(urth) "Principlesofgovernaaance"Genn ne Wolfe's Politics

[Son of Witz]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: John Watkins [mailto:john.watkins04 at gmail.com]
>Sent: Thursday, April 2, 2009 10:41 AM
>To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
>Subject: Re: (urth) "Principlesofgovernaaance"Gene Wolfe's Politics

>As for your question below, I think it's the result of a misreading.  I
>don't think Wolfe should be read as suggesting that monarchy is truly the
>ideal form of government unless the monarch is in fact God Himself.  C.S.
>Lewis makes a similar point in *The Weight of Glory*--I'm fairly confident
>that Wolfe had this passage in mind:
>
>
>I believe in political equality. But there are two opposite reasons for
>being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in
>the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs
>their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of
>democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked
>that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his
>fellows.
>
>That I believe to be the true ground of democracy. I do not believe that God
>created an egalitarian world. I believe the authority of parent over child,
>husband over wife, learned over simple to have been as much a part of the
>original plan as the authority of man over beast. I believe that if we had
>not fallen, Filmer would be right, and partiarchal monarchy would be the
>sole lawful government. But since we have learned sin, we have found, as
>Lord Acton says, that “all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts
>absolutely.” The only remedy has been to take away the powers and substitute
>a legal fiction of equality. The authority of father and husband has been
>rightly abolished on the legal plane, not because this authority is in
>itself bad (on the contrary, it is, I hold, divine in origin), but because
>fathers and husbands are bad. Theocracy has been rightly abolished not
>because it is bad that learned priests should govern ignorant laymen, but
>because priests are wicked men like the rest of us. Even the authority of
>man over beast has had to be interfered with because it is constantly
>abused. (C.S. Lewis, “Membership,” from *The Weight of Glory*, pp. 168-7)


I like this Lewis quote.
that's my point. Is Wolfe positing this as a practical solution. I agree that it couldn't work with out the monarch being essentially god. which is why I wonder why Malrubius is asking this of the future Autarch. I understand Severian is in a process of revoking false allegiance and oaths, and orienting himself to the Increate, but that's theology, not politics. Severian will also be the political ruler, and his first answer is the Democracy, but it's as if Malrubius's switch to theological perspective is intended to point out that the governance should be thought of in those terms.

OR, is this Malrubius's way of using this theological metaphor as a way of telling this future ruler to orient himself to God so that he can rule best.

~witz
ps, not sure how I screwed up the subject title so badly.