Newt, Systems, etc......

[David L. Pelovitz]

Jan KLIMKOWSKI <Jan.Klimkowski at bbc.co.uk> Wrote:
 
> I'd far rather identify other areas for any debate that may ensue.  So, 
> how's about that ole favourite, Systems in GR.  They and the preterite.  IG 
> Farben and the Counterforce.  Commodity cartels and custard pie 
> entrepreneurship.  Richard M Zhluub and Leni Pokler.
> 
> The "Ones and Zeroes and let's all live in the excluded middle" school of 
> Pynchon crit is interesting both philosophically and as a reading strategy. 
>  But, it can lead to misreadings of GR, IMHO.  The Ones and Zeroes above are 
> patently not equally powerful, oppositional forces.  Telling Leni Pokler or 
> Katje or Osbie Feel to live in an excluded middle is simply ducking out.
> 
How so?  Katje strikes me as being firmly planted in an
excluded middle.  First off, the Ones and Zeros may not
be equally powerful, but who or what in these works is
absolutely One or Zero?  

The excluded middle is based on the notion that everything
that is Not-One must be Zero and vice-versa.  But very few
of the characters or systems can be placed on one side
of any of the binary oppositions TRP gives us without
qualifications (maybe They as a concept is absolutely
committed to Them, but who exactly arre They?)  It isn't a
question of ducking out by placing the characters in
an excluded middle, it is recognizing that the poles are 
usually excluded, and the midles never are.

In terms of which is more powerful...well, death is always
the most likely state, isn't it?  Doesn't occur often
in TRP's works (again, not qithou being qualified
in some way).  Power is only a question of probable states,
(what is most likely to occur next given what has occured)
and if TRP does have an attitude toward probability,
it is that probability is never certainty.
  
David Pelovitz - PELOVTZD at Acfcluster.nyu.edu