Too many colors (was: Bersani - Pynchon, Paranoia, and Literature)

[Michel Ryckx]

Vellum wrote:
...  [snip a lot of interesting things] ...

One may not rule out that the use of the Cartesian metaphor of man being a clock was
quite useful at the time (17th century).  A man stated bluntly for the first time
since centuries not that man was a clock but rather that man could think and act
independently, just as a clock was ticking (for some time and) without human help.
As every metaphore it was far from perfect.

The silly metaphores used today when man is being compared to a  machine, a computer
and the like have a thing in common: they reduce one man to one thing and then they
draw conclusions about all men, about mankind.  They implicitly leave out all
interactions between people.  The syllogism does not work -it even is not a
syllogism.

Back from Trafalmadore,
Michel.