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

[Tim Thomas]

----- Original Message -----
From: Doug Millison <millison at online-journalist.com>


> At 3:19 PM +1100 12/11/99, rj wrote:
> >Imo "evil" doesn't inhere in human nature: morality is simply a product
> >of cultural conditioning. Witness the different attitudes to murder and
> >retribution amongst different cultures, and even the changing foci of
> >morality through the history of Western Christianity.
>
> What would be the different "attitudes" that are expressed re Nazi crimes
> (in GR or outside the novel in the world at large)?  Only a lunatic fringe
> seriously promotes the idea that the Nazi program of genocide might not be
> considered evil, or that some consequence of those crimes makes the crimes
> something less than evil...

But the Nazi program of genocide was carried out by real people who had real
support for their actions - this is the moral relativism, their actions seem
evil to us, but obviously not to them. I think there are two things that are
being conflated here - the question of how morality itself is dealt with in
GR, and the authors own moral sense. The latter probably co-incides with
most liberal white folks in the western world. But the former is the more
interesting question  - I agree with rj that GR draws attention to the
relativistic character of morality or judgements about good vs evil. There
are plenty of examples in Pynchons fiction of groups of people sharing
alternative moralities eg: the folks aboard the Anubis, the guests at
Foppls's "villa" in V. These people exist in their own moral universe. And
the morality of relationships between characters - Enzian-Weissmann,
Slothrop-Bianca, Katje - whoever... they are all subjective.
A friend of mine used to say "The Nazi's were people too!" - and thats the
interesting thing about morality, the Nazi's and all their supporters, the
colonial authorities in sudwest, those big multinationals benefitting from
genocide, - none of them are the lunatic fringe, at some level they are
people just like you and me. Thats the terrifying thing.  Im sure everyone
can think of other real world events where normal everyday people have done
evil things - Mai Lai, Kosovo, Nazi Germany.... This is one of the things GR
explores - how in certain situations group and individual senses of morality
shift and float - the Zone.
But in some ways it obscures the more ambiguous moral 'judgements' in GR to
talk of the way Nazi crimes are portrayed - its too easy. The real moral
questions come in the little details - coprophagy, S/M, pedophilia, - its
here that readers have doubts about any firm moral position in the
narrative, its these events that lead prize juries to reject a book on moral
grounds. Its pretty easy for a open minded child of the 60's or 70's to
accept "lift my fur" while applauding the firm moral condemnation of crimes
against humanity - but maybe not so easy for others!

cheers
Tim