Luddite essay

[Paul Mackin]

The curves DM quotes P on are the DIvergent rather than the CONvergent ones. Too
obvious for normal mention--the same thing could be said about the wheel or
writing. P's observation was merely by way of a buildup for his vision of a
possible future--where some sort of imagined convergence might take place. It's
all nonsense anyway. Why do people labor so mightily over our man's
phraseology?

                P.


Doug Millison wrote:

> Anybody interested in knowing what Pynchon had to say in his Luddite
> essay would do well to read the essay itself and not rj's rewrite of
> same.
>
> Pynchon wrote:  "By 1945, the factory system - which, more than any piece of
> machinery, was the real and major result of the Industrial Revolution
> - - had been extended to include the Manhattan Project, the German
> long-range rocket program and the death camps, such as Auschwitz. "
>
> You might want to re-read that "By 1945" as a way to evaluate the
> merit of rj's obviously false contention that Pynchon, as rj claimed
> the other day,  "does *not* believe that the "three curves of
> development", that is, "the Manhattan Project, the German long-range
> rocket program and the death camps, such as Auschwitz", were
> convergent prior to 1945."
>
> To the contrary, Pynchon clearly asserts that the factory system "had
> been extended to include" the  Manhattan Project, the German
> long-range rocket program and the death camps such as Auschwitz"  by
> 1945. That Pynchon would spare the Nazi death camps from criticism in
> this essay is just wishful thinking on rj's part.
> --
> d  o  u  g    m  i  l  l  i  s  o  n  <http://www.online-journalist.com>