Mondaugen's law

[David Morris]

--- Mike Weaver The midnight malapropagandist:
>Doesn't Weed become a focus simply because he's tall,

>(nothing transcendent about that), and given how his
fortune
>works out I can't see his tale as advocacy of "pure
action" as
>opposed to a wider temporal awareness. He gets right
royally
>screwed by Brock and Frenesi doesn't he?

Weed is a kind of Slothrop.  He finds himself in the
middle of a "street action" by accident, surrounded
like the rest of the students.  Here he has a
revelation about the nature of the struggle:  The cops
are beating innocent people up.  It is then that he
shifts into "pure action," which proceeds without
thought.  Frenesi and DL also experience this, as does
Leni: the pure action in the conflict of "the street."
 Thcitcherine is an admirer of those who follow this
path.  Does Pynchon advocate this state of "pure
action?"  Who knows.  Pynchon is a writer (not a
fighter), but he repeatedly writes about it in the
context of street conflict with "Them."  That such
street fighters "get royally screwed" throughout
history does not diminish their actions IMO.

I guess Weed could have joined the FBI instead...

>  Dave:
>>The loss of innocence is the curse of consciousness.

>>But this fact doesn't answer the built-in yearning.
> 
>There's the rub. If you call consciousness a curse we

>are looking at human development in a very different
>way from me.

It is a common metaphor:  The tree of Knowledge of
Good and Evil.

>What do you make of the CNS episode (p148-9) which
>ends "Our history is an aggregate of last moments"

I guess that could be paraphrased: Death is Master. 
I'm not sure how that applies in this context.

>I don't believe that TP advocates both/and, but
reckon
>he is  saying that we do have to choose one way or
the
>other in order to act effectively.

I think the "both/and" illustrates a dilemma or
paradox.  The "either/or" backs one into a place from
which there is no escape.

David Morris
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