(urth) What's So Great About Ushas?

[Paul B]

I think we're straying too far afield here.

On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 3:56 PM, Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com> wrote:

> Now we've strayed into my territory (philosophy!).
>
> I think that the analysis given of the Hierogrammates is too one-sided,
> ethically.  We're assuming that morality works on a broadly utilitarian
> basis:  e.g., it is somehow better to save the population of Urth than let
> it pass away.


Wha?!  Saying that murder on a planetwide scale is wrong is not an
inherently utilitarian statement but a very general one.  It doesn't assume
much about a moral framework, save one that places inherent value on life.


> Rather, if we look at the moral actions internally, we ask whether it is
> morally right for Severian to bring the New Sun, not on the basis of what
> effects it might have, but whether that act was right in and of itself.
>  Analogizing to Biblical morality, look at the use of Noah's Flood to wash
> away what passed for a degenerate Earth/Urth.  I'm no Catholic, so I don't
> know if there is a standard dogmatic theodicy that is accepted in response
> to the problem of evil, but I think that the majority-Christian view on that
> argument is the "God has his reasons" theodicy.  In other words, it is
> unquestionable and axiomatic that God does only good things.  So sending the
> Flood (make of that what you will) is a good act.  Even if we cannot
> understand how it is good, if God has his reasons for it, they may be beyond
> what we can understand, being finite mortals and all


I think that one of the primary findings from the tetralogy is that Severian
doesn't understand much of anything.  It's not useful to theorize about him
as a conscious, moral agent.


> Then again, the Hieros don't suffer from God's disability in this case, as
> it were.  They're not perfect beings, so they don't have to always act
> perfectly good.  They may see it necessary to do evil in order to do some
> greater good, so they may accept that Severian must destroy Urth to get to
> Ushas. After all, this is eschatology and genesis we're talking about here,
> death and rebirth.  And perhaps we're guilty of imposing a mortal,
> linear-time-bound morality upon beings that are not so bound.  Maybe we view
> death and destruction as "bad" in and of themselves, when really they're
> just a necessary step along the way to birth/rebirth?
>
> Lane
>

Like I said in the opening of this, it's only a useful exercise if you
assume that morality is in some way universal.  If the Hierogrammates
operate on another moral level (and I see little reason to assume this -
they are just advanced aliens), we can just give up and go home.  However,
that would sound a little like the proposed solutions to the Problem of
Evil.

Paul


>
> On Jul 10, 2008, at 2:39 PM, b sharp wrote:
>
>
>> Paul B posts:
>>
>>> The fundamental moral facts in this case are that 1.) we know they can
>>> save
>>> the population of Urth and 2.) they choose not to.  This makes any
>>> outcome
>>> morally suspect according to most ethical frameworks.  As long as 1.) and
>>> 2.) are facts, the Hierogrammates cannot be good guys.
>>>
>>
>> and
>>
>>> It is the contention of many, and I'd bet the author to be one of them,
>>> that
>>> "ethics" is not a strictly human concept.
>>>
>>
>> I think there is a large gap in the broad exposition of your argument,
>> that being that we don't need a science fiction story to find a legend of
>> a God
>> who has the power to stop all war, genocide, disease and child rape but
>> chooses not
>> to.  Extending your argument would seem to demand either that Gene Wolfe
>> feels
>> the Judeo-Christian God is morally bankrupt or that Gene Wolfe is an
>> atheist (or both).
>> I don't think either is true.
>>
>> I think any intelligent, thinking Christian eventually is troubled by the
>> classic problem
>> of an omnicient, omnipotent God who allows evil to flourish. I suspect the
>> Hierogrammates
>> and their relationship with the Increate are an attempt by Gene Wolfe to
>> reconcile the
>> contradiction (while injecting a healthy dose of science to explain
>> religion).
>>
>> -bsharp
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