(urth) Someday they'll want us

[JBarach at aol.com]

_severiansola at hotmail.com_ (mailto:severiansola at hotmail.com)   writes:
 
>>I think the only manipulator who actually counts is Mr. Million.  All the 
>>other clones are his test subjects. Note that Auntie Jeanine died  rather 
>>precipitously after she began acting as though she owned the  house.

>
> An interesting perspective! I had tended to think of Mr. Million as  a
> kindly great grandfather with a true soft spot for his boys  (David too,
> yes?) who perhaps regretted the process he set in motion and  was
> concerned for the self-clones which had been sold around  the city
> as slaves. I guess that kindly aspect is perverted by the  fact that
> it is a monstrous sort of conceited self-love.
>
> If you are correct that Mr. Million remains a manipulative,  murderous
> person I guess that is hardly a shocker, given the details of  the plot.
> Thanks for a new perspective.    
 
Why have a robot raise the children?  It seems to me that it's to  ensure 
that the education they receive is exactly the same.  After all,  "Gene 
Wolfe" wants to make sure that all the other Gene Wolfes that follow him  are not 
only Gene-etic (a pun I suspect Wolfe had in mind, given the focus on  his 
name throughout the story: we think he's only talking about wolves in  
stories, but I suspect he's also talking about genes) replicas but also replicas  
in every other way, especially education and upbringing.   Of course,  he 
can't control *everything* but as many things as he can control he is  
controlling in order to make sure that every cloned son is as like him as  
possible until he/they finally achieve/s his/their full potential.  
 
Our own Jim Jordan (aka Patera Nutria) has pointed out the  similarities 
between cloning and incest in one of his essays, and he  mentions Fifth Head 
(and the movie Chinatown) in this  connection.  Both cloning and incest 
exclude the other -- cloning more  dramatically, of course.  Cloning, as Maitre 
practices it, is designed to  keep "yourself" intact, to keep exactly the 
same genes instead of mixing them  with the genes of others and thereby 
"debasing" them.  Mr. Million allows  you to give your clones and their clones and 
so forth *exactly* the same  upbringing, with no pollution from outside.  
But the result is that there  can be no growth.  The result is stagnation.  
 
The same is true, mutatis mutandis, with incest: The family is idolized,  
and to keep the family going *and staying the same*, you have children with 
your  daughter (idolatry in particular of the father: "I father my children, 
my  grandchildren, and so forth") or your son marries your daughter (that 
is, a  girl with exactly the same upbringing, same family traditions, etc.).   
After all, you've developed your traditions (e.g., opening gifts on 
Christmas  Eve, not on Christmas Day) but if your son marries some girl outside 
your  family, he might change all those traditions.  He might not even come 
home  for Thanksgiving.  You have your family secrets, but if your daughter  
marries some guy outside the family, she might tell him your secrets. And so  
on.  To "keep the family strong," the family is restricted to its own  
bounds ... and the result, instead of strength, is weakness, stagnation, and  
debasement.
 
Change and growth and maturity and glorification require interaction with  
and intermarriage with the Other, with someone outside.  (There  are some 
profound theological reasons behind this, which Jordan explores in  his essay, 
as does Peter Leithart in a forthcoming essay in a festschrift  for 
Jordan).  You have to marry someone different, someone outside  your own family.  
You don't clone your children; attempting to "save your  life" (your genes) 
in that way will result in losing it and losing the  world.  The only way to 
"save your life" and gain the world is to lose it,  to give it away, to care 
not at all about preserving your genes.  If you're  concerned about your 
Genes, you become a Wolf.
 
John
 
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