Pynchon and commuters...

[Oliver Xymoron]

On Fri, 25 Aug 1995, Andrew Dinn wrote:

> Gillies, Lindsay writes:
> > Luddites:
> > Luddites were not fearful or irrational about "modern" technology---I think 
> > we're into a bit of teleological reasoning on this subject.  Luddites were 
> > reacting to the __Social__ reorganization implicit in the factory system. 

That's why I specifically said "fearful of modernization" which I think 
wraps up the above quite nicely.

> Which is why Jan questioned the use of the term of `irrational fear'.

Which I only used in the negative, as in "no sign of irrational fear." 
The phrase was specifically chosen, not to describe Pynchon, nor his
description of the Luddites, but to sum up the (inaccurate) usage of
Luddite I'd been seeing earlier in this Pynchon and comPuters discussion.
I was also responding to an article that weighed the various pieces of
evidence for Pynchon being pro-computer or pro-Luddite, when Pynchon
himself seems to have no problem with today's Luddites using computers. 
And I don't think much can be said about Pynchon's stance on who's to
blame for all the shortcomings of the computer industry in the past
decade or even prior, be he a "Luddite" or not. 

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