Are They? (was Re: Human Interactions)

[calbert at tiac.net]

Mr Weaver:

> "They" may not have clearly defineable limits, some entities, collective or 
> individual,may slip back and forth across the  boundaries, but They most 
> certainly exist.  They are the sum total of organised greed and rapacity, 
> and all the support systems which keep the system stable (which includes a 
> little bit of all of us at some time or another.)

not so fast....in M&D, "they", at one point, take the shape of waves 
off St. Helena who are describes in terms similar to "beyond our 
ken".... in Vineland, "they" are the mysterious airline pirates who 
AGAIN, operate on motivations which we cannot identify, only 
guess at......to cram them into the category of "mortal participants" 
would demean the intricate structure of Pynchon's vision, to wit, 
ALL SYSTEMS are bound to fail (Pynchon is less a pessimist than 
a "Spenglerian"), they are the necessary illusions which feed our 
notions of teleological progress, but that there "is" a "superior" level 
of existence, but it is well beyond our capacity to formulate or even 
understand....
> 
> "They" doesn't describe an entity or group of entities but the _system_ of 
> control to which many entities enthusiasically subscribe and which many 
> others condone.
> 
>          The concern of many of us is to generate a We system capable of 
> supplanting Their system with a far more creative and nurturing way of 
> life.  Antonio Gramsci was the man who described these things most 
> clearly:  hegemony was his word for "system".

I get the feeling that Pynchon would just as readily "send up" 
utopians of Gramsci's stripe as he would those of a more 
reactionary school....and a "we system" is always a "their system" 
to whomever is outside...and someone will ALWAYS be 
"outside"...  

love,
cfa