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<DIV>
<DIV><A href="mailto:severiansola@hotmail.com">severiansola@hotmail.com</A>
writes:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>>>I think the only manipulator who actually counts is Mr. Million.
All the </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>>>other clones are his test subjects. Note that Auntie Jeanine died
rather </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>>>precipitously after she began acting as though she owned the
house.<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>> An interesting perspective! I had tended to think of Mr. Million as
a</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>> kindly great grandfather with a true soft spot for his boys
(David too,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>> yes?) who perhaps regretted the process he set in motion and
was</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>> concerned for the self-clones which had been sold around
the city</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>> as slaves. I guess that kindly aspect is perverted by the
fact that</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>> it is a monstrous sort of conceited self-love.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>> If you are correct that Mr. Million remains a manipulative,
murderous</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>> person I guess that is hardly a shocker, given the details of
the plot.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>> Thanks for a new perspective. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Our own Jim Jordan (aka Patera Nutria) has pointed out the
similarities between cloning and incest in one of his essays, and he
mentions <EM>Fifth Head</EM> (and the movie <EM>Chinatown</EM>) 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. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>John</DIV>
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