From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey@stic.net>
Subject: (urth) Re:Butter-fingered Annese
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 00:50:23 

On 4-2-99 Mitchell A. Bailey wrote:

<snip>
>>As an aside: I've always found the manual dexterity attribute of the
Annese kind of troubling. For one thing, it isn't consistently applied.
How can a race which can allegedly craft fishing nets be inherently
incapable of using a shovel? How can a race too clumsy to use tools even
survive? Even chimpanzees use simple tools.
I suspect that the Annese Manual Dexterity Issue is one of those Wolfean
Smoking Chekov's Guns which has deep implications going to the very
theme of the story (in this case 5HC). It says something fundamental
about the nature of the Annese and deserves closer study.<<

    I think Wolfe was applying Lamarck's idea that once an organ or
attribute has "lost" its functionality and, if favorable circumstances for
it recur, that that organ or attribute can not resume its former
functionality. I think what Wolfe intended here was that the Annese had lost
the use of their opposable thumb and could not reacquire it. You can weave a
net with just your fingers and teeth, but just try to use a shovel without
using your thumb. It is also why V.R.T couldn't write worth a damn.

Roy



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