From: "Alice K. Turner" 
Subject: Re: (urth) TBOTSS and colonialism
Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 20:08:49 -0400



> Alga wrote:
>
> > > At the least, I'd say the inhumi are evil in the sense that a thing
> > > might be called evil (atom bombs, torture devices, pornographic
movies,
> > > crack coccaine, a computer virus)...
>
> and Matthew Malthouse replied:
>
> > I don't agree with you.  This suggest that evil can be inherant
> > in an object.  I don't believe that it can: evil may in the
> > intent of those who created such things or those wo employ them
> > but not in the inanimate and unaware.
>
> Matthew: while I may (and in fact do) disagree with one or more of
> the items in Alga's list, she's using a perfectly reasonable sense
> of the word "evil" -- If you will consult your Funk&Wagnall ...
> well, all right, make it your online Merriam-Webster (conveniently
> located at http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm), you will find the
> following (slightly edited by me to save space and improve
> format):
[snip, sorry, but you can look it up]

That wasn't my list and the current format of the Urth list makes it too
difficult to go back to find who it was. I insisted on the paradigm of the
scorpion and the frog, that the inhumu cannot help his nature and thus is
arguably *not* "evil," as a lion who kills an antelope is not evil. I said
that I would enjoy, in a debate, taking the position that they are not evil.
We get to know four of them very well: Quetzal, Krait, Fava and Jahlee, All
of them struggle against their nature. (I can't help thinking of Quetzal wrt
the current brouhaha re Catholic priests, has this struck anyone else? But I
remind you that he tried very hard to stick to beef tea.) These are vivid
characters; Wolfe was interested in them.

-alga



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