Dialectics and conspiracy

[Michael Perez]

Terrance wrote:
"I think we are crossing the rockets up here, easy thing to
do in this novel, like crossing white whales in Moby-Dick.
What happens is that, because the rocket and its path is the
great big ambiguous unifying metaphor of the book, and it's
changing all the 'time' and it means different things to
different people at different 'times'  it's hard to discuss
without feeling like Ishmael monkeyroped to Queequeg aboard
the Anubis."

Actually, I wasn't really too concerned about the rocket itself, but
the feelings of paranoia that both Pokler and Slothrop had about the
ability to hit them dead on with it.  In both their cases, some of this
paranoia is based on textual reality in that they are both being
watched by Them (German Them, American Them, British Them, Russian Them
- does it really matter? Are They all one and/or the same?  Does the
Master Cartel really give a rat's turd about either of them or are only
the pet projects of Their underlings?).  The rest is based on the
unreal fear that everything around them is part of a test, that
everything has a meaning, everything is connected to them somehow.  The
unreal part of it is based on an elevated sense of self-importance as
is paranoia in general.  In order for Them to be after you, you have to
be important enough for Them to take extraordinary measures that might
involve entire countries to do whatever it is They want to do to you. 
Both Pokler and Slothrop have these feelings.  In these ways these
feelings ARE comparable to religiosity, as is proposed later in
Terrance's post.  Delusions of salvation are, probably, based on just
such notions of paranoiac self-importance, as if the proper liturgical
calisthenics are going to matter to whatever god(s) can be imagined.

Michael
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