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[Muchasmasgracias at cs.com]

Terrance, I like your perspective on where TRP is coming from very much, but 
still I have this gut confusion about seeing it stated so directly.  I think 
I tried to say this a few weeks ago during a string on Derrida, but I didn't 
really make sense then and I don't know how to justify this reaction now.  
Have you read any of that tangle between Derrida and Searle?  That whole 
interplay between performatives and declaratives keeps coming back to me.  I 
feel like there's something missing when I see TRP's work converted into 
theses because it leaves behind the basic choice which Pynchon made to put on 
a show.  It's like a well-told myth solidifying into dogma.  I'm not denying 
that there is something like an agenda in his literature, but there's the 
mindless aspect too.  When people pose as an author's theoretical stand-in it 
seems like the flesh has fallen away and we're left to look at the skeleton.  
Have we gone beyond the zero of nakedness here?  

Of course, now I'll be asked what basis there is for discussing literature in 
the first place, and of course I don't know the answer to that.  This would 
probably have something to do with the fact that I always get shouted down 
when I pipe up around here.


Terrance wrote:

 According to Pynchon  there is a drive within us to
 establish systems at the expense of differentiation. He has
 it, and we have it, and They have it. 


Now if somebody just walks up to me and says this, why shouldn't I say, 
"Well, if everybody's got it, then nobody's got it"?  The above declaration 
seems to be instigating the endless naysaying it prophesies 
(system/antisystem, right?), but that doesn't mean everything does.  
Otherwise, why care?

It seems like the baggage of what you're describing is a situation in which a 
person is better off opting for ignorance, because the ones in the "know" 
only know that they're screwed, while the ignorant still have a shot at 
moments of happiness.  Of course ignorant/knowing is another binaristic third 
rail, not a safe distinction to draw no matter how tempting, even if it's a 
pair like Reagan/Pynchon.  One ignorant, the other knowing?


Terrance, please note that I'm not exactly confident about having construed 
your p.o.v. well.  I don't even know if you're one of the people that reacts 
like that, but just in case, be nice.  If you think I'm way off don't snap at 
me, give me advice.  I stick around here because I might learn something, not 
because I enjoy verbal crossfire.  (At least when i'm being a good boy...)