upon some of Horn's reflections on being a ruler:   "My advisors, who are all good, well-intentioned men, are forever suggesting that I get down to business, although they never phrase it quite so baldly.  If action must be taken, they want it taken now, immediately...Immediate action is the soul of war, as I learned many years ago by observing General Mint.  It is not the soul of peace...When a new burden must be laid upon the people, we should remove two, and look very carefully, first, at those we have chosen to remove.  Those who sail fast do not sail for long, while what is written with great rapidity is rarely read--or worth reading."  (OBW, Chap. 7)

Horn expresses--I think--Gene Wolfe's view, a view of true conservatism.  Our present society is certainly not perfect, but change should be slow and careful, lest we create something worse.

Best wishes,

Jack

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