Pynchon and computers

[Andrew Dinn]

Jan Klimkowski writes:

> The crux of the issue is whether TP agrees that the onus is now on us to use 
> Technology to create the sort of world we want (rather than let Technology 
> determine all); or whether the old Luddite absolutes still stand.

> I eagerly await my copy of Sale's Luddite history.....

My initial impression of the `Luddite' article was of a rather upbeat
appraisal of the possibilities of new technology. In particular this
passage and its suggestions of `user-friendly' technology:

  But we now live, we are told, in the Computer Age.  What is the
  outlook for Luddite sensibility?  Will mainframes attract the same
  hostile attention as knitting frames once did?  I really doubt it.
  Writers of all descriptions are stampeding to buy word processors.
  Machines have already become so user-friendly that even the most
  unreconstructed of Luddites can be charmed into laying down the old
  sledgehammer and stroking a few keys instead.  Beyond this seems to
  be a growing consensus that knowledge really is power, that there is
  a pretty straightforward conversion between money and information,
  and that somehow, if the logistics can be worked out, miracles may
  yet be possible. If this is so, Luddites may at last have come to
  stand on common ground with their Snovian adversaries, the cheerful
  army of technocrats who were supposed to have the "future in their
  bones."  It may be only a new form of the perennial Luddite
  ambivalence about machines, or it may be that the deepest Luddite
  hope of miracle has now come to reside in the computer's ability to
  get the right data to those whom the data will do the most good.
  With the proper deployment of budget and computer time, we will cure
  cancer, save ourselves from nuclear extinction, grow food for
  everybody, detoxify the results of industrial greed gone berserk --
  realize all the wistful pipe dreams of our days.

Rereading it the irony is rather more obvious. To counter the totally
pessimistic view that this is a pipe dream he raises our hopes with:

  The word "Luddite" continues to be applied with contempt to anyone
  with doubts about technology, especially the nuclear kind.  Luddites
  today are no longer faced with human factory owners and vulnerable
  machines.  As well-known President and unintentional Luddite
  D.D. Eisenhower prophesied when he left office, there is now a
  permanent power establishment of admirals, generals and corporate
  CEO's, up against whom us average poor bastards are completely
  outclassed, although Ike didn't put it quite that way.  We are all
  supposed to keep tranquil and allow it to go on, even though, because
  of the data revolution, it becomes every day less possible to fool any
  of the people any of the time.

Clearly one source for a change in the status quo is not Orwell's
`proles' but us, `data proles' benefiting from the leakiness of
electronic information repositories and flows. However, I don't think
Pynchon placed much faith in the availability of such knowledge (and
if he still reads his Scientific American the latest [August] issue's
discussion of Internet exclusion zones surely will have convinced him
that this is limited edition stuff), in the power of shock value, of
looking on as `shit happens' even when this observation can be
qualified with detail `look, here it is - this is it's shape, colour,
smell'. `We are all supposed to keep tranquil' and `we' usually do for
all sorts of reasons, few of them to do with the fact that we are
fools.

Pynchon seems to place what hope he has in a total breakdown of the
`Them' system - a frail if devout hope indeed given the qualifications
which top and tail this theme, that this might also constitute our own
breakdown.

  If our world survives, the next great challenge to watch out for
  will come -- you heard it here first -- when the curves of research
  and development in artificial intelligence, molecular biology and
  robotics all converge.  Oboy.  It will be amazing and unpredictable,
  and even the biggest of brass, let us devoutly hope, are going to be
  caught flat-footed.  It is certainly something for all good Luddites
  to look forward to if, God willing, we should live so long.

Personally, I don't buy the AI hype and, with no AI, I am wary of any
grand claims for robotics. Mol bio is perhaps a closer cause for
concern - rumours that Dr Frankenstein is alive and well and living in
the front bedroom are probably exaggerated, but the Henry Ford
approach to cellular processes has achieved some worrying successes. I
think Pynchon is clearly still a Luddite, the only qualification being
that an auto-Luddism inherent in the system may, in the long run,
dethrone King Ned making him (and possibly the rest of us) redundant
in the process.

fraternally,


Andrew Dinn
-----------
As the Liberty lads o'er the sea
Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood,
So we; boys, we
Will die fighting, or live  free,
And down with all kings but King Ludd!