pynchon-l-digest V2 #1667

[Doug Millison]

rj:
>People don't care, as
>you say,

I have to disagree with both of my esteemed colleagues on this score 
and ask, what "people" you might be talking about.

If by "people" you posit, for example, something like the "ideal 
reader" (in terms such as those that Wayne Booth uses in The Rhetoric 
of Fiction  which I studied a bit way back when) for the U.S. TV 
news, or some other abstract construct of "people" applied in some 
literary-critical or philosophical or political theory, you may be 
right.  How well those concepts of "people" corresponds with the 
actual individuals -- singly or in the aggregate --  out here in the 
world is another question.

Pynchon has a written a notable passage about the difficulty of 
coming to grips with the abstract concept of the "people", too.

My experience -- which currently ranges from students and faculty and 
staff at UC Berkeley and other schools, K-12 and college and beyond; 
to CEOs and other top and middle managers and line staff in the 
companies where I have earned my bread and butter these past many 
years;  to the homeless shelter in North Richmond where I in recent 
years spend some time cooking and serving breakfast and dinner as a 
volunteer not far from the house here in a neighborhood where 
teenagers die in drive-by shootings on a frighteningly regular basis 
-- is that once they have a sufficient store of facts and context, 
people care a great deal about what their leaders, employers, 
government agencies, corporations, churches, unions, & etc. do, they 
can be quite vocal in their outrage, and, given the right sort of 
opportunities, they are more than willing to channel that outrage 
into constructive social action.  They're willing -- as some NYPL 
folks and SFPL folks are in the current case of KPFA and WBAI radio 
stations in the struggle with Pacifica -- to walk picket lines, and 
serve in soup kitchens, and contribute to charities, and volunteer to 
read to kids from homes with no books, & etc. In fact, I think you 
can successfully argue, if it wasn't for the care and concern that 
people put into their communal lives, the world would have gone 
completely to hell a long time ago. It's an impulse that, even at his 
darkest, Pynchon salutes and celebrates in his writing, too.

When they know what's going on, what they can do about it, and have a 
channel for their energies, people can and will care about what 
companies like IBM do now or have done in the past.  Look at 
something like the current, broad-based movement of people who are 
forcing Nike and other garment manufacturers to stop exploiting 
sweatshop workers in other parts of the world -- still horrible 
excesses to be sure, but clear progress in alleviating same. Many 
more such examples could be cited.  The history of organized labor, 
to which Pynchon pays loving tribute in Vineland, is replete with 
examples of people working to make their lives better and to make the 
world a better place. The environmental movement, which richly 
informs Pynchon's fiction, offers examples, too, of ordinary people 
who care a great deal about what's happening, once they know what's 
going on, and who take concrete action to make things better.

rj:
>  but I'm not sure that that constant barrage of far-fetched or
>deliberately volatile "histories" couched in a rhetoric of hostility and
>accusation isn't partly responsible for this lack of interest or credibility
>as well.

How you might go about exposing crimes and bringing criminals to 
justice without engaging in accusation might be interesting to 
discuss.  And if the object of hostility is soul- or planet- or 
people-killing actions and policies, perhaps such hostility can be 
rather easily justified. GR rather drips with hostility and pointed 
accusations, after all.

Saul Alinsky had a few interesting and important things to say about 
what tactics might be necessary to raise consciousness to pave the 
way for successful non-violent actions -- they may not always be 
pretty. Non-violence does not mean backing down from confrontation, 
after all.

Certainly the media share in responsibility for the attitudes they 
help to shape. I would err on the side of journalists and historians 
and other writers bringing unpleasant stories to light so at least we 
can know more about what the power players in our lives actually do 
and whose interests they really serve, rather than suppressing same. 
If they resort to marketing tactics and avail themselves of the 
channels open to authors and publishers, so be it. The same media 
machine that produces the vilest gossip also gives us Thomas 
Pynchon's books, after all, and everything in between.

Post-ironically,
Doug
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