GRGR(24): Tchitcherine, Wimpe, Marxism, and you

[Otto Sell]

----- Original Message -----
From: Terrance <Lycidas at worldnet.att.net>
To: Paul Mackin <pmackin at clark.net>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2000 12:02 AM
Subject: Re: GRGR(24): Tchitcherine, Wimpe, Marxism, and you
> Paul Mackin wrote:
> >
> > Well, except for a slight problem, I would have said Vasclav was merely
> > alluding to dialectical materialist thinking under which any
> > intentionality  behind an historically significant act (that which might
> > occupy 'the time between' and could be pure or impure) is
> > irrelevant.  Only the significant action itself (say, the blowing up of
> > the bridge that saved the battalion) has meaning.
>
> Right, that seems right to me.


Whom the bell tolls - I once read somewhere that it's a sign of a puber
character that he wants to die for a great thing and that it's a sign of a
grown-up character that he wants to live for small things. I think Pynchon
puts it right here through Wimpe's words. Marxism was no antidote but was
used by Stalinism as another opium too. System is system, God or History or
Nation, no matter if religious or political or whatever and not worth dying
for. You'll be manipulated this way or another.
"If it's going to happen anyway, what does it matter?" is simply logic in
itself, or not. If history is inevitable as Marx states then why die for
making the change? Let it happen - maybe? Some people would say that is
cynical said by Pynchon but I don't think so. If history teaches any lessons
than it's the one Wimpe gives. Consequently I consider history as an open
thing (will mankind survive or annihilate itself) and blowing the bridge can
only make sense individually, as an individual decision, taken consciously
and not by order.

Otto
-------------------------
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