Is it OK to be a Luddite?

[Courtney Givens]

>From: MalignD at aol.com

Thanks MalignD. While I agree with a lot of what you
say about the essay, I disagree with your reading of it.

For example,

You wrote:




>
>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.

Pynchon would too, and does.
So, is what you describe here the opposite of what  Pynchon says? His 
comments are not about respect given or not  given to those that pretend to 
"information" (not knowledge), but  to general demystification.  the fact 
that we
suspect the "pretenders" of ego insecurity has to
do with demystification being the order of the day.
I don't see any reason to say that Pynchon is misreading
the order of the day or that he has contradicted himself here.




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