Someday they'll want us

David Stockhoff · 26 Jun 2010, 20:13 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:13:26 -0400
Subject: (urth) Someday they'll want us
In-Reply-To: <599a1.4a36aa8c.3957b496 at aol.com>
References: <599a1.4a36aa8c.3957b496 at aol.com>
Message-ID: <4C265F66.50503 at verizon.net>

BotNS has similar concerns.

Nice punwork!

JBarach at aol.com wrote:
> severiansola at hotmail.com <mailto:severiansola at hotmail.com> writes:
>  
> >>I think the only manipulator who actually counts is Mr. Million. All 
> the
> >>other clones are his test subjects. Note that Auntie Jeanine died 
> rather
> >>precipitously after she began acting as though she owned the house.
> >
> > An interesting perspective! I had tended to think of Mr. Million as a
> > kindly great grandfather with a true soft spot for his boys (David too,
> > yes?) who perhaps regretted the process he set in motion and was
> > concerned for the self-clones which had been sold around the city
> > as slaves. I guess that kindly aspect is perverted by the fact that
> > it is a monstrous sort of conceited self-love.
> >
> > If you are correct that Mr. Million remains a manipulative, murderous
> > person I guess that is hardly a shocker, given the details of the plot.
> > Thanks for a new perspective.   
>  
> Why have a robot raise the children?  It seems to me that it's to 
> ensure that the education they receive is exactly the same.  After 
> all, "Gene Wolfe" wants to make sure that all the other Gene Wolfes 
> that follow him are not only Gene-etic (a pun I suspect Wolfe had in 
> mind, given the focus on his name throughout the story: we think he's 
> only talking about wolves in stories, but I suspect he's also talking 
> about genes) replicas but also replicas in every other way, especially 
> education and upbringing.   Of course, he can't control *everything* 
> but as many things as he can control he is controlling in order to 
> make sure that every cloned son is as like him as possible until 
> he/they finally achieve/s his/their full potential. 
>  
> Our own Jim Jordan (aka Patera Nutria) has pointed out the 
> similarities between cloning and incest in one of his essays, and he 
> mentions /Fifth Head/ (and the movie /Chinatown/) in this connection.  
> Both cloning and incest exclude the other -- cloning more 
> dramatically, of course.  Cloning, as Maitre practices it, is designed 
> to keep "yourself" intact, to keep exactly the same genes instead of 
> mixing them with the genes of others and thereby "debasing" them.  Mr. 
> Million allows you to give your clones and their clones and so forth 
> *exactly* the same upbringing, with no pollution from outside.  But 
> the result is that there can be no growth.  The result is stagnation. 
>  
> The same is true, mutatis mutandis, with incest: The family is 
> idolized, and to keep the family going *and staying the same*, you 
> have children with your daughter (idolatry in particular of the 
> father: "I father my children, my grandchildren, and so forth") or 
> your son marries your daughter (that is, a girl with exactly the same 
> upbringing, same family traditions, etc.).  After all, you've 
> developed your traditions (e.g., opening gifts on Christmas Eve, not 
> on Christmas Day) but if your son marries some girl outside your 
> family, he might change all those traditions.  He might not even come 
> home for Thanksgiving.  You have your family secrets, but if your 
> daughter marries some guy outside the family, she might tell him your 
> secrets. And so on.  To "keep the family strong," the family is 
> restricted to its own bounds ... and the result, instead of strength, 
> is weakness, stagnation, and debasement.
>  
> Change and growth and maturity and glorification require interaction 
> with and intermarriage with the Other, with someone outside.  (There 
> are some profound theological reasons behind this, which Jordan 
> explores in his essay, as does Peter Leithart in a forthcoming essay 
> in a festschrift for Jordan).  You have to marry someone different, 
> someone outside your own family.  You don't clone your children; 
> attempting to "save your life" (your genes) in that way will result in 
> losing it and losing the world.  The only way to "save your life" and 
> gain the world is to lose it, to give it away, to care not at all 
> about preserving your genes.  If you're concerned about your Genes, 
> you become a Wolf.
>  
> John
>  
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