History's rathouses

[jbor]

----------
>From: Dave Monroe <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com>
>

> 
> But as you think Blicero all to easily written off
> (and that is a challenging position, on e of the
> genuine surprises I've come across on this list), I'm
> starting to think that Stencil is all to easily
> disregarded as well.  Robert Holton may or may not
> have intended to suggest this, but his essay set me
> off on it.  Those "Stencilized" "historical" chapters
> bering nonetheless not only verifiable historical
> details, but also "impersonations" of those so often
> written out of, "depersonalized," perhaps, in the
> narrtives of Stencil Sr's (imperialist, colonialist,
> racist, sexts, whatever) generation ...

Rereading this last chapter closely, as we have, I was struck by the fact
that it isn't Stencil's propensity to create cabals which is foregrounded so
much as his "vegetation", or lethargy, how he had become "lackadaisical and
half-interested", and how his own "private version of history" was not
showing up "in action" as, it seems to be implied, everyone else's does once
their "rathouses" have been constructed. (225-6) There's more than a touch
of The Great Procrastinator of Elsinore about ol' Herbie in all of this I
suspect, as might further come into play when the eventual fate of Stencil
père clarifies in the narrative. I agree that Stencil shouldn't be written
off, and that his impersonations are, more often than not, explicitly
post-colonialist (although whether this was intentional or merely an
accidental upshot of his affectation of objectivity -- his seeking after
detached or impassive viewpoints from which to impartially "assess" the
"events" and thus construct the "true" story -- is open to debate I think).
By the same token I don't think Benny or the WSC, both collectively and as
individuals when they are characterised as such, can or should be "easily
written off" either.

As to "absolute relativism" ... well, the potential for ridicule when
reduced to a glib oxymoron like this is great, I agree. I think it's more
along the lines of an aporia: an acceptance of the fact that value
judgements, constructs of history, of knowledge and of systems of social
organisation, all are subject to a vast range of relativities in terms of
time, place, culture, language, and individual and consensual proclivities.
We all construct our "rathouses", no question about it, and we all conduct
our lives accordingly as though our particular "rathouse" was and is the one
and only. But it's the very recognition of this human foible and the fact
that there are actually millions of other "rathouses" out there which aren't
completely aligned to our own, through which, paradoxically perhaps, greater
tolerance might be achieved. I think that, rather than attempting to
construct some system of "absolute relativism" to replace the existing
mono-contextural (good word!) systems of control and exploitation, it's a
question of learning how to live in a "world without absolutes", in
Pynchon's peer William Gaddis's succinct phrase.

best