(urth) "Principlesofgovernaaance"Gene Wolfe's Politics

[Jerry Friedman]

--- On Thu, 4/2/09, Matthew Weber <palaeologos at gmail.com> wrote:
...
> On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Jerry Friedman
> <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>wrote:
> > I think we're supposed to take the classification
> > Severian learned as naive and Master Malrubius as
> showing
> > what's wrong with it.  At the least, we and
> Severian are
> > supposed to consider that there's as much to be
> said for
> > monarchy as against it, as in the quotations from
> Aquinas
> > and the ancients that Stanislaus kindly posted (so I
> could
> > pretend I knew all along about those opinions).
> >
> 
> I'm not sure that's at all the case.  I think here
> Wolfe is making a point
> about how he believes God established governance in the
> human sphere, and
> how far human beings have departed from it.  It would
> certainly be consistent with Wolfe's Thomism.

That is, God established monarchy, and we (but not the
Commonwealth) have departed from it?  But which do you
think Wolfe means is "higher", monarchy or our kind of
democracy?

A question that just occurred to me: Which of the
principles applies the best to the Ascians?  To
Communist and Fascist dictatorships?

Jerry Friedman