Predictions Re: The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

Daniel Petersen · 01 Aug 2012, 13:41 · from 2012-August.txt.gz

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From: danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com (Daniel Petersen)
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2012 14:41:15 +0100
Subject: (urth) Predictions Re: The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
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I got the vibe that it was not being interpreted with as light a hand as
that, however. In fact, I got the impression they were used to support a
feeling of disenchantment with him as a man, which may have gotten me riled
a little bit. While he may write from an extreme, and detailed perspective
on society, he does not seem at all to be a dystopian, right-wing loon who
is increasingly using his prose to somehow push a conservative,
anti-socialist agenda (which was also inferred on this and other threads
recently).


Gonna have to tend to agree here...

(And Gwern, please don't assume this is an inability to see no wrong in
Wolfe from some of his fans - it might be a very considered opinion just
like yours.  Don't get me wrong!  I like your insights in this group - but
I think you might be a bit dismissive sometimes of people who don't see
Wolfe as a scary right-winger to the degree you do.)

-DOJP

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 2:18 PM, Ryan Dunn <ryan at liftingfaces.com> wrote:

>
> On Aug 1, 2012, at 8:55 AM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> wrote:
>
> >>> Sure, of course it was a lark. And yes, one could easily interpret
> each one as /half /true. Where does that get us?
> >>>
> >>> As clarification, I didn't mean Wolfe /intended/ to predict
> >>>
> >>> "what cranky, ill-informed old people will believe/fear/desire in
> 2012."
> >>>
> >>> And yet he succeeded---in my estimation, by /more than/ half. That
> must mean something.
> >>>
> >>> BTW, literacy paranoia has been in vogue in the US since at least the
> 1960s.
> >> Since a few posters were giving varying amounts of weight to these
> predictions and letting it color their impression of him, the place my
> observation was hoping to get us was actually out of such a lofty critique
> of what I took to be a half joke blip of Mr. Wolfe's musings.
> >>
> >> ...ryan
> > Understood. But what's "lofty" about making an observation about the
> written word---or trying to make sense of another reader's observation?
> >
> > One could easily write whole books of criticism about the paranoid style
> in Gene Wolfe, and in dystopian SF in general (as someone has already
> noted). I don't know what they would conclude, but I'd be interested in
> reading them.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paranoid_Style_in_American_Politics
>
> Dave,
>
> I was not inferring your critique was lofty, in case I gave you that
> impression. I was referring more to the earlier passion on this thread, and
> felt that we (as a collective of readers with a shared interest on a common
> mailing list) may have been taking his written word a bit seriously.
>
> My point is that he seems to be a bit flippant, half smiling, and not all
> together serious in these predictions. So when someone takes "a great
> interest in predictions and what they reveal," for instance, I would hope
> that Mr. Wolfe's five fingered prediction would have revealed that he is
> indeed a sly, shifty, elusive prankster, even when portending to dole out
> 25 year predictions.
>
> I got the vibe that it was not being interpreted with as light a hand as
> that, however. In fact, I got the impression they were used to support a
> feeling of disenchantment with him as a man, which may have gotten me riled
> a little bit. While he may write from an extreme, and detailed perspective
> on society, he does not seem at all to be a dystopian, right-wing loon who
> is increasingly using his prose to somehow push a conservative,
> anti-socialist agenda (which was also inferred on this and other threads
> recently).
>
> Hope that clarifies my points on this matter a little bit better.
>
> ...ryan
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