Calvinisme etc.

[David Casseres]

Patrick Schreuder sez
>     Doug wrote:

It was me, actually.

>>     No wonder Dutchmen fled to the ends of the Earth to exterminate 
>>     dodoes, eat "Malay" food, fuck their brains out on the bodies of 
>>     slaves, etc.
>     
>     According to the dutch history books, we did it all for the money. 
>     The dutch were always good at using Calvinism/Relegion as an excuse 
>     for making money.

That's the conventional explanation, and I don't doubt it at all -- but I 
really believe there was also a psychospiritual dimension to it, the 
escape from the dreadfulness of bourgeois European life, which Pynchon 
portrays very powerfully in the Cape Colony (M&D), German 
Sudwestafrika(V. and GR), Mauritius(GR), colonial and Wild-West America 
(M&D and GR respectively) the Kirghiz steppes(GR), Argentina(V.) and 
probably a bunch of others I'm forgetting.


Cheers,
David