(urth) Seventeen

[Lee Berman]

>David Stockhoff: But since the Internet was not around in the 1970s, we are left with (a) 
>Communist slogans (b) ad slogans as a source of total social 
>brainwashing. From the soldier's tale, Ascia certainly sounds more like 
>China than Madison Avenue, to me.
 
 
Yes, I would agree. Not only was the Cold War on in full force in the 70's, Gene Wolfe can
be fairly labelled as having a history of a Cold Warrior. Not to suggest he was a blinder-on
American patriot but at the time, communism was considered both a real threat and America's 
main enemy. In a Wolfe interview, I think he said that he set Ascia in N. America in part 
because he wanted to show, "it could happen here".
 
>Nathan C. Tresch: I think it's just as likely that formalism and political 
> correctness taken to an extreme could produce such a culture, or that 
> some kind of mass media which spread slogans, (like the internet 
> spreading memes), could also be the impetus.
 
Not disagreeing, necessarily, but that does sound like a very 21st century sentiment. The masses
were not so considered as "sheeple" in the 70's. If they chose to adopt a popular slogan, that was 
free will, the opposite of communism.