From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" 
Subject: RE: (urth) annoying silliness
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 17:14:37 -0700

Sigh.

Okay, let me clarify things here ...

I believe my original statement was:

> I was quite certain, reading the utterances of Loyal
> to the Group of Seventeen, that Wolfe was pointing his
> barb at Maoism and the "Little-read Book." Others, I
> have learned on this list, have been equally certain
> that Wolfe is satirizing Orwell's "Newspeak," which I
> find simply implausible.

Okay, that was way too strong ... I think I had better
have said that I find it implausible that "Newspeak" was
the primary target of the satire.

I frankly feel that the insistence that it _is_, is an
example of the parochialism of the SF community; there
is (imho) extremely powerful evidence, both biographical 
and stylistic, for Maoist-style Communism as the primary
target. 

I would also dispute one point of facticity in Mantis'
latest post on this subject:

> Was blattid aware that Mao's little red book had not 
> historically been used across an entire culture the way
> that it had been used, anecdotally, by a couple of
> Berkeleyites in the 70s?  Yes, he was aware (a relief, 
> in a sense).

I said no such thing, nor am I convinced by any means that
you are correct here. It is my understanding that a major
aspect of Chinese Communist culture of the later Mao years,
and probably through the next few years after his death, 
_was_ the frequent quoting of Mao. I am unwilling to do the
research to "prove" this right now, but will stick to my
guns on the point unless and until strong counterevidence
is posed; I admit this is stubbornness on my part, but it's
stubbornness based on my memory of the period.
 
--Blattid


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