Human Interactions

[Paul Mackin]

On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Terrance wrote:

jbor sez:
> > I think it is probably a very comfortable way to read Pynchon's work, to set
> > up that we and "They" distinction in order to exonerate ourselves from the
> > inequities and cruelty which pepper the spectacle of human history which he
> > depicts. But, as we know, Pynchon resists simple binaries like this. The
> > "They" isn't a personal pronoun in *GR* at all: it signifies systems and
> > institutions in which *we* are implicated, which *we* accept and perpetuate.
> > *"They"* 'r' Us.
> 
> But They are doomed. They will fail, but we are not, we
> don't have to fail. How we succeed in the system we cannot
> escape is what Pynchon's seems to hold up to the reader. 


Hey Terrance. Where's your political committment? Are you going to just
sit there and accept the fact that you can't escape from the System?  

There is a rather dismaying thing about the "them are us" formulation.
Not that it's wrong, or not in accordance with Pynchon, but that it overly
diminishes the field of action for politics. Politics requires effecting a
power shift from one group or class to another. There has to be an
OTHER--namely whoever is to be on the  negative end of the planned power
shift. However  to back up a bit the TRUE meaning (imho) of "them are
us" may not principally be that we are all complicit in the system (though
we are and how can we possibly help it) but that all identifiable Others
are moving targets. The problem would be of devising a plausible
means of extracting power from one Other (TV, media, capitalism
itself) without some other Other quickly rising to put things back on
course. 

What we can do is try to be kinder to our fellows, which is harder by far
than being "politically committed."

			P.