Darwin and Pynchon's objective perspective

[Howard, Jesse]

On Thursday, December 31, 1998 8:10 AM, Terrance F. Flaherty 
> <snip>
>  Darwin seeks to eliminate all that is merely subjective and personal,
> in order to see the world objectively, as the world presents itself in
> itself. His view is an impersonal or objective one. This view of the
> world is often associated with science, for it is thought that to be
> scientific is to eliminate all bias or prejudice and all things
> personal. However, Darwin's objectivity is characteristic of HIS mind
> and not of all scientific thinkers. Nor are geniuses of the arts, often
> associated with idiosyncratic subjectivity, necessarily subjective.
> Shakespeare, for example, holding a mirror to nature, is himself, an
> enigma. His personal subjectivity has been enveloped by and hidden in
> the objectivity of his works. Protagoras, in contrast, claims that, "Man
> is the measure of all things." Francis Bacon agrees with Darwin and
> Shakespeare when in New Organon he writes, "I am building," he states,
> "in human understanding a true model of the world, such as it is in
> fact, not such as man's own reason would have it to be."
>  Darwin's struggle was not easily won, but for him there was no other
> way. He saw the world objectively, and his works reflect his view of the
> world. How does Pynchon see the world? IMHO, Pynchon's perspective, like
> Shakespeare's, is objective.
> 
>
While I agree that both Darwin and Bacon struggle to cast human activity
alongside all organic activity, and that both are attempting to find some
universal rule(s) which will help systematize the world, I have a hard time
accepting the same categorization of Pynchon or Shakespeare.  By refracting
the many facets of his mind through the crazed prisms of his plays,
Shakespeare illustrates very clearly that there is more to human activity
than simply slogging through a world of clay attempting to survive, and
Pynchon reinforces this by showing us his amazingly flawed characters.  I
know that most modern evolutionary biologists, and all geneticists, will
tell us that it is precisely because each individual strives to live in a
unique way that the world can be systematized, but I had hoped for some
small escape from objective, systemic views in reading great works of
literature.  I think I need to be pulled into complete self-absorbtion by
the author occasionally in order to put the world into proper perspective.
Bacon and Darwin did not do that for me; they expose nature in a way that
puts any human artistic endeavor at risk.  Does an artist's work make him or
her a more desireable breeding candidate?  Should we simply act however we
feel and let history decide whether our ethics were right?  An objective,
dispassionate person might say, "yes.  In the long run, what you do, today,
on this streetcorner, is only a speck on the evolutionary wall.  If you pass
this pattern of activity on to your children, and they to theirs, we will
see if it holds up against a rival behavior."
But I think that Pynchon, for example, shows that we often do things quite
contrary to any rational thought that can be deemed beautiful, and that in
even the most bizarre of neuroses lies something worthy.
Perhaps Bacon, Darwin, Monod, et al, are trying to establish a baseline from
which to expose the fundamental properties of all organic life.  If we can
cut an dry it in this way, then I think that an author of fiction's task is
to expose the fundamental properties of human life.  And, as we all know,
what makes us human and what makes us scientifically alive are often two
completely separate things.

Thanks for stirring the pot 366 days before the new millenium.

jch