mdmd(4) - last call

[Brian D. McCary]

Forwared for Scott Badger:

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From: Scott Badger <lupine at ncia.net>
Subject: Re: mdmd(4) - last call

Brian D. McCary wrote:
> 
> Don't forget, mdmd(5) starts tomorrow, chapters 14-16.  So it's time
> now to put finger to keyboard and dash off all those half thoughts you
> have been reluctant to share on events in 11-13.
> 

I couldn't help, though, responding to your, and everyone else's,
discussion on the "Commerce.....Gallows" line.  Could it be that Pynchon
means Slavery to be read in a more general sense?  As any form of
Control.  And the Gallows not just as the threat of death, but death as
a tool.  To be sure, the threat of death through capital punishment is
one aspect, but the active use of inflicted death to eliminate or shape
(war etc.) is, I think, a more profound sense of Gallows here.  

Our equation now becomes; profit (aquisiton of power in whatever sense
is meaningful) if not requires, at least leads to a system, or systems,
of control and the right tool for any system of control, worthy of the
name, is institutionalized death.  And, as Control without the ability
to threaten or eliminate is not worth the effort, religious dominion is
ineffectual without sacrifice.  To me, a nice summation (if possible) of
GR.

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