WARLOCK and Loss

[Jane O' Sweet]

calbert at tiac.net wrote:
> 
> Why is it so difficult for some to imagine that Pynchon may be
> ambivalent with respect to politics? Is not one of the central themes
> of WARLOCK, one which I read echoed in the pages of Pynchon's
> novels, that there are the preterite, the elect and those flitting in the
> zone in between? When the citizens of WARLOCK debate the
> merits of "incorporating", they seem to have no difficulty recognizing
> that the two conditions are NOT at opposite ends of a spectrum, but
> are in fact, different only in "degree".....
> 
> I understand that Oakley Hall is not a direct proxy for Pynchon, but
> the objective stance he takes towards the miners' faction strikes me
> as very similar to that taken by P towards the evolution of the politics
> of Frenesi's family....There is an equilibrium to this which I recall
> admiring about Fathers and Sons, and even though Turgenev was
> challenged by critics for what some perceived as a moral neutrality,
> it does appear to be artistically and intellectually more "honest",
> moving beyond mere charicature....
> 
> love,
> cfa


ust gunna cobble some here. 


But on the whole GR takes neither side, demonstrating
instead that, since paranoia and antiparanoia both exclude
middles, both are in the end simplistic, "bad shit" (Lot 49,
136). There are recognizable human elites who seek to blow
up blocks full of civilians, but They and Their unconscious
agents, like Pokler, act for the most narrowly self
deceptive and fuddled of reasons, and that is because they
are in a measure slaves, not masters, of the system they
have made. 

                Thomas Moore, The Style of Connectedness



***GR debunks the guilt of oppressors as much as the
innocence of victims.***

Rebellion against the System is futile and would be rebels
KNOW that Their power is based in large measure on the
collaboration of fellow victims "as schizoid, as double
minded in the massive presence of money, as any of the rest
of us" who can go ahead and "deify" the "T" in technology
"so as to feel less responsible" while they take what they
can get from the System for their own personal benefit.
Slothrop wont pull the clutch because this would reveal his
real helplessness. The Firm no one has ever escaped is only
at the mercy of Murphy's Law and the fact that we are all in
it together and it's so Big it will collapse only of its own
weight.  The State will not be brought down by
revolutionaries. It is in fact, not not a  capitalist
system, it's not an economic system at all. It's much
deeper--something religious! 

This is only my opinion, but it's supported by the texts.