Evil R Us

[LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU]

Murthy comments:
"The idea that all human groups are                    
inherently evil is a pernicious myth propagated by us to make ourselves
look normal, just like the idea that all human life is "nasty, brutish
and short". It's not human nature that's screwed up, it's our culture
and it's not universal."


To turn back to Pynchon, look at the Hereros as emblematic of the problem.
If white Europeans and their descendents are, as Susan Sontag once put it,
"the cancer of history," there is the suggestion that this form of cancer
(unlike the real one) is communicable.  The Schwarzkommando become, at least,
"sold on suicide" in part from the devestation of their culture, in part from
the infection of European order.

It's very clear that P. targets white, European culture as the main culprit
of history.  It's somewhat less clear that he sees that guilt as an exclusive
property.  When he says, "The Man has a branch office in each of our brains
[. . . ] whose mission is Bad Shit,"  that "our" implies a white readership
but suggests a larger group.

Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)