Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 12:27:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jerry Friedman 
Subject: Re: (urth) TBOTSS and colonialism


--- Andy Robertson  wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Adam Stephanides" 
> > on 5/28/02 3:08 PM, Andy Robertson at andywrobertson@clara.co.uk
> wrote:
> >
> > >> Yes, but I'm not sure the inhumi nature is necessarily more of an
> obstacle
> > >> to becoming virtuous persons than human nature.  Neither group
> comes
> off
> > >> very well in the SS books.
> > >>
> > > Right.   I think I agree with you here.
> >
> > How does this square with your original argument that the inhumi's
> tragedy
> > was that they were incapable by nature of being other than evil, and
> that
> if
> > they were just "humans in drag" this tragedy would be meaningless?
> 
> 
> The ghost-soul in the inhumi may attain to a sort of human virtue.  The
> flesh remains evil.   Of course the question is whether "evil" in this
> context means anything other than "evil to humans".
> 
> It depends on what you mean by "nature", "good" and "evil".

Definitely!

> Also by what "they" refers to when you are talking of the inhumi.
> 
> 
> 
> And the whole point of the inhumi is to put these concepts to the
> Question.
> To Excruciation

In fact, as people have been saying, the distinction between humans
and inhumi seems to be one of degree rather than kind.  I would hate
to share a bedroom with an inhumus, but I'd also hate to share a
prison cell with a human being if we were fed, say, 2000 calories a
day for the two of us.  In both cases the biological imperatives
are going to lead to severe harm to me--it's just that humans have
worked out "modi vivendi" [?] that allow us with our biological
imperatives to co-exist.  So if you're going to call inhumi flesh
evil, I think you have to say the same about human flesh (and you
wouldn't be the first)--ours is just less evil.

And going along with Wolfe's belief in souls, I hardly see that it
matters whether one's soul is unique and acquired at or before one's
birth, or a copy of an existing soul acquired at or before one's
hatching.

Jerry Friedman

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