GRGR (15): Good & Evil (was Enzian...)

[David Morris]

>From: Michael Perez Doug wrote:
>"Don't forget -- in all this talk of moral relativism and an inability
>to find Good and Evil in GR that don't dissolve beneath successive
>deconstructions -- that at the heart of this novel, at its very center,
>Pynchon has placed Pokler's tale and the relevations of how the Evil of
>the Holocaust serves the development of the Rocket and all the Evil
>that the Rocket serves, sustains, makes possible. I challenge anybody
>to
>successfully make the case that Pynchon treats the Holocaust, in GR, in
>any sort of relativistic way -- to the contrary, how anybody can read
>through Pokler's story and come away without a clear picture of what is
>good (Nature, for starters; the sanctity of individual human lives; &
>more) and what is evil (destroying Nature's cycle of eternal
>return/rebirth, for starters) is beyond me."

I agree with Doug on a very basic level.  GR employs Comic Book morality 
lessons which are not insincere, but they do not overide all sorts of other 
conflicting messages.

As for "moral relativism" and "deconstructions," I call these buzz-words, 
straw-dogs.

>. . .  As for
>your invocations of Nature, is "the sanctity of individual lives"
>natural?  Is there such a thing as "Nature's cycle of eternal
>return/rebirth"?  Are these things uniquely human?  If so, why?  Humans
>are the only animals that think about such things.  I'm not saying this
>is a bad thing, but it is not natural.  There are no evil lions or
>squirrels, but they do things that humans consider evil.
>

Human "Nature" is at the heart of this thread.  How far away is God?

David Morris

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