Posted by Terry on March 18, 1998 at 08:03:06:
In Reply to: Re: To Live Forever -- Cloning and the Hero posted by The Professor on March 11, 1998 at 22:17:12:
You can hardly read Vance and not understand that he is very uncomfortable with the idea of inherited wealth and priveledge! The idea that through personal endeavor and personal merit one can gain anything is also quite clear. The rich are most often villains or idle fools and the poor, though often of undiscovered high or noble birth are almost always heroes. Though heroines are usually of higher station than heroes, they are usually convinced of the inate merit of the hero and fall for him before the last page.
That's what you get in a reading of Vance. Immortality through the mechanism of cloning is seen as an ultimate reward. But reward must be earned, yes? Not inherited, purchased or fallen over in the street. What justice in that Vance asks?
Another point to consider that Vance's world is the unlimited future and not the Malthusian present. Granted the world is finite and bounded, but the universe is inifinite. (Well, not really, but for our purposes it is virtually so.) I think Vance would say that personal merit might merit immortality, but that the future will take care of details such as overpopulation.
Terry
ps. Personally, Vance would be unreadable if he were SF's answer to Ayn Rand and her ilk who believe(d) that the rich or anyone else with power can do as they wish. Read Heinlein if you want revel in the idea of unlimited power through vast wealth.