A sketch of Pynchonian politics

[Jane O' Sweet]

Phil Wise wrote:
> >
> Hi Jane O'
> 
> Some clarification.  My conclusion, strictly, was not that Pynchon is
> anti-capitalist.  If I wanted to support this, I'd have to be very careful
> to identify what I meant by "capitalist", for one thing.  What I concluded
> was that Vineland and GR critique a multifacited and complex system, which
> (in the incarnation depicted in GR) uses markets and corporations to help
> promote the absolute power of a "They", and in Vineland uses an evolving
> system of political control to promote same.  Having said this, I don't want
> to underplay the connection between political and economic control, or to
> suggest that there are no political control structures manifest in GR or
> economic ones in VL.

Excellent, now we are talking. 


> 
> Also, my final conclusion does not imply that Pynchon is anti-globalisation,
> but something a little more modest: that the critique of The System in these
> two novels should give us pause before attempting to free a system that
> seems to be "a celebration of markets".  In other words, the political
> philosophy Pynchon develops in these novels may be applicable to events we
> are faced with today.

This is one place where we probably disagree.  Part of our
disagreement may be attributed to the fact that  I don't
find that Pynchon (his texts that is, not the man, we have
no idea about the man and who cares anyway) is either very
astute on the complexities of economics or very interested
in representing either what is now being called the "global
economy" or what was then (GR, VL, M&D, circa 1960-2000) the
current state of world economics. Although P clearly stands
firmly on the post Ike critique of the cold war defense
contract economy, his interest is Political/Economic as
Religion and is not very sophisticated.  The reason for this
is also very obvious. Pynchon's focus is Religion as
Politics/Economics. So, Weber, of course, Weber is famous
for his book on the SPIRIT and Protestant ETHIC (P's most
important source for GR according to Mendleson)  but of
course *The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism*
is only a single work of Weber's Gesammelte Aufsatze zur
Religionssoziolgie (Collected Essays on the Sociology of
Religion). So Molly Hite goes directly to the
postmodern/modern Order or ideas of order (great Poem!) in
P's fiction and says, it's a religious order. 

I'll have plenty more to say on this Phil. I'm glad to have
an e-mail conversation with you. BTW, have you read Sasuly?  

I'll also comment on Baker's essay. I love that essay, being
a student of Dewey and McKeon  and a big fan of the Beats
and the "New Beats" too. 

But I have to run, I'm late I'm late for a very important
date no time to say hello good bye I'm late I'm late I'm
late....


Jane Mary O' Sweet