grgr4 Crutchfield or Crouchfield the westwardman (was Re: GR

[rj]

> The mirror to 
> Cruthcfield is NOT Pointsman, but Blicero in Africa, and to a lesser 
> extent, the Slothrops in the Berkshires. 

I actually think you'll find Pointsman is a mirror to Blicero as well.

>  Your passionate insistence on 
> seeing in the US "the Great Satan" clouds your ability to appreciate 
> the subtelty of what P is doing. 
 
Damn those wallabies. And I was trying my best to be subtle about it.
No, really, in this case it isn't American imperialism so much as
Western capitalism (cultural imperialism) that I was on about. Had I
said that American foreign and economic policy since WWII appears
designed to install a technocentric global hegemony which will harness
this encroaching cultural homogeneity to its own socio-political ends
THEN your criticism would have been founded.

> the 
> colorcoded bandanas (red and blue, traditionally associated with 
> England and France) offering (actually stamping) a link to a greater 
> cultural identity.

Now it's your turn to stretch after self-justification. The bandana is
magenta and green. The imagery and places in the section all pertain to
the expansion of the American frontier. Crutchfield *is* American. 

> To make him a symbol of the United States of the 
> early 20th century

Well, it wasn't *only* that ...

Spengler's pessimism perhaps comes into play in _V._, moreso than in
_GR_ I'd say. (And, I wouldn't be surprised if P's was a second-hand
acquaintance with the vision depicted in _Decline of the West_, gleaned
from another author). Isn't there a comment in the _Slow Learner_ intro
(a place I *would* be looking to find autobiographical statements btw)
about the jejune fascination with global apocalypse? Perhaps it was in
relation to entropy, but I think what we're talking about here is a type
of cultural entropy anyway.

best