RV: Mason & Dixon questions followed by an invective to Modernity

[Saurio]

-----Mensaje original-----
De: David Morris <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
Para: saurio at cvtci.com.ar <saurio at cvtci.com.ar>; pynchon-l at waste.org
<pynchon-l at waste.org>
Fecha: Martes 23 de Mayo de 2000 1:39 PM
Asunto: Re: Mason & Dixon questions


>>From: "Saurio
>
>>Well, maybe I´m misinterpreting but this scheme sounds like some kind
>>of phalanstery. Is about this what Pynchon is writing about?
>

>Main Entry: phal·an·stery
>Pronunciation: 'fa-l&n-"ster-E
>Date: 1846
>1 a : a Fourierist cooperative community b : a self-contained structure
>housing such a community

>Main Entry: Fou·ri·er·ism
>Pronunciation: 'fur-E-&-"ri-z&m, -E-"A-"i-

>Date: 1843
>: a system for reorganizing society into cooperative communities of small
>self-sustaining groups


>Fourier, Charles

>1772–1837, French social philosopher. From a bourgeois family, he condemned
>existing institutions and evolved a kind of utopian socialism. In Théorie
>des quatre mouvements (1808) and later works he developed his idea that the
>natural passions of man would, if properly channeled, result in social
>harmony. To achieve this goal, many of the artificial restraints of
>civilization were to be destroyed. The social organization for such
>(...)
>but followers failed to establish any lasting colony there. After Fourier's
>death his principal disciple, Victor Prosper Considérant, tried to found a
>colony in Texas. Albert Brisbane and Horace Greeley were the principal
>figures in the sudden and wide development of colonies in the United
States.
>Brook Farm was for a time Fourierist. The most successful of the
communities
>was the North American Phalanx at Red Bank, N.J.


Yes, you got it right, it was Fourier who invented phalansteries.
Unfortunately, the dates are after the time M&D occurs so it could be that
Pynchon (via his characters) is talking about anything else.
Anyway, the failure of phalansteries and fourierism isa good starting point
to understand why hippies communities failed too (that´s something to do
with Vineland, right?).
Human passions and Utopia doesn´t go very well toghether.

M&D, aside of other multiple things, is about how two good guys with good
intentions are doing, without knowing, something evil, or starting something
evil, just for the sake of Science, Progress, Enlightment.
I´m not saying that Science is Bad, Progress is Satan´s Project or something
like that, but that everything good it made something evil come along (like
the monkey´s paw). And I think this is the spine that unites the whole
pynchonic bodywork (or, at least, the "big" novels):
- V is mostly about First World War (even if it´s not a WWI war novel). WWI
was the first "Industrial" war, the "Total Movilization" (yes, poor Jünger),
the war that showed the ugly face of Capitalisms and Modernity, you are not
a hero in shining uniform anymore, you are a number, a name in a
killed-in-action list, a dirty guy in a muddy trench that can be gassed from
the air.
- GR is in WWII and although it doesn´t mention nazi crimes, gas chambers
were the apotheosis of rational thinking, the cleaner way to get rid of a
racial problem, the same way atomic bombs were the cleaner and faster way to
stop those filthy japs that insisted in fighting. In GR Pynchon says (or I
think he says) that for the sake of $$$ you "forgive" awful crimes, and the
guy who invented the weapon that was killing your people, the criminal that
made the missiles, now is a good scientist that makes rockets for us, he is
Innocent because Science is objetive, clean, innocent, far away from HUMAN
PASSIONS.
- M&D is how the wheels of that awful machinery of death began moving
(That´s why it has a long, long non-boundary line previous part, perhaps
more important than the America section).
See chapter 40, pages 406 to 408, here is one of the knots of the point I´m
trying to make, specially the thing that Rev Cherrycoke writes in his
Day-Book.

Anyway, this is something I´m writing quickly, without the care it requires
and in a language that´s not my own. Sorry.

See you.
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                              SAURIO
                     saurio at cvtci.com.ar
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