Is it OK to be a Luddite?

[Dave Monroe]

Note, by the way, that Otto is already responding to,
I believe, MalignD here.  Anyway ...

--- Otto <o.sell at telda.net> wrote:
>  
> > I have no idea who he imagines these sci/fi
> > geniuses to be
>
> I could name several great SF-authors I
> consider far more important
> than Th. Mann.

Well, apparently, Pynchon had already proposed to
adapt Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man as an opera
in the Ford Foundation Grant application ...

http://pynchonfiles.com/shock.htm

Which, in some alternate history and/or parallel
universe, might not have been denied, and we'd all be
humming Oedipa's aria from The Crying of Lot 49 or
somesuch now ...  

Reminds me, George Lucas had offered David Lynch the
director's chair for Return of the Jedi on the
strength of The Elephant Man, but Lynch turned Lucas
down to direct Dune instead.  Now THERE'S a
nonexistent particular I'd like to have seen ...

But the distinct possibility that a Pynchonian opera
might well have run like a full-length take on "What's
Opera, Doc?" (dir. Chuck Jones, 1957) aside ...

http://www.thomasvillecentral.com/operadoc.htm

http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/user/d/r/dryfoo/www/Funny-pages/op-doc.html

... I imagine that, in discussing ...

"... 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.
Besides being a nearly ideal synthesis of the Two
Cultures, science fiction also happens to have been
one of the principal refuges, in our time, for those
of Luddite persuasion."

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-luddite.html

... Pynchon is alluding to the likes of such SF
mavericks as Alfred Bester, Theodore Sturgeon, Philip
K. Dick, maybe, in the "long" decade after Hiroshima, 
such "new wave" types as the aforemnetion Brian
Aldiss, Samuel L. Delany, Michael Moorcock, Harlan
Ellison, J.G. Ballard, John Brunner, maybe or maybe
not the big names, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Herbert,
LeGuin, Lem, but maybe also people like Frederik Pohl
(a personal favorite), Hal Clement, Fritz Leiber,
Robert Silverberg, Poul Anderson, Walter M. Miller,
Harry Harrison, whoever, and keep in mind that such
seeming fellow travelers as Vonnegut, Burroughs, Barth
and Disch were to no small degree partaking of the
science fictional, the fantastic themselves.  Not to
mention Pynchon ...

> > 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."
> >
> Actually Pynchon says: "although Ike didn't put it
> quite that way. 

Here, by the way, is the immediately relevant bit from
President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address,
Januray 17th, 1961 ...

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment
and a large arms industry is new in the American
experience.  The total influence-–economic, political,
even spiritual-–is felt in every city, every
Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. 
We recognize the imperative need for this development.
 Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave
implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are
all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against
the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether
sought or unsought, by the military-industrial
complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination
endanger our liberties or democratic processes.  We
should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and
knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing
of the huge industrial and military machinery of
defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that
security and liberty may prosper together."

Online at, e.g. ...

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm

http://cougar.ucdavis.edu/nas/faculty/forbes/personal/Efarewell.html

And here's some audio, even ...

http://stream.realimpact.net/rihurl.ram?file=realimpact/tompaine/ike20001012.rm

And that's why we, indeed, like Ike ...



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