MDMD(3)--Just a thought

[Steven Maas (CUTR)]

Dixon, or Pynchon, asks the question--". . .how can there be any room for
excess in this gossip-ridden Town. . . ?"  and answers that it's ". . .as
if Judgment be near as the towering Seas and nothing matter anymore,
especially not good behavior, because there's no more time--the bets are
in, ev'ry individual Fate decided, all cries taken by the great Winds, and
'tis done."

So I was wondering, is, or was, there in fact a strain of Dutch Calvinist
thought that would lead the Cape Dutch to imagine that once Time was about
to end it no longer mattered what one did, that one's fate was decided and
would not change no matter what?  This seems to go well beyond the
Elect/Preterite dichotomy, where even the Elect are expected to follow
certain codes of conduct.

	Steve Maas

Meg submits for our consideration this excellent, though inexplicably
lacking references to Librarians and NoCal dope dealers, excerpt from
chapter 8, page 78 of M&D:

>	"He [Dixon] feels like a predatory Animal,--as if this Town were
> ancient to him, his Hunting-Ground, his Fell so mis-remember'd in nearly
> all Details, save where lie the Bound'ries he does not plan to cross. 
> Tho' how can there be any room for excess in this gossip-ridden Town,
> crowded up against the Mountains that wall it from the virid vast
> leagues of Bushmen's Land beyond? as behind these carv'd doors and
> Gothickal Gates, in the far Penumbrae of sperm tapers, in Loft and
> _Voorhuis_, in entryways scour'd by Dusk and blown Sand, these Dutch
> carry on as if Judgment be near as the towering Seas and nothing matter
> anymore, especially not good behavior, because there's no more time--the
> bets are in, ev'ry individual Fate decided, all cries taken by the great
> Winds, and 'tis done. Temporally, as geographically, the End of the
> World.  The unrelenting Vapor of debauchery here would not merely tempt
> a Saint,--Heavens, 'twould tempt an Astronomer.  Yet 'tis difficult, if
> not impossible, for these Astronomers to get down to a Chat upon the
> Topick of Desire, given Dixon's inability to deny or divert the Gusts
> that sweep him, and Mason's frequent failure, in his Melancholy, even to
> recognize Desire, let alone to act upon it, tho' it run up calling Ahoy
> Charlie. "How could you begin to understand?" Mason sighs. "You've no
> concept of Temptation.  You came ashore here _looking_ for occasions to
> transgress. Some of us have more Backbone, I suppose. . . ."
> 	"A bodily Part too often undistinguish'd," Dixon replies, "from a 
> Ram-Rod up the Arse."