globalization & Pynchon?

[calbert at tiac.net]

> Yes.  I think you see this tension in Pynchon's novels. Certainly if
> corporations' life blood is War, that "competes" rather directly with
> their former sponsors (and current shareholders), might even kill
> them.  Like the monster that turns on its creator you might say. 

Hold that thought. I think the "tension" as you describe it is the dog 
in this example, the agents generating it, the tail....Do any of the 
themes expressed by Wright resonate with you? Don't they bring to 
mind the dynamics which inform a system like the I Ching (which, I 
believe, we have reason to associate with P)? If so, don't you agree 
that the I Ching deals with the "phenomenon" rather than the 
particular actors?

> calbert:
> what 
> "corporate" form drives the extinction of the dodo, which surely
> functions as a metaphor for larger processes of this kind? 
> 
> The dodo and other species in that era fall victim to colonists, who
> populate colonies that are set up as commercial enterprises  for their
> shareholders.

But what is the corporate design for the dodo's domain? I don't see 
one....this argument only applies in the aggregate....

 Same thing continues today -- corporations destroy the
> environment as they extract profits; it's a theme you find in all of
> Pynchon's novels.

Again, I think this is a little narrow... Of course corps leave footprints 
and dust in their wake, but ultimately they are as powerless as other 
agents described in his works to meld the world to their caprice.....

I think it is important to note that P establishes not an ABSOLUTE 
hierarchy of power, but a RELATIVE one.......Isn't that the role of 
those mysterious actors who take the form of ghosts in COL49, 
Extra-terrestrials in Vineland, and those ocean waves whose 
purpose we cannot fathom in M&D?

love,
cfa