(urth) academic commentary

[Lee Berman]

Agreed, great post Craig!
 
Regarding Wright's failure to fully realize the deceptions within deceptions:

>David Stockhoff: Why?
 
>Antonio P. Marques: Because it would conflict either with his own beliefs or the rationalisation 
>of his appreciation of the work.
 
Heh. I am reminded of my days in scientific academia and the debates between Evolutionary scientists
and Creation scientists. I remember the snickers from the Evolutionists at the argument that the 
human eye disproves Evolution because of its perfect, coordinated design and the worthlessness of each of 
its individual parts. [It is a perfectly bad argument given a major neural design flaw in the eye, causing 
our blind spot and the usefulness of eyespots, essentially a naked retina, found in many creatures.]
 
Perhaps here we have the reverse- an atheist struggling to find solid ground for an atheist argument
within a book with religious elements created by a religious author.

Below are some exerpts from a Peter Wright interview of Wolfe. Wright clearly respects and admires Wolfe
but is determined to make his own points. Wolfe can't seem to help but toy with him a bit:
 
..........................................................................................................
>PW: One other recurring theme that's interested me in your fiction is the manipulation of individuals by 
>godlike beings or powers.  Where does that notion derive from?
 
>GW: I suppose it comes from the idea that we are in fact manipulated- and we all are. Some of us are willing
>to acknowledge God as the godlike power in our lives. Even those who are not- and probably even more those 
>who are not willing to acknowledge that sort of thing- are manipulated not only by God but by a whole host of 
>subsidiary powers, political, economic and so on. We tend to think we have free will and so on. In the mass 
>we're very predictable. There's very little difference between traffic flowing on a highway and liquid 
>flowing through a pipe. They act in about the same way.
 
>PW: You see predictability as the basis for exploitation.
 
>GW: Certainly it is part of the basis, yes.
 
>PW: Where does that interest in manipulation come from?
 
>GW: Because I have to live in this world, as we all do.
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>PW: The angels- if we want to call them that- in Urth of the New Sun, the Hierogrammates, are of
>that nature. They are not simply good angels, despite appearances.
 
>GW: They are certainly not simple, good angels. If you are not wholly and totally good and pure
>yourself, and you are not, an angel may be a very dangerous person for you to deal with, because he is.
................................................................................................................
 
 
>GW: I want to write "The Three Little Pigs" from the standpoint of the wolf. The original author sympathised 
>entirely with the pigs. The wolf sympathizes with the other wolves and their children and he says, "Somebody 
>is going to eath these pigs- might as well be me'
 
>PW: Again you've got an evil character justifying his actions
 
>GW: He's not an evil character. Is he?
 
>PW: No.
 
>GW: Or is he?
 
>PW: Well....
 
>GW: Yeah.
 
>PW: Well he's just following his instincts. But the thing about fairy tales is that many of the animals found in 
>them are anthropomorphized and they become classified as good and evil.
 
>GW: Exactly. And it's rather unfair to the ones we generally characterize as evil.
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Heh! An atheist, socialist and likely feminist maneuvered into acknowledging Wolf's Rights!