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<P>What follows are some brief excerpted passages from the Snow lecture, which is the source document of the Pynchon essay <EM>Is it O.K. to be a Luddite? t</EM>that we are scheduled to look into. The TP essay can be found here( <A href="http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html">www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html</A> )</P>
<P>I am nervous about the copyright problems of OCRing the whole Snow lecture and putting it online, but may put up more to further the discussion. One thing you wouldn’t get without reading the whole thing is Snow’s blithe dismissal of any possibility that there was serious social resistance to industrialization. According to him tradesmen, craftspeople and farmers couldn’t wait to get off those boring, degrading farms and out of those gloomy cottages into a pleasant stimulating factory. This omission, joined with the fact that he never defines the term Luddite becomes the launching ground of TP’s essay. After dismissing the 2 cultures premise as no longer sustainable, Pynchon sets out to also question the pejorative and snootily dismissive use of the term Luddite. He begins to fill out the track of a far more complex and nuanced history particularly of the literary aspect of the conflict between true believers in science and technology and those who have serious questions. </P>
<P>I. THE REDE LECTURE, 1959, C.P. Snow</P>
<P>I</P>
<P>THE TWO CULTURES</P>
<P>IT is about three years since I made a sketch in print</P>
<P>of a problem which had been on my mind for some</P>
<P>time.' It was a problem I could not avoid just</P>
<P>because of the circumstances of my life. The only</P>
<P>credentials I had to ruminate on the subject at all came</P>
<P>through those circumstances, through nothing more</P>
<P>than a set of chances. Anyone with similar experience</P>
<P>would have seen much the same things and I think</P>
<P>made very much the same comments about them. It</P>
<P>just happened to be an unusual experience. By training</P>
<P>I was a scientist : by vocation I was a writer . That was</P>
<P>all. It was a piece of luck, if you like, that arose through</P>
<P>coming from a poor home .</P>
<P>But my personal history isn't the point now . All</P>
<P>that I need say is that I came to Cambridge and did a</P>
<P>bit of research here at a time of major scientific activity.</P>
<P>I was privileged to have a ringside view of one of the</P>
<P>most wonderful creative periods in all physics .... </P>
<P>... So for thirty years I have had to be in touch with</P>
<P>scientists not only out of curiosity, but as part of a</P>
<P>working existence. During the same thirty years I was</P>
<P>trying to shape the books I wanted to write, which in</P>
<P>due course took me among writers. </P>
<P>...two cultures'. For constantly I felt I was moving</P>
<P>among two groups-comparable in intelligence, identical </P>
<P>in race, not grossly different in social origin,</P>
<P>earning about the same incomes, who had almost</P>
<P>ceased to communicate at all, who in intellectual,</P>
<P>moral and psychological climate had so little in</P>
<P>common that instead of going from Burlington</P>
<P>House or South Kensington to Chelsea, one might</P>
<P>have crossed an ocean.</P>
<P></P>
<P>..<B>.No, I intend something serious . I believe the intel-</P>
<P>lectual life of the whole of western society is increas-</P>
<P>ingly being split into two polar groups . </P>
<P></P>
<P>...Two polar groups : at one pole we have the literary intel-</P>
<P>lectuals, who incidentally while no one. was looking</P>
<P>took to referring to themselves as `intellectuals' as</P>
<P>though there were no others .</P></B>
<P>INTELLECTUALS AS NATURAL LUDDITES</P>
<P>The reasons for the existence of the two cultures are</P>
<P>many, deep, and complex, some rooted in social</P>
<P>histories, some in personal histories, and some in the</P>
<P>inner dynamic of the different kinds of mental activity</P>
<P>themselves. But I want to isolate one which is not so</P>
<P>much a reason as a correlative, something which winds</P>
<P>in and out of any of these discussions . <B>It can be said</P>
<P>simply, and it is this . If we forget the scientific culture,</P>
<P>then the rest of western intellectuals have never tried,</P>
<P>wanted, or been able to understand the industrial</P>
<P>revolution, much less accept it. Intellectuals, in parti-</P>
<P>cular literary intellectuals, are natural Luddites .</P></B>
<P>That is specially true of this country, where the</P>
<P>industrial revolution happened to us earlier than else-</P>
<P>where, during a long spell of absentmindedness. Per-</P>
<P>haps that helps explain our present degree of crystal-</P>
<P>lisation. But, with a little qualification, it is also true,</P>
<P>and surprisingly true, of the United States . 3</P>
<P></P></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Joseph Tracy</DIV>
<DIV><A href="mailto:brook7@earthlink.net">brook7@earthlink.net</A></DIV>
<DIV>Why Wait? Move to EarthLink.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
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