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

[Terrance]

Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, Otto Sell wrote:
> 
> > ----- 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.
> 
> Old Hemingway's bridge blowing (in fact the entire Civil War) had only
> the most fleeting significance but I needed an example of pure
> action. Isn't any conceivable model of historic inevitability too abstract
> and theoretical to offer a  plan of action. Fortunately the success of the
> H's novel doesn't depend on the Hegelian Dialectic (deconstructed quite
> efficiently by Pynchon's Wimpe as Otto says) because there is also love,
> loyalty, bravery,  sacrifice, fear and in the end death. In other words
> there is life.

If you have it about, you might take a look at Norman O.
Brown's 'Life Against Death' Part One


> 
> In the end we all will fail. But the System will not fail.
> 
>                         P.

Now, that sounds like this, "We're all going to fail," Sir
Marcus primping his curls, "but the Operation won't." (GR
616) But it's not the same, is it?