Alien Invasion!

[David Casseres]

>Subject:     Re: Alien Invasion!
>Sent:        12/11/96 08:34
>Received:    12/11/96 09:54
>From:        Steven Maas (CUTR), maas at cutr.eng.usf.edu
>To:          Pynchon-l, pynchon-l at waste.org


Steven Maas sez
>> > ... the fact is
>> > that generally these peoples _want_ TVs and t-shirts and computers when
>> > they see them.  Who are we to tell them no, you shouldn't have them,
>> > because we like you just the way you are?

Murthy Yenamandra answers

>> ... The real
>> fact is that we don't like them just the way they are and want them to
>> be more like us.  Whether they want it or not we keep pushing the coke
>> until they accept....

now Steve's back with

>I'd like to separate the various "we"s.  The we I referred to is those who
>in fact would like to see tribal cultures survive because they seem to
>have a better relationship with the cosmos than "modern" cultures do.  It
>seems that the we Murthy refers to are the pynchonesque they; if so I
>agree with him completely that they will do their best to "keep pushing
>the coke"--in more ways than one. 
>
>I think that those in _my_ "we" need to keep in mind that native peoples
>often do in fact want modern technology once they see it, and that we
>should think hard before we advocate keeping them "pure"--"for their own
>good." (Sort of sounds like "little brown brothers," doesn't it?) Were the
>Inuit, for example "pushed" to ditch dogsleds for snowmobiles? Were
>American Indians "pushed" to give up stone projectile points for metal
>ones, and those for firearms?  Sure, if these peoples had been left alone
>and not had to deal with intruders with modern equipment they would have,
>presumably, remained happily using their native technology--until one of
>their own came up with a new and improved model.  However, unless we set
>aside human preserves (a _very_ problematic idea), it's impossible these
>days to keep modern life out of sight.

I think both Steve and Murthy are right, as They are wont to try to make 
the "little brown brothers" like ourselves in one place and time, yet 
also try to keep them in a primitively exploitable state somewhere else.

Pynchon comes down pretty clearly on this, though.  In his story, both in 
V. and Gravity's Rainbow, he makes it clear that the colonial power wants 
the native people to be completely Other, because then the colonist can 
do ANYTHING to them and thus become completely himself.

Paraphrasing one line of an incredible passage in the Zone section of GR: 
 "... a place where you could just drop your pants ans smell your own 
shit ...."

In that same passage, Pynchon is at pains to contradict the Marxist 
analysis directly and explicitly, denying that the impetus of colonialism 
is economic, insisting that it is this need to find and dominate the 
preterite Other that really drives it.  Same thing, really, that made the 
Dutchman go to Mauritius and exterminate dodoes in an earlier section.

Personally, I think colonialism depends on both things, but Pynchon is 
drawing on powerful mythic themes here, doing a twist on the Jungian 
quest to find the Dark Brother.  Pynchon does a lot of his most 
compelling writing on the theme of colonialism, as experienced by the 
colonists themselves.

Cheers,
David