GRGR(3): Borders

[Lorentzen / Nicklaus]

Reminds me of Zygmunt Bauman, who defined modernity somewhere as "the urge to 
cross borders & the ability to do so".  Yours, KFL



keith woodward schrieb:
> The first part of GR is riddled with border theories.  Already, we have
> been introduced to Slothrop's map of London (by virtue of being a map, it
> itself is centrally concerned with borders).  Mexico's map, a "glimmering"
> (55) echo of Slothrop's map, creates borders within borders by placing a
> grid over top of it (for the purpose of reckoning the Poisson
> distribution), and ultimately revealing a king of mathematical geography
> that can exist by virtue of the rocket falls (but, as Slothrop's parallel
> map shows, the distribution equation requires only that there be a
> collection of supposed events in order to relegate a landscape to
> mathematical borders).  I t seems, also, that the tendency of Pointsman,
> Mexico, the Psi Section, etc, to attempt to identify Slothrop with the map
> is an attempt to locate portions of the landscape of his identity (if you
> will) and to establish the borders of his identity (thus the attempts at
> Slothrop/A-4 connections).
>
> Pointsman's considerations of Pavlovian theory further punctuate a notion
> of the mapping of the self by imagining "the cortex of the brain as a
> mosiac of tiny on/off elements" (55), where breaking down idea of the
> opposite is equatable to a break down of psycho/physiological borders (48),
> particularly, it seems, between the conscious and the unconscious.  The
> result, of course, is an approach to the psyche that is concerned with
> mapping the mind of the subject.  What seems curious to me is that
> Pointsman locates control through a break-down of those borders, where most
> border theory would claim that it is the creation of borders that
> establishes control.  Perhaps for Pointsman, it is the control of borders
> themselves (the *capacity* to break down which ever borders one chooses)
> that reveals final control.
>
> The Zone will itself be another landscape where borders have been broken
> down, and the cooperation of American and German Companies (say) breaks
> down another type of border (political) that we assume should have existed
> during WWII.  Should we be looking at these latter instances through a
> Pavlovian frame of reference?  Slothrop?
>
> Keith W
>
>