I must admit this story puzzles me.
First, I should say, I just didn't like the story that much (which I had never read prior to reading it for your podcast, and have now read twice). I didn't hate it; it just didn't stand out for me much, unlike several dozen Wolfe stories I could name. I certainly don't see why it would end up in a Best of Gene Wolfe collection. So maybe I am just not sympathetic enough to read it.
I liked your discussion a lot — the hinge between the 60s and 70s is of deep fascination to me, and I liked the idea that this story was prescient about it. That said, I found myself wondering how much of that was in the story, and how much we see in the story because we've lived the past few decades (the story takes place about halfway between the time it was written & now). The critiques of business methods and business culture are there, to be sure. But other things — the switch of the American economy from a manufacturing to a finance focus, the absorption of the counter-culture by commercial forces, etc — I don't see in there. (FWIW, I don't see it as cyberpunk, either. Sure, the corporate-controlled dystopia was part of that aesthetic. But I don't think the focus on the digital world was as marginal to it as you implied. Further, several other very crucial parts of the cyberpunk aesthetic — the idea that technology does not always operate as intended, that "the street finds its own uses for technology" (in William Gibson's famous phrase), the idea of the human changing (in ways rare in, say, Campbellian-SF), etc — are all missing. It doesn't feel like a cyberpunk story, to me.)
The biggest question for me is the story's politics. If your reading is right, then it sounds like a very leftist story to me — worlds away from the right-wing politics we've seen in Operation Ares and "Paul's Treehouse" and many other stories. I think I read it, however, as more condemning of both sides, rather than making the corporations out to be the bad guys as opposed to the harries. I think the harries come across as awful — wasteful, unorganized, without any coherent ideology or plan or anything, just a mass of craziness. I think that Wolfe dislikes them as much as the corporate culture. In which case this story is of breakdown — much more in line with the earlier stories, at any rate. But I feel less sure here than about other works you've read.
There are, of course, ways from conservative thought to an anti-corporate critique. But those ways of thinking were very much not part of conservative thought around 1972. Traditionally, there has been a strain in conservative thought which is suspicious of big corporations, but the mainstream of conservative thought from the mid-50s up until, well, Trump (and in a great many ways through Trump) has been what's called fusionism: the fusion of three strands: religious/social conservatism, anti-communism and free market thinking. Thus Milton Friedman, although he was one of those three, was very much part of & embraced by the conservative movement. So was Wolfe that suspicious of him? I don't know. But given Wolfe, I think another possibility is that we're simply reading the story wrong.
I think that the bit with the three characters bursting into flame (or the women bursting into flame & the man exploding) may be key, and I don't think I'm persuaded by your reading that it is simply symbolic/religious/mystical. Wolfe does that sort of thing, of course, but I'm not seeing any sign of it here. And he usually writes his stories to make solid SF/engineering sense, too. In which case perhaps it's a bomb. Marc Aramini reads this as the idealists killing Peters just as he was on the verge, perhaps, of doing something idealistic, making things better: which fits with my more 'damn-both-sides' reading.
I took "Hour of Trust" to be a reference to the bit in the middle of the story when Lewis, admitting that he is seeking credit, says "Credit, as you know, is a matter of confidence, of trust." So this is the hour of credit — of seeking credit, anyway. I think it might also relate to the various types of trust of the harries — faith in human potential, faith in God — although that is a type of trust that reads to me as rather bitterly satirical. (Wolfe does not hesitate to satirize Christianity when it suits his stories, of course.)
All this is rather unsatisfying, I know, but I don't know what else to do with this story, save that there is something that we're missing. And that unlike most other Wolfe stories, I'm not quite motivated to reread until I figure it out.
To bring this back to Wolfe writing this story: none of that would have happened by 1973, except Roosevelt starting the National Parks. Plus, Wolfe's not a politician, he's a writer. It's easier to hold self-consistent thoughts when you don't have to attempt to appeal to voters, only to readers (and editors, I suppose).
I think it's very likely that Wolfe's environmentalism is tied to ideas of stewardship from Christianity and reinforced by a certain conservatism (in the sense of not being wasteful).
Maybe there's even a little room for Wolfe's engineering mind, as most engineers abhor waste and inefficiency; especially a process engineer like Wolfe. Material is money when you're running an assembly line or process. A friend of mine who works for Ford got a big bonus because he was able to save something like $0.50 per Ranger pickup truck. That's a big deal when Ford was making about 500,000 trucks per year.
Maybe there should be no conflict between conservatism and environmentalism, but in what I like to call (after the famous phrase "actually existing socialism") "actually existing conservatism" it is clearly diametrically opposed. Roosevelt, of course, was a progressive, and was president long before the conservative movement took over the Republican party (a lengthy process in the 1960s and into the 1970s). The conservatives of his time never liked Nixon; but also, if memory serves, the EPA passed by a veto-proof majority, so it was either sign it or have it go into effect unsigned; he gets less credit for that than you'd think. And the conservatives never liked nor trusted H. W. Bush, unlike both Reagan and W. Bush. He ran as a conservative, but then was practical about violating its principles when necessary (the most famous example being the tax increase he signed); they never forgave him for it, and it helped bring about his defeat in 1992.
