Dialectics and conspiracy

[Lycidas at worldnet.att.net]

Michael Perez wrote:

> 
> 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


Word to my mother, brother, yes, right on.

Paranoia: 

Centrality, Delusions, Fear of the loss of autonomy,
grandiosity, hostility, projective thinking, suspiciousness. 

Pynchon applies these to the human condition in general or
the human compulsion to impose meaningful patterns--"our
front -brain faith in Kute Korrespondences, and that faith
is a religious one in GR.