I rode a tank, held a general's rank, when the blitzkrieg raged

[Terrance]

If our list definition, clearly not what Pynchon describes
in his essay, is expanded to include Mick Jagger, than we
are talking about a a different Badass altogether. Aren't
we? P's essay asks, is it ok to be a luddite? I don't see
how Mick Jagger has much to do with this question. The
question we have raised here, and I'm just being lazy,
actually very busy and so I have not taken up Scott's actual
question to the list, is about Blicero's being a Badass. 


"Now, given that kind of time span, it's just not easy to
think of Ned Lud as a technophobic crazy." 

This is important I think, the Badass is not nuts.  

"No doubt what people admired and mythologized him for was
the vigor and single- mindedness of his assault. But the
words "fit of insane rage" are third-hand and at least 68
years after the event. And Ned Lud's anger was not directed
at the machines, not exactly. I like to think of it more as
the controlled, martial-arts type anger of the dedicated
Badass." 

Ned had the martial arts anger of the dedicated Badass. This
is his first use of the term in the essay. I don't think  P
is not talking about teen idols and rock and roll stars.
He's not talking about his own character W/B, I don't think. 

"There is a long folk history of this figure, the Badass. He
is usually male, and while sometimes earning the quizzical
tolerance of women, is almost universally admired by men for
two basic virtues: he Is Bad, and he is Big. Bad meaning not
morally evil, necessarily, more like able to work mischief
on a large scale. What is important here is the amplifying
of scale, the multiplication of effect."

In the long folk history he is usually male, universally
admired by men, sometimes earning the quizzical tolerance of
women, but the almost universal admiration on the part of
men is due to two basic virtues: he is Big and he is Bad.
Being a teen idol or a Rock and Roll star like Jumping Jack
Flash Mick Jagger means that you don't have the almost
universal admiration of men. The young men and young women,
in fact, admire Mick in part because he is not their old
farty parent's idea of a pop star. Mick certainly has
something that appeals to youth rebellion and we could name
other pop stars in music and other pop arts that have this
function and we can even name some that rage against the
machine or against the powers that be or war or Nukes and so
on, but the argument here is that B/W qualifies as something
of a Badass and by expanding the definition to include Mick
Jagger because he shares some of B/W's sexual ambiguities or
whatever is diverting our attention from the question. Is
B/W a Badass? And what is a Badass anyway? 
The Badass, P says, in his essay about Luddites, has two
virtues, he is Big and he is Bad. Jagger is Bad, able to
work mischief on a large scale, but he is not big as P
define big in his essay  and he does not have the almost
universal admiration of men. 

About being big, P  says, "What is important here is the
amplifying of scale, the
multiplication of effect." 

This is a very important point. In the next paragraph P
describes this effect as it pertains to the machine and the
public  the love/ hate relationship. 

"Public feeling about the machines could never have been
simple unreasoning horror, but likely something more
complex: the love/hate that grows up between humans and
machinery „- especially when it's been around for a while
--not to mention serious resentment toward at least two
multiplications of effect that were seen as unfair and
threatening."  

These effects are economic--the concentration of capital and
structural or automation induced unemployment, what
economists call the "buggy whip effect."   So folk love the
machines because they can do much work faster, better,
cheaper, they don't get sick or tired, and they provide all
sorts of benefits to the public, but they can also put
people out of work and of course the concentration of
capital brought about is outrageous. 

"What gave King Ludd his special Bad charisma, took him from
local hero
to nationwide public enemy, was that he went up against
these amplified, multiplied, more than human opponents and
prevailed." 

King, King Lud, prevailed against the multiplied and
amplified economic stress or effects felt by the working
people, effects caused by the amplified, multiplied and
extended "life" of the more than human machine/capital and
to prevail he too had to be amplified, multiplied, more than
human, a Badass. 

Now, Charisma, this is an important word in P's fiction.
Hitler had charisma and Hitler raged against the industry
and capital, but was Hitler a Badass? Is W/B a Badass? 

"When times are hard, and we feel at the mercy of forces
many
times more powerful, don't we, in seeking some equalizer,
turn, if only in imagination, in wish, to the Badass -- the
djinn, the golem, the hulk, the superhero „- who will resist
what otherwise would overwhelm us? Of course, the real or
secular frame-bashing was still being done by everyday
folks, trade unionists ahead of their time, using the night,
and their own solidarity and discipline, to achieve their
multiplications of effect."
 
In imagination, in wish, we turn to the djinn, the golem,
the hulk, the superhero, not to the bureaucrat who
manipulates us. Not to death and destruction, but to an
imaginative giant, a more than human, multiplication of
effect who will provide solace, security, if only in dreams
and wish.  Certainly B/W has charisma, and clearly the
characters that admire him, love him, are threatened by some
amplification, multiplication,
machine/economics/capital--the WAR, but is their
participation in his wish, his dreams, his game, play, what
P has described here? Certainly it is related, but not the
same. Remember, P says that Lud is not mad. B/W's wanting to
break out, and his rocket, wiring a boy into it, murdering
the boy, is kinda nuts. If B/W is a luddite, a Badass, maybe
it isn't OK to be a luddite or a Badass. But B/W is neither. 
He shares some of the characteristics of all the Badass
figure, P lists, but he is none of them, not a golem, not a
superhero, not a djinn, not the hulk. 

P turns what he calls Luddite fiction and this is where is
becomes very clear that B/W is not a Badass and Mick Jagger
is not even in the book. 

TBC or not