Pynchon's Badass

[jbor]

----------
>From: Eric Rosenbloom <ericr at sadlier.com>
>

> 
> "Choosing victimization" is perhaps better stated in this context as
> "choosing martyrdom," that is, in principle, however vague, refusing to
> live by The Man's terms, refusing The Man's control of potentially
> liberating technology, refusing to submit your mind and body's life to
> The Man's clock.
>
> Sloth is a shutting down, an escape (to nothing) from The System.
> Luddism is a futile gesture in which some dignity may be experienced
> (like voting Green in the USA). Riot is the collective will to be The Badass.
>
> Slothrop as a Badass can't be saved or Pynchon's Badass fiction would
> not work. Blicero looks like a Badass but he is a product of the German
> Imperial Reich -- the Pinks -- not the people. U.s.w.

Interesting comments. I'll have to go back to the 'Sloth' essay when I get a
chance, but I think you're onto something there as well. Just in terms of
the Badass I think that in those opening paragraphs of the 'Luddite' essay
Pynchon is making a discrimination between Ned Ludd the man -- what he
actually did and why he was doing it, even if this latter remains a
necessarily hypothetical postulation -- and King Lud the legend or hero or
martyr which grew up about him subsequently. I think this is where I can see
the parallels which are being drawn between he and Victor's monster, King
Kong, Blicero, Dillinger etc. And you can be sure that in each case it has
been "the people" who have venerated these Badasses -- it's like some
secular beatification really, a *subversion* of the regime -- and that this
is equally true in _GR_ for Dillinger (in the way he is idolised as some
divinity by Bodine, Slothrop, and "young foax" in the U.S of A. c. 1952
right up until now I guess) as for Blicero (who is similarly idolised by
Enzian, Katje, Gottfried, the 175s etc). The monster's mind, King Kong's
celebrity, Dillinger's greed, Blicero's aspiration to transcend -- these are
all equally "products" of the dominant regime.

I'm not sure that voting Green is simply a futile gesture, or, to put it
another way, if everyone thinks like this then the Man, the System, the
Reich, whatever, wins anyway, so it probably serves Him/It just as well for
this truism to prosper. Judy's comments about voting and effective democracy
need to be taken into account as well, though I admit that I share something
of your cynicism on the matter.

best