Re: M&D: Learnédness (vs. Bornness//as reason for hope?)

[Mark Kohut]

http://www.classicsandclass.info/product/169/

On Sun, Dec 31, 2017 at 11:25 AM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:

> Third time through this book, and I am struck (again) by just how early in
> the text the LED comes--as if there should be no question about how many
> questions there will be about the world of the book.
>
> But the learnedness is interesting to me. The LED is the most civilized
> member of most every group of talking mammals he encounters. The LED's
> learnedness is the most foregrounded part of his identity. His civility is
> acquired.
>
> And this, some time later, p. 92, amid the rainstorms, the young and
> learning Seductrices Vroom, pursuing their "malicious fun," trying to
> trigger what we might assume are at least somewhat born-in sexual responses
> from our Astronomers (mostly M, though even he may be a more acceptable
> substitute for the African boys ("Babies, rather," as Austra reminds and
> admonishes the V sisters) they might otherwise be exploiting) as they await
> the Transit ...
>
> "[Austra's] blond Procuresses all begin to expostulate at once, and Mason
> understands that the vocal assaults of the Vrom Poultry are not inborn, but
> rather learn'd in this World from their Owners."
>
> Does ugliness, just like civility or refinement, descend through great
> hierarchical chains of ownership?
>
> I think some version of this question underlays the book just like so much
> of the political philosophy that background the novel, the Hobbeses and
> Lockes and Hamiltons of what is, we are told, the Age of Reason. Isn't it?
>
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