Is it OK to be a Luddite?

[Paul Mackin]

The clincher for me on the essay is the quirky (cranky, apocalyptic)
ending--including those "converging curves" that Pynchon jokingly wants to
go on record insisting we heard about  first from him. What's  wrong with a
joke we might ask.  What wrong is that perhaps up to this point we were
taking his glib summary of events at face value but now we are suddenly
faced with the possibility that the whole thing is a big put on. Of course
we don't know for sure. This kind of ambiguity goes better with novel
writing that nonfiction. Of course in the end what difference does a silly
newspaper piece make. We still love you Tom.

                    P.
----- Original Message -----
From: <MalignD at aol.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 8:58 AM
Subject: Re: Is it OK to be a Luddite?


> I intended cranky to mean eccentric, as did Pynchon in the first paragraph
of
> the essay itself.  The essay is full of dubious and unqualified
assertions,
> some of which function as begged questions in his argument.
>
> He begins with a muddy discussion of C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures," writing
in a
> paragraph that seems both wrong and at odds with itself:
>
> "Today nobody could get away with making such a distinction [between
literary
> and scientific].  Since 1959, we have come to live among flows of data
more
> vast than anything the world has seen. ... We immediately suspect ego
> insecurity in people who may still try to hide behind the jargon of a
> specialty or pretend to some data base forever 'beyond' the reach of a
> layman."
>
> I would argue that more often the opposite is true, that the authority of
the
> specialist is ascendant as is the respect accorded it.
>
> He goes on:  "Anybody with the time, literacy, and access fee can get
> together with just about any piece of specialized knowledge s/he may need.
> So, to that extent, the two-cultures quarrel can no longer be sustained."
>
> Access, time, and literacy, may facilitate getting together with
specialized
> knowledge, but it is of scant help to the generalist in understanding it.
>
> He then says:  "As a visit to any local library or magazine rack will
easily
> confirm, there are now so many more than two cultures that the problem has
> really become how to find the time to read anything outside one's own
> specialty."
>
> So, unless I misunderstand, having argued that access has closed the gap
> between the two worlds, he now argues that the problem is many worlds, not
> merely two.  In general, the paragraph is incoherent.
>
> In any event, he soon drops this argument to discuss the history and myth
of
> Ned Lud and the stocking frame and, from there, rapidly and somewhat
> aimlessly segues, via Byron's being a pro-Luddite, to Mary Shelley and
> Frankenstein, the origins of the gothic novel, and to modern science
fiction,
> in the context of which he makes this remarkable comment:
>
> "This [genre novels being labeled "escapist fare"] is especially
unfortunate
> in the case of science fiction, in which the decade after Hiroshima saw
one
> of the most remarkable flowerings of literary talent and, quite often,
> genius, in our history.  It was just as important as the Beat movement
going
> on at the same time, certainly more important than mainstream fiction,
which
> with only a few exceptions had been paralyzed by the political climate of
the
> cold war and McCarthy years."
>
> I have no idea who he imagines these sci/fi geniuses to be, but a list of
the
> "paralyzed" mainstream writers working in the fifties would without
> exhaustion include: Faulkner, Thomas Mann, Nabokov, Celine, Beckett,
Flannery
> O'Conner, James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Terry Southern, Ralph
> Ellison, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Flann
> O'Brien.
>
> Then on to politics.  He writes:  "... Eisenhower prophesied when he left
> office, there is now a permanent power establishment of admirals, generals
> and corporate CEO's, up against whom us average poor bastards are
completely
> outclassed ....  We are all supposed to keep tranquil and allow it to go
on
> ..."  Well, no; Eisenhower famously said to "beware" the
military/industrial
> complex, not to "keep tranquil and allow it to go on."
>
> He offers without comment that the factory system "had been extended to
> include the Manhattan project," which seems to me another questionable
> assertion.   The Manhattan project, however unfortunate its outcome, was
> mainly a harnessing of scientific talent in three countries to a specific
> project in very particular circumstances.  There was an assigning of roles
> and tasks, but that was undoubtedly true in the building of the pyramids
and
> owes little to the technology of mass production.
>
> He says, in a paragraph with a reference to Auschwitz, "an unblinking
> acceptance of a holocaust running to seven- and eight-figure body counts
has
> become -- among those who, particularly since 1980, have been guiding our
> military policies -- conventional wisdom," a reckless and inflammatory
> statement.  One doesn't like to be in the position of defending the
members
> of our military establishment, but one must assume that by "holocaust,"
given
> the proximity of his reference to Auschwitz, Pynchon means systematic
racial
> slaughter.  Whatever else I may think of him, I don't believe Colin
Powell,
> say, morally equivalent to Hitler nor that he reckons the extermination of
> tens of millions without blinking an eye.
>
> He writes, again without qualification, "The word 'Luddite' continues to
be
> applied with contempt to anyone with doubts about technology, especially
the
> nuclear kind," an odd claim.  The term has never been in common parlance
(in
> the article itself Pynchon asks "what is a Luddite, anyway?") and, just as
> often, I would venture, it is nuclear advocates and not those with doubts
who
> are deemed out of step with the times.
>
> As to Luddites today, Pynchon writes:  "What is the outlook for Luddite
> sensibility?  Will mainframes attract the same hostile attention as
knitting
> frames once did?  I really doubt it," a conclusion that renders irrelevant
> most of what the article purports to be about..
>
> There's more, but that's most of it.