From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) Waif (Spoilers) new Wolfe SS
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 09:26:07 -0500 (EST)

On Thu, 29 Nov 2001, Endy9 wrote:

> Concerning Wolfe's use of the word Neighbor and it's shortening to
> Niman, etc. Niman Pryderi defined Neighbor as "Neighbor meant that a
> man was one of us, and not one of them." Do you think this carries any
> meaning to the Book of the Short Sun's Neighbors?  Is that why the
> people of Blue called them Neighbors?  Using the same definition?
> 
> After reading this definition it seems strange that the people of Blue
> would call them Neighbors when they definitely did not seem to
> consider them "more like us, not like them."  Just wondered if there
> was something about Blue and Green's Neighbors that I missed that
> would make them "one of us not them."

Haven't read Waif yet, but is it possible Jesus's story of the Good
Samaritan is relevant?  In response to the command "Love your neighbor,"
Jesus is asked, "But who is my neighbor?"  Then Jesus tells the story of
the Good Samaritan and closes with "Which of the men proved to be a
neighbor to the man who was robbed?"

It's not entirely clear to me, but Jesus's point seems to be that rather
than focusing on the 'neighbor' in "Love your neighbor" and trying to
restrict our love to that group however you define it, we should focus on
the 'love' and by loving make all people our neighbors.

Horn switches from calling Blue's natives "the Vanished People" to
"Neighbors" when he befriends them/they befriend him.  And there's also
the theme that Horn seems to be able bring out the humanity in the inhumi
by loving them.  Of course, he doesn't call them Neighbors.

-Rostrum