Again, I agree: there is an idealized version of conservatism that should protect the environment. Nothing, after all, will so fundamentally change all of human society in this century as the disruptions we will get from climate change; anyone who fears change should resist that. But since William F. Buckley crystallized the modern synthesis that created the conservative movement (which begat Reagan, which begat Bush II, which begat Trump) it has been anti-regulation and pro-business, which cashes out to a bitter opposition to any and all environmental regulation. Trump is busy hurrying to do what damage he can—pretty literally!—before he is ushered out of office.
I guess I insist on this because I fear a lot of conservatives vote for the image of Edmund Burke who lives in their heads, and which might not be a bad ruling philosophy, and don't notice that what they get is, well, Bush & Trump. I know from what you said that you are not in this category! But I think it's important to remember that, for practical purposes, what conservatism is is what actual conservatives support.
I don't see any split between Wolfe being a conservative, Catholic, and an environmentalist. Environmentalism should be a very conservative and Christian tenet: conservative and conservation have the same root word. Recall that Theodore Roosevelt (a Republican) started the National Parks to preserve lands for long-term use. Nixon signed the act that opened the EPA. George HW Bush signed the treaty with Canada that stopped acid rain by controlling sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions from power plants. The modern Republican party's abandonment of those principles (e.g., "Drill, baby, drill!") is one of the things that pushed me out of the GOP.
Meanwhile, Christians are charged with managing the Earth as God's estate, awaiting the master's return. Unfettered consumption is hardly the stewardship expected.
Haha, well, to be fair, I think I was the only one who didn't like the epigraph. But I stand by my opinion!
I don't think the story lands emotionally either, and while I really appreciate the story I certainly wouldn't have selected it for a best-of collection. But it says something that Wolfe did.
I'm not sure it's at all fruitful to use labels such as conservative, liberal, and progressive. Can we even define what those words mean for us in our own present context? I don't think so, so I think it's even less useful to apply these labels to contexts decades or centuries gone. So, in particular I think that too much has been made of Wolfe labeling himself as "conservative" in a handful of interviews (the most recent, I think, from 1992) while also forgetting that Wolfe said in at least one other interview that people have made too much of that. From my perspective right now, and only considering what we've read so far (so, up to 1975), it's hard for me to find much that I would label as "conservative" now, and those things that I might apply that label to are cultural norms rather than policy positions. What is interesting to me, then (and I've been very interested in it), is seeing Wolfe's stories from the 60s and 70s as primary sources for constructing an intellectual history of political ideologies during these decades. Because it does (or did anyway; I've gotten used to it now) that someone applying the label "conservative" to himself would be an advocate of environmental protection laws and universal basic income while also opposing the growth of corporations. That fascinates me. If you're interested, we do talk about this at more length in an episode we did reflecting back on the first novel and twenty or so stories we covered. It's called "The Road So Far, Part One" and is probably epiosde nmber 32 or something close to it.
Tracking Song is a masterpiece. I want to read it again right now. I can't wait to hear what you think of it!
By my powers of being 9 months late, I resurrect this thread!
Interesting discussion guys, I will admit I have had trouble squaring Wolfe's personal views with his writing. I mentioned before that I could see things in there that to me read critical of faith, which was obviously very important to Wolfe.
I would also like to add that even if Wolfe believed X and got pretty political about it I think that he was definitely not a writer who preached and prescribed. Did he use the hippies as a boogeyman in this story? Possibly, but it is not something I even really considered before you guys brought it up because that is not what I got from it. Maybe he believed something, but once he has put it on the paper he is letting us engage with it. I think that adhering to the death of the author too faithfully is also a fallacy though, I think it is hard to entirely divorce a work of literature from who wrote it and what was going on in their environment. But forget for a moment what you know about Wolfe, are some of the calls to action (the old man asking the soldier whether they believe in anything) and the martyrs coming from the hippies' side? I know that you guys are actually looking at understanding Wolfe more through this chronological read, I am just bringing up a counter-argument.
I would also like to echo the sentiments of China Mieville (a socialist) he says that 1. Wolfe has this tragico-catholic (afaik he coined that phrase? I like it) perspective that gives a very unsanitized view of the world (which I think is why he is so good at describing what are some of the wrongs with it), and 2. that even though there are authors he agrees with more he goes to Wolfe for the quality of the writing. Ultimately I agree with Mieville, I am not necessarily looking to Wolfe to tell me his political opinions because I have my own as well (I think he has some really interesting views though), and I think idolizing someone I really did not know is dangerous, but the quality of his writing speaks for itself.
