Conditioning

[LARSSON at vax1.mankato.msus.edu]

Ron Churgin writes:
" Or, to put it another way, a society where things are valued more           
than people.  GR takes that one step further,  people are turned into things.
 Gottfried becoming a component of the
00000 rocket for example.
 
I'd be interested in hearing anyone's take on the whole Gottfried-
inside-the-rocket thing.  Thoughts that occur to me are: Blicero's ultimate
act of sado-masochism (on a personal level) and the State's ultimate act of
subjugation of the individual.  And what was in it for Gottfried? Masochist
or victim?
 
Also, I had always thought the reason for Slothrop's erections right before
the A-4 struck was due to his conditioning, as an infant, to arousal by
imipolex.  Upon re-reading, its not clear to me.  Was the 00000 rocket the
only one with imipolex components?  If this was so, then the infant
conditioning would not account for Slothrop's hard-ons.  Any enlightening
thoughts?"


I agree with you, Ron, but the point I see in the shift of Pynchon's concerns
has to do with emphasis--particularly the agency by which Bad Shit happens in
the world.

As to Slothrop's conditioning, I agree that things are not nearly as clear as
they seem to be at first.  Like Slothrop's star-map of sexual conquests, which
is not the precise kind of template Pointsman wants--it's really another
indicator of a Poisson distribution.  The nicely sneaky thing about GR is that
just when you think you have a hold on the beast, it wiggles away from you.

Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)