(urth) The poor Aelf

[Michael Straight]

On 9/25/07, Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
> They are nevertheless expected, by the religious principles stated in TWK,
> to worship the beings of the next-higher level, humans. If they do not act
> 'rightly', when they die they will cease to exist and turn back into the
> natural trash from whence they came. If they do 'right' and worship humans,
> they get to kiss human ass, and when they die they cease to exist and turn
> back into trash. Let's see; if I were an Aelf, which path should I take to
> the same end, oblivion? What incentive would I have to choose one path over
> the other, even assuming that I had the moral wherewithal to choose? Who
> would have the balls to upbraid me for not electing to brown-nose my way to
> oblivion?

You seem to take the point of view that the purpose of worship is to
flatter your way into a happy afterlife.  I think the Neo-Platonic
view is that the Aelf should worship humans because they'll be better
off that way right now.  That by refusing to worship and devote
themselves to that which is higher and better, they just make
themselves miserable and unfulfilled.  It is an intrinsic rather than
an extrinsic reward.

Wolfe's critique of this worldview seems to be that beings at any
level would be happier (in the Aristotelian sense) if they were to aim
higher still.  If humans were to set their aspirations, their ideals,
their worship higher than the Valfather, they might achieve something
greater than the knightly virtues.

Rostrum