Pynchon's Badass

[Eric Rosenbloom]

Yes, "karmic readjustment" is the key to who's a Badass and who's just a jerk.

--Eric R

Otto wrote:
> 
> Has anybody mentioned the Pynchon-intro to Jim Dodge's "Stone Junction"
> (Grove Press, New York, 1990, 1997)
> where he talks about that topic:
> 
> (...)
> "If we accept the notion that using power against the powerless is wrong, a
> clear enough set of corollaries begins to emerge. We become able to
> distinguish, as populations (though not always their rulers) have usually
> been able to do, between outlaws and evil-doers, between outlawry and sin.
> Not much analysis is needed, because it is something we can sense in all its
> dead-serious immediacy. "But all they are are bandits," the rulers whine
> indignantly, "motivated only by greed." Sure. Except that, having long known
> the difference between theft and restoration, we understand the terms of the
> deal whereby outlaws, as agents of the poor, being more skilled and
> knowledgeable in the arts of karmic readjustment, may charge no worse than
> an agent's fee, small enough to be acceptable to their clients, ample enough
> to cover the risks they have to take, and we always end up loving theses
> folks, we cheer for Rob Joy, Jesse James, John Dillinger, at a level of
> passion usually reserved for sports affiliation.
> (...)
> One popular method of resistance was always just to keep moving--seeking,
> not a place to hide out, secure and fixed, but a state of dynamic ambiguity
> about where one might be at any given moment, along the lines of
> Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Modern digital machines, however,
> managed quickly enough to focus the blurred ellipsoid of human freedom even
> more narrowly than Planck's Constant allows."
> (xi-xii)

-- 
Eric Rosenbloom ___ Design & Production Technology Manager
William H. Sadlier, Inc. ___ 9 Pine St. ___ New York, NY 10005-1002
(212) 312-6099 ___ fax (212) 571-3239



**********************************************************************
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and
intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they
are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify
the system manager.

This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by
MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses.

www.mimesweeper.com
**********************************************************************