_NP?_ "the_formerly_colonised_coming_back_to_haunt_us"

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 2002-12-23 at 17:09, Dave Monroe wrote:
> Hey, if the hippies could make a counterculture
> classic of a novel (1) written by a generally
> right-leaning libertarian (2) who subsequently
> published a novel in which the silver lining of that
> mushroom-shaped cloud was the post-apocalyptic
> possibility for racial cleansing (3), well, just goes
> to show how a little (or a lot of ...) dope, acid
> and/or patchouli'll take the political edge right off
> yr so-called "counter"culture and/or force.  As with
> the aforementioned, the readership that elevated TLOTR
> to US Pop Cult status was hardly yr so-called "New
> Left," hardly "progressive," and certainly, as may be
> obvious given the pastoralism of the texts under
> consideration, not in the sense of "forward-looking." 
> See, e.g., Todd Gitlin, The Sixties ...
> 
> --- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > It is indeed an incredibly odd argument which says
> > on the one hand that the book is "racist" and then
> > tries to factor that into the book's immense
> > popularity with the counterculture of the 60s, which
> > is where "White Male Guilt Studies 101" and the
> > like originate.

The 60s was like Pynchon's War. A seeming Presence with a Life of its
own, but . . . (after that talk about the recycling of toothpaste tubes)
". . .The War needs to divide this way, and to subdivide, though its
propaganda will always stress unity, alliance, pulling together. The War
does not appear to want a folk-consciousness, not even of the sort the
Germans have engineered, ein Volk ein Fuhrer--it wants a machine of may
separate parts, not oneness, but complexity. . . Yet who can presume to
say WHAT the War wants, so vast and aloof is it . . . so ABSENTEE.
Perhaps the War isn't even an awareness--not a life at all, really.
There may only be some cruel, accidental resemblance to life. . . "
(130-131)

I remember the 60s well enough but was too old get caught up in the
college-age Tolkien craze. Big disadvantage in these "racist"
discussions.

Merry Christmas to all

P.