Having said that, one thing that strikes me as interesting is that over on /r/fantasy when people bring up conservative authors Gene Wolfe is quick to be mentioned. For me, this is odd because as I said his writing does not strike me as fundamentally conservative (fundamentally catholic, maybe), but something that both Wolfe and Tolkien find very important is stewardship, which can be seen in their environmentalism. That is a value that the American right has completely abandoned if it ever held them (I am not the most educated to speak on this). In my country, I would say that there are 2 major very Christian parties and one of them is a bit more to the left with environmentalism as a major concern while the other is very much to the right with much less regard for that. What I am getting at is that maybe Wolfe would have described himself in different terms if the culture around him was different, aligning yourself with just 2 viable parties seems very difficult to me.
With that out of the way, I will be honest this story didn't connect with me on an emotional level very much. Admittedly I was a bit distracted while reading it, but I just found the characters (other than Tredgold) to be quite dull. Your discussion is what kinda saved it for me on an enjoyment level, the themes, and how prescient the story is I liked on my read through. Honestly, I have no clue what is going on with the immolations or the ending, your readings are ones I can believe.
I will vehemently disagree with you guys on one thing though, the epigraph was awesome! Now onto Tracking Song for a more topical discussion since you guys are almost finished covering it. Also, can I just say that I am very much looking forward to sharing my thoughts about the Fifth Head of Cerberus, and starting Peace when you get to it?
I haven’t read every post on this thread yet as I am waiting for the doors to work to open and I just finished the episodes. I agree with Stephen - I think Wolfe is critical of both sides for sure - those hippies with their phallic nonsense etc. the hour of trust is also the moment when you are in bed with someone thinking you share the same values and they explode, killing you, the corporations and the counterculture are both like this. The jewelry might be explosive. Even silk’s enlightenment has a physical cause; I don’t see spontaneous combustion not having one, and I think it is the jewelry, but I need to read the text again. Critical of both sides, or my writeup on it. I see Wolfe as far more mercifully rightwing than you guys do. I think Clio is seducing the hapless schmo ”hero” as well, who actually is taking a long time to objectify her as she desires.
@CEG: very well said. You sum it up much better than I do!
Obviously, as a fellow Jewish lefty, a world in which Wolfe was the modal Republican would be far better than ours! Nevertheless, I think that we oughtn't overlook the strong connections, just as a matter of actually existing history, between the socially conservative catholic left and what the current Republican party has become. I'm not, repeat not, saying that Wolfe did or would have made that same journey! But a lot of people did. And even in Wolfe's case it's notable that he praised Buchanan, who was actually a predecessor of Trumpian politics (anti-immigrant, racist, at least somewhat isolationist, not particularly deferential towards markets, etc). He is a good figure to see how the party of Barry Goldwater became the party of Donald Trump.
For that matter, in that same interview (which is online here: https://www.gwern.net/docs/fiction/1992-jordan.pdf) he says that people in the US have gotten a lot less free over the last thirty years, i.e. between 1962-1992. This is the sort of thing that is said a lot by contemporary conservatives (sometimes talking about the 50s, sometimes about the 19th century, etc), and usually causes awkwardness when it's pointed out (fairly irrefutably) that this is only true if under "people" you don't count either African Americans or women. This is not, again not, to say that such comments are deliberately racist; but I think they speak to what people focus on, and the fact that (in Wolfe's case as in others) he was, as you pointed out, just not very interested in either the feminist movement or the black liberation movement. It's a disinterest that in some cases — although I wouldn't include Wolfe here — is in fact necessitated by ideology: as you say, conservatives in the social conservative tradition of Chesterton/Wolfe/Douthat take a particular kind of freedom seriously: but it's a sort of freedom that simply falls apart when considering the issues of women and African American, for whom collective, including state, action was central to achieving freedom as opposed to the cause of a lack of it. Which is to say that, if conservatives both cared about freedom and considered the case of the civil rights movement too closely, they would have to radically alter their understanding of either what conservatism is or what freedom is.
It's hard to talk about all this without coming across as slagging Wolfe, which I don't mean to do; he's one of my very favorite writers, too. (Tied with a bunch of others, I suppose.) But one can be a great writer without being particularly politically perceptive (which is not to deny that, in other cases, a writer's political perception was central to the brilliance of their writing), and I personally think that was true of Wolfe. (But then, I'm an atheist Jewish lefty; I would say that, wouldn't I?) And, also, I don't think it's accidental that the Republican party of 1972 became what we see today. Not to say it was inevitable; just to say that you can see the seeds of today in the past; it was there in potential, although of course a lot of other things were too, of course.
My guess is that Wolfe's politics, over time, will come to look like Tolkien's do today: not entirely congruent with either the modern left or the modern right, with things to please and displease both. (Both leftists and rightists can and have claimed Tolkien as inspiration.) That said, Wolfe is closer to our time, so his politics are closer to ours, if only in the background against they were formed. So that his politics map a little better onto ours — not perfectly, but better. Including a few cases that are such as to make lefty Jews uncomfortable. And while I would never want to dismiss Wolfe's works on those grounds, I don't want to blind to that fact, either.