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<div>Dan'l,</div>
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<div>When I quoted Hemingway, I was not appealing to authority (which
of course I agree is not a relevant mode of argument), but nor was I
saying that<i> his every word was precisely what I would have written
myself</i>; I was doing something else, namely, citing him as an<i>
example</i> of a change in attitude, the<i> general thrust</i> of
which I agreed with -- which doesn't mean that I agree with every word
he wrote (particularly given that that quote is from a novel,
etc.).</div>
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<div>All of which is to say: if you disagree with this view, then
fine: that's a valid point of view. I might engage you on it
later. You are certainly right that I more or less assumed that
readers would agree with what I am calling the modern view, and that
if you don't, WTF is a reasonable response.</div>
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<div>As for the criticize me for criticizing Wolfe... remember that my
earlier post was a general post: I don't think you were doing
that.</div>
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<div>Anyway, let me reiterate that I am not trying to shut off
criticism, and that I hope that this discussion can be conducted with
mutual respect on all sides.</div>
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<div>As i said, I was writing in a way that assumed agreement...
probably I unwise, but what can I say, I'm imperfect... and I'm not
sure I want to get into a meta-argument about the value of these
values. (Though, again, it was certainly a reasonable line of
critique for you to make.)</div>
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<div>But as a basic stab, let me try this. You rightly re-focus
attention on Wolfe's words rather than Hemingways, and cite the trio
from the Gaiman interview (which I also cited): "honor, courage,
and fidelity". So I'll phrase my point using those
words.</div>
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<div>Wolfe says -- to put those words in a bit of context -- that he
hoped The Wizard Knight would take readers "To a country where
honor, courage, and fidelity actually mean something".</div>
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<div>I agree that honor, courage and fidelity are words that<i>
can</i> have perfectly valid, worthy meanings -- in today's world,
among others.</div>
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<div>But I think that the<i> specific</i> meanings of those words that
is implied not only by their being used together, but also by the
implication that<i> today's</i> world is<i> not</i> one in which they
"actually mean something" -- in other words, the meanings<i>
specified</i> by an idea that it is the specific meanings of the words
that is<i> absent</i> in today's world but<i> present</i> in the
society portrayed in the Wizard Knight -- I think that those<i>
specific</i> meanings of those three words add up to a specific set of
ideas -- an idealized version of a medieval knightly ideal -- which is
basically the same set of ideas that Hemingway's quote was pointing
to.</div>
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<div>And I certainly will maintain that, in today's world, that idea
-- the one pointed to by both Hemingway's sentence (negatively) and
Wolfe's sentence from the Gaiman interview (positively), and which I
argue is pointed to in Wolfe's Wizard Knight -- I think that that idea
is, in fact, quite troubling and dangerous. Which, again, is not
to say that there aren't other types of honor, courage and fidelity
which remain perfectly valid, indeed crucial, values.</div>
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<div>Hope that clarifies.</div>
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<div>Stephen</div>
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