MDDM Ch. 71 Ends Politickal

[Dave Monroe]

   "'Perhaps, for this Map alone,' it occurs to Mason,
'as East and West are of the Essence, North need
hardly be indicated at all, need it?  Or, suppose you
were to sketch in something...less politickal?'
   "'This has been my North Point,' Dixon declares,
'since the first Map I ever drew.  I cannot very
readily forswear it, now, Sir, for some temporary
Tradesman's Sign.  It does not generally benefit the
Surveyor to debase the Value of his North Point, by
lending it to ends Politickal.  'Twould be to betray
my Allegiance to Earth's Magnetism, earth Herself if
tha like, which my Flower-de-Luce stands faithfully as
the Emblem of...?'
   "Making no more sense of this than he ever may,
Mason shrugs.  'It may sit less comfortably with the
Proprietors, than with me.'

[...]

   "'Thy uncritical Worship of Kings, with my
inflexible Hatrted of 'em,-- taken together, we equal
one latter-day English Subject.'
   "'Much more likely Twins, ever in Dispute,--'"
(M&D, Ch. 71, pp. 688-9)

Not to denigrate the significance of East vs. West in
American History, esp. given Manifest Destiny et al., 
but of course that North/South polarity instead which
will indeed prove "of the Essence" as well in the
coming century or so, specifically with regard to
Messrs. Mason and Dixon's Line and maps thereof ...

   "'Ev'rywhere they've sent us,-- [...] what's the
Element common to all?'

[...]

   "'Slaves.[...]  and now here we are again, in
another Colony, this time having drawn them a Line
between their Slave-Keepes, and their Wage-Payers
....'" (M&D, Ch. 71, p. 692)

And note that, whilst Dixon would sever the pursuit of
knowledge from "ends Politickal," he claims to do so
by virtue of his "Allegiance to Earth's Magnetism,
earth Herself if tha like," an "end" hardly "A-" or
"Unpolitickal" in the late twen-cen context of Mason &
Dixon (the text) itself (or the early twenty-first
century/third millenium context of its readers here). 
>From here it's a short leap to the "uncritical Worship
of Kings" vs. the "inflexible Hatred of 'em,"
shortcircuiting Dixon's putative division.  However
...

"... taken together, we equal one latter-day English
Subject.'
   "'Much more likely Twins, ever in Dispute,--'"

[...]

"'Huz?  I'm far too jolly a soul ever to fight with
thee for long...?'" (M&D, Ch. 71, p. 689)

Dialectical?  Not quite, various tensions here perhaps
allayed for the time being, but nonetheless remaining
unresolved, unsynthesized.  Put in play, perhaps,
deconstructively, perhaps, even, but ... but, again,
not uncommon in the texts at hand ...

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