war

[Noel Peacock]

In a recent article in "Queen's Quarterly," Anatole Rappaport argues that 
the style of war can be measured according to the reltave congruence of 
hatred and aggression.  Eighteenth-century war was a wholly 
professionalized, tactically abstract affair, in which hatred for the 
enemy played no part; the nineteenth-century, with rise of nationalist 
revolutions, marks the emergence of mass hatred into war.  Rappaport 
claims that the Twentieth Century is distinguished by its reversion to 
the older model, abetted by technology, which makes direct personal 
involvement such as hatred impossible.  He cites as examples the smart 
weapons of the Gulf War, as well as the accounts of bomber crews in WWII 
and Vietnam.

I'm new to this list, and I've haven't read GR (although I've read the 
other novels).  Also, I don't think Rappaport's argument acounts for 
conflicts like the Bosnian one.  But, it seems to me that the 
impersonalizing of war through technology is a pretty clear Pynchon 
theme.  In V., doesn't he push this a step further and construct the 
relationship of humans and technology as itself a war, with humans losing 
(I'm thinking of the colonizing of bodies by synthetic materials 
throughout the book)?

Noel Peacock