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

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 13 Dec 1999, Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:
> 
> Maybe we are not conditioned to find these acts abhorrent,
> perhaps the fact that young children need to be protected is
> not conditioned but innate? But this doesn't really make a
> difference as far I am concerned, but since we are having a
> good and evil discussion I see no reason
> why we can't have the old dog teaching itself new tricks, 
> chasing its own tail
> discussion of nature and nurture. Just kidding.

Yes. By referring to our abhorrences as  being "conditioned" I didn't mean
to single them our as being special in any presently relevant way (a
social construction mebbe :-)), because as the sun sets on the 20th
Century  NATURE is long since down the tube anyway or, as some wise man
said, postmodernism is what you have when nature is gone and culture has
become second nature. (something like that) 
 

> another good example, and Pynchon in VL follows the pattern
> he has here GR and in V.,  in that he goes after his
> political targets and
> critiques the culture at large with "perverse" sexual acts.

In a way sexual acts--tack on "perverse" if you like though I feel
the qualification unnecessary--are TOO MUCH LIKE colonialism and the
conquest of weaker peoples to stand for these things allegorically. The 
White Whale was not important in himself, merely a brute in the wild.
Hmm.I gotta think about THAT claim. Probably offensive in more ways than
one. 

		P.