Re: My Reddit comments on Webb’s funeral

[David Morris]

I know that y’all are not reading ATD now, but I wanted to throw in my last
2 cents regarding something Mark ends with below.

I don’t know how you and/or Joe seem to have concluded that how any of the
ways any of the Webb children “ended up” in the novel is in any manner a
referendum on Webb in any regard whatsoever.  Not how good a father Webb
was to them, or how faithfully any had incorporated the virtuous Union
ideals that Webb taught, or that they are examples of a decline or
degradation of his purity or any other morality lesson.  I start with the
fact that they are *primarily* individuals.  They do each have different
values and different reactions to Webb as a father and as an example which
partly shapes their characters.  BUT  Those are not all different value
levels  on the same measuring scale, because they are individuals, not
measures in relation to Webb’s values

David Morris

On Fri, Dec 31, 2021 at 8:39 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think, if I reread and thought as carefully as you have here, I would
> see better the--degradation? the decline?---of the Traverse name and values
> that started with a kind of purity with Webb. ....And intentionally so
> from TRP obviously. [authorial intent of course] .....the children, the
> sons, more mixed I have and would argue but I will also wait for more words
> from you about them.
>