is there anybody in there?

[Otto Sell]

In the theory of binary oppositions there´s always one pole over the other,
they´re necessarily hierarchical. One pole tries to claim his priority by
referring to an extrasystematic point, extrasystematic cause it doesn`t fit
of course in a two-pole system.
Example 1: the Puritans feeling themselves electi cause they were chosen so
by God. This is proven by the fact they are economically successful and
wealthy. The poor and wicked Preterite cannot argue against it, cause God
had put them in their under-priviledged position, evidence: their poverty.
William Slothrop`s heresy demanding holiness for the "second sheep" is pure
deconstruction.
Example 2: the Word and the Text: the Word is originally from God, given to
the apostles on Whitsunday (I believe, not so totally fit in that papist
terminology), all texts are human and thus inferior. Made it pretty easy for
the church to burn writers.
Example 3: North versus South, First World and Third World. Naphtalin Winter
versus Banana Breakfast.
Lawrence C. Wolfley writes about Norman O. Brown in GR and says that Browns
"Life Against Death..." and "Love`s Body" is based on Max Weber`s critique
on the protestant ethic ("Repression`s Rainbow: The Presence of Norman O.
Brown in Pynchon`s Big Novel," PMLA, 92, (1977) 873-889, and very prominent
in GR.

Besides, I don`t believe that Pynchon "hates" Puritanism (or Marxism, cause
a merely upside down turning won`t help - pure Marxists have problems with
Pynchon and Postmodernism). I see it more that way Rich writes in "American
Magic and Dread."

Otto