pynchon-l-digest V2 #2205

[Doug Millison]

Quail:
>Uh.... "But," "if," "perhaps," "maybe," "I believe," all precede: "no
>matter how much you might try to rewrite it in an effort to make
>Pynchon a champion of the right."

That's right, by writing "if," "perhaps," "maybe," "I believe," I qualify
what I'm saying and back away from making it sound as if I believe I've got
the one true view of things -- I thus make room for other opinions.  If
you'll notice, I do this in virtually everything I post on Pynchon-L, and
have done so for all these years -- I believe that you and several other
people don't slow down and read my posts closely enough and come up with
the incorrect notion that I believe I'm right and everybody else is wrong.
That's just not true.  I believe what I believe, I make my assertions and
defend them, I change my view when I'm convinced I'm wrong, and I welcome
debate and discussion. Page back a few days and read my response to
davemarc if you please -- he wrote me a post that did not include any ad
hominem attack and that did include a thoughtful exposition of his
disagreement with me; I responded in the same civil, friendly fashion. I've
even managed to write that way in brief exchanges with rj/rjackson/jbor/?
and Malign in the past, until they start in with the ad hominem.  If you've
got the stomach for it, ask me nice and I'll dig up examples from past
threads that show exactly how these flame exchanges get started -- I think
you'll be surprised.  It's also true that I have on occasion gone right
ahead and said something not very nice about one or another person who has
called me an asshole, or a Nazi, or who has questioned my love of America
because I criticize and try to correct her faults.  Again, I think that if
you will actually pay attention to the details of what I write, you'll find
that I'm not the unreasonable demon you make me out to be.  Or, perhaps
you're not really interested in discussion, but just want to blow off a
little steam and find me a convenient target, and that's fine, too, this
being an unmoderated discussion -- but if that's what you want to do, you
can hardly expect me to continue to respond politely to you, can you.

The "you" in the first part of that earlier post isn't necessarily you,
Quail.  But dive right in and convince me that Pynchon is a defender of
McCarthyism if you think you can, and if you aren't interested in
discussion that, what's the point of your diatribe in this instance?  I
think it may have been rj/rjackson/jbor/? who was taking that tack, back
when he was noodling around with some lame deconstruction efforts he/she
tried to use to demonstrate what I think I remember (correct me if I'm
wrong, please) was his/her assertion of Pynchon's anti-labor union and
anti-Vietnam-War-protester stance in Vineland.

Terrance (aka slothrop666 at yahoo.com?):
>Who gives a fuck what YOU expect and presume asshole. Fuck off!
>Dick!

Lovely. You do know how to win friends and influence people, don't you, in
addition to being an absolute whiz at setting up anonymous email accounts
and using them to barrage Pynchon-L with this sort of thing in the past.
Or, judging for the diction, am I talking to "Morris" now? Or is it,
uncharacteristically (she stays away from obscenities, at least under most
of her email addresses) rj/rjackson/jbor/?? Malign?  Mackin?  Quail?  JS?



Doug Millison - Writer/Editor/Web Editorial Consultant
millison at online-journalist.com
www.Online-Journalist.com