Majorities Moral and Otherwise

[rj]

Following on from BekkerA's comments about how the 60s anti-war (and
civil rights, I'd add) "Movement" had united and radicalised all manner
of minority groups and individuals across the land to a common cause,
and how, afterwards:
 
> Everyone went their own ways. Some got caught up in the drug scene, some
> pushed a women's agenda, others got involved in the environmental struggle and
> others simply went back to work or school;

Sebastian suggests how the actual refragmentation of this
anti-Establishment political bloc was effected by 'Them':

> In VL, I believe, it's the other way around. 
> Brock directs his 'genius' not at the 10% who are in it for real ("we
> always knew how to deal with them"), but ot the other 90%--"amateurs,
> consumers, short attention spans, out there for the thrills, pick up a
> chick, score some dope, nothing political."  (270.28-.29).  These are the
> corruptible ones, "easy to turn and cheap to develop."  (269.12-.13)
> 
> And I think it is to that 90% that VL directs our attention.

Even allowing for a significant blowout in the percentages, somewhere
herein, I think, lies Pynchon's critique of democracy (which is itself
the 'They' in Pynchon's fictions, or component thereof, imho.)

best