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

[Peter Petto]

On 12/11/1999, rj wrote:

>peter petto:
>
> > I don't really understand why. In the arena of dog psychology: if I beat a
> > dog daily and after several years liberated him, I wouldn't expect him to
> > be kind or friendly to you.
>
>The dog's retaliation against the dog beater may be just deserts. And,
>indeed, this dog's rampage against humans would quite likely be
>indiscriminate, and understandably so; the psychology of the dog has
>been affected (conditioned). But, if this dog were to attack your
>innocent child then would you be so quick to endorse the dog's
>reactions?

Well, um, I wasn't meaning to *endorse* the dog's reactions. I'm just 
saying that they're not unexpected.

And what I meant to say more clearly is this: the dog's behavior after 
being liberated doesn't alter the immorality of the beatings.

(and rj went on to say):

>That there are many "strong moral messages" in *GR* I guess is the
>point, these often in absolute conflict with one another, each one
>dependent on local context and individual perspective for its particular
>"truth". There isn't a vantage beyond the text which can accommodate
>their complexity as a unity, because individual human perception is
>limited and preconditioned (this is a major theme of the novel in fact),
>and this applies to readers and authors as well as to fictional
>characters and historical personages. I perceive this to be a type of
>moral relativism operating within the text: neither nihilism on the
>reader's part or an inference of Pynchonian moral ambivalence are
>constituted in this statement.

I'm still digesting this. At the moment I don't see strong moral messages 
in GR that are in absolute conflict with each other. Maybe someone can name 
some examples to help me.

I'm a bit overwhelmed by the many major themes of GR, but that perception 
is limited by preconditioning rings true with me.

    p3++