MDDM Ben Franklin

[John Bailey]

At least in regard to M&D, imo, there's little separating science from, eg, 
art, culture, religion, ad noseyum. I think that part of P's point here is 
the linkage between all of these things, esp the enlightenment project of 
science as mystic, mysterious, replacing older spiritual models with, for 
instance, electricity as miraculous, divine, and...marketable, spectacular.


>From: Bandwraith at aol.com
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: MDDM Ben Franklin
>Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 10:06:50 EST
>
>
>In a message dated 1/25/02 4:43:31 PM, lycidas2 at earthlink.net writes:
>
><< After a while, even Pynchon felt compelled to pull himself down off the
>pile science and math of books and assert that he was and is only an
>author of american fiction. Thomas Moore (an entire book on GR) does a
>fairly good job of demonstrating that P has not written scientific
>theory disguised as fiction.
>  >>
>
>That's quite a strawman you (or Moore) are putting together: "P has
>not written scientific theory disguised as fiction" Who ever said he
>had?
>
>I don't think Pynchon is at war with the sciences, however- maybe the
>top brass, but that's another story.
>
><<Dismissing the idea that there is a direct relationship between science
>and culture, Hayles argues...>>
>
>Science 'is' culture, isn't it? ...At least one of two cultures, and 
>probably
>many more? Are the gulfs between them so wide? Certainly the under-
>lying assumptions are amenable to a philosophical consideration, and the
>hubris of anyone- scientist or critic- who "knows" the truth, or any group
>using whatever techniques  to impose "their" vision on the others needs
>to be understood on their own terms. That would seem especially true
>w/r/t science, which has led to such effective means of control.
>
>




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