MDMD(4) p.123 small re-write

[Paul Mackin]

Thanks to Jody for a contrary view to my slight annoyance with
the Slavery/Gallows passage. I have no problem with his
interpretation. It's excellent. On another day, in another mood, I
might have accepted the passage without a quiver. But a modern reader,
a Pynchon reader, who ALREADY abhors slavery, the gallows, the whole
shameful past (and present), may possibly be excused on occasion for 
feeling he or she is being subjected to a slight case of preaching
to the converted. I won't say belaboring the obvious however.
The connections Pynchon makes often need making. And generally I
like his way better than anyone else's.

			P.

			
jporter wrote:

> I think you've put your finger right on the very essence of this most
> significant sequence. I read "essential Term" as a recognition that the
> enslavement of one group by another is inconceivable without the threat of
> death, and therefore, the gallows are essential. But I also hear the
> allusion to math/science, not as vague, but as quite BLATANT. Yet it is an
> "against the grain" allusion.
> 
> A mathematical description of a phenomenon may include a term which is more
> or less essential, in order for the description to provide a reasonable
> measure of accuracy. But math is math. It is entirely descriptive, a
> reductive model, if you will, of reality. And the terms of the description
> are completely inconsequential to the reality, which proceeds oblivious-
> like the Giant rob'd Beings- to any descriptive universe of terms.
> 
> And therein the rub, and the brillance of Pynchon...to the practitioners of
> slavery, the gallows are an essential term of both the real and the
> symbolic sort. Slavery is impossible without the constant threat and means
> of execution.  In the minds of the slavers, however, the process has been
> reduced to a calculation in human (in-human?) terms. The life of another
> slave becomes the calculated price of doing business...plug in the numbers,
> and decide how many and how often to kill, to keep the profit margin
> reasonable.
> 
> To the enterprise of slavery the gallows are doubly essential- a real means
> of enforcing slavery, and, as a "term" in the equation in the minds of the
> slavers- an expression that has reduced real human flesh and blood to a
> calculation.
> 
> jody